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Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar in for Allison Stewart. Food is a necessity, but when it's made by someone who loves you, it can be a real gift. If you love making and receiving gifts of food, or hey, if food is your love language, you may want to whip something together to tell someone you're thinking about them. For this week's installment of our Food for Thought series we are joined by Elle Simone Scott. She's a food stylist and a test cook on the PBS show, America's Test Kitchen, and her new cookbook is called Food Gifts: 150 Plus Irresistible Recipes for Crafting Personalized Presents. In it there aren't just recipes, there are pathways to help home cooks come up with dishes for different circumstances, like meal trains, like events, like holidays, and also, and I think crucially, how to package and present them in a way that takes the offering to the next level. Elle Simone Scott, welcome to WNYC.

Elle Simone Scott: Thank you for having me. That's quite an introduction.

Kousha Navidar: Well, the book deserves it. Trust me.

Elle Simone Scott: Thank you.

Kousha Navidar: You write that you grew up in "a food gifting household", what did that look like?

Elle Simone Scott: Well, I grew up in a family where every weekend after church we would potluck, and so that was essentially the way we gave food as a gift. Everyone was responsible for bringing something, but we'd always bring something a little extra special. Even though my grandmother would bring, I don't know, maybe the mushroom rice and collard green, she'd also bring something special on the side for everyone. That's how we grew up giving food as gifts, by potlucking.

Kousha Navidar: Do you remember something specific that your grandmother used to bring that was extra special that sticks with you?

Elle Simone Scott: Well, everything she made was extra special, but my Aunt Loretta would bring cakes. Those were her specialties. Her pound cake was exceptionally good. I'm not a fan of German chocolate cake, but everyone raved over her German chocolate cake.

Kousha Navidar: Oh, interesting.

Elle Simone Scott: She'd always surprise us with an extra cake. We never knew what it would be, but we'd always have one.

Kousha Navidar: You write in the book about the specific occasions to give food, and while there are too many to write about, can you take us through some of the main categories? I remember there's one page where it's a four-by-four grid and there's holiday celebration, helping hands, and going all out. Can you take us over a quick overview of those?

Elle Simone Scott: Sure.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. There's holiday first. What makes that a good occasion to go special?

Elle Simone Scott: Well, I think holidays are more obvious because you're visiting family members, and in most cultures, you don't go to visit anyone empty handed, right?

Kousha Navidar: Right.

Elle Simone Scott: During the holiday, you could always take a traditional bottle of wine or something like that, but taking something nice like some homemade coquito or some simple syrups for cocktails, the things that happen after holiday dinner. I think holidays are always a special time to make something very seasonally specific and working with seasonal ingredients.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. The other three, just to go through them quickly, you've got celebrations, you've got helping hands, like a meal train for someone who's in need, and the going all out. How did you come up with these categories? What are the guiding principles that you thought of for separating them out?

Elle Simone Scott: Sure. When we were thinking about giving gifts that were food-centric, we were thinking about why people would want to receive food gifts. I myself being a cancer thriver, I was thinking a lot about the times where I was not able to cook and my family was visiting and people from America's Test Kitchen, my coworkers, brought food over. It was basically constant meal train. That was a particular chapter that I felt very special adding to the book for people who are having these experiences or just birthing people who have new babies. Occasions like moving into your new apartment, celebrations like birthdays, children's birthdays. It really turned out to be a limitless opportunity.

Kousha Navidar: Can you talk a little bit more about that personal aspect that you bring to the meal train specifically? What was it like for you building out that section of the book based on your own experiences?

Elle Simone Scott: Well, it made me be much more thoughtful about the food gifts because it wasn't simply just bringing food to someone who might be in need of some extra assistance. It was how can we make that experience as easy as possible as well?

Kousha Navidar: Oh, interesting.

Elle Simone Scott: Not a lot of time in the kitchen, or if you only have someone coming to help you for a certain amount of time per day, can we create meals that are easy to prepare or easy to store. Those were the guiding principles for the meal train.

Kousha Navidar: Were there specific meals that really stood out to you in your experience that meant a lot to you?

Elle Simone Scott: Absolutely. The ramen definitely stood out for me because that was my comfort food. When you're going through treatments, there are a lot of things that are intolerable in terms of food and taste. For me, ramen was a go-to. I could eat it anytime, any place. I still love it to this day. I've always been a ramen fan. The ramen was my particular-- and also the ginger syrup because ginger ale is something that works very well for me, so those two recipes were my [unintelligible 00:05:33].

Kousha Navidar: Let's go into some more of the recipes, and if you're just joining us, we're talking to Elle Simone Scott who just came out with Food Gifts: 150 Plus Irresistible Recipes for Crafting Personalized Presents. Maybe we can also talk about breakfast a little bit. You have a recipe for Earl Gray baked oatmeal in a jar, which I love. Under what circumstances do you gift this and how much you gift something like that?

Elle Simone Scott: I mean, these are perfect gifts for people who are probably just moving into a new home. Everything is packed away. You want to give them something that they can fix immediately. They don't have to go digging through the boxes to find all of their kitchen materials or all of their spices and ingredients. That's pretty ideal, for someone transitioning, moving, traveling, those are great ideas for them.

Kousha Navidar: What are some things to keep in mind if you're making something? We talked about a meal train before. You talked about making it easy for somebody to handle. How about if you're making a dish for a meal train, do you need to think big picture like, I need a protein, a carb, a vegetable, and a dessert, or is that overthinking things? How would you suggest approaching it in that sense?

Elle Simone Scott: I think that might be overthinking things just a little. When you're gifting these sorts of things to someone, usually it's out of necessity. They're in a position where they need a shift from the normal activity, and so you're really just trying to fulfill the need and also think specifically about the person. If this person did just move, then they obviously don't have access to all of their cooks tools, things that they normally-- so you want to try and give them something that is really going to make their situation better, not more complicated. Sometimes thinking of meals in the traditional way can complicate things just a little bit.

Kousha Navidar: Totally. I also really liked the sections on care packages. What are things that are good to send by mail?

Elle Simone Scott: Anything that's already prepackaged.

[laughter]

Elle Simone Scott: I mean, when I was in college, I loved getting care packages. I've never been much of a candy eater. I've always loved my calories and savory foods, so my mom would go to Trader Joe's and send me cans of dolmades and these sorts of things that can be stored. When you're sending a care package, you don't want something that's perishable. You want to think about it having shelf life because you're not going to eat it all at one time. The whole goal is to make a care package stretch.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. You mentioned college. This is a big college graduation weekend.

Elle Simone Scott: Yes, it is.

Kousha Navidar: What are some things you can make a gift out of if you're going to celebrate a recent college grad or you're going to a graduation party, any ideas for good things to bring?

Elle Simone Scott: That's a really good question. I would gift a new college graduate probably a cookbook. This will be the first time that they are cooking for themselves probably full-time, no longer eating campus food. I would probably give them spice blends, something to start off their kitchen. Yes, some spice blends, maybe some other dried items. Things to get the kitchen started.

Kousha Navidar: To build it up, right?

Elle Simone Scott: Yes.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. That's a great point. They build it up. They get a cookbook. Let's say that people are rifling through your cookbook that just came out. Is there a recipe you want to make sure people try from the book?

Elle Simone Scott: I would say try the stuffed shells. Since we're talking about college grads, I think it's a simple enough recipe that doesn't require so many ingredients that a college grad would successfully be able to pull that off and be very satisfied.

Kousha Navidar: Interesting. Do you have any advice, we're close to time here, but I want to make sure that we talk about the presentation because that is such an important part of the book. When it comes to presentation, what's the wow factor? What do you find tends to impress people the most?

Elle Simone Scott: When you gift someone something, and it can be reusable, speaking of the stuffed shells, you'll notice in the book we gift it with an apron wrapped around the container, and there's a microplane grater in there. These are all things that someone will continue to use for a very long time. Gifting in a way that can be enjoyed for a lifetime is very important.

Kousha Navidar: I also love how you use jars. Can you talk about that a little bit? In the book you talk about strawberry jam, tea blends, banana caramel, pie in a jar. What are some straightforward tips for repurposing or just thinking about how you can use jars in the presentation itself?

Elle Simone Scott: Sure. Making sure you clean your jars on the inside very well, because all my jars are repurposed, right? You don't want any residual taste. Cleaning them out very well, getting the stickiness off from whatever label was previously on that jar, and just making sure that it's clean and that the lids fit appropriately and that they're not rusted.

Kousha Navidar: How do you get the stickiness off, by the way? Because I always wonder about that on the outside.

Elle Simone Scott: Well, there's a thing called Goo Gone. You can use-

Kousha Navidar: Okay, Goo Gone. [chuckles]

Elle Simone Scott: -Goo Gone, right. You can use that, but it has a little oily. In the book, there are some tips about how to get those labels off, for sure.

Kousha Navidar: How do you zhuzh up jars? Let's say it's just a mason jar with that metal-- You mentioned aprons around the shells, for instance.

Elle Simone Scott: Sure.

Kousha Navidar: Are there some quick tips for how to zhuzh up the jars?

Elle Simone Scott: Yes. You can always wrap the jar in a tea towel and tie a ribbon around it. That way, when they open it, they'll be surprised with the contents.

Kousha Navidar: Oh, yes.

Elle Simone Scott: You can always do something like paint the jar, anything that matches your particular creative expression. As a food gifter, you might also be an artist, right?

Kousha Navidar: Maybe. Yes. [chuckles]

Elle Simone Scott: The point of the book is that sky's the limit. However it comes across to you.

Kousha Navidar: Wonderful. Very quickly, you're a food stylist in addition to cooking. What do you feel like you are able to bring from your experience that other chefs or bakers might miss, not thinking specifically about food style?

Elle Simone Scott: I think one of the things that I bring to the table as a food stylist is that I see the food first, more than anything. It was a lot easier for me to look at things like the jars, the lentil soup, and create those layers in the jars. I don't know. It's very hard to disconnect the two. I don't know. I think I'm always thinking food forward, and so that always tends to come through no matter what book I'm working on.

Kousha Navidar: Yes, totally, and it adds that special wowness to it too, which you can definitely see in the photos. We'll have to stop it there. My guest has been Elle Simone Scott, the author of Food Gifts: 150 Plus Irresistible Recipes for Crafting Personalized Presents. Take a look at the book, you'll see beautiful ways to present gifts for the people you love in your life through food. Elle, thank you so much for coming.

Elle Simone Scott: Thank you for having me.

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