Edition 14/15: The One Where We Ate Together
My food philosophies and everything about the first ITK pop-up
If I haven’t already blasted your social enough… let me tell ya once more. Last Monday In the Kitchen hosted its first dinner event: 4 courses, 24 people. This was also my largest and most intricate dinner to date! Woof. It was a great time.
My body is sore, but my brain and heart is craving more! - Edgar Allan DPoe
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Look I love my cats and the comfort of my 38 open tabs, but there’s something even more magical about being around other humans doing the thing you love. Imagine if your love language was “Acts of Service” and then you got it at an exponential scale. That’s what it was like.
It was also a refreshing new challenge. There were more moving pieces than the crypt puzzle my dad bought me and the night left me with a dose of adrenaline I can only compare to the one you get right after a steep rollercoaster drop.
The come down of the day was met by an itch to move onto the next challenge: a new rabbit hole, the next pop up, menu redesign, a new hairdo. You know. Classic ontothenextone.
But I promised myself not to jump too quickly… and I really wanted to share the moment with all the readers that couldn’t be there. This edition is my attempt to scrapbook the experience.
Let’s take it from the top, folks. And of course, let’s dig in!!!
PS- the next pop up is June 5th and Japanese rabbit hole edition is upon us. Just like Knope, one can do many things at the same time!
Designing the Menu
But nothing like the movie.
Peruvian food is magical. It’s rich in flavor, history and passion - a trifecta I’ve come to appreciate the deeper I get into the culinary depths. The TLDR is this: The Inca Empire revolutionized agriculture and 4000 potato varietals (+ hundreds of years) later, Peru became a melting pot of so many cultures - Japanese, Chinese, African and more. The combination of it all makes for a rich and diverse culinary tapestry that is still reflected in the cuisine today. This is of course oversimplified and if you’re interested in learning more, I suggest reading the work of chef Gaston Acurio or this wonderful primer from Serious Eats.
It’s also the food I grew up eating. Half of my family is Peruvian and I would say 85% of my meals, excluding anything eaten in a cafeteria, had Peruvian elements.
But I’m also a curious culinary cat so just eating it wasn’t enough.
Throughout my life you could find me in the kitchen, usually climbing things to get a better view or to reach something. Kitchen life isn’t easy when you’ve been under 5 ft for half of it.
I shadowed my mom and grandma all the time. But only in the last few years did I gain the confidence to cook a lot of the same dishes myself. It sort of feels like a language you grew up hearing but never spoke. Once you take the leap to speaking, everything changes.
Through this pop-up, I gave myself the permission to define my own voice. Some tradition, some experimentation and most definitely some weirdness. In the process of it all, I learned how food can be our mirror: of personality, of culture, of our stories, of creativity.
As I expand on this insight, I’ve come to realize it was reflected in my mom and grandma’s cooking all along too. The best way I can describe it is to give you an example.
One of my favorite Peruvian dishes is sancochado, which is a soup made with the unique pairing of mint and meat. Yum. Growing up, my mom served it in a giant salad bowl - it’s loaded with pieces of whole cabbage, chunks of yuka, sweet potato and other carb filled goodness that warranted the use of very large serving vehicles. Sometimes I’d get lucky and there would be surprise nuggets of bone marrow in it. My mom indulged this craving with every visit back home. It always ended in meat sweats. But in a great way.
Then my grandma served me the same meal in 2015 and I didn’t even recognize it. Instead of piling everything into the biggest bowl we could find, she served every element separately. This is the traditional way, she said. It was still incredible, but felt like an entirely different experience. There was no marrow but plenty of sweats.
Here’s the part where I explain why their soup is more than just soup.
My mom is the queen of efficiency - she takes the essence of Peruvian food and turns it into her own version, which usually means doing it much faster but nonetheless incredibly nourishing. Her food makes you do that shut eye and deep breathe combo - you just want to take it all in. She cooks confidently but not too seriously. She has the perfect amount of emotional connection to it.
My grandma, Olga, on the other hand, relishes in the traditional elements. She cooks to honor the legacy and labors over the details. There are rules to the way you marinade the chicken, lore about rice and so many more details I can expand on some future piece. Her arsenal is incredibly deep, but over the years she’s stuck to a handful of traditional go-to’s religiously. They’re so delicious you can spend a lifetime thinking about each one of them. I know I do.
In both you’ll find hundreds of years of tradition, but in each you’ll find their own take on it. Some sort of hybrid of their personality and tradition mirrored back to us in the form of food.
It also makes me wonder how much of the food I thought was “traditional” was actually my family cutting corners or making it their own??? Like a game of tradition telephone. I guess tradition is subjective.
This pop up gave me the opportunity to explore my roots and remix them at the same time. I not only learned a ton about my story but also got to create my own. It was incredible.
Idk about you, but I’m starting to believe meat soup holds a lot more than meat sweats.
Roots and Remixes
When it came to actually picking the food on the menu, I wanted to find the balance between tradition and experimentation. At first, this was not intentional. But every time I made a traditional Peruvian dish, I couldn’t help but to switch up an element based on my own experiences or circumstances. Again with the mirroring!!! This theory has strong legs.
Take “causa” for example. A classic. It’s the Peruvian version of 7 layer dip, but with yellow potato as a base and ~4 layers. Striking resemblance.
To get into the world of causa best practices meant getting deep into our family archives. I’m not sure when, but my mom typed up all of the written recipes into a PDF for generations to come. This was a heroic act, followed by a comedic one when she decided to type the whole thing in comic sans. Hundreds of pages of recipes in comic sans.
Still makes me chuckle.
We laughed about how the recipes would reference made up quantities (like as if we have that brand that comes in some weird form factor that can only be found in Peru in the 50s) and I tried to troubleshoot tastes with her via Facetime. It worked most of the time!!
When it came to testing out the causa, I referred to the comic sans recipe bible, but quickly made some modifications. Most notably, I ran the potatoes through a ricer (instead of mashing). There’s science here! I also ditched the form factor. This was due to my impatience, not science. The mold had a 2 day lead time and I didn’t. I turned them into bite-sized balls instead. I loved this take and decided to debut it at the pop-up:
By the end, almost every course was remixed in its own way. Or not. Some things just stayed true to form. Don’t mess with perfection, as Reuben says while biting into his 3 scoop vanilla ice cream cone with rainbow sprinkles. The same theory applied.
Top left Seco- a traditional peruvian braised beef made with a cilantro and parsley sauce and finished with salsa de cebolla. It was served with Olga style rice.
Top right Aji Amarillo (Peruvian yellow pepper) that I have created my own secret sauce from. One day I hope to package it for you all.
Bottom left - Spring veggies (some grilled) with an herby labneh - couldn't resist the labneh.
Bottom right - Hearts of palm ceviche with fennel and avo (the Californian in me)
Excluded: Canchita (well actually you can see one behind the hearts of palm), the panna cotta (later in the edition you’ll see it), and Mom’s fork.
The Actual Menu Part:
One of my favorite parts was designing the menu experience to reflect the threads I wanted to showcase: storytelling, tradition, bite sized knowledge bits, language and weirdness. They all got to shine. It was fun to translate my brain into a more refined form factor. Turns out my design skills go beyond Arial captioned memes (but I love those too!!!)
It Takes a Village to Feed a Village
It was one thing to dream up a menu or even execute it for a few hungry friends for experiment runs. It’s a whole other to do it at scale. I learned this the lucky way - because I had tons of support and guidance through it. Thank goodness for the Peruvian importers and the Incas, lol.
But also, thank goodness for the village of support I had to bring these ideas to reality.
Looking back, I believe the best dishes were those designed collaboratively. Like the lucuma panna cotta that went through a few rounds of experiments with me, Vysh and Shail until we landed on the perfect gelatin to lucuma ratio. Or the hearts of palm ceviche tasting with Fraser that turned our mouths into an acidic wasteland. I’ve since improved the recipe. It was so fun to share tradition with friends and even more fun to reimagine them together.
I was lucky to have gotten some of the brain power of two pros: Anand and Samir. They gave creative tweaks, honest feedback and explained how to pace the courses. It never hurts to ask the obvious questions.
Through the prep and service, Namiko helped me for countless hours. She’s an insanely talented cook and was a calming energy I never knew I needed. Her patience and humility are values I’m trying to carry with me into whatever project I take on next.
Day of, I had the help of Carlito, Sabrina, Kavita, Chris, and Vysh. A friend even Doordashed me a bottle of tequila day of. I was fueled by so many.
It goes without saying that my family was the secret ingredient in all of this too.
Here’s the page in my scrapbook where I get to publicly thank this wonderfully talented humans:
The Village
This is the part where I thank all of you!!! I still can’t believe the event sold out in 48 hours. And all 24 people showed up. SF is hella flakey 😂. To everyone who couldn’t attend but spread the world or just showed me love/support, I also want to thank you. This village rolls deep. If you can help me find a location in your city, I’m so down to host another! I mean it.
Seeing smiling faces and strangers eating the same meal my grandma would make is a sense of fulfillment I’ll never capture. Food really transcends beyond the plate. This is proof!!!
These moments will always hold a special place in my heart.
Saving Space for Creativity
A key part of every project should be involving your weirdest self. This is best done right before the launch. Here’s my theory: Right before the big day you’ve spent hours marinating unique ideas but they kept getting de-prioritized… Naturally you’re focused on executing the big ticket items. But right at the end all the constraints of time and resources can actually turn into the perfect breeding ground for magic. Ride it out!
From Pop-Up to Edition 14
A couple of days before showtime, I was inspired to turn the event itself into an Edition. Wouldn’t it be fun to bring the digital weirdness to a dinner? My answer is most definitely yes.
I’d like to iterate a bit more on the concept of a live edition. Maybe live stream it? Maybe just a short video of the night? Anything you’d like to see next time?
In this live Edition, I injected some play and venn diagrams into the mix. During the dessert course, I served the panna cotta on top of venn diagram and then I asked folks to move it off, revealing the top circle:
It says “tradition” on it. As you may have noticed, this pop-up was about my philosophy and perspective about the intersection of tradition and experimentation. I’m grateful that the intro to the last course was captured on video (click to watch it).
In that same video I talk more about my broader vision for the night and give lots of shoutouts to the crew. Too much love to be spread over a single edition!
Vlogging Fail
I thought it would be funny/cool to record myself throughout the process. Some vlogs here and there that when beautifully stitched together would tell an exclusive behind the scenes story of my first pop up.
Lol it was nothing like that. I would rate it a 8 on the cringe scale and a 0 on the entertainment scale. Oops. Sorry folks, no vlogging in this edition. I’ll keep trying though.
Some other things I learned that may be applicable to your daily cooking routine:
Deli containers are your best friends. Forget tupperware, all you need is a healthy stack of these. They’re perfect for prep, stack amazingly, and are incredibly handy measuring tools. You can buy them online, in bulk at a restaurant supply store, or just collect them slowly from your takeout orders. I always have these in stock and used up every last one for the pop-up. Make sure to date whatever you put inside.
Vitamix is the best. Wow, I use to be a Ninja gal, but I was converted quickly. Whatever definition you have of smooth will change once you run it through a Vitamix. They were on sale last week in Costco! Hopefully you can still snag one if you’re in the market.
Prep, prep, prep. Wow, what a difference it makes. I can’t tell you how many dinner parties I’ve spent in the kitchen and without the actual guests. Sometimes this is intentional, but more often than not, it leads to very hungry guests and a frazzled DPo. Instead of cooking 2 hours before the event, start the day before or earlier that day and get everything close to the finish line wherever possible. You’ll actually be able to enjoy time with your guests. And your partner will have less dishes. This is what we call a win, win, win.
What’s next, DPo?
Feeding folks the food and knowledge they never knew they needed has moved from a passion to a purpose. I love digitally feeding you all, but the physical realm offers lots of deliciousness I can’t quite capture behind your screen. I plan on doing both.
My next pop-up is June 5th! I’ll be bringing my mom over and together we’re planning a Comida Casera (home food) night. Basically, all the things I grew up eating from my Peruvian mom, except some remixes, because I can’t resist. It’s going to be a great time! If you want to come to SF, you can stay with us on one condition: You help prep 😂
What We’re Cooking
I’ve migrated a majority of my cooking pics to Instagram because saving them for Editions was too hard. Delayed gratification is not for DPo!!!
Here’s one of the latest:
That’s it for Edition 14/15. See you sooooon!
With lots of philosophical love,
DPo