Cathy Erway
In the country’s most restaurant-obsessed city, Cathy Erway did the unthinkable: she opted out. In 2006, the then-executive assistant took a long look at her overcooked beer garden hamburger and decided enough was enough. She decided to forgo restaurants, street food, and cafes for two years, and to blog about it on Not Eating Out in New York. She chronicles the whole adventure—disasters, freegans, and all—in her brand-new memoir, The Art of Eating In. Here, she tells us about cheeseburger dumplings and other home cooking discoveries.
You’ve said
that you’re more of a freeflowing cook than a by-the-book cook, but where do
you go for inspiration for your recipes?
The Greenmarket is definitely an inspiration—I see what looks exciting that day and try to cook with it! Same goes for whenever I pick up a batch of beautiful produce from my summer CSA. And I love learning about the home cooking of other cuisines through books, so I've been flipping through a lot of great ones lately like Essentials of Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan, Arabesque by Claudia Roden, Jewish Home Cooking by Arthur Schwartz, and Washoku by Elizabeth Andoh, to name a few.
What were some of your favorite recipes from your two years of eating in?
I'm longing for summer right now, so I'll say a chilled eggplant soup I made once, which turned out surprisingly tasty. And I've enjoyed giving common restaurant foods a fun new twist at home—it was really great learning how to make maki rolls and adding something like roasted okra, or even hot dogs. Or putting anything and everything inside Chinese dumplings, including apples, pears, and even "cheeseburger."
What were your favorite recent meals out? What made them special?
Having dim sum with my family or friends always reminds me of the reasons we do eat out: to enjoy rare treats, and to marvel at the bounty of them and all the care and skill that went into them. There are some things that you just can't replicate at home. Shortly after my two-year break, a number of friends and I went for dim sum at Seafood Restaurant in Sunset Park, followed by a long afternoon of bowling, by chance. So we're planning to make another pilgrimage of that!
What do you think about the proliferation of food events/demos/cookoffs? How has it changed how we cook and eat out?
I've really enjoyed seeing more home cooking in the spotlight. Much of our food culture is informed by restaurants these days, and they can have very different priorities than home cooks. I think and hope that these types of events have made cooking seem more approachable. And by cooking more often, people start to consider where their food comes from and how it was grown.
The Greenmarket is definitely an inspiration—I see what looks exciting that day and try to cook with it! Same goes for whenever I pick up a batch of beautiful produce from my summer CSA. And I love learning about the home cooking of other cuisines through books, so I've been flipping through a lot of great ones lately like Essentials of Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan, Arabesque by Claudia Roden, Jewish Home Cooking by Arthur Schwartz, and Washoku by Elizabeth Andoh, to name a few.
What were some of your favorite recipes from your two years of eating in?
I'm longing for summer right now, so I'll say a chilled eggplant soup I made once, which turned out surprisingly tasty. And I've enjoyed giving common restaurant foods a fun new twist at home—it was really great learning how to make maki rolls and adding something like roasted okra, or even hot dogs. Or putting anything and everything inside Chinese dumplings, including apples, pears, and even "cheeseburger."
What were your favorite recent meals out? What made them special?
Having dim sum with my family or friends always reminds me of the reasons we do eat out: to enjoy rare treats, and to marvel at the bounty of them and all the care and skill that went into them. There are some things that you just can't replicate at home. Shortly after my two-year break, a number of friends and I went for dim sum at Seafood Restaurant in Sunset Park, followed by a long afternoon of bowling, by chance. So we're planning to make another pilgrimage of that!
What do you think about the proliferation of food events/demos/cookoffs? How has it changed how we cook and eat out?
I've really enjoyed seeing more home cooking in the spotlight. Much of our food culture is informed by restaurants these days, and they can have very different priorities than home cooks. I think and hope that these types of events have made cooking seem more approachable. And by cooking more often, people start to consider where their food comes from and how it was grown.
Inspiring!