Knife Drop: Creative Recipes Anyone Can Cook

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Thiessen: I know you're a man, and it's hard to understand that. But every woman would understand if they've had a child. Since the show, Ramsay has become a mentor to DiGiovanni, sharing the screen with him for cooking videos on social media and even penned the foreword of his new book. Using a pastry brush, lightly coat one side of each slice of bread with mayonnaise, about 1/2 tablespoon per slice.

Thiessen: Yeah. Well, it's where it started for me too. It was all the women — they were always in the kitchen, and I wanted to be with all the cool women in my family cooking.

Thiessen: My challenges are very different cooking now for a family than they were when I was in my twenties cooking for myself or for friends or whatever. It was very, very different. I felt like I was able to laser-focus into a recipe and do pretty well with that. There's always fails of turning the corner and not paying attention, but nowadays, it's all about multitasking in the kitchen. I'm cooking dinner, but I'm still having to help my child with their homework and my husband's needing something, so my biggest challenge is making sure I get it done in time for dinner.

DiGiovanni: You should look into it. It's actually currently held by someone — I live in Boston; it's held by someone from Massachusetts — but you might be able to — On that note of speaking to his audience, this might also be the perfect cookbook for the social media age because not only is the author apparently a social media cooking star of some sort, but he’s also included QR codes throughout the book leading the reader to videos demonstrating how to prepare some (not all) of the recipes. As for the recipes themselves, I’m quite pleased to report that the vast majority of them look like something I’d actually like to cook and/or eat. Obviously everyone’s tastes are different so no cookbook ever manages to be 100% for anyone (except perhaps its own author), but this one is closer aligned to my tastes than most. And I particularly like a book that combines some sophisticated classy recipes with some that are more comfort food. And I have to admit, what really caught my eye is that this book even includes a recipe to make your own home-made dino nuggies. I’m pretty sure that means this is an author who knows what his audience wants. The author is apparently some kind of social media star, delivering cooking videos to legions of fans. I admit, I didn’t know his work prior to reading this book. But when I stumbled across the book itself, I found it rather intriguing. The theme here seems to be interesting, creative, restaurant-quality types of dishes, but which can be (relatively) easily prepared by home cooks in a home kitchen.DiGiovanni: It's interesting, because in a way, it's different now, right? The most recent one was probably [when] we had set up this huge project. We tried to do the Guinness World Record for the biggest dumpling. In a large mixing bowl, cream together cubed butter, brown sugar, and sugar for 4 minutes or until creamy. Thiessen: I have a good question for you. If you could cook for anybody, who would it be that you haven't cooked for yet? I know you've cooked for a lot of celebrities and stuff.

DiGiovanni: I was a tiny little baby sponge at that time, and then I've tried to stay a sponge all the way through. Admittedly, some of the recipes live up to that promise a bit better than others. To be sure, there are several recipes in here that look just as impressive as anything you might find in a Michelin-starred restaurant, but with relatively simple ingredients and techniques accessible to home chefs. But there are also a couple that don’t quite hit that “impressive” mark or which might be a bit more intimidating to the home cook. DiGiovanni: Absolutely. Well, we were talking about social media, and there's all these young, new people writing books now. And now with the internet as big as it is, why would anyone want to go buy a cookbook? But having those ... You have that intense personal touch on it, where the recipes in both of our books have so much more love than some random recipe that you look up online ... Food is all about those little nuances and those little extra touches. It was a teaching to my children and also my husband, because he always had this analogy of "leftovers are gross," and I wanted to show him that they're not. You can do really cool things with leftovers. That's the gist of the book, showing how many things you can do with buttermilk, how many things you can do with the bottom of the pretzel bag. [If] there's a little bit left, you can do something with it, and I can show you how to do it. DiGiovanni: The dough melted off the dumpling. It was horrible. We tried to make this big contraption with a big box that was a steamer, and it was going to be a 50- to 75-pound dumpling, and then it melted.DiGiovanni: It is interesting. It's been interesting for me also — and I'm sure [for] many people — to watch how the whole space is evolving. What do you think about all of it, the fact that TV is not fizzling away, but it's different than it used to be? DiGiovanni: Which is funny. But another part of it, as a kid — and I'm sure you've dealt with this, having kids — is I would literally reach into the pantry and take handfuls of sugar and eat the sugar. I just wanted sugar. I found early on that if I gave my mom an ingredient list of stuff to make a lemon meringue pie that I would share with the family, sugar's got to be on the list, and I was getting my sugar fix that way.