219. A Man, A Pan, and a Plan | Rodale’s Men’s Health Magazine | Guy Gourmet Paul Kita
PAUL KITA
Paul Kita is the James Beard Award-winning Food & Nutrition Editor at Men’s Health. He’s the founder of MensHealth.com’s popular food and cooking blog, Guy Gourmet.
In 2013, he co-wrote Guy Gourmet: Great Chefs’ Amazing Meals for a Lean & Healthy Body. Paul has appeared on the Travel Channel and Fox & Friends, as well as numerous national radio and broadcast stations.
Today he is here to talk to us about his new book: A Man, A Pan, A Plan: 100 Delicious & Nutritious One-Pan Recipes You Can Make Right Now! !
I thought this would make a great Bonus Valentine’s Episode since it’s all about cooking (men cooking for their girl but could be girls cooking for their guy – overall just the share a healthy homemade meal idea)
Can I ask about your audience and how you got started etc?
I have a lot of listeners who want to be market farmers and they are always interested in how to get their customers to cook the food in their CSAs and also the people who grow their own food or get food at the market want to know how to cook more vegetables from their garden.
The eternal CSA question what do I do with this produce I only partly recognize.
We’ve been married for 25 years and my husband built this mini farm last year. but we just dug a well a few years ago 560′ deep and we’re working on making the change from gardener to market farmer. It’s a huge learning challenge somewhat like going from PC to Mac or vice Versa
I’m so excited because I always wanted to work at Rodales.
worked at Rodale for 10 years. It’s part of a small community in Emmaus, PA.
The farm where Bob Rodale organic movement even started before the word organic!
Are you a millennial I talk about millennials a lot if you’ve been there for 10 years maybe your not.
IDK, I’m 32.
I think millennial’s are born between 1980-1995, my step-daughters are born in 1980 and 1984 and they’re are. I think it’s still weird because a generation should be 18 years shouldn’t so IDK but I think you qualify.
There’s a little more pre-chat here but then it jumps to our intro!
PAUL KITA
Paul Kita is the James Beard Award-winning Food & Nutrition Editor at Men’s Health. He’s the founder of MensHealth.com’s popular food and cooking blog, Guy Gourmet.
Today he is here to talk to us about his new book: A Man, A Pan, A Plan: 100 Delicious & Nutritious One-Pan Recipes You Can Make Right Now! ! When you see his videos you’re gonna love them as much as I did.
I heard about you on this new podcast called Food Republic. One thing I love about this is your videos are short and simple!
Tell us a little about yourself.
Thanks for the kind introduction. I’ve been the food and nutrition editor at Men’s Health. for 10 years for those of you who aren’t looking to get a 6 pack abs chiseled.
We’ve been reporting on food and nutrition before other magazines and websites were doing it.
We’re owned by Rodale Press as many of your listeners might know we’re founded by JI Rodale who is thought of as the father of the organic movement.
It was not even called that in the day. JI was just doing some interesting things at the farm and said we never needed them before why do we need them now?
experimental
- Lehigh Valley
- Pennsylvania
An hour and 1/2 from Philidelphia
open for visitation
One thing a lot of listeners might be interested in, last year I talked to Maggie Saska so people might also be interested in a job or an internship or volunteering at the farm.
birth place
absolutely
Rodale has other titles under its umbrella
- runners world
- prevention
- bicycling
Rodale title
I’ve always been hungry
I had to learn to cook
My mom was a wonderful cook probably didn’t want me in the kitchen that was her turn to take a break from 2 rambunctious children
When I went to get a journalism degree I quickly realized I wasn’t gonna get delicious food like my mom made in the dining hall.
- beefstock
- college apartment
- much to the displeasure
- roasting cow bones
- no formal culinary training school and is very expensive
My sister was kind enough to gift me the Culinary Institute of America’s
The Professional Chef cookbook
one Christmas and I’ve been cooking my way through it.
Also through Men’s Health. incredible pleasure of working with some of the best chefs in the country.
I’ve been in the kitchens of restaurants
I really have this sort of this tutelage under some of the world’s best cooks! I’ve taken their recipes and transmuted them into the magazine in a culmination of the book for the home cook.
I do kind of always ask about your first gardening experience but first I must ask, do you live in NYC or PA?
Offices in PA
primary headquarters
I live in Allentown
grown up here, went to college in Ohio
traveling
I love the Lehigh Valley
Tell me about your first gardening experience?
My first powerful
lives in Bethlehem
grandfather bought a plot of land across the street
potato bugs off of his potato plants, off of his probably 1/8 of an acre plot
I remember how good the potatoes and corn tasted
Through my grandfather and plot I knew the more direct involvement the better how it’s gonna taste. I probably have a smaller plot then even my grandfather, I’m working on that.
- tomatoes
- Japanese eggplants
- everything I grow
taste better because I put in that sweat equity!
Why don’t you tell us about the book and things you’re cooking and growing.
A Man, A Pan, A Plan: 100 Delicious & Nutritious One-Pan Recipes You Can Make Right Now! !
It’s been out since October and if you’re a woman please do not let the tittle deter you! My wife is a marathon runner she has personally approved every single recipe!
It is very much a book is geared towards the
beginner to intermediate chef
and based on my belief that people have too much cooking crap in their kitchens!
I am a minimalist when it comes to the kitchen I don’t think you need one of those kitchen aid everyone puts on their registries!
I don’t even own a toaster or anything that is a
one trick pony
- cherry pitter
- only pits cherries
- don’t need
broiler
make toast in a pan
100 recipes
built around just one pan.
It’s a
- small book
- fits nicely
- giant chef
Every recipe fits on one page
most can make in 15 minutes
Most of America comes home from work late
feed yourself nutritious
this book is for
weekly basis
practical
don’t involve a lot of clean up
- grilled pork chop
- skillet lasagna
- grilled cauliflower steaks with a simple tahini and herb sauce
basic
cheffy cookbooks
these cookbooks out there
not for the average
prestige project
appeals to you, to everyone that is easy and simple to use!
And it is. I love the videos! I was watching the avacado video becuase I knew some of it but I didn’t know the put the knife in and twist part. Im a pescatarian who eats fish, you put the almonds right in the butter the fish cooks in?
Yes. It’s all about simplicity.
Im glad you brought up the videos
They did a good job of mocking me in a polite and respectful way
men’s helath
guy gourmet
- cooky
- short
- funny
- technique driven
- shot in my home kitchen in Allentown
question about butter
Men’s Health is recommending butter?
But it is not to be feared
very few cooking fats
- that can stack up to butter
- in how it cooks food and also the flavor it imports!
carrying the flavors of other food
- smell of olive oil
- garlic and onions
- can transport you to happy places!
browning butter and almonds
In that catfish almondine recipe after you take the catfish out after searing it in butter you can throw in raw sliced almonds, which get this beautiful nutty aroma and you have a sauce to pour directly over the fish
dinner in about 8-10 minutes
You make it look it look easy. You make it look doable, not like in the Julia and Julia movie where she chops the massive pile of onions, that I’m never gonna do. You make it looks possible. I love the
high
Its not just me making it look easy, its that they are easy and you can do it
one of my favorite recipes
it is a steak
- simple bone in rib eye steak
- sear the steak
- saute the garlicky spinach
- make the steak sauce all in one pan
The people who go out to a steak house for the same dish there’s a suckers fee built in and they are charging double
good
doesn’t take a lot of experience you just need a good plan.
I meant to tell you also in the Pre-chat I got picked up in NY on Progressive Radio Network I’ll be there are a lot of listeners in NYC who think the expensive grass-fed beef instead of going out once a week or month you could stay home and buy the grass-fed beef!
STEAKHOUSE
- passionate about the soulful power of home cooking
- go out to the steak house
- treat yourself
- no matter how good the steak or the service
You will never be able to capture the nature of cooking for yourself, feeding yourself and the ones you love.
It gets back to the sweat equity into gardening and taking the time to
preparing something
- earth
- pan
- on your stove
magical property of the ownership of putting something you create on the table
restaurant can never match that, you’re just going and sitting down and picking off of a menu
That’s one of the most rewarding parts.
I call value bombs my guests drop “golden seeds” and I think your dropping tons of them, you’re just like my husband we never go out to eat because he thinks that way. What’s better then what you cook at home with fresh ingredients. Watching you make the meatballs in the Italian soup, even if I haven’t eaten a meatball in years it still brought back so many memories of my mom and my aunt cooking those.
it is an incredible emotional process ~ cooking. WE all have those memories of when we were kids of being in the kitchen or close to the kitchen and experiencing that!
There are probably listeners that are like the joy that comes from the kitchen?
joy
are you kidding me? I have to call 911
I came from that place too
I will never forget the shrimp bisque incident
shrimp bisque and I put too much bisque into the food processor and it shot all over the kitchen cabinets, needless to say I was up all night cleaning the cabinets. But what pursuit in life is not without it’s mistakes. If you make those mistakes your gonna get through it!
Every time you build a bird house your not gonna nail it the first time
When you grow a garden there are lessons you learned form last season
Talking about that kitchen environment
There are a couple things in order to create yourself up to enjoy cooking
I have a section in the book called
how to make cooking suck less
a lot of people need some basis
my wife didn’t like to cook before I came around
illuminating
chef’s snack
through my reporting at men’s health
professional kitchens
chefs treat
before
or during cooking
prevent the inevitable
cooking hungry
- bad place
- rush the food
- end up disappointed
chef snack could be
- small bowl of good olives
- sharp cheddar
- clementine segment
help you sort of fend of
hangry that can derail most biggers
One questions I have about fish is how do you get rid of the smell of fish, cause I feel like I hate to cook fish because my house smells like fish for 3 days and my husband is a big cook at our house but he hates the clean up
clean up is a big detterent
I would argue the biggest thing you can do to help with clean up is readjust your perspective of cleanup
What do I mean by this? After my wife and I finish up a meal we clean up
we aren’t dishwasher people maybe use it when company
stacks of stuff
I am a big fan of washing dishes and hand drying them and putting them away
I think it’s important it continues the conversation while were doing dishes
Also keeps you on your feet
so you don’t immediately go sit in front of net flicks and veg out
- helps with digestion
- post work period
- nice grace note
- provides closure to that meal
think about cleaning up less about doing the dishes and bringing the meal to a natural end shift in perspective helps you feel ok with it
less of a chore and becomes more a part of a meal.
think about it that way
I like all of that. I like to do the dishes before I cook and then do them kind of while I’m cooking. We’re kind of having a water system problem and were kind of back to bring the water in and heat it on the store. But that’s me!
It’s Not About Time: How to Thrive and Get the Results You Want at Work and in Life!
I was reading Nan Russell’s book “It’s Not About Time” the other day and she was saying if you eliminate 1 hour of tv a day, that’s 365 hour that’s 9 x 40 hour weeks! Cause I’m a busy person and I get home and I’m exhausted, I usually have kids in the classroom from 7:30-6pm.
closer to feeling
watching food television
It’s not back when the
- Bobby Flay
- food entertainment
very infrequently do you learn anything about practical home cooking it’s sort of stunt cooking television.
We need to return to form in this country
simple healthful cooking
doesn’t involve giant contraptions that you buy at William Sonoma and buying esoteric ingredients
It’s about coming home simple dishes that made nutritious movement
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Now Let’s Get to the Root of Things!
It’s just like Alice Waters, isn’t that her book Simple foods?
I think the idea of practical home cooking and gardening really fit together. You can’t pick a tomato till the tomato is ready to pick. You can’t rush garlic and onions or you’ll burn them.
In cooking let cooking slow your life down
When I’m in the kitchen, I put my phone into a dock and it plays music. I’m not texting, I’m not watching the news.
I let cooking become the entirety of the moment
come home from work. I work in a very deadline oriented business. I can’t set deadlines for cooking because I will
- burn the sauce
- or eat underdone chicken
There’s a rhythm to home cooking
let go
there’s a relaxation that happens with cooking
food tells you when it’s done like the tomato says its ready to eat.
The more we give up the control to the process to cooking
I love all of this, we’re gonna be hearing about you like Alice Waters and Julia Child and people who have shaped a generation. you’re mixing things people are craving today and really want and doing it in a healthy nutritious way.
Another reason I love millennials.
And I had a listener give me a review on iTunes, not all millennials are rockstars, my husbands a baby boomer, I loved putting cell phones away. Another thing she said in that book, we spend 4.5 hours per week on social media, I think people need that and parents want that to put their phones aside.
I go through the other argument I go through, if I’m on my phone I’m building relationships that think like I do that seem the world the way I do, i feel closer to my listeners then I do a lot of the people I work with a lot. To me social media is not just pushing a button and like.
I love my one friend who post meals.
People would love to see what you’re cooking for lunch. What about crazy things in your CSA or obscure recipes. Like kale, I had no idea kale is so much more nutritious then swiss chard. It grows really well in Montana. I’m gonna try to grow that lacinto kale because I don’t really like curly kale
Kale
If your already eating kale and swiss chard you’re better then a large percentage of Americans!
Kale is a tough one
- it’s fibrous
- grassy taste to it
It can be difficult to cook but it’s one of the most delicious sources of fiber to man
You need to know how to cook it
Maybe someone’s tried kale chips
crumbly
those are really afflictions of prepackaged kale chips
crispy
Take a hot cast iron skillet
- briefly saute kale
- oil
- salt and pepper
Throw it in the oven
crisping
kale
I love
salt and vinegar chips
What if we try these things doused in salt and vinegar
- twang of vinegar
- kosher salt
- sauted
- fantastic
- spinach
kale responds really well to any acid thrown in at the end
- white vinegar
- cider vinegar
- lemon juice
thrown in at the end of cooking process
helps to cut grassy earthy taste some people recoil from!
That’s awesome! I’m into textures, I like crunchy stuff in my food, even ice cream I like chocolate chips. Kale chips is a great substitution. I like crunchy with sandwiches. My doctor told me cause I’m turning 50 I need calcium and fiber.
- dark leafy greens
- so much nutrition
- very few calories
- inexpensive
- large bundle of kale
- plant it in my backyard and it just grows like crazy
- you can get so much of it for so cheap
- and you get get so much of it week after week
That’s what everyone’s saying, kale, kale, kale was the answer to what grows well, we hadn’t grown it. I love swiss chard.
Got any fruit recipes, I love veggies and I have a hard time eating fruit. Got any fruit recipes?
produce
every recipe
pages of men’s health
I try to include one piece of produce
regardless of breakfast lunch or dinner
Americans do a poor job of fruits and vegetables
Restaurant industry has the major food groups of carbohydrates and cheese
protein thrown in there
poor job of it
The single best thing you can do for your diet is start eating more fruits and vegetables
- disease fighting
- belly filling fiber
- incredibly delicious
recipe in the cookbook
breakfast sandwich
slice of tomato
sad out of season
sear it in a pan
oil
heat helps to soften and sweeten the tomato
a little bit of produce to start your day
Big fan of pairing fruit
- with meat
- with fish
Skillet crisped chicken thighs
orange segments and green olives really is a great pairing of the
- sweetness of the fruit
- savory flavors of chicken
- salty pop of olives
People look at eating fruits and vegetables
I have to eat an apple today as a snack
saute
- apple wedges
- turkey sausage
- butter
- sage
fruit into the meal
dish
something I have to do on my list
My mom makes it look just like you super easy. My poor tiny mom, my brother and I took after my overweight dad, she does that a lot, she’ll eat a poached pear for desert or I remember my parents sauting apple slices in maple syrup.
I also have had a hard time wrapping my head around Sally Fallon saying if you don’t butter on your vegetables you don’t get the mineral.
The one thing we have learned form the low fat craze is you can’t do it better then mother nature
You can engineer fake fats in a lab but your body is not going to respond to fake fats as it is to mother nature.
One of my favorite nutrition studies about two groups of study participants
One group ate a salad with
- low fat dressing
- with full fat dressing
just like your guest said
- full fat
- non fat
- more nutrients
- fat soluble
need that fat to work their way into your blood stream
unfortunate that we took of eliminating real food like butter we’ve been eating since we figured out what butter was
typifies the idea that science is not always better then mother nature
It has helped us in other realms, but hasn’t really helped us in our diets
bunch of them in the last five years, people who cook at home
- not only eat less junk
- processed foods
- eat more good stuff
- fruits and vegetables
Not just me as food and nutritions editor
research that i read
single greatest thing you can do for your health today is
- start cooking
- better for you
- more inexpensive
Three Excuses Debunked
I don’t have enough cooking gear
Well you only need one pan
Don’t have the money to afford purchasing foods
cheaper to do it at home
why wouldn’t you?
I don’t have the time
look these are the same people
sit 8 cars deep brown bag of greasy burgers
spending an hour watching television
fitness
making the time
budgeting in that time
The great thing about cooking is if you do it you will be rewarded
not only
- financially
- nutritionally
- healthier
- soulfully
- well rounded person
I think listeners will love this. I can see them recommending your book. I can see them with stacks of your book on the farmer’s market table. Joyce Pinson talked about sampling, maybe you don’t want to sample but you could have the book and say here’s some great recipes.
Here’s some great ways to cook the food. People want to buy more produce and incorporate it into your day. I’m not a green smoothie girl because putting spinach in the blender kills me!
If you have a business to you have any advice for our listeners about how to sell extra produce or get started in the industry?
really about trial and error
I haven’t started my own business
I don’t have farmer’s markets experience. I’ve been on the other side at Farmer’s Markets. It’s really about this concept of building a bird house
I’m not gonna et on my first try
- second or third try
- but each try I’m gonna learn a bit more
beautiy of cooking
further
end up with a bird house
end of cooking I get to eat the birdhouse and that to me!
I get to
- work with my hands
- control
- self-sufficency
- eat well
ultimate reward
putting my work directly back into my body. If that isn’t a positive? IDK what is.
You remind me of my best friend Dacia. She came on and talked about a healthy organic life. You’re both super healthy. You also remind me of Bill Maher you’re funny but fit and have these super muscles!
How do we connect with you?
A Man, A Pan, A Plan: 100 Delicious & Nutritious One-Pan Recipes You Can Make Right Now! !
check outMen’s Health.
follow our food prepares
through there you’ll be able to scroll back and see the videos that we posted and learn some of the cool techniques.
thank you. This has been great to sort of sit down and talk about what I’m passionate about but what a lot of people are curious but excited about and don’t have that guidebook
strongly believe
I put all of my passion into this book
untapped passion in people who have the urge to cook but think that they can
I’ve provided a platform to say yes you can do this
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