April 20, 2026 • 66 mins
This cookbook, stirred up by two women in Manhattan in the early 1980s, helped change how America cooks and eats for the fresher (including a lot of vinaigrette), but their success was hampered by the era. Anney and Lauren explore how Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso created The Silver Palate cookbooks, and how they lost The Silver Palate shop and packaged products.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Saber production of iHeartRadio. I'm Annie Reethe.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And I'm Lorn vogel Baum, and today we have an
episode for you about the Silver Palette cookbook and related
books and the store. Yeah, that whole thing.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Oh yes, we have quite a lot to get into.
Was there any particular reason this was on your mind?
Laurd Uh?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
This is a cookbook series that I grew up with
that my parents both referred to a lot, And it
was just both of their birthdays over the past month
or so, and I don't know, so I was just
thinking about them and going like, yeah, what about those books.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Yeah, and people have a lot of thoughts and fond
memories of those books.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Oh yeah, yeah, I am. This was a very like
nostalgic and emotional episode for me. And also I really
didn't know anything about the humans who created them, and
so right like, the deeper I got into it, the
more I was like, oh, I have more emotions. Okay, Yeah,
(01:14):
it's great. It's great though.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, it's a pretty great story. It is four past episodes.
I would say check out other episodes we've done on cookbooks.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Cookbooks and cooking personalities. I think Julia Child and James
Beard are like specifically applicable.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yes, but yeah, yes, well we do have a lot
to get into. So I guess that brings us to
our question. The Silver Palette Cookbook what is it?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Well? Uh, the Silver Palette Cookbook is a cookbook first
published in nineteen eighty two that really helped bring a
like advansive metropolitan concept of food and cooking into American
home kitchens. It was instrumental in like a larger cultural
(02:10):
movement encouraging exploration of ingredients and techniques from around Europe,
not just the UK, in France and beyond even that
were you know, things that were new to a lot
of people in the US at the time, and also
like furthermore, approaching them with a curiosity and a sense
(02:31):
of play. It was middle class America's friendly guide to
nouvelle cuisine, you know the concept of the nicest, freshest
ingredients you can get prepared relatively simply, with nods to
the regions where they're from to allow those ingredients to shine.
It helped bridge, or maybe evolve, the canned mid century
(02:57):
dinner party cooking sort of thing through the fun but
classical Julia Child era into what felt at the time,
like a very modern, like fully technicolor future.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Do you have do you have a copy of it?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
All three here in the studio.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
They look cute. Just from looking at the pictures of them,
they seem, I don't know, they seem really approachable and cute.
They are.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
They're they're very charming for for a number of reasons,
Like they've got these really dear illustrations throughout and they're
very friendly. Yeah right, so okay, So this book and
the two follow ups were co written by a pair
of women who a few years prior had started up
a tiny gourmet grocery and takeaway shop also called the
(03:56):
Silver Palette in New York City in like the posh
Upper West Side. More on them in the history section,
but briefly. Sheila Lukens was born Sheila Gail Block in
Philadelphia in nineteen forty two, spent her childhood in Connecticut,
went to school for art in New York, and got
into cooking while living overseas in London for her husband's job.
(04:20):
She trained with chefs there and in France, more as
like a dilettante than as a serious career consideration, and
then wound up back in New York City with her
husband and their two young daughters in nineteen seventy seven.
Our other author, Julie Rosso, was born in Michigan in
the mid nineteen forties I believe forty four, but it's
(04:41):
not heavily publicized, and went to school there. After graduating,
she immediately moved to New York City, turned down a
job with CIA, got into the fashion industry on the
design and advertising side, and by the mid seventies she
was working as an advertiser director for this big textiles company.
(05:03):
There are fewer, like really concrete details about her, but
I have this idea that when the two of them met,
Lukens was just this like very creative and slightly overwhelmed
human who was just really just really into food and cooking,
and Rosso was a super driven, very Manhattanite type of
(05:28):
like brassy, bon vivant business executive.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Yeah, they do have that kind of vibe.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Yeah, I think about them. Both of them have a
little bit of the vibe. But yeah, yeah, yes, I
really really wish I could have gone to a party
with them in like nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Yes, me too.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
The shop, the Silver Palette, has since closed, but a
line of branded shelf stable food products carries on without
lukens and vasso. The company, called Silver Palate Kitchens, currently
offers pasta and pizza, sauces, salad dressings, rough milled oatmeal
and jarred olives, marachino cherries, capers, and cocktail onions. They
(06:19):
also run a few other packaged food brands that do
other cereals, condiments and sauces. Yeah, and okay, a little
bit about this book, so if you've never interacted with it,
its cover is done in maroon and white with this
crosshatch pattern in the background and in a photo of
the Silver Palette storefront just brimming with like beautiful foods
(06:41):
and these lush live plants, so many pogonias. And the
sections in the book take you through appetizers, soups, pastas,
main courses, vegetables, salads, cheeses, breads, desserts, and brunch. It's
so it's so nineteen eighties, it's so nineteen eighty. The
(07:01):
book is the paperback version, which is the common one,
is three hundred and sixty two pages, including the index,
with some three hundred plus recipes. The pages are printed
mainly in black and white, with no photography, but a
lot of illustrations this right, sort of like folksy hand
(07:22):
drawn vibe that's more garnish than explanatory. All hand drawn
by Lukens. The pages are laid out in this two
column format, with a large column at the outside of
each page and a skinny one on the inside, like
two thirds to one third thereabouts. The large outer columns
contain the recipes, and the inner ones are reserved for
(07:45):
notes about various things, advice for entertaining, instructions on how
to select special ingredients like good olives, quotes from various writers,
suggested menus and drink pairings, stuff like that, and those
inner notes are often printed in this nice, deep red
to contrast with the rest of the text and match
(08:08):
the maroon on the cover. They in fact start the
preface with a quote in red from a brilliant sovereign
the discovery of a new dish does more for the
happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star. Yeah, yeah,
(08:31):
And so in this book they talk about celebrating fine
ingredients and also what they call peasant food, meaning like
homie dishes meant to be shared. I want to give
you a quote from that introduction that's really resonating with
me from today's perspective, from Lucan's and rosso like our country,
(08:52):
our food is truly a blending of ethnic traditions, reflecting
a mixture of heritages that we call our own. And
that was a lot of it too, like bringing in
the multiculturalness of New York City and trying to represent
it a little bit in the ingredients and the preparations
that they used and whatever it was that they were doing.
(09:15):
It was pretty effective. Like if you've ever wondered why
on Earth there was a whole decade from like the
late eighties to the mid nineties that was just purely
flavored with raspberry vineigarette and sun dried tomatoes. It's essentially this.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Book's fault or credit to this book, or either either one,
depending you can have different opinions.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
I'm being a little snarky, but no, but yes, yes,
credit or blame where to do whichever whichever way you
want to look at it. They did write two follow
up cookbooks, The Silver Palette Good Times Cookbook and The
New Basics, both along similar ish lines. We'll get into
those a little bit later on. Well, what about the
(10:08):
nutrition do not eat cookbooks? No matter how much food
you have spilled on them.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Alas, all right, well we have a number for you.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, yeah, sure. The Silver Palette Cookbook sold two hundred
and fifty thousand copies its first year, which was a
record for nineteen eighty two. I think it's up to
over three million copies today. And those other two books
that they wrote together have sold over a million each,
(10:46):
so a lot, a lot. Yeah, oh yeah, and that's
not even counting what they published on their own.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah. I want to ask my mom if she has these.
I bet she does. She has like a whole shelf books.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah, it seems likely.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
It seems likely, and we're going to get into the
history of why it seems likely we are.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
But first we're going to take a quick break for
a word from our sponsors. Am we're back, Thank you sponsor, Yes,
thank you. So, first of all, shout out to Amy
Levitt's article over at Eater the Silver Palette Cookbook changed
(11:37):
home cooking and pesto consumption as we know it, which
was really helpful in putting.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Together this outline. Yeah, yes, all right. So in nineteen
seventy one, Shila Lukens started a catering business out of
her apartment kitchen located in a very nice apartment in
a building on Central Park West called the Dakota.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah. To specify, the Dakota is this historic luxury apartment building,
like from the late eighteen hundreds that is big and
gorgeous and its apartments are variably ridiculous. Like John Lennon
and Yoko Ono were her neighbors at the time.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Yeah, And and her and her husband actually owned two
apartments in the place. Yeah, one for them and one
for their kids.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Yes, which actually is kind of related to the I
don't know the aspiration aspect of this book, which we're
going to get more into.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Apparently they really got them for a steal.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Good for them, Good for them. Luken's was a court
on Blue London graduate and at the point was married
with two children. She was fairly well traveled, particularly in Europe,
the Middle East and the Mediterranean, and those influences played
a role in the types of foods that she offered.
(13:13):
At first, she called her business the other Woman, Yes,
the other woman, with the slogan so delicious, so discreet, and.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
I deliver Oh my goodness, I know, I know.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Allegedly, her early clientele included a lot of young men
looking to impress women like see, look at this meal.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah, I'm capable of having a meal on the table.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Look what I can do. And in a lovely twist
of fate, one of the women who was impressed was
Julie Rosso. At the time, she was an ad director,
and after tasting Lucan's cooking, she hired her to cater
an event. Lukens made croissants with red and black raspberry use,
(14:01):
and this further impressed Rosso and the women struck up
a friendship. Looking for a change, Rosso suggested to Lucan's
that they can bind their talents and open a gourmet shop.
The story goes that at first Lucan shot her down.
She resisted for a long time.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
She was like, no, this is just a funsies thing
that I do. This is not a serious thing that
I do. Yeah, don't turn this into too much work
for me. But Rosso did not give up the idea,
and eventually she prevailed and the pair rented a small
property a block away from Luken's apartment in nineteen seventy seven.
(14:41):
Yeah at Columbus in seventy third Street, and very small,
like one hundred and sixty five square feet. Oh my gosh, yeah,
I know, right, yeah, yeah, that's like fifteen point three
square meters. That's so tiny.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
I covered my mouth.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
I was aghast, like they could not have possibly built
out a kitchen there. So at first they kept cooking
in Lucan's apartment.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yes, they would then haul everything over to the shop
before they even opened. They were getting positive buzz when
they were featured in a peace highlighting businesses transforming the area.
The who penned that article ended up naming the then
(15:35):
not officially named restaurant after sampling some of the food
at a preview, a silver palate. So this person later
wrote she did so quote on the spur of the moment,
and without monetary compensation. Her name Florence Fabricant. It's so good,
(15:59):
that's excellent.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, more like fabric can.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Hey, I was gonna say, you can't fabricate this. See
listeners were always cooking on our own the wavelength and
apologies for it. Yeah yeah, yes, anyway, very good, That's
what I'll say. Luken's and Rosso originally wanted to name
(16:24):
it after a dinersling a seaboard Deluxe, meaning to go,
but yeah, they went with silver palette. And another example
of for twodous timing. They opened the doors of their
restaurant the same day as a free New York Philharmonic
concert was happening in Central Park. It was a hot
(16:45):
summer day. The ac at the restaurant was busted, but
people in the area that were going to the concert
maybe they read this piece about their little shop. They
were eager to spend about fifty dollars a person for
food to eat while in the park watching the concert, Like,
you know, have a picnic in the concert, yeah, n
(17:06):
in the park, yeah, and watch a concert. They offered
items like salmon, moose, and pati and allegedly they sold
out of everything.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah, supposedly them selling out of everything was not at
all uncommon. That was like basically every day. While browsing
through the book in preparation to do this episode, I
happened on a picnic menu inspired by this day called
the Concert in the Park Picnic. It recommends salmon moose
(17:38):
with black bread toasts, a veal roll, asparagus with blueberry vinigarette,
spicy sesame, noodles, assorted cheeses and fresh fruit, chocolate moose,
and cookies.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
I mean that does sound nice, right, very fancy, but nice.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
After their first year, they started up a kitchen in
an additional space that they rented behind the shop. Apparently
the Dakota building was not happy about them running a
kitchen at commercial volume.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
I can't imagine one.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah, no, no, Well, the next four years kept the
pair plenty busy.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Luken's continued to cook a variety of cuisines for the
shop and for catering gigs, while Rosso convinced customers to
try things that they may never have heard before.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Yeah. By all accounts, Rosso was always an amazing marketer.
But right in addition to takeaway dishes and desserts and
baked goods, they stalked things like imported sausages and cheeses,
you know. Like. The idea was generally to fill this
growing niche to curate food for people, and perhaps especially
(18:55):
working women, which was like low key and new thing
at the time, who wanted something good and interesting but
were too busy to go exploring or to make it themselves.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Yes, and the shop often offered dishes that were new
takes on something classically European. The first main course dish
they offered at their takeout shop was chicken Marbella, which
is still their most popular recipe today, Inspired by dishes
that they'd had in Spain. It featured chicken, green olives, capers,
(19:32):
and prunes.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah, it is hard to explain how pervasive this dish
would become at dinner parties later on in the nineteen eighties.
You can find it online, but briefly, it involves marinating
pieces of chicken, like chicken quarters or whatever, along with
the prunes, olives and capers overnight in olive oil and
red wine vinegar flavored with lots of garlic, oregano, and
(19:57):
bay leaves. Then you'd just roast the whole mess with
white wine in the pan and a sprinkle of brown
sugar of the chicken to give it a sort of
a lacquer.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Have you ever had this?
Speaker 2 (20:13):
I do not believe I have, but now I'm like, yeah,
that sounds great.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
I read a lot of reviews about it, and they
were generally pretty positive. They most of them were like,
I didn't think it would work, but it I'd like
to try it.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Yeah, yeah, no, there's I've got a lot of I've
got even more bookmarks than I had previously in my parents'
copies of these books here. But yeah, so this shop
was one of the starts of like the foody movement.
And we tend to find that term old fashioned and
(20:56):
a little bit snobby these days, but at the time
it was kind of liked like a joyful revelation. Also
note that although little shops like these are pretty abundant now,
and you know, like like concepts like like fresh market,
our whole foods have like plentiful takeaway options, let alone
your like normal everyday grocery store. But this was fairly pioneering.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Right, and they had enough success to open a second
business in nineteen seventy eight that offered a variety of
condiments like blueberry chut.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah, they began by canning a certain number of their
like popular homemade condiments for sale just in the shop,
you know, flavored vinegars, zucchini pickles, caramel sauce, stuff like that.
But in nineteen seventy nine they then contracted with a
local food packager so that they could expand production and
sell in other stores and catalogs as well.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
They started in sas Fifth Avenue, but soon have their
products and locations across the country.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Yeah, they got picked up by other companies like Creighton Beryl.
This arm of the business became Silver Palate Kitchens, Yes.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
And on top of that, they produced a newsletter complete
with Luken's.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Illustrations yet starting also in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
And this brings us to the book. Yes. In nineteen
eighty one, the pair had lunch with an editor from
Workman Publishing named Barbara Plum, also a great name, and
she asked them if they ever considered writing a book.
According to a twenty fifteen interview and Epicurius with Rosso,
(22:43):
she jumped at the opportunity, ignoring Luken's kicks under the
table and immediately lying that you know, yes, We're already
working on one. When the editor made it clear she
was interested like followed up. The pair got a bottle
of scotch and took a weekend to throw together in outline.
(23:05):
They continued working on it with the help of store
assistant Michael McLaughlin, until they arrived at the finished product,
complete with Luken's doodles and quotes.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
McLaughlin would go on to be a prolific food and
recipe writer in his own right too.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
So the first edition of the Silver Palette Cookbook was
published in nineteen eighty two. It took off pretty immediately,
thanks in part to a few things. Firstly, they sold
the book not only in bookstores, but at the storefronts
that carried their products. Workmen featured it as their book
(23:46):
club pic, which I kind of love because I don't
know how much of a thing that is anymore, but yeah, yeah.
And they had brand recognition due to those stores and
catalogs around the country carrying their products. Plenty of people
were familiar with the name, and it quickly became somewhat
(24:11):
of a marker of a certain type of sophistication and
encapsulation of Upper West Side New York lifestyles that Americans
were exposed to in various media. It was modern, It
was stepping away from cast roles that called for condensed soup,
but still accessible. It was very approachable. Like we said,
(24:32):
it was like a friend was talking to you. Yeah. Yes,
And while it did have some brand loyalty, it appealed
to people of all walks of life who might not
have ever heard of arugula but now knew what it
was and had a few simple recipes that they could
use it in. For a lot of people, the recipes
(24:54):
were something new and maybe did represent this life they'd
seen on TV or like to imagine or aspire to,
and these recipes were doable for them.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Yeah, Sometimes the ingredients might be hard to get a
hold of, but overall, these dishes were things that people
could manage. The recipes were meant to be a jumping
off point for readers to experiment with and mold to
their own taste and to what was available and doable
for them.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
That being said, a lot of the recipes were kind
of celebratory and for a crowd, so generally required a
bit of planning.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah. Yeah, Often they would include some kind of ingredient
that like, you know, like addressing that you had to
make first before you could start. You know, you have
to infuse your vinegar before you can make your vinegar
atte that you can add to your roasted vegetables. Kind
of kind of steps like that, but yeah, like again
(25:57):
in a friendly way, and a lot a lot of
these recipes were relatively simple but very flavorful. Take for example,
Duck with forty cloves of garlic. That is the name
of the recipe. What you do is you take you
take a duck and you roast a whole duck with
(26:21):
forty cloves of garlic. Then at the end you pureate
the garlic and make a sauce out of it with
sherry vinegar, black currant, liqueur, and a stick of butter.
The recipe serves two Oh.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
All right, so twenty garlic cloves of garlic? Ees?
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Yeah, yeah, right right. Not all forty cloves go into
the I think there's there's six clothes that are in
the duck. Anyway, I think that those are garnish. So
it's really only so I can't so it's really only
(27:04):
seventeen cloves of garlic per per person.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Oh only seventeen yeah, got it. Listen, Lauren, your vampire,
yourself would not be doing well.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Oh my goodness, that might be the dish that does
me in. But I will say at least the forty
cloves of garlic is right there in the in the
recipe title. There's also one just flipping through the book
that really buries the lead. It's called Linguidi with tomatoes
and basil, okay, And the description is explaining that it's
(27:42):
it's a fresh pasta sauce. You know, it's like only
really just warmed through with the heat of the cooked pasta,
and you're kind of going like, oh, that sounds so
light and lovely. And then you get to the ingredient
list and it calls for a pound of bree cheese
a pound a pound a pound, like you remove a
rind from the bree and then and then throw the
(28:03):
whole bree in chunks in along with like, yes, fresh
tomato and garlic, and a cup of fresh basil and
another cup of olive oil. And that is what you
put the pasta, the hot pasta onto and then toss. Wow,
for a pound and a half of pasta.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
I want to try it.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Oh, I want to try it desperately.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Yes, I'm invested. I'm a little confused, but I'm very invested.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Later, oh, one of them, I think it was Luken's,
did say that, you know, you can, you can cut
down that olive oil if you wanna, you can maybe
maybe maybe one of her kids. I'm not totally sure,
I'm sorry, but yeah, I was like, yeah, you can
cut down that olive oil to like a quarter cup
and be fine.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yeah, just a quarter cup. It's okay.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
But that being said, they did, they did tone it
down sometimes for this book.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
They did so. Garlic is kind of famously one of
their go to ingredients, and Lauren pointed out to me
before we started recording that in some interviews, Rosso was
prone to perhaps exaggeration, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Just excitement. I think enthusiasm, you.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Know, yes. But she did share this story in an
interview with Epicurius, that their copy editor had worked with
traditional cookbooks and sent them a note back informing them
that their recipe for ratitude included to much garlic.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Like twenty five clothes of garlic was what it called for. Yeah,
and this editor was like, no, like, ladies, naw.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
This is incorrect. That is not what Raditui is. Lukens
and Rosso adjusted based on the note, decided that they
liked There's better, and simply responded with something along the
lines of, sorry, it's not traditional, but we like ours better. Again.
According to her version of the story.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
I mean to be fair, she doesn't specify the exact
outcome at the end of that story. I can tell
you that the outcome was that the published recipe had
two cloves of garlic. Plus it's yes. But but you know,
(30:54):
as seen above with the duck, you know, like they
didn't back off of everything.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
I do think they were very like, do what you will.
This is look, miss, this is a mere starting point.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Yeah, this is what we like. If it doesn't taste
right to you, you yeah, you figure it out. This
is for you. I'm not there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
And I also find it really interesting about the time
this was coming out, the food the cuisine that was
happening in America when this was coming out, because this
is when taste we're shifting more towards Mediterranean foods, Middle
Eastern foods, Italian foods, food set the Silver Palette specialized in.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Yeah, and that shift is partially because of the Silver Palette.
I mean it's not the only reason. You know, like
their their store and this book we're part of like
a larger gourmeifying zeitgeist for for sure. But they were
hugely influential. You know, you can partially blame them for
(32:09):
Americans knowing what pesto is, which, hilariously Rosso said later
that she actually didn't think that much of until she
had some fresh in Italy in like two thousand and
nine or thereabouts. A quote from Rosso, which she gave
to the Specialty Food Association upon being given their Lifetime
(32:31):
Achievement Award in twenty twenty, I think we made international
flavors understandable. We took a lot of the mystery away
from what was thought of as exotic, like a musaka
and pastila. I always say, I'm very proud that I
made a arugula happen in this country. I brought the
seeds back from Italy and grew it on my terras.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
I made arugula happen in this country. Is a great croach.
Put that on the throat, pillow own it.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Right, Oh my goodness, love it.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
It's excellent.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Their follow up book, The Silver Palette Good Times Cookbook,
came out in nineteen eighty five. It has four hundred
and fifty recipes in the same format as the original.
They developed that one with a caterer by the name
of Or along with the caterer by the name of
Sarah Lee Chase. This book is laid out a little
(33:35):
bit differently. It's split into spring, summer, fall, and winter,
and they're like seasonal themes around available produce and different holidays.
It's geared even more towards entertaining and parties. A lot
of the quotes set out in maroon ankor like song lyrics,
and in the introduction, which is called a toast to
(33:57):
the good Times. They talk a bit about the developing
landscape of American cuisine and entertaining of the time, and
how it was moving from a perhaps like stuffy obligation
to something to be approached with fresh enthusiasm and ingenuity.
(34:19):
That being said, this book is a little bit fussier
and more cramped. I mean, it is like about the
same page count as the first book, but with like
about one hundred more recipes in it. And to me,
Good Times feels more fashionable and therefore more old fashioned
(34:41):
now than the original does. Like for some reason, the
original reads to me as like kind of fresh and
fun and good Times. I'm like, oh, that's okay, that
is from nineteen eighty five, goodness migracious. I don't know,
like it's it's partially I think because it's hearkening to
the style of entertain painting that, you know, while while
(35:01):
fresh and new, then I think a lot of people
some forty years later have moved beyond into something even
more casual and free form. As really only makes sense,
I suppose. I mean, I don't know, maybe I just
don't go to the right kind of part parties, like
certainly in the socioenomic strata that I move in, I
(35:23):
do not go to these kind of parties. It still
has some great recipes though, And just for like a
sliver of an example of the vibe of the Good
Times cookbook, there's this one page in the springtime section,
single page on which in the margin this stylistic suggestion for,
(35:48):
you know, if you're throwing a bridge luncheon, decorate your
invites in your place settings with some colorful ribbon themed
to like the table decor and the menu. And then
there's also a menu suggestion for such a luncheon that
features crab meat, moose, warm sweetbread salad, goat cheese, popovers,
(36:09):
rhubarb sorbet with orange almond, snails, and a soft blanked
pair that's just in the margin. On the main part
of the page, there's that recipe for that sweetbread salad
which involves asparagus and en dive and watercrests and fresh
wild mushrooms in a surrel vinigarette. And then also on
(36:31):
the page there's just this like really nice simple stir
fry recipe for like e stfry like some asparagus with
fresh ginger and cashews and like a little bit of
like a sesame soy sauce. Yes, and one of these
three four. One of these four things is something I
(36:56):
might conceivably do. The other three. I feel like I'm
watching a fantasy movie reading about you know.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
I was about to say, can you imagine if back
when we did our themed meals for dungeons and Dragons,
showed up with this. It's like I read it in
this cookbook.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
I mean, first of all, I would have been like,
I don't have the right gloves for this occasion, that
I don't don't have any hat.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
That's true. Lauren never did bring the look.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
No I didn't. I didn't.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
There's still time.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
There you go, there you go anyway. Yeah, I wanted
to cover that briefly, Okay. Starting in nineteen eighty six,
Lukens and Russo were it became the co editors for
the food section of this Sunday newspaper magazine called Parade,
(38:03):
having taken over from Julia Child. Wow, yep, yep, no
pressure there. Meanwhile, business at the shop was booming by
the publication of the Good Times cookbook in nineteen eighty five.
They had like a real kitchen and two floors of
(38:25):
offices to accommodate a staff of forty people. They were
catering a lot and producing food for the shop and
doing one hundred and ten packaged condiments and stuff to
send out stores. Silver Palette food products were in some
one thy five hundred stores around the country, plus in Canada, France,
(38:45):
and Japan. Investors were sniffing around for like mass production opportunities.
From what I understand, they never even advertised like marketed yes,
but did not need to advertise. Rosso later told The
New York Times that running the business was quote like
(39:06):
having a baby or a passionate.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Love whoa I know right.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Ugh. Behind the scenes, however, the pair were struggling because
they were women and this was nineteen eighty five. They
couldn't get banks to loan them the capital that they
needed to grow. This was a recurring problem when they
started up. Luken's had to borrow her half of the
money from her husband because banks wouldn't give it to her.
(39:39):
But one of Lucan's neighbors at the Dakota helped them
broker this investment deal with the food manufacturing giant behind
brands like Hellman's and Skippy and Nore. And with that
letter of intent in hand, they finally got a bank loan,
and then the floor fell out. The company backed out
(40:03):
of the deal at the eleventh hour, like possibly literally
at eleven something pm the night before they were supposed
to sign. Rosso and Luken's couldn't repay the bank's money
and at that point had to either sell their businesses
or declare bankruptcy. So they sold to an investment firm
(40:25):
and agreed to stick around for three years on contract
to transition to new management. When that contract was up
in nineteen eighty eight, they left the shop and the
related products business. After they left, they published what would
be their final book together, the New Basics Cookbook, in
(40:45):
nineteen eighty nine, still with Workmen. Publishing all three books
with Workmen, they waited because they wanted to keep this
book theirs, unattached to the Silver Palette brand. It does,
like retain the maroon and white theme and details like
the fonts and the illustrations. It's a lot bigger, though,
(41:05):
like eight hundred and fifty pages. There are some repeated
or updated recipes from previous books, but it's mostly what
it says on the tin, like a more toned down,
every day sort of cooking guide. New Basics is split
up into snacks and apps at the beginning, breads, cheeses
and desserts at the end, and then in the middle
dishes by ingredient vegetables, grains, beans, seafood, poultry, meats, and
(41:30):
then a section specifically about grilling. There's like some movement
towards the lower fat options. Of the three books, it's
the most encyclopedic and the most practical. It's the one
that I cook the most from. But I'd say that
for all that, it's a little bit less less charming.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Yeah, just more kind of an encyclopedia as opposed two.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean like it's a really solid cookbook
and there's nothing that made me kind of like clutch
my pearls or like or if there is, I haven't
run across it over the past few days. Yeah, it's
more like, oh, yeah, that seems like a really solid recipe.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Lukens and Rosso would have a personal falling out sometime
in the next couple of years after New Basics published,
which was breathlessly reported in the press around the same time.
In nineteen ninety one, Lukens had this health scare with
a cerebral hemorrhage that partially paralyzed her on her left side.
(42:33):
She had to do a lot of physical therapy to
get herself back. The original Silver Palette cookbook was inducted
into the James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame in nineteen
ninety two, and after they split, both kept writing. Rosso
published cookbooks like Great Good Food, Luscious Lower Fat Cooking
(42:54):
in nineteen ninety three and Fresh Start in nineteen ninety six,
another health conscious theme. Lukens took over the Parade editorship
and also published cookbooks like her All Around the World
Cookbook in ninety four and USA Cookbook in ninety seven.
All sold well, though generally speaking, Luken's books were better
(43:17):
received by critics. There was a lot of snark in
the press about this whole thing. Why yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Well, in nineteen ninety three, the Silver Palette closed its doors.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yeah, the shop had been sold again. In the meanwhile,
Lukens told Vanity Fair in ninety four that the venture
capitalist type guy who had taken over was nice but
sort of clueless about the restaurant industry. What she didn't
say in that interview was he was this young dude
with big dreams and family money from a nutritional products
(43:53):
business like weight Watchers stuff and Yeah, if you've ever
been anywhere near the restaur on industry, this is an
extremely familiar story. You know, food at the level of
like catering and a shop and little gourmet chat. Skeis
is really quite different than any other business and it's
(44:15):
real easy to run a good concept straight into the ground.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
I guess you could see our episode we did on
the Menu, which kind of relates to that topic. A
venture capitalist coming in.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
Yeah, yeah, oh no, that's right. Yep, there's a huh
yeah it does. Yep. I left really loud at that part.
Uh and okay. I actually fibbed a tiny bit about
New Basics being their last book together, because in two
thousand and seven they did come back together to revamp
the Silver Palette cookbook for the twenty fifth anniversary. It
(44:53):
contains full color photos of some of their most famous dishes, yes,
including chicken Marbella. It's an extra hundred pages and contained
some three hundred and fifty recipes.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Lukens died in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Yeah, brain cancer. She was only sixty six years old,
and I think it happened really fast, like she was
diagnosed three months before she passed. At that point, the
books the three books together had sold some five and
a half million copies. By spring of twenty fifteen, the
(45:33):
Silver Palette Cookbook was in its one hundredth printing. Rosso,
who again was originally from Michigan, moved back there in
the early nineties, having gotten married. Sometime between Good Times
and New Basics. She and her husband took over this
really charming like lake town bed and breakfast, the Wickwood Inn,
(45:55):
and ran it as like a farm to table dining
destination all the way up until twenty twenty one, when
they passed the reins. I assume they retired, but yeah,
she'd still been doing like lectures and cooking classes and
food industry consulting through the twenty teens at least. And yeah, uh,
(46:15):
I wanted I wanted to end on a quote from
that first book that I that I really like. So
there's there's a theme, and we've touched on this a
little bit throughout the book, like a line that a
lot of recipes include is taste and a just seasoning
if necessary, which seems like basic, like a like a
(46:39):
basic thing, but if you're not familiar with cooking, it's
one of those reasons why the book comes off as
so friendly because it's like, yeah, taste and adjust if necessary.
Do that. So So, here's a quote that I think
is exemplary of why this book went so far. It's
like in the margin on the page with the recipe
(47:02):
for braised beef short ribs. Okay, it's sort of a
long one. Bear with me. There is one rule in
our kitchen made in the very beginning which still holds true.
When cooking, you must taste. To think that you can
follow a recipe and do today what you did yesterday
is erroneous. A good cook needs to be able to
(47:22):
taste and trust his or her own judgment only through
developing taste, and we stress developing. No one is born
with this kind of silver spoon. Can you begin to
trust your cooking self? Don't be afraid to taste. It
is the only way we know to understand food, to
know how to experiment, to build our own confidence. Treat
(47:43):
it like two pieces of a puzzle. If you try
it and it doesn't work, what has been lost. If
it does, perhaps you can improve upon it the next time.
To follow a recipe repeatedly because it is safe, tried
and true, and from a reliable source is boring and impersonal.
Take our recipes, make them your own, and improve upon them.
(48:04):
That will be our greatest pleasure.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
I love that. I think I love the idea of
having basic understanding and a place to start from. Yeah,
But then adding, you know what, I don't necessarily like this,
or I can't.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
Access this right I don't have it, I don't feel
like going to the store right now to get it,
or I have this other thing that I'm curious about.
What would happen if I did, you know.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Yeah, experimenting and then learning from the experiment. Maybe it
was a complete failure in the sense you don't want
to eat it, but you learned. Okay, that didn't work
at all.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
I really like that take on it, because I feel
like some cookbooks can be so stuffy in that you
have to do it this way. Mm hm, it has
this and if you can't succeed in that, if your
cheesecake cracks, then you have failed as a human person,
(49:16):
and get out of here.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
It can it can It can feel intimidating, and and
these do feel like like knowledgeable but friendly, like, hey,
maybe you don't know about these different kinds of pushido,
let me tell you.
Speaker 1 (49:33):
Yeah, And if you're having people over, Yes, what you do?
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Oh my goodness, Yeah, leave the tail on the shrimp
because it makes them look a little bit bigger. And
put out a number of large seashells that have that
have lillies in the center for your guests to leave
their shrimp tails in. Really, that was advice that I read.
(50:03):
Your cheese parties are going to go up a level.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Lauren.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
Uh, I'm not positive that's advice I'm gonna be taken,
but uh, but I appreciate that they took the time
to write it down.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
Did you find when you were looking back through them
or their recipes that caught your eye that you thought, Oh,
I should I want to make those oh billions?
Speaker 2 (50:26):
Yeah, like like a lot of them and like a
lot of them really are very simple kinds of like oh,
like I hadn't entirely like why haven't I thought to
cook whatever it is that way? Why haven't I thought
to put it with that kind of sauce? Why haven't
I thought? And you know kind of like what like
like like when we were talking to Julia, like like
(50:46):
why like I have all of this time in my garden,
it would probably be happy if I trimmed it down
a little bit. Why don't I make some time vinegar
so that I can use that for vinegarrettes, that I
can use that to dress my roast vegetables.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
Yes, I'm looking forward to hearing more about your ventures.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
Yeah, yeah, they are. All three of them are like again,
the one that I cook like like literally cook from
or not literally. I never follow a recipe literally, but
the one, the one I find most useful in my
like week to week life, is New Basics. But but yeah,
(51:31):
whenever I want concepts for flavors, those are These are
like the first three books I pull off the shelf.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
I love it. I'll have to borrow them from you
or something. I don't know, but.
Speaker 2 (51:46):
Yeah, oh yeah we can. Copies are available. We can
work this out.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
Yes, I did really enjoy reading about kind of the
the like New York five of when the first one
came out of how people were like, oh, I want
to be like when Harry met Sally. Yeah, well let
me cook something out of this cookbook.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Yeah. Yeah, it's it's weird. It's weird, like what a
like what a very specific what a very specific time? Yes,
And there's also like a lot of like glimmers of
I don't know, uh, Sex and the City or like
American Psycho.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
Yeah, those two things, those two very related things. No,
there's sort of a aspirational New York life.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
Yes, however that might appear, Yes, there there you go.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
Indeed. Indeed, well you know, listeners, we love hearing from
you about cookbooks, about your experiences with them, about your
favorite rest peace in them. Please let us know.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
Oh yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, we would. We would genuinely
love to hear from you. But that is about all
we have to say about the Silver Palette for now.
We do already have some listener mail for you, though,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from one more quick break for
a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (53:33):
And we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, And
we're back with listen. I've showed you a picnic and
then I don't know what happened.
Speaker 2 (53:50):
Sure that that seems picnicky? Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (53:54):
Yeah? Okay, okay, good wow, listeners. As you know, we've
had some kind of message mayhem in our e yeah,
our inbox, uh, and we're trying to grapple with it.
But essentially a bunch of messages were going to jump mail,
(54:14):
and we didn't realize for a while. So Joe wrote
in a message that was perhaps lost, thank you for
rescending it.
Speaker 2 (54:26):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, huh.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
Yes, so Joe wrote. Two years ago, I was able
to visit a friend who lives into Loose, France, which
is known as the City of Violets. To Lose indeed
host a violet festival, though it was too late for
it during my visit. Even without the festival, there is
still no escaping the violets and to Lose. Most of
(54:49):
the shops carry some sort of violet product. Violet soaps,
candied violet pedals, violet chocolates, you name it. I get
overwhelmed by floral since very easily and don't particularly like
them in my food, so that part wasn't for me.
I'll leave the violet chocolates to my friend. I did
(55:10):
buy a bar of violet soap for my mom and
a tea towel for myself. It has the word to
Lose and violet flowers embroidered on it. I think of
that lovely time with my friends every time I use it.
The LEAs Miserrob mentioned sent me down a rabbit hole
I've loved the musical since I was a kid, and
(55:32):
in high school I attempted to read the book in
both English and French. That endeavor was eventually abandoned because boy,
oh boy, does Victor Hugo love talking about the Parisian
sewage system, and there's only so much I want to
know about it. In any case, that part of Fatine's
story is misinterpreted if people are thinking it's romantic. Fatine
(55:56):
is on her deathbed and she's thinking about her daughter Cosette.
She had to give up so that she could live
a better life. The song was one she would sing
to Cosette to get her to sleep. Here's where it
gets weird. The Project Gutenberg version of Les Miz that
I used to find that section and confirm the context
(56:18):
says the following roses are pink, cornflowers are blue, I
love my love and cornflowers are blue. Baffled, I turned
to the French version, also on Project Gutenberg, and this
is what it said. Les Bluette's song blue les Rose
sen Rose Bluettes translates to cornflowers or even blueberries, not
(56:42):
a violet in sight. I'm now tempted to hunt down
other versions to see how the song's been translated. Where
did the violets go?
Speaker 2 (56:56):
I love this kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (56:58):
I did too. Please let us know if you figure
it out.
Speaker 2 (57:02):
Yeah. Yeah, there's little those little things of translation, like right,
like and how does how does that rhyme go? In
other languages?
Speaker 1 (57:14):
Yeah, and we've spoken before about the language of flowers.
But also just when something gets translated like that, there's
usually there's a lot of other meaning that gets taken on,
or some other meaning that wasn't.
Speaker 2 (57:33):
Yeah, some association, some yeah, connotation.
Speaker 1 (57:36):
That roses might mean something different based on whatever culture
you're in. I'm fascinated by this. I'm legitimately hoping that
you write back in about it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:53):
Yeah, I'm I've never been super into lame miss, but yeah,
I have that honestly, the Parsian sewage system is mostly
what I've heard about in people talking about the novel,
which I love. Shout out Victor Hugo, what a weirdo.
(58:16):
But oh my goodness, that violet festival.
Speaker 1 (58:20):
Yes, yes, and I'm I'm glad you brought this email
back when it was in our jucktmail when we missed it,
because this was a good throwback about the violet episode
and all of the products that you could get, yes,
violet based products.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
Yeah. I also tend to scent in general can be
very overwhelming for me, and violet is one of them
that if it's in a soap kind of way, I'm
not interested. But I do like it in candies. I
do like it in foods like candies or a gelato
or a chocolate sort of situation. So I hope it
(59:05):
wasn't terrible for you. It sounds it sounds at least
visually delightful.
Speaker 1 (59:13):
Yes, yes, And I think it sounds like you had
a great time.
Speaker 2 (59:20):
Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (59:26):
Now I'm very happy. I'm very happy to hear about this.
I'm glad. I'm glad that we rediscovered your email. So
thank you.
Speaker 2 (59:34):
Yeah, oh yes, yes, yes yes. If anyone else never
got a response from I say us, but I mean Annie,
Annie's the one who helms the email, then yeah, yeah,
please feel free to resend. That would be delightful. Thank you.
Julie wrote, you asked about college cuisine, so here's my bit.
(59:56):
My approach to cooking in college was like the cooking
show Chop a few decades before it was invented, namely
using whatever I happened to have in the cupboard and fridge.
With a focus on leftovers, I needed to stretch my
food budget and discovered I could put almost anything into
an omelet using whatever bits of ingredients I had left.
I used that same approach to create other random dishes. Recently,
(01:00:18):
I came across this delightful gem of a recipe I
made up in spite of my current revulsion at the
combination of some of its ingredients. It must have been
tasty enough for me to actually bother writing it down.
Photo of recipe is attached. It is for Julie's mystery
tuna loaf. It calls for canned tuna, rings of pineapple,
(01:00:46):
some cheddar and Swiss cheese, eggs and milk, leftover peas
or corn, some bread, a couple other things that I'm
not entirely positive I can read. Yeah, it's it's like
a meatloaf, but a tuna looaf, sure, Julie continues. When
(01:01:10):
I showed it to my daughter, she laughed and thought
it sounded disgusting. I'm not even a fan of Swiss
cheese or hot pineapple, so I'm guessing it was my
roommate's contribution. We used to take turns cooking dinner. Her
cooking was more shall we say, conventional. Mine was always
a surprise, but she ate it with good humor. I
(01:01:32):
also wanted to comment on the cottage cheese episode a
little late. I have, for most of my sixty six
years been a particular consumer of cheese of the cottage,
as my daughter used to call it. I've tried many
brands over the years, but the one thing I insist
upon is that they have no bean gums or other
additives besides milk, cream or salt. Call me a cottage
(01:01:53):
cheese purist. I am willing to spend more for the
better kinds, as there's really no comparison with the cheaper ones.
I also don't like soupy ones with too much liquid
in them. It should have some body for me. It's
a breakfast staple eaten on its own, though occasionally with
sprouts if eaten with lunch. I've never been a fan
of eating it with fruit. My daughter tells me that
(01:02:14):
cottage cheese is a thing now, which I find amusing.
I guess old things sometimes get a glow up. I
really enjoy your podcast and the variety of subjects you too,
find a feature. I always learned something new and often
get some laughs as well. Oh thank you, yes, oh
thank you. Yeah, oh we're so glad. Yeah uh yeah,
(01:02:38):
I'm horrified. I am gleefully horrified by this creation. I
wouldn't I wouldn't not try it.
Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
I this is fantastic.
Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
I don't know how much of it I would consume voluntarily.
Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
I'm so intrigued because we and listeners please keep writing in.
We asked for what are you doing? What did you
do when you were in college?
Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:03:12):
And you were figuring things out maybe, oh sure, strict budget.
Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
Yeah yeah, I mean, you know, we're all kind of
like like little little you know, raw cookie do people
at that point. Yeah, to paraphrase Buffy and yeah, so
I mean you were trying stuff out.
Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
You were, you were. This is when I look back
on what I did in college. This is much more experimental.
Oh yeah, what I was doing. I do like that
you have the addition of your roommate, kind of the
like wild Cary might have influenced how this happened, but
you wrote it down. It was good enough. It was
(01:03:57):
good enough down. No judgment, just curiosity.
Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
So yeah, oh no, zero judgment, absolutely not and I
enjoy being horrified, so.
Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
I do. Speaking to the college experience, it is fun
to look back, at least in my case, on the
kind of roommate, who's cooking what situation?
Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
Yeah, and I did learn some stuff from my roommate, sure, absolutely, Yeah,
she was doing a whole different thing than what I
was doing. Yeah, fascinating me around. We made Hobbits dou
hobbits do. Yeah, that was pretty good.
Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
It was mostly just whatever we had, and you put
it in a SUPERI that's hobby.
Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
Yeah, sure right, Yeah, I agree with all of your
cottage cheese notes. By the way, this is also how
I purchase cottage cheese. Yeah. I like some liquid, but
not too much. If it has no liquid, i'm mad.
I'd you need a specific ratio. Yeah, yeah, but I
(01:05:17):
don't like the texture. Once they've added some kind of
texturizer that's supposed to make me like the texture, I'm like, nah, yeah,
they're trying too hard at that point. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:05:29):
I do love that your daughter told you it's a
thing now, which it is. She's not wrong, she's correct. Yeah,
but that is quite funny, quite funny. Indeed.
Speaker 2 (01:05:47):
Oh oh my goodness, how how wonderful? Thank you Yes.
Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
Thank you to both of these listeners for writing in.
If you would like to write to us, you can
or email us hello at Saber. We are also on
social media.
Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
You can find us on Instagram and Blue Sky at
savor pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Save is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from
my Heart Radio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as
always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard.
(01:06:22):
Thanks to you for listening, and we hope that lots
more good things are coming your way
Hello, and welcome to Saber production of iHeartRadio. I'm Annie Reethe.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And I'm Lorn vogel Baum, and today we have an
episode for you about the Silver Palette cookbook and related
books and the store. Yeah, that whole thing.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Oh yes, we have quite a lot to get into.
Was there any particular reason this was on your mind?
Laurd Uh?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
This is a cookbook series that I grew up with
that my parents both referred to a lot, And it
was just both of their birthdays over the past month
or so, and I don't know, so I was just
thinking about them and going like, yeah, what about those books.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Yeah, and people have a lot of thoughts and fond
memories of those books.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Oh yeah, yeah, I am. This was a very like
nostalgic and emotional episode for me. And also I really
didn't know anything about the humans who created them, and
so right like, the deeper I got into it, the
more I was like, oh, I have more emotions. Okay, Yeah,
(01:14):
it's great. It's great though.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, it's a pretty great story. It is four past episodes.
I would say check out other episodes we've done on cookbooks.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Cookbooks and cooking personalities. I think Julia Child and James
Beard are like specifically applicable.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yes, but yeah, yes, well we do have a lot
to get into. So I guess that brings us to
our question. The Silver Palette Cookbook what is it?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Well? Uh, the Silver Palette Cookbook is a cookbook first
published in nineteen eighty two that really helped bring a
like advansive metropolitan concept of food and cooking into American
home kitchens. It was instrumental in like a larger cultural
(02:10):
movement encouraging exploration of ingredients and techniques from around Europe,
not just the UK, in France and beyond even that
were you know, things that were new to a lot
of people in the US at the time, and also
like furthermore, approaching them with a curiosity and a sense
(02:31):
of play. It was middle class America's friendly guide to
nouvelle cuisine, you know the concept of the nicest, freshest
ingredients you can get prepared relatively simply, with nods to
the regions where they're from to allow those ingredients to shine.
It helped bridge, or maybe evolve, the canned mid century
(02:57):
dinner party cooking sort of thing through the fun but
classical Julia Child era into what felt at the time,
like a very modern, like fully technicolor future.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Do you have do you have a copy of it?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
All three here in the studio.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
They look cute. Just from looking at the pictures of them,
they seem, I don't know, they seem really approachable and cute.
They are.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
They're they're very charming for for a number of reasons,
Like they've got these really dear illustrations throughout and they're
very friendly. Yeah right, so okay, So this book and
the two follow ups were co written by a pair
of women who a few years prior had started up
a tiny gourmet grocery and takeaway shop also called the
(03:56):
Silver Palette in New York City in like the posh
Upper West Side. More on them in the history section,
but briefly. Sheila Lukens was born Sheila Gail Block in
Philadelphia in nineteen forty two, spent her childhood in Connecticut,
went to school for art in New York, and got
into cooking while living overseas in London for her husband's job.
(04:20):
She trained with chefs there and in France, more as
like a dilettante than as a serious career consideration, and
then wound up back in New York City with her
husband and their two young daughters in nineteen seventy seven.
Our other author, Julie Rosso, was born in Michigan in
the mid nineteen forties I believe forty four, but it's
(04:41):
not heavily publicized, and went to school there. After graduating,
she immediately moved to New York City, turned down a
job with CIA, got into the fashion industry on the
design and advertising side, and by the mid seventies she
was working as an advertiser director for this big textiles company.
(05:03):
There are fewer, like really concrete details about her, but
I have this idea that when the two of them met,
Lukens was just this like very creative and slightly overwhelmed
human who was just really just really into food and cooking,
and Rosso was a super driven, very Manhattanite type of
(05:28):
like brassy, bon vivant business executive.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Yeah, they do have that kind of vibe.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Yeah, I think about them. Both of them have a
little bit of the vibe. But yeah, yeah, yes, I
really really wish I could have gone to a party
with them in like nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Yes, me too.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
The shop, the Silver Palette, has since closed, but a
line of branded shelf stable food products carries on without
lukens and vasso. The company, called Silver Palate Kitchens, currently
offers pasta and pizza, sauces, salad dressings, rough milled oatmeal
and jarred olives, marachino cherries, capers, and cocktail onions. They
(06:19):
also run a few other packaged food brands that do
other cereals, condiments and sauces. Yeah, and okay, a little
bit about this book, so if you've never interacted with it,
its cover is done in maroon and white with this
crosshatch pattern in the background and in a photo of
the Silver Palette storefront just brimming with like beautiful foods
(06:41):
and these lush live plants, so many pogonias. And the
sections in the book take you through appetizers, soups, pastas,
main courses, vegetables, salads, cheeses, breads, desserts, and brunch. It's
so it's so nineteen eighties, it's so nineteen eighty. The
(07:01):
book is the paperback version, which is the common one,
is three hundred and sixty two pages, including the index,
with some three hundred plus recipes. The pages are printed
mainly in black and white, with no photography, but a
lot of illustrations this right, sort of like folksy hand
(07:22):
drawn vibe that's more garnish than explanatory. All hand drawn
by Lukens. The pages are laid out in this two
column format, with a large column at the outside of
each page and a skinny one on the inside, like
two thirds to one third thereabouts. The large outer columns
contain the recipes, and the inner ones are reserved for
(07:45):
notes about various things, advice for entertaining, instructions on how
to select special ingredients like good olives, quotes from various writers,
suggested menus and drink pairings, stuff like that, and those
inner notes are often printed in this nice, deep red
to contrast with the rest of the text and match
(08:08):
the maroon on the cover. They in fact start the
preface with a quote in red from a brilliant sovereign
the discovery of a new dish does more for the
happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star. Yeah, yeah,
(08:31):
And so in this book they talk about celebrating fine
ingredients and also what they call peasant food, meaning like
homie dishes meant to be shared. I want to give
you a quote from that introduction that's really resonating with
me from today's perspective, from Lucan's and rosso like our country,
(08:52):
our food is truly a blending of ethnic traditions, reflecting
a mixture of heritages that we call our own. And
that was a lot of it too, like bringing in
the multiculturalness of New York City and trying to represent
it a little bit in the ingredients and the preparations
that they used and whatever it was that they were doing.
(09:15):
It was pretty effective. Like if you've ever wondered why
on Earth there was a whole decade from like the
late eighties to the mid nineties that was just purely
flavored with raspberry vineigarette and sun dried tomatoes. It's essentially this.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Book's fault or credit to this book, or either either one,
depending you can have different opinions.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
I'm being a little snarky, but no, but yes, yes,
credit or blame where to do whichever whichever way you
want to look at it. They did write two follow
up cookbooks, The Silver Palette Good Times Cookbook and The
New Basics, both along similar ish lines. We'll get into
those a little bit later on. Well, what about the
(10:08):
nutrition do not eat cookbooks? No matter how much food
you have spilled on them.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Alas, all right, well we have a number for you.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, yeah, sure. The Silver Palette Cookbook sold two hundred
and fifty thousand copies its first year, which was a
record for nineteen eighty two. I think it's up to
over three million copies today. And those other two books
that they wrote together have sold over a million each,
(10:46):
so a lot, a lot. Yeah, oh yeah, and that's
not even counting what they published on their own.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah. I want to ask my mom if she has these.
I bet she does. She has like a whole shelf books.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah, it seems likely.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
It seems likely, and we're going to get into the
history of why it seems likely we are.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
But first we're going to take a quick break for
a word from our sponsors. Am we're back, Thank you sponsor, Yes,
thank you. So, first of all, shout out to Amy
Levitt's article over at Eater the Silver Palette Cookbook changed
(11:37):
home cooking and pesto consumption as we know it, which
was really helpful in putting.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Together this outline. Yeah, yes, all right. So in nineteen
seventy one, Shila Lukens started a catering business out of
her apartment kitchen located in a very nice apartment in
a building on Central Park West called the Dakota.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah. To specify, the Dakota is this historic luxury apartment building,
like from the late eighteen hundreds that is big and
gorgeous and its apartments are variably ridiculous. Like John Lennon
and Yoko Ono were her neighbors at the time.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Yeah, And and her and her husband actually owned two
apartments in the place. Yeah, one for them and one
for their kids.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Yes, which actually is kind of related to the I
don't know the aspiration aspect of this book, which we're
going to get more into.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Apparently they really got them for a steal.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Good for them, Good for them. Luken's was a court
on Blue London graduate and at the point was married
with two children. She was fairly well traveled, particularly in Europe,
the Middle East and the Mediterranean, and those influences played
a role in the types of foods that she offered.
(13:13):
At first, she called her business the other Woman, Yes,
the other woman, with the slogan so delicious, so discreet, and.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
I deliver Oh my goodness, I know, I know.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Allegedly, her early clientele included a lot of young men
looking to impress women like see, look at this meal.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah, I'm capable of having a meal on the table.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Look what I can do. And in a lovely twist
of fate, one of the women who was impressed was
Julie Rosso. At the time, she was an ad director,
and after tasting Lucan's cooking, she hired her to cater
an event. Lukens made croissants with red and black raspberry use,
(14:01):
and this further impressed Rosso and the women struck up
a friendship. Looking for a change, Rosso suggested to Lucan's
that they can bind their talents and open a gourmet shop.
The story goes that at first Lucan shot her down.
She resisted for a long time.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
She was like, no, this is just a funsies thing
that I do. This is not a serious thing that
I do. Yeah, don't turn this into too much work
for me. But Rosso did not give up the idea,
and eventually she prevailed and the pair rented a small
property a block away from Luken's apartment in nineteen seventy seven.
(14:41):
Yeah at Columbus in seventy third Street, and very small,
like one hundred and sixty five square feet. Oh my gosh, yeah,
I know, right, yeah, yeah, that's like fifteen point three
square meters. That's so tiny.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
I covered my mouth.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
I was aghast, like they could not have possibly built
out a kitchen there. So at first they kept cooking
in Lucan's apartment.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yes, they would then haul everything over to the shop
before they even opened. They were getting positive buzz when
they were featured in a peace highlighting businesses transforming the area.
The who penned that article ended up naming the then
(15:35):
not officially named restaurant after sampling some of the food
at a preview, a silver palate. So this person later
wrote she did so quote on the spur of the moment,
and without monetary compensation. Her name Florence Fabricant. It's so good,
(15:59):
that's excellent.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, more like fabric can.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Hey, I was gonna say, you can't fabricate this. See
listeners were always cooking on our own the wavelength and
apologies for it. Yeah yeah, yes, anyway, very good, That's
what I'll say. Luken's and Rosso originally wanted to name
(16:24):
it after a dinersling a seaboard Deluxe, meaning to go,
but yeah, they went with silver palette. And another example
of for twodous timing. They opened the doors of their
restaurant the same day as a free New York Philharmonic
concert was happening in Central Park. It was a hot
(16:45):
summer day. The ac at the restaurant was busted, but
people in the area that were going to the concert
maybe they read this piece about their little shop. They
were eager to spend about fifty dollars a person for
food to eat while in the park watching the concert, Like,
you know, have a picnic in the concert, yeah, n
(17:06):
in the park, yeah, and watch a concert. They offered
items like salmon, moose, and pati and allegedly they sold
out of everything.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah, supposedly them selling out of everything was not at
all uncommon. That was like basically every day. While browsing
through the book in preparation to do this episode, I
happened on a picnic menu inspired by this day called
the Concert in the Park Picnic. It recommends salmon moose
(17:38):
with black bread toasts, a veal roll, asparagus with blueberry vinigarette,
spicy sesame, noodles, assorted cheeses and fresh fruit, chocolate moose,
and cookies.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
I mean that does sound nice, right, very fancy, but nice.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
After their first year, they started up a kitchen in
an additional space that they rented behind the shop. Apparently
the Dakota building was not happy about them running a
kitchen at commercial volume.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
I can't imagine one.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah, no, no, Well, the next four years kept the
pair plenty busy.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Luken's continued to cook a variety of cuisines for the
shop and for catering gigs, while Rosso convinced customers to
try things that they may never have heard before.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Yeah. By all accounts, Rosso was always an amazing marketer.
But right in addition to takeaway dishes and desserts and
baked goods, they stalked things like imported sausages and cheeses,
you know. Like. The idea was generally to fill this
growing niche to curate food for people, and perhaps especially
(18:55):
working women, which was like low key and new thing
at the time, who wanted something good and interesting but
were too busy to go exploring or to make it themselves.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Yes, and the shop often offered dishes that were new
takes on something classically European. The first main course dish
they offered at their takeout shop was chicken Marbella, which
is still their most popular recipe today, Inspired by dishes
that they'd had in Spain. It featured chicken, green olives, capers,
(19:32):
and prunes.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah, it is hard to explain how pervasive this dish
would become at dinner parties later on in the nineteen eighties.
You can find it online, but briefly, it involves marinating
pieces of chicken, like chicken quarters or whatever, along with
the prunes, olives and capers overnight in olive oil and
red wine vinegar flavored with lots of garlic, oregano, and
(19:57):
bay leaves. Then you'd just roast the whole mess with
white wine in the pan and a sprinkle of brown
sugar of the chicken to give it a sort of
a lacquer.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Have you ever had this?
Speaker 2 (20:13):
I do not believe I have, but now I'm like, yeah,
that sounds great.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
I read a lot of reviews about it, and they
were generally pretty positive. They most of them were like,
I didn't think it would work, but it I'd like
to try it.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Yeah, yeah, no, there's I've got a lot of I've
got even more bookmarks than I had previously in my parents'
copies of these books here. But yeah, so this shop
was one of the starts of like the foody movement.
And we tend to find that term old fashioned and
(20:56):
a little bit snobby these days, but at the time
it was kind of liked like a joyful revelation. Also
note that although little shops like these are pretty abundant now,
and you know, like like concepts like like fresh market,
our whole foods have like plentiful takeaway options, let alone
your like normal everyday grocery store. But this was fairly pioneering.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Right, and they had enough success to open a second
business in nineteen seventy eight that offered a variety of
condiments like blueberry chut.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah, they began by canning a certain number of their
like popular homemade condiments for sale just in the shop,
you know, flavored vinegars, zucchini pickles, caramel sauce, stuff like that.
But in nineteen seventy nine they then contracted with a
local food packager so that they could expand production and
sell in other stores and catalogs as well.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
They started in sas Fifth Avenue, but soon have their
products and locations across the country.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Yeah, they got picked up by other companies like Creighton Beryl.
This arm of the business became Silver Palate Kitchens, Yes.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
And on top of that, they produced a newsletter complete
with Luken's.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Illustrations yet starting also in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
And this brings us to the book. Yes. In nineteen
eighty one, the pair had lunch with an editor from
Workman Publishing named Barbara Plum, also a great name, and
she asked them if they ever considered writing a book.
According to a twenty fifteen interview and Epicurius with Rosso,
(22:43):
she jumped at the opportunity, ignoring Luken's kicks under the
table and immediately lying that you know, yes, We're already
working on one. When the editor made it clear she
was interested like followed up. The pair got a bottle
of scotch and took a weekend to throw together in outline.
(23:05):
They continued working on it with the help of store
assistant Michael McLaughlin, until they arrived at the finished product,
complete with Luken's doodles and quotes.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
McLaughlin would go on to be a prolific food and
recipe writer in his own right too.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
So the first edition of the Silver Palette Cookbook was
published in nineteen eighty two. It took off pretty immediately,
thanks in part to a few things. Firstly, they sold
the book not only in bookstores, but at the storefronts
that carried their products. Workmen featured it as their book
(23:46):
club pic, which I kind of love because I don't
know how much of a thing that is anymore, but yeah, yeah.
And they had brand recognition due to those stores and
catalogs around the country carrying their products. Plenty of people
were familiar with the name, and it quickly became somewhat
(24:11):
of a marker of a certain type of sophistication and
encapsulation of Upper West Side New York lifestyles that Americans
were exposed to in various media. It was modern, It
was stepping away from cast roles that called for condensed soup,
but still accessible. It was very approachable. Like we said,
(24:32):
it was like a friend was talking to you. Yeah. Yes,
And while it did have some brand loyalty, it appealed
to people of all walks of life who might not
have ever heard of arugula but now knew what it
was and had a few simple recipes that they could
use it in. For a lot of people, the recipes
(24:54):
were something new and maybe did represent this life they'd
seen on TV or like to imagine or aspire to,
and these recipes were doable for them.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Yeah, Sometimes the ingredients might be hard to get a
hold of, but overall, these dishes were things that people
could manage. The recipes were meant to be a jumping
off point for readers to experiment with and mold to
their own taste and to what was available and doable
for them.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
That being said, a lot of the recipes were kind
of celebratory and for a crowd, so generally required a
bit of planning.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah. Yeah, Often they would include some kind of ingredient
that like, you know, like addressing that you had to
make first before you could start. You know, you have
to infuse your vinegar before you can make your vinegar
atte that you can add to your roasted vegetables. Kind
of kind of steps like that, but yeah, like again
(25:57):
in a friendly way, and a lot a lot of
these recipes were relatively simple but very flavorful. Take for example,
Duck with forty cloves of garlic. That is the name
of the recipe. What you do is you take you
take a duck and you roast a whole duck with
(26:21):
forty cloves of garlic. Then at the end you pureate
the garlic and make a sauce out of it with
sherry vinegar, black currant, liqueur, and a stick of butter.
The recipe serves two Oh.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
All right, so twenty garlic cloves of garlic? Ees?
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Yeah, yeah, right right. Not all forty cloves go into
the I think there's there's six clothes that are in
the duck. Anyway, I think that those are garnish. So
it's really only so I can't so it's really only
(27:04):
seventeen cloves of garlic per per person.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Oh only seventeen yeah, got it. Listen, Lauren, your vampire,
yourself would not be doing well.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Oh my goodness, that might be the dish that does
me in. But I will say at least the forty
cloves of garlic is right there in the in the
recipe title. There's also one just flipping through the book
that really buries the lead. It's called Linguidi with tomatoes
and basil, okay, And the description is explaining that it's
(27:42):
it's a fresh pasta sauce. You know, it's like only
really just warmed through with the heat of the cooked pasta,
and you're kind of going like, oh, that sounds so
light and lovely. And then you get to the ingredient
list and it calls for a pound of bree cheese
a pound a pound a pound, like you remove a
rind from the bree and then and then throw the
(28:03):
whole bree in chunks in along with like, yes, fresh
tomato and garlic, and a cup of fresh basil and
another cup of olive oil. And that is what you
put the pasta, the hot pasta onto and then toss. Wow,
for a pound and a half of pasta.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
I want to try it.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Oh, I want to try it desperately.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Yes, I'm invested. I'm a little confused, but I'm very invested.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Later, oh, one of them, I think it was Luken's,
did say that, you know, you can, you can cut
down that olive oil if you wanna, you can maybe
maybe maybe one of her kids. I'm not totally sure,
I'm sorry, but yeah, I was like, yeah, you can
cut down that olive oil to like a quarter cup
and be fine.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yeah, just a quarter cup. It's okay.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
But that being said, they did, they did tone it
down sometimes for this book.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
They did so. Garlic is kind of famously one of
their go to ingredients, and Lauren pointed out to me
before we started recording that in some interviews, Rosso was
prone to perhaps exaggeration, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Just excitement. I think enthusiasm, you.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Know, yes. But she did share this story in an
interview with Epicurius, that their copy editor had worked with
traditional cookbooks and sent them a note back informing them
that their recipe for ratitude included to much garlic.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Like twenty five clothes of garlic was what it called for. Yeah,
and this editor was like, no, like, ladies, naw.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
This is incorrect. That is not what Raditui is. Lukens
and Rosso adjusted based on the note, decided that they
liked There's better, and simply responded with something along the
lines of, sorry, it's not traditional, but we like ours better. Again.
According to her version of the story.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
I mean to be fair, she doesn't specify the exact
outcome at the end of that story. I can tell
you that the outcome was that the published recipe had
two cloves of garlic. Plus it's yes. But but you know,
(30:54):
as seen above with the duck, you know, like they
didn't back off of everything.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
I do think they were very like, do what you will.
This is look, miss, this is a mere starting point.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Yeah, this is what we like. If it doesn't taste
right to you, you yeah, you figure it out. This
is for you. I'm not there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
And I also find it really interesting about the time
this was coming out, the food the cuisine that was
happening in America when this was coming out, because this
is when taste we're shifting more towards Mediterranean foods, Middle
Eastern foods, Italian foods, food set the Silver Palette specialized in.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Yeah, and that shift is partially because of the Silver Palette.
I mean it's not the only reason. You know, like
their their store and this book we're part of like
a larger gourmeifying zeitgeist for for sure. But they were
hugely influential. You know, you can partially blame them for
(32:09):
Americans knowing what pesto is, which, hilariously Rosso said later
that she actually didn't think that much of until she
had some fresh in Italy in like two thousand and
nine or thereabouts. A quote from Rosso, which she gave
to the Specialty Food Association upon being given their Lifetime
(32:31):
Achievement Award in twenty twenty, I think we made international
flavors understandable. We took a lot of the mystery away
from what was thought of as exotic, like a musaka
and pastila. I always say, I'm very proud that I
made a arugula happen in this country. I brought the
seeds back from Italy and grew it on my terras.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
I made arugula happen in this country. Is a great croach.
Put that on the throat, pillow own it.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Right, Oh my goodness, love it.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
It's excellent.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Their follow up book, The Silver Palette Good Times Cookbook,
came out in nineteen eighty five. It has four hundred
and fifty recipes in the same format as the original.
They developed that one with a caterer by the name
of Or along with the caterer by the name of
Sarah Lee Chase. This book is laid out a little
(33:35):
bit differently. It's split into spring, summer, fall, and winter,
and they're like seasonal themes around available produce and different holidays.
It's geared even more towards entertaining and parties. A lot
of the quotes set out in maroon ankor like song lyrics,
and in the introduction, which is called a toast to
(33:57):
the good Times. They talk a bit about the developing
landscape of American cuisine and entertaining of the time, and
how it was moving from a perhaps like stuffy obligation
to something to be approached with fresh enthusiasm and ingenuity.
(34:19):
That being said, this book is a little bit fussier
and more cramped. I mean, it is like about the
same page count as the first book, but with like
about one hundred more recipes in it. And to me,
Good Times feels more fashionable and therefore more old fashioned
(34:41):
now than the original does. Like for some reason, the
original reads to me as like kind of fresh and
fun and good Times. I'm like, oh, that's okay, that
is from nineteen eighty five, goodness migracious. I don't know,
like it's it's partially I think because it's hearkening to
the style of entertain painting that, you know, while while
(35:01):
fresh and new, then I think a lot of people
some forty years later have moved beyond into something even
more casual and free form. As really only makes sense,
I suppose. I mean, I don't know, maybe I just
don't go to the right kind of part parties, like
certainly in the socioenomic strata that I move in, I
(35:23):
do not go to these kind of parties. It still
has some great recipes though, And just for like a
sliver of an example of the vibe of the Good
Times cookbook, there's this one page in the springtime section,
single page on which in the margin this stylistic suggestion for,
(35:48):
you know, if you're throwing a bridge luncheon, decorate your
invites in your place settings with some colorful ribbon themed
to like the table decor and the menu. And then
there's also a menu suggestion for such a luncheon that
features crab meat, moose, warm sweetbread salad, goat cheese, popovers,
(36:09):
rhubarb sorbet with orange almond, snails, and a soft blanked
pair that's just in the margin. On the main part
of the page, there's that recipe for that sweetbread salad
which involves asparagus and en dive and watercrests and fresh
wild mushrooms in a surrel vinigarette. And then also on
(36:31):
the page there's just this like really nice simple stir
fry recipe for like e stfry like some asparagus with
fresh ginger and cashews and like a little bit of
like a sesame soy sauce. Yes, and one of these
three four. One of these four things is something I
(36:56):
might conceivably do. The other three. I feel like I'm
watching a fantasy movie reading about you know.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
I was about to say, can you imagine if back
when we did our themed meals for dungeons and Dragons,
showed up with this. It's like I read it in
this cookbook.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
I mean, first of all, I would have been like,
I don't have the right gloves for this occasion, that
I don't don't have any hat.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
That's true. Lauren never did bring the look.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
No I didn't. I didn't.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
There's still time.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
There you go, there you go anyway. Yeah, I wanted
to cover that briefly, Okay. Starting in nineteen eighty six,
Lukens and Russo were it became the co editors for
the food section of this Sunday newspaper magazine called Parade,
(38:03):
having taken over from Julia Child. Wow, yep, yep, no
pressure there. Meanwhile, business at the shop was booming by
the publication of the Good Times cookbook in nineteen eighty five.
They had like a real kitchen and two floors of
(38:25):
offices to accommodate a staff of forty people. They were
catering a lot and producing food for the shop and
doing one hundred and ten packaged condiments and stuff to
send out stores. Silver Palette food products were in some
one thy five hundred stores around the country, plus in Canada, France,
(38:45):
and Japan. Investors were sniffing around for like mass production opportunities.
From what I understand, they never even advertised like marketed yes,
but did not need to advertise. Rosso later told The
New York Times that running the business was quote like
(39:06):
having a baby or a passionate.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Love whoa I know right.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Ugh. Behind the scenes, however, the pair were struggling because
they were women and this was nineteen eighty five. They
couldn't get banks to loan them the capital that they
needed to grow. This was a recurring problem when they
started up. Luken's had to borrow her half of the
money from her husband because banks wouldn't give it to her.
(39:39):
But one of Lucan's neighbors at the Dakota helped them
broker this investment deal with the food manufacturing giant behind
brands like Hellman's and Skippy and Nore. And with that
letter of intent in hand, they finally got a bank loan,
and then the floor fell out. The company backed out
(40:03):
of the deal at the eleventh hour, like possibly literally
at eleven something pm the night before they were supposed
to sign. Rosso and Luken's couldn't repay the bank's money
and at that point had to either sell their businesses
or declare bankruptcy. So they sold to an investment firm
(40:25):
and agreed to stick around for three years on contract
to transition to new management. When that contract was up
in nineteen eighty eight, they left the shop and the
related products business. After they left, they published what would
be their final book together, the New Basics Cookbook, in
(40:45):
nineteen eighty nine, still with Workmen. Publishing all three books
with Workmen, they waited because they wanted to keep this
book theirs, unattached to the Silver Palette brand. It does,
like retain the maroon and white theme and details like
the fonts and the illustrations. It's a lot bigger, though,
(41:05):
like eight hundred and fifty pages. There are some repeated
or updated recipes from previous books, but it's mostly what
it says on the tin, like a more toned down,
every day sort of cooking guide. New Basics is split
up into snacks and apps at the beginning, breads, cheeses
and desserts at the end, and then in the middle
dishes by ingredient vegetables, grains, beans, seafood, poultry, meats, and
(41:30):
then a section specifically about grilling. There's like some movement
towards the lower fat options. Of the three books, it's
the most encyclopedic and the most practical. It's the one
that I cook the most from. But I'd say that
for all that, it's a little bit less less charming.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Yeah, just more kind of an encyclopedia as opposed two.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean like it's a really solid cookbook
and there's nothing that made me kind of like clutch
my pearls or like or if there is, I haven't
run across it over the past few days. Yeah, it's
more like, oh, yeah, that seems like a really solid recipe.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Lukens and Rosso would have a personal falling out sometime
in the next couple of years after New Basics published,
which was breathlessly reported in the press around the same time.
In nineteen ninety one, Lukens had this health scare with
a cerebral hemorrhage that partially paralyzed her on her left side.
(42:33):
She had to do a lot of physical therapy to
get herself back. The original Silver Palette cookbook was inducted
into the James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame in nineteen
ninety two, and after they split, both kept writing. Rosso
published cookbooks like Great Good Food, Luscious Lower Fat Cooking
(42:54):
in nineteen ninety three and Fresh Start in nineteen ninety six,
another health conscious theme. Lukens took over the Parade editorship
and also published cookbooks like her All Around the World
Cookbook in ninety four and USA Cookbook in ninety seven.
All sold well, though generally speaking, Luken's books were better
(43:17):
received by critics. There was a lot of snark in
the press about this whole thing. Why yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Well, in nineteen ninety three, the Silver Palette closed its doors.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yeah, the shop had been sold again. In the meanwhile,
Lukens told Vanity Fair in ninety four that the venture
capitalist type guy who had taken over was nice but
sort of clueless about the restaurant industry. What she didn't
say in that interview was he was this young dude
with big dreams and family money from a nutritional products
(43:53):
business like weight Watchers stuff and Yeah, if you've ever
been anywhere near the restaur on industry, this is an
extremely familiar story. You know, food at the level of
like catering and a shop and little gourmet chat. Skeis
is really quite different than any other business and it's
(44:15):
real easy to run a good concept straight into the ground.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
I guess you could see our episode we did on
the Menu, which kind of relates to that topic. A
venture capitalist coming in.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
Yeah, yeah, oh no, that's right. Yep, there's a huh
yeah it does. Yep. I left really loud at that part.
Uh and okay. I actually fibbed a tiny bit about
New Basics being their last book together, because in two
thousand and seven they did come back together to revamp
the Silver Palette cookbook for the twenty fifth anniversary. It
(44:53):
contains full color photos of some of their most famous dishes, yes,
including chicken Marbella. It's an extra hundred pages and contained
some three hundred and fifty recipes.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Lukens died in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Yeah, brain cancer. She was only sixty six years old,
and I think it happened really fast, like she was
diagnosed three months before she passed. At that point, the
books the three books together had sold some five and
a half million copies. By spring of twenty fifteen, the
(45:33):
Silver Palette Cookbook was in its one hundredth printing. Rosso,
who again was originally from Michigan, moved back there in
the early nineties, having gotten married. Sometime between Good Times
and New Basics. She and her husband took over this
really charming like lake town bed and breakfast, the Wickwood Inn,
(45:55):
and ran it as like a farm to table dining
destination all the way up until twenty twenty one, when
they passed the reins. I assume they retired, but yeah,
she'd still been doing like lectures and cooking classes and
food industry consulting through the twenty teens at least. And yeah, uh,
(46:15):
I wanted I wanted to end on a quote from
that first book that I that I really like. So
there's there's a theme, and we've touched on this a
little bit throughout the book, like a line that a
lot of recipes include is taste and a just seasoning
if necessary, which seems like basic, like a like a
(46:39):
basic thing, but if you're not familiar with cooking, it's
one of those reasons why the book comes off as
so friendly because it's like, yeah, taste and adjust if necessary.
Do that. So So, here's a quote that I think
is exemplary of why this book went so far. It's
like in the margin on the page with the recipe
(47:02):
for braised beef short ribs. Okay, it's sort of a
long one. Bear with me. There is one rule in
our kitchen made in the very beginning which still holds true.
When cooking, you must taste. To think that you can
follow a recipe and do today what you did yesterday
is erroneous. A good cook needs to be able to
(47:22):
taste and trust his or her own judgment only through
developing taste, and we stress developing. No one is born
with this kind of silver spoon. Can you begin to
trust your cooking self? Don't be afraid to taste. It
is the only way we know to understand food, to
know how to experiment, to build our own confidence. Treat
(47:43):
it like two pieces of a puzzle. If you try
it and it doesn't work, what has been lost. If
it does, perhaps you can improve upon it the next time.
To follow a recipe repeatedly because it is safe, tried
and true, and from a reliable source is boring and impersonal.
Take our recipes, make them your own, and improve upon them.
(48:04):
That will be our greatest pleasure.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
I love that. I think I love the idea of
having basic understanding and a place to start from. Yeah,
But then adding, you know what, I don't necessarily like this,
or I can't.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
Access this right I don't have it, I don't feel
like going to the store right now to get it,
or I have this other thing that I'm curious about.
What would happen if I did, you know.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Yeah, experimenting and then learning from the experiment. Maybe it
was a complete failure in the sense you don't want
to eat it, but you learned. Okay, that didn't work
at all.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
I really like that take on it, because I feel
like some cookbooks can be so stuffy in that you
have to do it this way. Mm hm, it has
this and if you can't succeed in that, if your
cheesecake cracks, then you have failed as a human person,
(49:16):
and get out of here.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
It can it can It can feel intimidating, and and
these do feel like like knowledgeable but friendly, like, hey,
maybe you don't know about these different kinds of pushido,
let me tell you.
Speaker 1 (49:33):
Yeah, And if you're having people over, Yes, what you do?
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Oh my goodness, Yeah, leave the tail on the shrimp
because it makes them look a little bit bigger. And
put out a number of large seashells that have that
have lillies in the center for your guests to leave
their shrimp tails in. Really, that was advice that I read.
(50:03):
Your cheese parties are going to go up a level.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Lauren.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
Uh, I'm not positive that's advice I'm gonna be taken,
but uh, but I appreciate that they took the time
to write it down.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
Did you find when you were looking back through them
or their recipes that caught your eye that you thought, Oh,
I should I want to make those oh billions?
Speaker 2 (50:26):
Yeah, like like a lot of them and like a
lot of them really are very simple kinds of like oh,
like I hadn't entirely like why haven't I thought to
cook whatever it is that way? Why haven't I thought
to put it with that kind of sauce? Why haven't
I thought? And you know kind of like what like
like like when we were talking to Julia, like like
(50:46):
why like I have all of this time in my garden,
it would probably be happy if I trimmed it down
a little bit. Why don't I make some time vinegar
so that I can use that for vinegarrettes, that I
can use that to dress my roast vegetables.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
Yes, I'm looking forward to hearing more about your ventures.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
Yeah, yeah, they are. All three of them are like again,
the one that I cook like like literally cook from
or not literally. I never follow a recipe literally, but
the one, the one I find most useful in my
like week to week life, is New Basics. But but yeah,
(51:31):
whenever I want concepts for flavors, those are These are
like the first three books I pull off the shelf.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
I love it. I'll have to borrow them from you
or something. I don't know, but.
Speaker 2 (51:46):
Yeah, oh yeah we can. Copies are available. We can
work this out.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
Yes, I did really enjoy reading about kind of the
the like New York five of when the first one
came out of how people were like, oh, I want
to be like when Harry met Sally. Yeah, well let
me cook something out of this cookbook.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Yeah. Yeah, it's it's weird. It's weird, like what a
like what a very specific what a very specific time? Yes,
And there's also like a lot of like glimmers of
I don't know, uh, Sex and the City or like
American Psycho.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
Yeah, those two things, those two very related things. No,
there's sort of a aspirational New York life.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
Yes, however that might appear, Yes, there there you go.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
Indeed. Indeed, well you know, listeners, we love hearing from
you about cookbooks, about your experiences with them, about your
favorite rest peace in them. Please let us know.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
Oh yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, we would. We would genuinely
love to hear from you. But that is about all
we have to say about the Silver Palette for now.
We do already have some listener mail for you, though,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from one more quick break for
a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (53:33):
And we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, And
we're back with listen. I've showed you a picnic and
then I don't know what happened.
Speaker 2 (53:50):
Sure that that seems picnicky? Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (53:54):
Yeah? Okay, okay, good wow, listeners. As you know, we've
had some kind of message mayhem in our e yeah,
our inbox, uh, and we're trying to grapple with it.
But essentially a bunch of messages were going to jump mail,
(54:14):
and we didn't realize for a while. So Joe wrote
in a message that was perhaps lost, thank you for
rescending it.
Speaker 2 (54:26):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, huh.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
Yes, so Joe wrote. Two years ago, I was able
to visit a friend who lives into Loose, France, which
is known as the City of Violets. To Lose indeed
host a violet festival, though it was too late for
it during my visit. Even without the festival, there is
still no escaping the violets and to Lose. Most of
(54:49):
the shops carry some sort of violet product. Violet soaps,
candied violet pedals, violet chocolates, you name it. I get
overwhelmed by floral since very easily and don't particularly like
them in my food, so that part wasn't for me.
I'll leave the violet chocolates to my friend. I did
(55:10):
buy a bar of violet soap for my mom and
a tea towel for myself. It has the word to
Lose and violet flowers embroidered on it. I think of
that lovely time with my friends every time I use it.
The LEAs Miserrob mentioned sent me down a rabbit hole
I've loved the musical since I was a kid, and
(55:32):
in high school I attempted to read the book in
both English and French. That endeavor was eventually abandoned because boy,
oh boy, does Victor Hugo love talking about the Parisian
sewage system, and there's only so much I want to
know about it. In any case, that part of Fatine's
story is misinterpreted if people are thinking it's romantic. Fatine
(55:56):
is on her deathbed and she's thinking about her daughter Cosette.
She had to give up so that she could live
a better life. The song was one she would sing
to Cosette to get her to sleep. Here's where it
gets weird. The Project Gutenberg version of Les Miz that
I used to find that section and confirm the context
(56:18):
says the following roses are pink, cornflowers are blue, I
love my love and cornflowers are blue. Baffled, I turned
to the French version, also on Project Gutenberg, and this
is what it said. Les Bluette's song blue les Rose
sen Rose Bluettes translates to cornflowers or even blueberries, not
(56:42):
a violet in sight. I'm now tempted to hunt down
other versions to see how the song's been translated. Where
did the violets go?
Speaker 2 (56:56):
I love this kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (56:58):
I did too. Please let us know if you figure
it out.
Speaker 2 (57:02):
Yeah. Yeah, there's little those little things of translation, like right,
like and how does how does that rhyme go? In
other languages?
Speaker 1 (57:14):
Yeah, and we've spoken before about the language of flowers.
But also just when something gets translated like that, there's
usually there's a lot of other meaning that gets taken on,
or some other meaning that wasn't.
Speaker 2 (57:33):
Yeah, some association, some yeah, connotation.
Speaker 1 (57:36):
That roses might mean something different based on whatever culture
you're in. I'm fascinated by this. I'm legitimately hoping that
you write back in about it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:53):
Yeah, I'm I've never been super into lame miss, but yeah,
I have that honestly, the Parsian sewage system is mostly
what I've heard about in people talking about the novel,
which I love. Shout out Victor Hugo, what a weirdo.
(58:16):
But oh my goodness, that violet festival.
Speaker 1 (58:20):
Yes, yes, and I'm I'm glad you brought this email
back when it was in our jucktmail when we missed it,
because this was a good throwback about the violet episode
and all of the products that you could get, yes,
violet based products.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
Yeah. I also tend to scent in general can be
very overwhelming for me, and violet is one of them
that if it's in a soap kind of way, I'm
not interested. But I do like it in candies. I
do like it in foods like candies or a gelato
or a chocolate sort of situation. So I hope it
(59:05):
wasn't terrible for you. It sounds it sounds at least
visually delightful.
Speaker 1 (59:13):
Yes, yes, And I think it sounds like you had
a great time.
Speaker 2 (59:20):
Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (59:26):
Now I'm very happy. I'm very happy to hear about this.
I'm glad. I'm glad that we rediscovered your email. So
thank you.
Speaker 2 (59:34):
Yeah, oh yes, yes, yes yes. If anyone else never
got a response from I say us, but I mean Annie,
Annie's the one who helms the email, then yeah, yeah,
please feel free to resend. That would be delightful. Thank you.
Julie wrote, you asked about college cuisine, so here's my bit.
(59:56):
My approach to cooking in college was like the cooking
show Chop a few decades before it was invented, namely
using whatever I happened to have in the cupboard and fridge.
With a focus on leftovers, I needed to stretch my
food budget and discovered I could put almost anything into
an omelet using whatever bits of ingredients I had left.
I used that same approach to create other random dishes. Recently,
(01:00:18):
I came across this delightful gem of a recipe I
made up in spite of my current revulsion at the
combination of some of its ingredients. It must have been
tasty enough for me to actually bother writing it down.
Photo of recipe is attached. It is for Julie's mystery
tuna loaf. It calls for canned tuna, rings of pineapple,
(01:00:46):
some cheddar and Swiss cheese, eggs and milk, leftover peas
or corn, some bread, a couple other things that I'm
not entirely positive I can read. Yeah, it's it's like
a meatloaf, but a tuna looaf, sure, Julie continues. When
(01:01:10):
I showed it to my daughter, she laughed and thought
it sounded disgusting. I'm not even a fan of Swiss
cheese or hot pineapple, so I'm guessing it was my
roommate's contribution. We used to take turns cooking dinner. Her
cooking was more shall we say, conventional. Mine was always
a surprise, but she ate it with good humor. I
(01:01:32):
also wanted to comment on the cottage cheese episode a
little late. I have, for most of my sixty six
years been a particular consumer of cheese of the cottage,
as my daughter used to call it. I've tried many
brands over the years, but the one thing I insist
upon is that they have no bean gums or other
additives besides milk, cream or salt. Call me a cottage
(01:01:53):
cheese purist. I am willing to spend more for the
better kinds, as there's really no comparison with the cheaper ones.
I also don't like soupy ones with too much liquid
in them. It should have some body for me. It's
a breakfast staple eaten on its own, though occasionally with
sprouts if eaten with lunch. I've never been a fan
of eating it with fruit. My daughter tells me that
(01:02:14):
cottage cheese is a thing now, which I find amusing.
I guess old things sometimes get a glow up. I
really enjoy your podcast and the variety of subjects you too,
find a feature. I always learned something new and often
get some laughs as well. Oh thank you, yes, oh
thank you. Yeah, oh we're so glad. Yeah uh yeah,
(01:02:38):
I'm horrified. I am gleefully horrified by this creation. I
wouldn't I wouldn't not try it.
Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
I this is fantastic.
Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
I don't know how much of it I would consume voluntarily.
Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
I'm so intrigued because we and listeners please keep writing in.
We asked for what are you doing? What did you
do when you were in college?
Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:03:12):
And you were figuring things out maybe, oh sure, strict budget.
Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
Yeah yeah, I mean, you know, we're all kind of
like like little little you know, raw cookie do people
at that point. Yeah, to paraphrase Buffy and yeah, so
I mean you were trying stuff out.
Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
You were, you were. This is when I look back
on what I did in college. This is much more experimental.
Oh yeah, what I was doing. I do like that
you have the addition of your roommate, kind of the
like wild Cary might have influenced how this happened, but
you wrote it down. It was good enough. It was
(01:03:57):
good enough down. No judgment, just curiosity.
Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
So yeah, oh no, zero judgment, absolutely not and I
enjoy being horrified, so.
Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
I do. Speaking to the college experience, it is fun
to look back, at least in my case, on the
kind of roommate, who's cooking what situation?
Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
Yeah, and I did learn some stuff from my roommate, sure, absolutely, Yeah,
she was doing a whole different thing than what I
was doing. Yeah, fascinating me around. We made Hobbits dou
hobbits do. Yeah, that was pretty good.
Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
It was mostly just whatever we had, and you put
it in a SUPERI that's hobby.
Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
Yeah, sure right, Yeah, I agree with all of your
cottage cheese notes. By the way, this is also how
I purchase cottage cheese. Yeah. I like some liquid, but
not too much. If it has no liquid, i'm mad.
I'd you need a specific ratio. Yeah, yeah, but I
(01:05:17):
don't like the texture. Once they've added some kind of
texturizer that's supposed to make me like the texture, I'm like, nah, yeah,
they're trying too hard at that point. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:05:29):
I do love that your daughter told you it's a
thing now, which it is. She's not wrong, she's correct. Yeah,
but that is quite funny, quite funny. Indeed.
Speaker 2 (01:05:47):
Oh oh my goodness, how how wonderful? Thank you Yes.
Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
Thank you to both of these listeners for writing in.
If you would like to write to us, you can
or email us hello at Saber. We are also on
social media.
Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
You can find us on Instagram and Blue Sky at
savor pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Save is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from
my Heart Radio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as
always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard.
(01:06:22):
Thanks to you for listening, and we hope that lots
more good things are coming your way
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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