Detroit Free Press: Brothers create a user-friendly cookbook for kitchen beginners September 21, 2008
Posted by Max in : Press , add a commentBrothers create a user-friendly cookbook for kitchen beginners
BY SUSAN SELASKY
FREE PRESS TEST KITCHEN DIRECTOREli and Max Sussman write in their first cookbook: “We are brothers from Michigan and we are avid cooks.”
Much of their culinary know-how comes from their parents, Marc Sussman and Lynne Avadenka of Huntington Woods. Nearly all of the family meals were made from scratch.
That passion for food and cooking led the brothers to write their first cookbook, “Freshman in the Kitchen: From Clueless Cook to Creative Chef” (Huron River Press, $17.95).
“That environment shaped us to use fresh ingredients and make things that we know people will love to eat because we’ve been eating them our entire lives,” says Eli Sussman, 23.
The two describe growing up in a household with no microwave (believing “that was the greatest travesty in human history”), no store-bought bottled salad dressing and little junk food.
The book, the brothers say, is aimed at their peers. But experienced cooks will like the recipes and useful advice, too.
The book is organized into chapters that highlight grilling, vegetarian dishes, cooking to impress and other topics.
“It starts out simple, with almost no cooking in the first chapter, with the focus being on a mix of different ingredients,” says Max, 25. “In the second chapter we introduced the heat and cooking in the oven and on the stove and continue expanding on techniques you will be using in each chapter.”
Eli, who graduated from Michigan State and lives in Los Angeles, is a media-buying consultant and part-time caterer. Max graduated from the University of Michigan and is a chef at Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor.
They will do a book signing Sept. 27 in Commerce Township. We spoke with them by phone.
QUESTION: Where did you get the idea for the book?
ELI: When I would cook simple meals at my house, for example, something very simple like chicken defrosted in the microwave, then cooked in a skillet with barbecue sauce, then served with steamed white rice, my roommates would always ask me what I made and how I made it. I could see a desire for people my age to learn how to cook; they just really had no idea how to go about learning how to do so. I started to realize that if college students were given a cookbook that would have unintimidating recipes with stories and tips to keep their attention, they might cook at their own place every once in a while.
Q: How is the book organized?
ELI: It’s a progression from simple to the more complex with chapters building on what came before it.
Q: What message do you want to convey in this book?
ELI: All it takes is a little bit of effort and some desire for anyone to be able to cook. It’s just about demystifying cooking and that it’s fun and not hard and you can do it.
Q: Other than at home with your parents, where else did you learn to cook?
MAX: We both cooked at summer camp. I spent one part at camp and was going back up as a camp counselor but they asked if I would come back to help in the kitchen. I was the head chef and Eli was one of the cooks. I also had a stint at a fly-fishing lodge in Patagonia, Chile, and worked at Eve the Restaurant in Ann Arbor.
Q: Describe your cooking styles.
ELI: Mine is more about delivering a fast and tasty meal. I’ll cut corners and more apt to save time.
MAX: Mine is more eclectic and wide-ranging. I like to challenge myself with new techniques and ingredients.
Q: Do either of you use a microwave now?
ELI: I do not, but had one all through college. That forces you to try new things in the kitchen; it doesn’t give you that fallback of just popping things in the microwave and I think it keeps my diet healthier.
MAX: I do have a microwave now and use it mainly to heat up my coffee mug but also some food as well.
Q. Do you still make your own salad dressings?
ELI: If you’re going to make a salad, the true components are the ingredients. Make your vegetables stand out and use a simple vinaigrette.
MAX: Sometimes I make just enough for whatever salad I am making. But if I am feeling ambitious sometimes I will make vinaigrette and put it in a bottle and store it in the fridge for future use.
Q: Is there one thing that stands out that you learned from your parents?
ELI: My mom’s London broil is out of this world. She taught us that … you can make small changes as you go and you don’t have to follow the recipes exactly.
MAX: The one thing that stands out that my mom did is starting a dish by sautéing garlic and onions in olive oil. That’s how I start a lot of my meals. … It’s a warm flavor.
Contact SUSAN SELASKY at 313-222-6432 or sselasky@freepress.com.
Two Guys and a Cookbook September 16, 2008
Posted by Max in : Press , 1 comment so farTwo Guys and a Cookbook
Sussman brothers’ “Freshman in the Kitchen” makes cooking look easy
Cover art for the “Freshman in the Kitchen” cookbook. Max Sussman, who lives in Ann Arbor, is the brother on the right.
When The Chronicle called Max Sussman one evening earlier this week, he was cooking ratatouille.
“Ratatouille” isn’t a dish his target market is likely to know about (though maybe they’ve seen the movie). But Max and his brother Eli are hoping to change that. The mission – to get their generation comfortable with (or ideally, even excited about) cooking.
To do that, they’ve written “Freshman in the Kitchen: From Clueless Cook to Creative Chef.” Max, who lives in Ann Arbor, worked a booth at last weekend’s Kerrytown BookFest, and was heartened by the response. “Some people bought two or three copies” to give as gifts, he said. “I didn’t know if we’d sell any.”
The text makes for an engaging, chatty read – you get the sense that these guys are having a blast. Recipes are accessible, and they’ve included all manner of tips to help a novice navigate unfamiliar territory. That said, there’s plenty to appeal to a more experienced cook, too. It’s not about slapping together PB&Js (though they’ve got a recipe for PB&J smoothies) – you’ll learn to make chicken shawarma, goma ae and yakisoba, among other hard-to-pronounce dishes.
The cookbook’s publisher is Ann Arbor-based Huron River Press, which is making a name for itself in that niche. The press, owned by Steve and Shira Klein, has published eight cookbooks, including two by Craig Common, owner and chef of the Common Grill in Chelsea, and one by Eve Aronoff, owner and chef of the upscale eve restaurant in Kerrytown.
Max used to work at eve – both in the kitchen and as DJ Max Blixx on Thursday nights, when the restaurant features music and complimentary appetizers in its wine bar. (He now works in the prep kitchen at Zingerman’s Deli, and does a little catering on the side.) When he and his brother were shopping their proposal around to publishers, they turned to Huron River Press initially because of the eve connection.
Huron River Press did some research and found there wasn’t anything like this on the market, said Steve Klein. They did a run of 5,000 copies, which is about average for these books, and are using a grassroots approach to promoting it. Eli, who lives in Los Angeles, is working events in that area, while Max is promoting the cookbook locally.
He’ll get more signature cramps at Saturday’s HomeGrown Festival, an event at the Community High School field near the Kerrytown farmers market. The Zingerman’s booth is where he can be found there. He’ll be preparing Potato Leek Soup for people to taste (yes, the recipe’s in the cookbook).
You can buy “Freshman in the Kitchen” at local bookstores or via their website. It retails for $17.90.
Homegrown Festival this Saturday! September 11, 2008
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This weekend in Ann Arbor is the Homegrown Festival, a celebration of local food, local chefs, local authors, local music, you get the idea. It’s going to be in the Community High School field right across the street from the farmers market in Kerrytown. Local restaurants will be partnering with farms and offering tastes of their signature dishes. There will be cooking demonstrations and booths galore. Of course, Max will be there signing copies of Freshman in the Kitchen. Our dish is going to be Potato and Leek Soup and will be at the Zingerman’s table along with Pawpaw Gelato and Chicken Paprikash (delicious). Come out and say hi, it’s going to be a fun day (starting at 10am). For more information check out the Homegrown website.Michigan Daily: Collegiate Cuisine September 11, 2008
Posted by Max in : Press , add a commentCollegiate cuisine
Whitney Pow
Daily Fine Arts EditorSeptember 10th, 2008
(SAM WOLSON/Daily)Let me introduce two dishes: mushroom and herb risotto, and the PB&J breakfast smoothie. Creating the first involves determined stirring over a hot soup pot, a furrowed brow and potentially a crisp, white apron. The other probably involves a blender and some college street smarts. PB&J has become synonymous with students because it’s used and loved so dearly, but what about risotto? Risotto just sounds difficult, and Italian — everything PB&J isn’t.
But where would you find these two polar opposite dishes next to each other? Maybe in different buildings, if there’s a restaurant sitting next door to a college co-op, or maybe in two recipe books like “Gourmet Cooking” and “Whoa, We Like to Eat Things, Vol. 6.” But risotto and peanut butter smoothies together in one house? Or together in one cookbook?
Max and Eli Sussman are Michigan chefs and brothers who share a love for cooking. Max is a chef at Zingerman’s Deli and obtained his undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan. Eli, a graduate of Michigan State, works for a catering company in L.A. While the two are undoubtedly similar genetically, they are decidedly dissimilar in culinary taste, which is one of the details that sparked the unique survey of recipes in their newly-published cookbook, “Freshman in the Kitchen: From Clueless Cook to Creative Chef”. The book contains recipes for everything from the aforementioned PB&J smoothies and risotto to microwave buffalo chicken wraps and chicken schwarma (a Mediterranean sandwich made with hummus).
“(Eli and I) have very different culinary backgrounds,” Max said. “When we were going to school we worked with different areas of food.”
While Max was working as a cook at eve – The Restaurant, a swanky French fusion restaurant in Kerrytown, Eli was working at a Greek restaurant in East Lansing.
“Eli was (also) living in a house with 14 guys and was making really ridiculously simple dishes that all of his roommates would go bananas over,” Max said.
The two mixed their ideas of what the culinary arts should be about — practical and filling (Eli’s view) and fancy and subtle (Max’s view) — to create a cookbook that makes cooking accessible to college students.
“My brother (Max) is more classically trained and more refined in his cooking, and I’m the guy who uses a microwave,” Eli said.
Accessibility is a huge theme in the cookbook. While some of the recipes may seem a bit intimidating, the general idea is that no matter how fancy the name of the dish (salmon and goat cheese napoleon, for example), anyone who picks up the book should be able to make it. The recipes are ranked in order of difficulty, so those who barely know how to turn on a blender can begin making food in the section called “Getting Started,” graduate to sautéing in “Heat” and, a few chapters later, get up to culinary par with a chapter called “Cooking to Impress.”
The book also includes personal chef’s notes about each of the recipes, which are tellingly humorous and sincere. One chef’s note on a recipe for stuffed mushrooms reads, “There is this unbelievably catchy Jock Jams™ song that goes ‘We like to party! We like! We like to Party! We’re gonna have a party and everybody’s dancin’!!’ … Well have a party, make these mushrooms, play that song and see what happens. We guarantee results.”
And while the stuffed mushroom recipe itself may call for herb butter and dicing and hollowing out 30-plus mushrooms, it provides some incentive to break out the subwoofers and have a rager — something generally not associated with mushrooms previously intended only for the “parents’ dinner party” menu du jour.
Mixing things up is a big theme in the book, not only in deciding that mushrooms are hip, but in the recipes themselves. The brothers try intriguingly fresh takes on contemporary favorites, like the toasted coconut and lime biscotti, or a spicy citrus-chili glaze for salmon. However, some of the foods showcased in the book aren’t so much redesigned favorites as they are age-old family dishes, like their grandmother’s mushroom barley soup.
“Our grandmother’s mushroom barley soup is a staple when we go there,” Eli said. “It’s fantastic — that’s why we put it in the book.”
Growing up in a family that cooked was also important.
“The kitchen was where we got familiarized with cooking because it implied spending time with family, which is always important to my brother and I,” Eli said. “You know, like when you’re cooking in the kitchen and everyone is hanging out before the meal’s ready. That’s a big part of our family.”
But despite the brotherly ties between the Max and Eli, the two definitely diverge in terms of cooking styles, and, of course, favorite ingredients. Their favorite vegetables? For Eli, it’s squash, but while you may think of it steamed and buttered, he has a different cooking technique for it: “Throw it on the grill,” he said, with a little bit of olive oil and salt.
Max, however, stretches the definition of the word “vegetable” and says his favorite is garlic. But his passion for garlic is obvious: he has a clove tattooed on his left arm.
“It’s great to have that really sharp flavor — the flavor of raw garlic is really intense. And then if you mince the garlic and sauté it, it reduces its intensity, but you still get that really rich flavor.” And if you roast the garlic, the taste becomes “almost buttery and the flavor is really soft.”
Their favorite vegetables really sum up their differences. Eli loves the hardiness of food; Max loves the variation. But the two show that living in a college town next to a fancy restaurant isn’t the only way to find rich foods on both ends of the culinary spectrum — it just takes a little open-mindedness and maybe a nice blender for those smoothies.
Baltimore Sun Says What’s Up September 10, 2008
Posted by Max in : Press , add a commentWe got a nice little mention in a Baltimore Sun article on kids cookbooks:
Cooking with children has lots of benefits. It can help make kids less picky about what they eat, steer them away from fatty, salty, overprocessed foods and toward fruits, vegetables and whole grains, and give them lifelong kitchen skills.
It’s also really, really trendy.
Everyone, it seems, has a kids’ cookbook out this summer. There are books for toddlers like The Toddler Cafe by Jennifer Carden, and for teenagers, such as Freshman in the Kitchen: From Clueless Cook to Creative Chef, by Eli and Max Sussman.
