#15 | Sandra Harvey: Secrets of an Introvert Biz Woman + Spanish Walnut Cake
Today I talk with Chef Apparel Designer, Sandra Harvey — who I met through Jenny Powell-Castor from Episode 4 . Learn the incredible story of how this California fashion designer came to design a whole new Chef Coat especially for women bringing fashion and function together in a never-seen-before way. We’ll go on her journey from the fashion world to Culinary School and and how she stuck to her vision despite continuous pushback (mostly from male chefs and teachers). We talk about growing up around women in food business, receiving ‘divine downloads’, how she’s built a successful business as an introvert and her favorite childhood foods. Along the way, we weave discussions on the power of beauty, edible flowers, finding kindness and a love for food before Sandra shares the story and recipe behind her Spanish Walnut Cake!
The Recipe starts at: 39:31
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Sandra Harvey Chef Apparel – Sandra’s Website
Sandra’s Social Media Links: Facebook and Instagram
Become a member of the Women In Food Community at: WomenInFood.Net/Community
Missy’s Farm Website: CrownHillFarm.com
Missy’s Business Coaching Website: SpiritBizPeople.com
Spanish Walnut Cake
INGREDIENTS:
The Syrup
1/4 cup water
2 1/2 cups apricot preserves
½ tsp fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon rose water
Pastry Brush
To make the syrup, heat the preserves and the water with the lemon juice for 15 minutes. Stir in the rose water. Cool
The Cake
5 eggs, lightly beaten
1 Cup walnuts, chopped
½ cup candied orange rind, chopped
1 ¼ cup ground almond flour
1 cup sugar
Juice and grated zest of one orange
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
*Sheet pan with screen
Parchment paper
The Marzipan
16 ounces marzipan (almond paste and knead in powdered sugar)
The Ganache
16 ounces bittersweet choc
16 ounces heavy cream
Sieve
Whisk
METHOD:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Line the bottom of 2 8-inch springform cake pans with parchment paper rounds.
3. Brush the parchment paper with melted butter
4. Pour in the cake mixture and bake for 1 hour, until browned
5. Cool in freezer overnight
6. Release frozen cakes from pans, peel paper off bottom
7. With a sharp serrated bread knife, thinly slice the tops off each cake for a flat surface.
8. Generously spread the apricot syrup over the surface of one cake, lay second cake on top and cover with remaining syrup
9. Freeze for 1 hour
10. Remove cake and with serrated knife thinly trim sides of cake all the way around for a perfectly smooth cake
11. Take 4 oz the Marzipan and kneed it until pliable
12. Sprinkle the powdered sugar on counter surface to prevent sticking, and with a rolling pin, neatly roll out a ¼ inch marzipan circle for the center of the cake
13. Gently roll out the remainder of the marzipan into a 12-to-13-inch square
14. Gently pick up and lay this second circle over the cake. Press into cake carefully and trim the bottom.
15. Gently pick up cake and place on screened sheet pan
16. Make ganache-- heat cream to barely simmer -do not boil.
17. Pour hot cream over broken chocolate -do not stir
18. When the chocolate is soft, whisk and pour over cake through the sieve
19. Place in freezer for one hour
20. Remove from the freezer and trim chocolate.
21. Lift cake to your plate and serve with fresh garnish of choice
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0:00:03.9 S1: Hello and welcome to another episode of women in food. I'm your hostess, Missy Singer DuMars. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things, food, business, and the feminine. Each episode, I invite you to sit down with me in my interview guest as we dive into this intersection to spark your food curiosity, share a favorite recipe and give you some fun food explorations along the way. I am inspired by these women, farmers shaft bakers, cooks, writers and food makers, who all bring their passion for beauty, nourishment, community, pleasure connection and deep care to others through food. These are women who advocate and take action towards increased food awareness for themselves, their families and their neighborhoods. Before I introduce today's guest, I have one request, if you could go over to iTunes or whatever app you are using to listen and give us a rating and review. It's a simple act. That helps us a ton. Thank you so much. So today, I'm excited to introduce to you, Sandra Harvey. If you listened to our second interview with Chef Jenny caster, that is how I first met Sandra. Sandra is an American fashion designer who designs chef jackets that are elegant, there I say a bit sexy while still being super functional, her story of how she came to these designs is filled with all kinds of magic and inspiration that I know you'll love to hear.
0:01:24.7 S1: She grew up around food businesses and even went to culinary school to better understand the demands her customer's experience in designing these coats. What I love about Sandra is that she had an idea and stuck to it in the face of all kinds of adversity and people telling her it wasn't a good idea, now she's grown a successful business and tells us how she does that while also being a super major introvert, of course, like all my guests she's gonna give us a really delicious recipe as well. I saw a picture of it. It looks really, really good. So Sandra, welcome to women in food. I am so honored to have you join us.
0:01:59.5 S2: Oh, welcome, I'm honored to have this discussion with you.
0:02:04.0 S1: Yeah, and I wanna share a little more how I heard about you because I was in the women's chef's Facebook group. And Jenny, our previous guest, posted a picture of her showing off one of your beautiful chef coats, and she got so much flack for it ripped to shreds by other women chefs, which I just couldn't believe. And she and I had a discussion about that later. Right now, right? And a lot of the commentary was about like, you can't have a functional chef coat and be sexy and beautiful, which I know that you think is a load of crap, but we'll tell us a little bit more about your coats and the inspiration behind them, 'cause I know it's quite a story.
0:02:45.0 S2: Well, I grew up with a gorgeous mother that was catering and she wore her high hills and her hair and her makeup, and she made herself just absolutely beautiful before she would go to serve the food. And my sister ended up opening a restaurant in La Hoya and she's a chef, so was her husband, and she would dress in her high hills with her ponytail and look absolutely fabulous while serving her guests. And then in 2005, I lost my husband, and it was really project and leaving me widowed with my children, and I went into a deep depression and it lasted for a couple of years, and my sister called me up one day and she said, You know, I have an idea for you. I've been really inspired to talk to you about this, I've been having dreams from Colin, and he keeps coming to me in a dream and he says, You need to talk to Sandra, she's an artist. She makes beautiful clothing. And you're gonna know what to say to her. And so as we've had our discussion, I cannot talk without a pencil and a paper, I take notes, I square, I'm a duller when I'm on the phone and I was sitting there with my pencil, and now she started to talk to me...
0:04:11.2 S2: Something came to life and she said, I cannot wear an ugly jacket as a chef because I've got tits and ass, and
0:04:23.1 S1: Hopefully we can say that on a podcast.
0:04:24.9 S2: You can delete that part yet, but this is the truth, and he said... He goes, I think that you should design... You're so good at making beautiful dresses, why don't you design a chef coat for women, and within two seconds, I was in a trance of... I drew a jacket and it was formed, fitted and beautiful, and I actually started to cry and I said, I'm gonna do this. I see it, it's right here, and I still have the data, have the sketch that I've saved and I framed it and went and spoke to a couple of chefs in town, and they said, Absolutely not... This is 2010, by the way. I'm not interested in a fashion jacket, who are you? You don't know anything about what a chef does, so I made a phone call back to my sister and she said, Go to culinary school and learn the functions of the kitchen, and then they can't tell you no, and they'll respect you and appreciate it. So that was the very beginning of this chef
0:05:19.6 S1: Jacket. Every time you say this story, I get chills in my whole body is such a magical thing, and what I love, 'cause you were ready designing clothing and Hattie. Right, so I love that it brings together these different parts of your life and who you are in a way that you hadn't imagined before then, that's a unique piece for a lot of us when we find that moment where we bring together the different gifts and interests and talents and history and experience that we have, and we find that magic combination that brings it all together.
0:05:50.6 S2: It really is magic because I was designing very form-fitted dresses and skirts, I live in a beach community, and it was just these beautiful, super sexy dresses and skirts, and that was kind of... My trademark was stretched Bevan Matt jersey. And so when she said a chef jacket, I initially laughed because I said Chef check of how... There's just absolutely no way I can't even see it. And it was that magic sketch that brought it together, and even speaking to you right now, I'm getting a lump my throat because I can always recall that moment... It was a magic moment.
0:06:31.5 S1: So you... Up and went to culinary school.
0:06:34.8 S2: I did, I was in
0:06:36.7 S1: After commitment to a... Yeah, that's a big...
0:06:40.0 S2: It's was... And it was another wall, 2010, remember I went up to a B-Tech in Ashville, North Carolina and signed up for culinary arts and met with the very first advisor I had was a man, and when He said, Why are you here? I was just a little... 'cause I was older, I wasn't like 20-year-old, and I said, I wanna design a chef coat for women. And he folded his arms and he said, Absolutely not, I just can't even recommend you doing this. And I just like, I was so flustered and there was all these young students walking around and mostly men, and He said You can do this as a hobby if you like, but I just like coming in here as the design, a chef jacket. Absolutely not. And then a woman came over and said, Excuse me... She knocked on the door. She said, excuse me, can I speak to you? And I went over and she said, Come into my office. Her name was Bronwyn McCormick, and she said, I'm an advisor. And she goes, I'm gonna take you. Take you on. She goes, Close my door and she said, See that hanging up behind the door.
0:07:51.4 S2: And I said, Yes, she goes, That's my chef jacket. And I don't wanna wear it, I love your idea. I know I'm so emotional right now. She goes, I love your idea. Women need that. She goes, Why can't we have a pretty jacket?
0:08:04.8 S1: That's so true. And I've not just pretty, but I've talked to a lot of women chefs and a chef jacket that fit right. They just time at Carver bodies different. I feel the same thing about Farm clothing and farm tools, I was just saying to someone that everyone who designs machinery that has a string pull start for the motor, like a mower or my snowboarding about that. Yeah, so the string pull, I feel like is designed for a slightly taller man with longer arms.
0:08:41.2 S2: 'cause I come... Arms and a lot of strength.
0:08:43.8 S1: Yeah, 'cause I can never pull it fast and far enough to get the dang thing started and I... And there are, I know with tools, there are tools for women that are designed, but they dump them down so they're not functional, professional functional or for the hard work that I do now. Yes, so that's another reason I love what you've created because it's beautiful, it is, I've seen so many pictures that you share and post of all different kinds of shops of teeth shapes, and it's super functional. You didn't give up the function required...
0:09:17.5 S2: No, I did not. I... She said, What is it that you wanna do? Exactly. Do you wanna do the full program? Do you wanna go more into Pastry Arts? What is that you wanna do? And we worked at a program and immediately two of my instructors were male and really hard hard on me, and I kind of puffed up, I kinda puffed up, I'm an introvert and I kinda took it on me that I'm like, I gotta show them... I've got to gain their respect and so I did everything I... One of the classes, one of my assignments was cleaning the kitchen and cleaning the pots and pans, and cleaning the... Wash the dishwasher, and I took a toothbrush and I cleaned it flawlessly, and clean the pots and pans until my hands were just so wrong, and then I would go to my teachers and I'd say, What do you think? And I would see them. They didn't wanna say, Oh, that's perfect, but I could see it in their face. I saw shock on these men's faces, and then one of my instructors, again, I get emotional about it, he said, I'm gonna recommend that you contact this man, his name spots, he runs the...
0:10:35.2 S2: He's running the chef challenges here in Ashville. And again, back in 2010, the South wasn't recognized yet, it was a new up and coming part of the culinary waves, I contacted bubbles and he had me expedite and work with these chefs and the chef challenges for a year, they were running... Once a week, it would be like one restaurant chef against another restaurant chef in the area, and I would work in the kitchen with these chefs with both teams expediting, and I had my post cards and I would take notes and I'd say, This is what I'm doing, and these chefs were amazing, they're like, We love it, don't just do it for women, we want something's hot and sexy too.
0:11:27.8 S1: Oh, that's fabulous to have. Real... Is that part of your story?
0:11:31.3 S2: Yes, yeah, so I was taking notes on the form and the fit, and the one thing that I was told over and over and over again, and of course I experienced that working in the kitchen too, was, Why do we have big baggy sleeves? Why is a sleeve... Why do we have to send and roll this slave up? So I decided to go with something that had some stretch in it, more fitted and you just pull it rather than roll it.
0:11:57.4 S1: Where... Did you do any research on where that comes from or what the origin of the tropical comes from?
0:12:04.4 S2: Okay, so the original chef coats came from the military, it was a naval design, coffee wanted the jacket to be white, military form and fit, and for the order, the brigade, which is the military, and that's where the original jacket came from, it was square, it was just a man's fit, women just weren't doing that kitchen thing back.
0:12:31.4 S1: But also made for military... Not me, for Coit was a military jacket.
0:12:35.0 S2: Yes.
0:12:35.4 S1: Which anyone who cooks knows if you have a baggy sleeve, you're gonna dip it in things or catching on fire or any of those things, which is never... No. Good. Or all those things, all at Ancestry.
0:12:46.2 S2: So what I did was, I just kinda like summits and I decided, I said, I'm gonna do a beautiful military jacket, I'm gonna name it the classic brigade you for you. I channeled him and I said, But I wanted it to be beautiful and fitted and functional, and that's how that jacket came about.
0:13:07.5 S1: He loved that. You still came, honored tradition, you were like, It's time to let... And yeah, I wanna honor the history... Absolutely, yes, both. And Classic bread. So I wanna go back, how did you end up and tell us a little bit about how you ended up in fashion growing up, or having a family that's all in food. My mother.
0:13:28.3 S2: Being a caterer in... I just was a little fashion girl, I started making dresses for myself when I was in junior high, and my grandmother taught me so gave me my first son machine, and then I went off to study fashion over at Orange Coast College. Then I went off to IBM in Los Angeles and started making clothes, opened up a boutique in cooma, and went from there, I was making clothes for musicians and models and going to all those fun parties. It was really fun. I got to go meet David Bowie and hang out with Jaden and a lot of these great people. It was fun.
0:14:08.8 S1: Oh fun, super fun. So you did the culinary school thing, and then how did you get from that to launching... Producing and launching the first jacket.
0:14:21.9 S2: So I started off by buying one of every single chef coat I could over at the uniform store in town in Ashville, and just... It just didn't matter, even the most form-fitted one just didn't work for me, so I bought some fabric, I made a basic block, and from there, I probably made about 50 versions of a chef coat. And every time I'd have a new version, I'd wear to class. And I made sure that I... See, what I did was I did the basic white jacket, 10 buttons, and I'd work to class. And when the chefs would look at me and go, What do you wear? And I'm like 10 button white, a 10 button chef coat. Right, and then I always had my little note cards with me and I would take notes, I'm like, I'll make this a little bit more fitted, we'll make pockets on the moment pocket on the sleeve that's comfortable, fit is a little bit tighter here, and just constantly taking notes.
0:15:25.9 S1: And any other women in school, if you're noticing what you were up to.
0:15:29.8 S2: Considering that back in 2010-11, there was probably three women for every... 50. Yes, yes, they absolutely were at... Every single one of them got the jacket for me, including two of my instructors, and I did do a men's version of the classic Brigade, a long sleeve short and a short slave, and then I pulled it for a while, but I think I'm gonna have to re-introduce it because I'm just getting so many emails begging, like begging from younger male chefs around the world...
0:16:10.0 S1: Yeah, I'm talking about email spanking, how did it go from a bunch of prototypes and giving them to this group of people in culinary school to launching it as a business?
0:16:19.7 S2: I went to SCORE. You know what? SCORE is right that... Okay, I stand for... Well, I went to downtown Asheville, what to speak to. Nor senior corporate office or something. So I can't remember what it is. That's okay, we'll Google it. But I met with... I got business advice. Got it. I wrote a business plan, borrowed 5000 from a relative, opened up a ton of credit cards when in serious debt and just kept buying fabric, I was... The biggest hardship for me was being in North Carolina was trying to find people that could sew, and I went through a lot of people. Yeah, I found one girl through one of my sons, she was a mother of one of my friends, and she helped me make the patterns and who she worked with these jackets with me for about a year, it was amazing. Helping me make the patterns, I made some business cards, took some samples and went and did the National Restaurant Association Trade Show, got about 50 orders, like I was mind blown, 50 orders
0:17:31.7 S1: I got. Yeah, they were so... Was that the production problems?
0:17:35.4 S2: It was a production nightmare... Yeah, it was not for 10 jackets or more restaurant, it was chefs and caterers coming up to me going, I need this, I need this, I need this. So it was a bunch of very, very small orders, but it was a lot of... A lot of orders. So I said, be patient, these are gonna be head everything, and these women were amazing, and they're still my customers today...
0:18:01.1 S1: Yeah, and that's I think one of your secrets, you're very self-proclaimed... Introvert? Yes, with a thriving business. Yes. How does that work? Most people think of successful businesses as extrovert led a vasile and being out there, and that is harder to have a successful business in any industry as an introvert, so how does that work for you is... I know you have to treat that
0:18:28.0 S2: The secret is that an extrovert is like marketing, they're like a marketing machine, they can market themselves, and it was a lot of... Look at this, look at that. And just very grand. Whereas an introvert is a little bit more core, so for me is instead of saying, Oh, here's my jacket. I want to know what do you want? How does this fit? What you need... And I'm so transparent that I will say, Okay, my buttons, I haven't gotten my buttons yet... Do you mind waiting? I'll sometimes offer discounts, but I'm so transparent and so honest with these women from the very beginning of their order that I've pretty much maintained a really good reputation in relationship, and they know... I'm right upfront that these are hand-made, please allow to sometimes two to four weeks, sometimes the fabrics won't be the same from order to order, so if you want two white jackets that look exactly the same, make sure you buy two at the same time, because whites and blacks, the colors... Dies will vary from role to role. I'm honest about my buttons, take their logo buttons, it's sometimes six weeks out, if I run out, it's gonna be a couple extra weeks, I explain all this upfront, and so these womens, I give them the option, Do you still want the jacket 'cause I can refund you, I just want to be honest, and I think that's the secret
0:19:55.0 S1: To... You actually said two secrets, I'm gonna point the other one out to you, okay, 'cause I think it's a benefit to our listeners and I... As I think about a lot of farmers, I know that a lot of people go into farming because they're introverted, and it's a way to have a lot of alone time, for sure. And so they don't like to sell the market and interact with people either, so I think your tips are great for so many different businesses and industries in food and beyond food, but the other thing you said was that instead of talking about yourself and what you do and Hey, look at me. You say, Hey, who are you? And so you're starting with being in service... Yes, to your audience. I mean, you did that from day one, from going to culinary school, like, Hey, I have an idea and I'm gonna fly it now, you're like, I have an idea and I need to learn the needs of my customer better and understand who they really are first-hand so I can make a product that's a really in service to them. Yes, a, that's a key.
0:20:51.5 S1: And I think that's, to me, that's a very feminine-style business to be in service to foster these kinds of relationships that you're talking about, like you said, your first customers are still customers from what... 2011 or 12.
0:21:06.5 S2: You know what you just said? Really hits my heart. What you said, it's very feminine. I grew up being taught to serve the homeless, and today a deception and I'm making food for the homeless here in LA, one beach. So every month I make a meal and meet with women here and look in a beach to serve the homeless. This is something that is important to me, and I've noticed that a lot of gentle kind acts service are women driven
0:21:38.6 S1: With a strong feminine thread, I would say...
0:21:42.3 S2: Well, I have four sons and I love boys, I'm a daddy's girl, I love my brother. I was madly in love with my husband, so I'm whatever type of feminist you wanna call me, just... I choose to see the really the best in men. Okay, I choose, that's what I look for. So I see strengths and men, but I do, no matter what our gender or whatever our pronouns are, the feminine... We're the ones that serve.
0:22:14.6 S1: Yeah, and I talk about... My listeners know this 'cause I talk about it in the podcast a lot, to me, the feminine goes back to heart, craft art appears, and the heart is not just cooking food and feeding people, although feeding people, as you just said, in and of itself is a beautiful act of service, but it's actually actually tending the relationships and the inter-relationships in the community, and think about any household party you go to, where does everyone gather around the heart... Around the kitchen saturation. Yeah, I know, I love the word. I keep staring at my fireplace thinking, I wanna get a set up to cook in the fireplace, I can bring the kitchen to the actual harsh in my house, 'cause they're a couple of rooms apart, so that there's a new layer of that experience of food and gathering and fire, warmth all in one place. Besides being an amazing signer, you probably ended up with some mad culinary skills to boot, right.
0:23:18.3 S2: While I grew up with a mother cooked and my mother's Russian, so she tends to go on the dramatic side, everything is a little bit over the top and just very beautiful year dish from your mother or a childhood food. You're gonna laugh when I tell you that.
0:23:37.9 S1: I'm not gonna laugh, I love these stories.
0:23:39.7 S2: A favorite thing for my mother is cabbage soup. Oh, okay. You're shocked, right? The most colonists.
0:23:48.6 S1: You gave us a prelude to say Your mother's background, so it's not surprising, but tell us, tell my listeners who may not be able to picture or know what a cabbage soup is, what kind of the basis of the comically...
0:24:01.6 S2: It's a boiled cabbage and it's full of every type of mineral you can possibly imagine, it's just so hardy and so healthy, and it's almost sweet. So what I love to use this pipe cabbage.
0:24:19.1 S1: So you end up with a purple suit.
0:24:20.4 S2: So you can get a Purple broth... Yes. Oh, fun. Yes, and you can use the chicken chicken base Roth. It's just really delicious.
0:24:28.9 S1: I've been learning since having a farm that cabin is a pretty underrated vegetable. Yeah.
0:24:34.5 S2: It's Tacitus for it. It's a heart food.
0:24:38.9 S1: Yeah, that's true. That's true at all. And they're kind of fun to grow. And here's a child, here's a ridiculous childhood memory about cabbages, 'cause we're going there. I grew up in the time as a kid of chemicals, and my sister and I had a record on vinyl of the couch fest kids, and it was like storytelling with songs, and one of the villains is a jack rabbit Kavita, and he sings this song of capes Cape mummies like this whole song, and so I cannot not think of that song when I'm in my garden with the cabbages... That's so sweet to Eaton, but still it's the cabbages and I'm always like, cabbages copies, you Capades, come give me some like if I had... And then one of my friends, I was singing it when she was in the garden with me, she's like, That's the catch catch how long like, Oh my God, someone else knows this very obscure random album from childhood, but... Yes, that's my association with capes.
0:25:47.0 S2: Wow, that's sweet though.
0:25:50.7 S1: Yeah, and then I learned... Well, also Eastern European background, my Jewish heritage, I stopped caves such a great... Resides in a blanket. There you go. And one of my favorites is just to satellite state in butter and salt and pepper. Oh
0:26:11.4 S2: Yeah, my mouth is what
0:26:13.0 S1: I... Aikido, I have any Comerford inert.
0:26:15.8 S2: But when you just said the stuffed cabbage, I mean... Oh my goodness, yeah.
0:26:19.6 S1: With Rita with rice and whatever ground me and then cooking a sweet and sour to menace have some in my freezer, I could pull that out too. Yeah, there's just so much you could do with cabbage, so that's a childhood. That's your child cabbage. So
0:26:36.1 S2: It's warm. It's a warm food. It's warm to the heart.
0:26:39.9 S1: Yeah, that's true. Did you help your mom cook at home? We all...
0:26:43.7 S2: I had a sister, yeah. We were always in the kitchen with her...
0:26:46.6 S1: Yeah, I'm impressed that she cooked professionally all day and then still cooked at home.
0:26:50.7 S2: What... She didn't do it every day. She did parties on the weekends... Okay, and I grew up in San Diego, so these parties were for a lot of the executives in downtown San Diego... Right, and I think the mayor and different people like that.
0:27:07.0 S1: So in a moment, we're gonna talk more about some of your food inspirations, and you have an amazing recipe based on some of that inspiration that you're gonna share with us, but before we do that, I wanna take a quick break and shoot how you can become a supporter of women in food in a couple of fun ways, I'm thrilled to share with my listeners that You can sport your very own women in food swag. If you listen to episode 11 where I interviewed artists, Sara Kline, she's custom-created some adorable artwork that we've got on shirts and bags and mugs, so you just have to check it out, it's the cutest images to go along with the old food, quote from famous French food, writer, Konami, let things taste of what they are, and I'll just give you a sneak preview, it's like all these fruits and veggies, but also garden tools and everything has a bite taken out of it. Super adorable. You can find these items as well as women in food stickers, I recently put one on my new computer, an order online for worldwide shipping at women in food dot net shop.
0:28:08.8 S1: We also have a growing community of people who are passionate about food and supporting the diversity of women's voices in our food culture. If you are not currently a member of the Women in food community, I invite you to become one. It's super easy access this community of food lovers like yourself to share an additional resources beyond this podcast to feed your curiosity and love of food, while also supporting the global community of women in food businesses. In this group, we share recipe swaps, the latest news and articles about food and celebrate one another in our goals and priorities. This is what the women in food community is about. So whether you're looking for a recipe or a woman-made food product, a new restaurant, or help with your garden, this community is the place for that resource, so if you're interested in becoming a Women in food community member, simply check out women in food dot NET community, lastly, if you know someone that you think would be a fantastic guest for women in food episode, I would love to hear about it. I'm always looking for fantastic guests and interviews, let me know your idea by going to women in food Oneonta and fill out the quick form.
0:29:17.7 S1: So Sandra, the recipe you're gonna share with us, which we'll reveal in a moment, is inspired by a particular place in the world that... It sounds like you really love... Tell us about it.
0:29:28.0 S2: I love Spain because my husband, again, Colin, and we were there for about 10 days and he showed me cheap, Sandra and Olive, and we just danced on tables and it was really fun, it was just an amazing time. And there was Spanish cake that was served in bars, and it was such a magical, magical time for me, it was... It just seemed like the moon light and the smell of oranges were waiting in the air, and it's just something that just really stands out to me, and then growing up in San Diego, my family have always been travelers to Mexico, so I've spent a lot of my time down at BAHA with my family, my brothers, a surfer, my sons, everybody serves... So if you take the Spanish influence in Mexico and just the food, the wine, the same Korea's just the whole essence of that culture, it's the most romantic, it's so romantic to me, and I decided to ask me for a recipe, and so I decided to do a Spanish woman cake.
0:30:50.3 S1: And I just wanna say, the way you describe all that is so sensory and Central, and I feel like that's how you show up and walk the world and what you bring to food and to women and to the codes that you create, is this strong value of the sensory and the... Beautiful, thank you. Yeah, thank you. So tell us a little bit about this one at cake.
0:31:18.2 S2: So the Walmart cake, it's a lot of work. I'm just gonna say that up front and look
0:31:23.6 S1: At... Again, I look to the rest of it is.
0:31:25.8 S2: There's a other... There's two Spanish cakes, there's the mix everything together and poured in the Capen and sprinkle powder sugar over it and eat. Okay, but then there's this version, which is, it takes a little bit more time, a lot of prep and Federation and everything, but like my jackets are visually beautiful when I make something, I want it to be visually beautiful, and so... Do you want me to...
0:31:58.8 S1: But I wanna ask another question first and just Cassiopeia ate or say more about the power and value of beauty, because I think that is something that gets overlooked in our modern productivity-driven culture.
0:32:17.8 S2: Okay, let's think of it. Have you ever gone for a walk and you smell something and it's so beautiful that it stops you, and you look and there's a tree and with little tiny white everywhere, so you walk over to it and you put your nose in those blossoms... Orange blossoms or lime blossoms that are just growing along the streets in people's yards, and it actually sends you into another realm that's beauty, something that stops you for a moment and takes you out of yourself, and it doesn't have to be... Gold doesn't have to be a big house, it doesn't have to be offence address, it's just something that is simple and beautiful and stops you in the tracks for just a brief moment. That's beauty to me.
0:33:07.8 S1: Yeah, I would agree. Well, where I live, we can't walk down the street and small Orange Blossoms, but I got you, 'cause I actually have an orange tree in my green house, and when those flowers open, the whole class green house, just a loss with the smell, it's amazing. And it stops me for sure, but what I wanted to say is that I think... I actually had a doctor who talked about nourishment and satiated, he talked about satiated, not just a body, but of mind, of heart and a soul spirit, and I think beauty is the part that... Satiated, heart and soul.
0:33:47.3 S2: Absolutely, I do to
0:33:49.2 S1: A nurse, and it's for taking the moment to make something beautiful...
0:33:58.9 S2: I'm an introvert. And it's really easy for me to have long conversations with people. Through a text, I will go, I will text and text and text and text and text to
0:34:08.6 S1: Command having gone for you...
0:34:10.9 S2: No, I know. Oh, I just love you to death. I love you to death. I do honestly, but
0:34:16.6 S1: Listeners, we've never met in person, not... Not before this podcast, but we as... But I go in to visit.
0:34:22.8 S2: I'm going to your farm, but the people that are in my role that know me, they know that beauty is so important to me that I like... My couch is purple and I have candles everywhere, and I have S shells everywhere and flowers, and I always say that before I write right. Or I do any project, I like my candles, I make sure I have my flowers, my tea, visual things like beauty. Rounding is how I create and I will set the stage.
0:34:53.9 S1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. 'cause it's a seething about the food. A funny story, I had a while where I did what I called Long dish dinners, how the story goes that I was working a conference and I was in the hotel room and I ended up in the complementary suite for our team, and there was... I usually travel with my own food to events like that, and so I had all my own food, but I forgot to bring a dish, but they had this dish with fruit and chocolate and cookies, of which I wasn't gonna eat, but I cleared off the plate and it was like a long skinny dish and I had a salad and a cold burger or something like that, but I put it on that dish and suddenly I looked beautiful, arranged on this long delayed, I was like, Wow, that's how they make fancy food. Look beautiful, you just have to put it on a unique dish, so as soon as that conference is over and I got to... I went to the store and got a long dish and then I had a whole series of photographs in my phone that are long dish dinners, and it would be simple things like a piece of chicken and some steam broccoli, but just putting it...
0:36:01.4 S1: Just for myself, putting it on a skinny, long dish made it different and visually appealing in a different way, and so there is something about nursing or shitting all parts of ourselves, like how... And this is for my listeners, not just to take time to think about how you nurse your body and actually nurse your body, not just give it calories, but nourish your body, how do you feed and nourish your mind... Like What do you seek out to nurse your mind, how do you nourish your heart, and how do you nurse yourself and perhaps... Beauty is one of those ways, whether I also... I grow cut flowers, but they're really just for me, and in the summer, there's cut flowers all over the house constantly
0:36:42.1 S2: For that reason, and just in the Celeste, it's so important and I wish people would go back to that a little bit more. My one son, Sam, he always says, Mom can make serial look beautiful. And it's because I will... It's, it goes in the ball, you just sprinkle some little fruit around it maybe takes a little leaves from a pan or just sprinkle it there, and it's just so, so beautiful, just an extra little tiny thing.
0:37:17.8 S1: Indeed, indeed I've gotten really into edible flowers, I grow more and more of them every year, I... Michaela, I've been having so much fun discovering all kinds of flowers I had no idea were edible that butts Jenny caster loves to use at before her stuff is so beautiful, all the food that she creates, and a lot of my chefs here are using more and more edible flowers as well, and I love it. And there's just so many ways to use them, and then it's funny 'cause you have to tell you and I that I easily just place in the top, but you have to tell your diners they can eat them, 'cause they'll often put them aside and it's like, No no, actually eat that, that actually... It adds to the flavor. There's medicinal healing properties, there's nutritional value, and it's beautiful. All at once.
0:38:04.6 S2: Yes, I love that. You are you... Do you have a lot side business with your edibles... Well.
0:38:13.8 S1: They're available to my shops along with the rest of my produce. Your chefs. Yeah, yeah, and sometimes my CSA folks will get a little package of edible flowers or I'll mix them in a salad mix, but I am getting into free string them. So they can last longer. I just sent off to my Heffron Jessica, my first experiment with freeze-dried edible flowers, and they've been sitting in a sealed jar for like a month and a half, maybe even two months, and they still have their shape and color, so being a fall super cool.
0:38:50.7 S2: He really is. Is
0:38:51.7 S1: To cool otherwise, 'cause usually Adolfo-ers will super fast and the freeze-free tried some borage flowers and they still have that little hit of borage cucumber flavor, even a month liner, which usually a board flyer wilts in an hour after you pick it. So that's my new fun venture and project. I love that, I love to dream. Man.
0:39:18.6 S2: There's many of our mini projects just...
0:39:21.0 S1: Okay, so let's get back. We totally went. I had to go down the path of beauty from Spanish walnut cake, but let's get back to the basics of Wanaka. It seems like there's multiple components, there's a syrup, a cake, a marzipan and a Nash... Yes, all our listeners, what marzipan and what Genosha, in case they don't know.
0:39:42.1 S2: Marzipan is an almond paste, basically it's just a crushed launch almonds that have been made into a paste and it's used in candy by adding powdered sugar to it. So with a marzipan, you can go to the full length of getting the cape by the almond paste and with your hands, manipulate it and add on to sugar to it to like holding like a molding. Clay, exactly. Or you can buy... You can also just buy marzipan in rolls, which that's what I do, I've gone to... I've done, I've done the almond pace, but now I'll just buy a few roles at marzipan and I keep it, I keep it in the Frederator and I'll dip it in chocolate just to eat, but I just have a what
0:40:31.2 S1: You snack on weight when you put into the kitchen marzipan on everything. Or some people, it's coir, you, it's Martin jotting.
0:40:42.6 S2: Yes, absolutely. So that's marzipan, and then the gas is just two... It's two things, It's equal parts, heavy cream, and I use just a bitter sweet, dark chocolate chip, and the secret to gage is heating the cream to just below simmer because once it gets to the simmering point, it's gonna slightly burn, so you wanna bring... You have to watch it when you see just barely start to summer, turn it off, and in your ball, you have your chocolate chips, you pour the warm cream over that... Do not stir it, you let it set until the chocolate is completely soft and that's when you mix it together.
0:41:25.6 S1: Oh, this is why you went to culinary school, and I know the little secrets.
0:41:29.5 S2: It's a big, huge, huge, important. If you start stirring that cram into the chocolate, you're gonna see that separation of oils in the chocolate...
0:41:37.5 S1: Oh right, yeah. And so for our listeners, gonads usually like if you get a cake that has a chocolate and Nash layer, it's usually a thicker condenser consistency in the end. Right, right. It's like not like a foster... It is a kind of prostate thing that I have...
0:41:55.8 S2: Yeah, it's like a fudge frosting.
0:41:58.2 S1: Yeah, there you go. Kendra over things and I had... It's really... And then dry farm Gyanendra firm, so it makes a nice coding, which I think is how you use it in this recipe. All right, so let's go back. So first you make a serum.
0:42:16.1 S2: So I make the Serapis get a jar of... It's like maybe like a cup when those little... I like apricot preserves because the apricot flavor is really good with the cake and a little tiny bit of water. I like rose water, I use rose water in everything, even when, just so you know, side note, for all your women, if you buy a rose water and you just put a table squid in your tea, it will change your life. So I put rosewater and everything. So a preserves, a little bit of lemon is the water, the rose water, and you heat it up until it's completely runny, and then you're gonna use a... You have to have your pastry brush 'cause you're gonna brush this mixture on your cake.
0:43:06.6 S1: Okay, so you actually need to have the cake made, right, so
0:43:10.5 S2: The cake is the very first thing you're gonna make...
0:43:12.4 S1: Okay, so let's go back. Let's make a cake.
0:43:14.9 S2: Okay, so the cake, its eggs, moments candid ornery in chopped almond flower, the just the juice and the zest of an orange, a little bit of cinnamon, you have to have your sheet pan and some parchment paper. So I have all that together and then we have the recipe with the amount, but what you're gonna do is you're just antimony kapa right now, and I like the pans with that drop, the spring forms... The spring form pan where one falls out, and I will also line, I will take a little bit of oil to line the whole inside and I make parchment, rings around the side and parchment
0:43:59.5 S1: To a secret to cutting parchment for a Kievan because I watch a lot of British baking show, they always do it so easily, but then when I'm standing here fumbling with Bartram paper, it's a mess and it doesn't quite cover smoothly and... Well, okay.
0:44:12.9 S2: So the secret is you make you fold an airplane, like you told fault, so just take your square and start and folding, half fold in half, old and half folded in half, like about five times maybe. And so it's just a little thing, you take the point in the center of your pan and then you cut, you lay it, and that to the edge of your pan, you cut, and then you cut on the inside of the pants. So when you open it up, it's gonna be a perfect circle.
0:44:42.3 S1: A making of stuff like... Yeah, yeah, yes.
0:44:44.7 S2: Right, so that's gonna get you perfect, you just keep folding it and then it will open up, but you cut it in the... It's like a little curve, of course, and then you're gonna get a pretty good little circles
0:44:58.5 S1: And then for the edges, do you just take separate rectangle strips of the paper and Linearity, I did learn a cool tip about using parchment paper from Cooks Illustrated 'cause it'll Elliot doesn't always stay on the bottom, but if you just take a little water in your hand and write it on the pan, and then here, hold the parchment paper down, so I do that on my cookie sheets and all kinds of things, everything. Parchment paper doesn't roll up, but you just spread some water underneath on the pan before you put... And it sticks to it. I love that. Tenement paper. Yeah, that is not a fact
0:45:37.6 S2: That... And paridae should be in every covered porch. Paper will change your life. It's so useful. I took everything with it, I roll fish in it and staple it and bake it, and just as
0:45:51.0 S1: There's a name for that. Oh, I'm like, Yeah, fish and pup you in a paper packet. That's
0:45:57.2 S2: Perfect. Yes, yes, yes.
0:45:59.4 S1: Yes. I love to do that too, although now with the silicone pouches, I sometimes do it in that 'cause it's easier to have tried that.
0:46:07.3 S2: Yeah, I'm
0:46:07.6 S1: Just nice 'cause you can stuff anything in that still complete and they're Featherston. See what's happening. I love that.
0:46:14.8 S2: I'm gonna try that. That's a good idea.
0:46:17.5 S1: Alright, so the cake, we're basically the basics of making the cake...
0:46:21.7 S2: Okay, so you're gonna have... I always like just if you can get farm fresh eggs, use Farm Fresh because the flavor is just so much better, you're gonna chop your well, nuts, you're gonna get orange drying candy, if you can find that somewhere. But what I do is, of course, I'm Southern California, so I have access to so many oranges, you can take your oral, cut it into strips and soak it in, layer it between sugar in a little low up and just let it candy for a week. So I always have candied orange strips, I'll drop it in my to as well, so you're gonna chop up your candied orange rind, use the ammanford, you can make it from launched dried almonds if you want, but you can also just go buy it, which I just go buy it, your sugar asses of your orange and a little bit of the juice, a little bit of cinnamon, and you're gonna just mix it all together, you don't have to do... You don't have to layer it, you don't have to do the eggs first and then slowly add the flower, just mix it all together, pouring two of your spring Wollaston T-K-pans, which parchment paper and then be spotter on the parchment paper.
0:47:36.7 S2: Yes, melts and you're gonna bake for about an hour at 350... 'cause I'm pretty dense. Okay, take it out and put it... You're gonna put these in the freezer and just keep them there. Yeah, just freeze overnight.
0:47:54.6 S1: Okay, so this is a two-day recipe, yes, you did give us a disclaimer about that, but I just wanna tease it all right, so the next day we take the cakes out of the freezer.
0:48:06.0 S2: And the reason is is because you're gonna be cutting it to get it clean edges and you want it to be really firm, so you're going to...
0:48:13.7 S1: That's always the part that gets people stuck on British baking show is not enough time to freeze your cool down layers. I always like panicking about that moment when I watch...
0:48:24.3 S2: Yes, and it's so important because of the cakes frozen, it's so easy to cut, so you can use also then your ings and toppings won't melt on a hot cake... Oh right. This cooking shows. Yeah, yeah. ARN, those cookies. If so, then you're just gonna take your Astraea red knife and you're gonna slightly take the whole top off of each of the cakes after you drop them out of your pants, of course, and then you're going to... With the first layer, you're gonna to saturate it with your apricot syrup, right, and then... Well, it's gonna be sitting there, you're going to roll out, take a little handful of maybe four ounces of your marzipan multan manipulated in your hands to get it nice and soft, roll it out into a then little quarter-inch role and try to just take your knife and eyeball it tested. It doesn't have to be perfect because your knife is gonna trim it anyway...
0:49:23.1 S1: No, I have a theater's rolling pin for that. Perfect. Okay, frail put a link into the show notes about that elpidio, love it. It's from food 52, but it has different Silicone rings on the ends of different thicknesses, so that also... I put that like good to get an even role also 'cause it's a flat... It's not a taper rolling and it's a flat rolling pin, and then it has the edges or wherever you... ROI won't roll. Center than whatever sickness. So
0:49:54.2 S2: That's perfect. I want that rolling
0:49:56.3 S1: On, it's that one of the better baking investments I've ever made.
0:49:59.4 S2: Oh, I love that, I love that. So now I have two things to get the CE through out, she's in the rolling pin.
0:50:04.2 S1: There you go, and I'll put both links in the show notes for all my listeners...
0:50:08.0 S2: Yeah, any tips that you have? Let's just add them all up. So the layer, so you lay, you just gently lift it up, lay it onto your cake, and then you put the second cake on top of that, and so I already got the top slide stuff, so you have a nice beautiful cake with the clean tops, the Mars depend, center, and then you're gonna saturate that with the rest of the rajaram and then put back in the fridge to get IT firm, keep that in there for a few hours just to get that hard, and then you're gonna once again take it out and you're gonna take your serrated knife, and if you have a little lazy Susan, a low mini cake spinner, that helps, but you're going to trim the sides
0:50:51.8 S1: As they have a nice flats
0:50:53.9 S2: On, so I was completely clean the marzipan, that's why it didn't have to be a perfect... That's gonna come off. Everything's coming off, and that timing means you have lots of good kick snacks.
0:51:03.9 S1: Right.
0:51:04.8 S2: Well, yeah, we don't... We usually eat it as we go... Yeah, okay. Just checking, tee, kind of shove it in our mouth as we go... Yes, and then you're going to take the rest of... Marzipan is gonna sit there, you're gonna take the rest of your Mars Ocampo it out to like a 12 to 13 inch diameter, and then lift it up carefully and lay it over the cake...
0:51:30.6 S1: Over the whole cake. So dripping down the sides
0:51:32.7 S2: Over the whole cake, triad then take your hands with use powdered sugar on your hands to keep them dry, she's potters when you're working with marzipan and a patented at Petit all the way around, take your knife and trim the bottom. Okay, and lift with your... Now you're gonna take it and you're gently gonna lift it onto your sheet pan that has the screen or... Yeah, screen or... Right, and if you have a little card at one of those cascaded cake rounds, I would suggest sliding that under the cake first and then lifting it onto your screen, which we can add that in the link as well in the podcast as well.
0:52:15.5 S1: You can find those on a lot of crofters that have wedding cake sections.
0:52:19.3 S2: They make everything easy, you're gonna make a piece of cardboard or you can piece the card or the one of your Akan and just transition cardboard. I kind of... I'm kind of a crafty crafty, and that's where you're going to take your gage and you're going to... If you have a save, I like to port through because then it kinda takes all the extra air bubbles out of it, microtonal, you hold it over the cake and you just pour through or you don't have to... You could just take it and just with a sketch with a big label poured over and let it completely cover the king
0:53:02.2 S1: And just a... No, that the gas, you're gonna mix the GAAS, you're gonna freeze it for one hour so it cools down a bit, and then poured over right
0:53:10.3 S2: Now, you're not gonna call the ganassi... Sorry. Yeah, freezer after it. So you're gonna pour the warm Ganesh that you know it's pretty, it's... You wanna do it pretty quick while it's still liquid, and you're gonna use a unlikely just keep scoops falling in over for an IT swirling and it's just gonna drip, drip, drip. And the reason why you're using the sheet pan with the screen is 'cause of the upright, so catches...
0:53:34.7 S1: What did I do with all the drip, it always seems so wasteful to me, is that another snack to chocolate.
0:53:40.8 S2: Well, yeah, hopefully you have children. Right, and you just kind of on a... You don't know you're in in for yourself. Right. Well, of course, like me, I'm just... Yeah.
0:53:51.6 S1: That's why you have extra pockets in your chef coats... Right? For all the ASEAN.
0:53:57.0 S2: If it's Chocolate. If it's chocolate or marzipan, right? Right.
0:54:00.9 S1: So no, no. Finish cake. You put in the freezer for about an hour.
0:54:04.2 S2: Now you put it in the right, you're just gonna harden it up and then it's gonna be just beautiful as far as the garnish, you can make any type of garnish that you want and put a little bit of side of it, but... You're gonna be transported to heaven with this kit.
0:54:21.9 S1: Looks beautiful. The picture you sent me looks amazing, so the full recipe will be in the show notes for all my listeners with all the measurements and all the detail, Sunder gave us a quick version of with some of the tips and tricks and making it... 'cause there's certainly some tips and tricks, this might be my... Sometimes I take a baking ambition for my birthday in August, so this might be an August bake for me, 'cause it's a little ambitious of a baking project, especially with no one around.
0:54:50.4 S2: It's a little bit of a project, but when you've made it, it's not... Yeah.
0:54:58.0 S1: That's how I feel. I mean, last year, my birthday baking project where Canalside, I've had the tens and the beeswax for a number of years, and finally... One birthday recently, I was like, Alright, this year, I'm gonna do it in the first batch, didn't come out quite right, second batch, got it taken up and figured out
0:55:16.5 S2: And... It's very soul-satisfying. Yeah, to get to do something that's beautiful and something that you desire and that takes a little bit of effort, and you know what I mean? It's psychologically. Anything that takes effort. We love more.
0:55:33.0 S1: That's true, that's true. So that was a snippet of wisdom, we talked about so many things in this conversation, Sandra, I'm curious, if there's one thing you want our listeners to really walk away with besides the delicious recipe from this conversation in this episode... What would that be? Be gentle
0:55:54.6 S2: With people. Be gentle because we're all like onions and there's so many layers and we just don't know what each one of those layers, there's wonderful. They're sad, there's heartache, there's just broken hearts or sphere, there's so many layers to a human being and just be gentle.
0:56:15.1 S1: I love that. Thank you so much, Sandra, for sharing your stories and your recipes with us today, to all our listeners, I hope you enjoyed this episode of women in food and got a bit of inspiration for your next meal. A last request, if you could go over to iTunes or whatever app you're using to listen and give us a rating and review, it's a simple act that helps us a ton. Once again, thank you for accompanying me on this delicious adventure, join me around the table for our next episode and get ready to eat!