Cooking Clutter #1: Claudia + Joe
For the very first edition of Cooking Clutter, we’re showing you one of our favorite kitchens - our own.
Hey! We’re Claudia and Joe. We live in New England with our beloved dog, Pumpkin. We love to cook (and eat!) together. We’re newly married, and food has been a huge part of our relationship. We believe people can find common ground through the shared experience of preparing and enjoying delicious food.
We started Cooking Clutter with the goal of fostering feelings of connection and culinary inspiration. The idea here isn’t to show off the most aesthetic kitchens or fanciest tools - we think there’s more than enough FOMO-inducing content out there. We want to see the real kitchens of real people who love food.
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Without further ado, let’s get into the newsletter.
Welcome to our kitchen!
Cooking or baking?
Claudia: Both! A few years ago I would have said cooking, because I thought I lacked the skill and precision needed to bake. It turns out that's not true, and I’ve actually had a lot of fun learning and tackling some challenging stuff. I even had a pretty successful first venture into croissants (for which I largely credit Claire Saffitz and her wonderful tutorial). I'm so happy fall is here so I can get back to it (New England summer humidity does not lend itself well to complex baking projects).
Joe: I prefer to cook. Baking can be great when you make a day of it and earn the satisfaction of a well-executed baking project, but there's nothing like saying "I'm hungry" and throwing together a delicious meal on demand. Whether it be throwing some meats and veggies on the grill, whipping up a pantry pasta, or mixing and matching leftovers for a perfect fried rice, I love seeing how quickly I can turn random ingredients into a cohesive and delicious dish.
Favorite thing to cook? Why?
Claudia: I love a long and slow cold weather recipe, like a beef stew or braise. I like the deep, rich flavors this type of recipe creates in the final product, and I love the opportunity to slow down and just focus on cooking and developing flavors. Once I’m in the simmer stage, I like to curl up with a book while the whole house smells like heaven. With a beef stew I especially love how forgiving and customizable it is. We do a farm share and in the colder months we get so many different root veggies, and they can all just be chopped up and thrown in. You can use whatever red wine or beer you have on hand. Throw in any herbs you have. It's fun to play around and just have cooking be your activity for the day.
Joe: I love making tomato sauce. Even when making a simple sauce, there are lots of variables to consider; heat, acidity, texture, sweetness, and so on. Lots of room to make it your own and really hard to mess up.
Details on kitchen knives?
Joe: Over the last several years, Claudia and I have accumulated a wonderful three-piece set of Lamson knives. My mom got me their 6" chef's knife for Christmas shortly after I graduated college, then their 7" santoku knife after Claudia and I moved into our own place. This year, Claudia ordered us their paring knife as a stocking stuffer but was too delighted by it to keep the secret till Christmas, so it's up on our knife rack right now. The knives are excellent -- they feel great in your hand, hold their sharpness, and also just look really cool.The fact that Lamson has been based in Massachusetts for nearly 200 years and has recently partnered with Brad Leone on a series of cleavers is icing on the cake.
Go to source for new recipes?
Claudia: For baking, I love Sally's Baking Recipes. I've baked several of Sally’s recipes and she’s never let me down! Her macaron guide taught me how to make macarons. For cooking, I love RecipeTin Eats. Same goes for this site - every recipe I've made has been great. For me, nothing ruins a cooking or baking session like a badly written recipe, so it's nice to have reliable sources for quality recipes.
Joe: YouTube! Their algorithm knows my literal taste pretty well by now so my recommendations are always on point. My favorite food YouTuber today has to be J. Kenji Lopez-Alt. His videos are unique in that he straps a camera to his head and shows you every step involved in cooking whatever he's cooking, which shows you not only exactly what you're looking for at each stage of the recipe but also a good idea of how long everything will take (assuming that you are a world-class chef).
Favorite cookbook in the collection?
Claudia: This is a tough one, but I'm going with Homegrown by Matt Jennings. It really emphasizes seasonal cooking and has a lot of classic New England recipes. The bolognese is to die for - I've made it at least a dozen times.
Joe: Mom's Memorable Recipes, editions one and two -- the spiral bound cookbooks in the photo above. I helped my mom make copies of her recipes and get these books bound at Kinkos when I was the only child left in my parents' otherwise empty nest. The first Christmas she gave these out to my siblings, I didn't even get my own copy. I've grown up a lot since then and have really loved working through the recipes with Claudia. It's special to be able to remember something I used to eat growing up, find it in one of the books, try to parse my mom's handwriting, and then recreate it perfectly at home.
Favorite cooking tool?
Claudia: It's going to have to be our Staub dutch oven. I use it multiple times per week. It really does everything and performs so well. I'll even use it for stuff like a fried rice that normally calls for a skillet or frying pan because I love the security of the high walls and relatively nonstick surface. It's a great vessel for the aforementioned Matt Jennings bolognese, makes a great beef stew, and is awesome for baking bread. This is definitely an investment piece, but we got it on sale and I hope that it lasts the rest of our lives.
Kitchen hack or tip?
Joe: Use a scale every now and then. After you've used one for a while, you develop the super power of being able to eyeball 170 grams of Greek yogurt so you can always get four breakfasts out of a single tub.
Claudia: Don’t be afraid to deviate from a recipe when you need to. Every kitchen is different, and you know yours best. Look at what’s in front of you and go by visual cues rather than following the exact time increments laid out in your recipe. A recipe is, at the end of the day, a guide. If your pie crust has been chilling for an hour but isn’t quite firm enough, give it another few minutes. If you’re supposed to sauté onions for 5 minutes until golden brown but you’re on minute 7 and barely see any browning, keep going until you hit that visual cue. Adjust your heat as needed. Over time and with practice, I’m learning what to look for and to trust my instincts. It’s always a work in progress, and mistakes help us learn.
