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It’s time to get back to basics! It’s easy to get caught up in the latest advancements and headlines related to health and sustainability but one of the simplest things you can do for yourself and the planet is to cook at home. 

For those of us who cook on a regular basis, we may take for granted the skills it’s taken years to cultivate and quickly forget what it’s like to be a beginner. From picking out the “right” ingredients to making sure the oven even works, it doesn’t take long for the task of getting dinner on the table to become overwhelming.

Cait Mizzi, a functional nutritionist, sees this overwhelm in her clients all the time and knows it can be an obstacle in one’s health journey. To help her clients, Cait meets them where they are by creating individualized plans to get people in the kitchen and cooking healthful meals for the family.

In this episode, Cait joins my co-host, James Connolly, to chat about the fundamentals of cooking and basic kitchen set-up. Here’s a list of simple essentials Cait recommends:

Pantry Items:

• Salt – pink Himalayan, Celtic salt, kosher salt, sea salt
• Pepper
• A high heat oil – animal fats like tallow, lard, or duck fat
• A cold prep oil like extra virgin olive
• A versatile oil like coconut

Refrigerator Necessities:

• Long-lasting produce – carrots, ginger root, beets, parsnips, turnips, etc
• Seasonal produce – great tasting and more affordable
• Vinegar 
• Mustard
• Butter
• Ghee

Freezer Must-haves:

• Fruits
• Meat – see below for Cait’s favs
• Nuts and seeds 
• Broths

Kitchen Tools:

• Cast Iron Pan
• Dutch Oven
• A working oven/stove
• Mason Jars

Cait and James also share some tips they’ve learned from years of cooking at home like:

• The secret to a great salad dressing
• What to do with leftover pickle juice
• The “holy trio” – carrots, onion, and celery
• Tips for finding good cuts of meat and how to prepare them 
• Cait’s recommended cuts of meat:
  • Trotters and chicken feet, chicken backs
  • Pork hocks
  • Hanger and skirt steaks
  • Short ribs, riblets, oxtail 
• Food Safety Tips
• Why James doesn’t use marinades and what to use instead

This is a great listen for a cooking newbie and even if you’ve been cooking for years, you’re sure to learn something new!

Resources:

The French Paradox by Lewis Perdue

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking by Samin Nosrat

Connect with Cait:

Website: Cait Mizzi

Instagram: @caitmizzi

Facebook: Cait Mizzi, CFNP

Episode Credits:

Thank you to all who’ve made this show possible. Our hosts are Diana Rodgers and James Connelly. Our producer is Emily Soape. And of course, we are grateful for our sponsors, Patreon supporters, and listeners.

Thank you to Dry Farm Wines for their continued support of my work. Their wines are all-natural and low in alcohol which means less of a foggy feeling the next day. Plus, the non-irrigated vineyards force the roots to dig deep in search of water allowing the grapes to absorb extra minerals. Give Dry Farm Wines a try if you’ve given up on wine because of how you feel the next day or if you are simply looking for high-quality, all-natural wine.  They have a great selection of sparkling, whites, rosés, and reds. And when you visit sustainabledish.com/wine you can check out their latest special offer exclusively for listeners of the Sustainable Dish podcast.

Quotes:

“You could really do a kitchen pretty simply with like salt, pepper, and oil. You don’t need to go too far past that, to be honest, if you can actually utilize really great ingredients and just use those simple flavoring possibilities.” – Cait Mizzi 

“From Per Se in California all the way down to your local sort of dive restaurant, every single one of them, [uses vegetable oil]. It makes up close to 8% of calories in the United States.” – James Connolly.

“The ability to find [meals] enjoyable isn’t just what happens in your mouth, from what you perceive as the taste. It’s the texture, not just the texture that you bite into, but the texture that you cut into, or the visual appearance of that food, the way it’s plated, the smell of it. It is all of our senses together that create the beauty of a meal.” – Cait Mizzi

Transcript:

Diana Rodgers, RD  0:01  

Welcome to the Sustainable Dish Podcast. I’m Diana Rodgers, a real food registered dietitian, author, and sustainability advocate. I co-host this podcast with James Connolly who was a producer on my film Sacred Cow. I also founded the Global Food Justice Alliance an initiative, advocating for the inclusion of animal source foods like meat, dairy, and eggs for a more nutritious, sustainable, and equitable worldwide food system. You can check it out and join me at globalfoodjustice.org. Thanks again for listening. And now on to our show.

James Connolly  0:39  

Hi, this is James Connolly for Sustainable Dish Podcast. I put out a question on my Instagram a few weeks ago, and it was centered around I think I posted a photo of what I was cooking that night. And I asked everybody if they wanted to start to hear like, you know how I think about cooking because I don’t typically post anything that I’m eating on a regular basis. And my original account was set up to show what I eat on a regular basis. And then when I got involved with Diana’s work, then it became much more kind of involved in industry and food and agriculture and all this other stuff. So I wanted to kind of talk about like basic first principles of cooking, how to set up a kitchen, how to think about cooking, basic principles of cooking. I wanted to kind of talk about all of these things that when I first started out, like at 28, knew nothing about cooking, and then found this sort of lifelong passion for it. And I became a butcher and a chef and founded a nonprofit that focused on food and nutrition, in inner-city schools. And so I was teaching all the time about food, nutrition, and cooking, and basic principles. But my audience had never really kind of heard my basic ideas and understandings of it. And so reached out – a few people kind of reached out to me to say, “Alright, this will be good conversation.” And Cait Mizzi was one of the people, I think I actually reached out to you. Because one of the few accounts that actually posts on a regular basis what you’re serving your family, and what you’re making, and all of that stuff. And I think one of the things that I tend to forget is that there is a whole legion of people out there who are starting to understand the principles of where their food is coming from but don’t know how to take that information and put it into their kitchen. So welcome, Cait. Thank you so much for coming on. Tell us a little bit about yourself. 

Cait Mizzi  2:34  

Sure. Well, thank you for having me. First of all, the Sustainable Dish has been really such a resource that I use in my practice and my clinical practice with patients. I’m a functional nutritionist. And so I have a similar background to Diana in that. But it’s been such an amazing platform, like you said, to sort of educate on where food is coming from especially, you know, a lot of the mythology around meat, and whether it’s, you know, sustainable or good for you or what have you. So thank you for allowing for that platform to exist and continuing to work on that. Content-wise, it’s really valuable to a lot of people. And then yeah, I definitely share a lot of your, you know, I guess your ethos around food and cooking, I think from what I understand of you. And I try my very best to make everything that I recommend to patients really easy – really easy, really doable, really affordable. For the most part, I mean, we can go seesawing going from one end of the spectrum to the next based on, you know, what is possible for people. But really making things especially nutritionally super streamlined and easy to achieve is really the only way that people will stick with it and stay on the wagon, if you will, and enjoy it because then it’s not stressful. And so what I post on Instagram is definitely what we eat in my household every single day of the week. And I don’t find it overwhelming at all. And I’m a full-time single parent. So if I can do it, then everyone else can do it, too.

James Connolly  4:17  

Yeah, and I think one of the sayings that kind of comes to me is we always overestimate what we can do in the short term and underestimate what we can do in the long term. And I think it’s important that a lot of the barriers for entry for people for cooking is to understand that there are when a recipe or you’re just starting out on cooking, it may seem completely overwhelming. We’ve been sort of raised on this sort of diet of celebrity culture chefs who, you know, produce these incredible meals in front of us and we see that sort of barrier for change or barrier for change in our own lives. So we’re never going to get anywhere close to that. And so with the decrease in cooking that’s happened since the 70s and 80s in America, we’ve actually seen an increase in shows on like Food Network and celebrity chefs and Hell’s Kitchen. And, you know, chefs like yelling at you. And you know, all this, like, I don’t know, ‘play’ almost sort of watching other people cook this stuff. And so it’s become somewhat voyeuristic to go and watch somebody do something. But when you sit in your own kitchen, and now you have meat in front of you, and you’ve got vegetables, and we don’t necessarily know what to do with that. And so, talk a little bit about like, when you’re working with your clients, like, what do you start out with the pantry? Do you start out with what they have? How do you introduce them to the idea of “Alright, here’s a fundamental change.” Talk a little bit about that process. 

Cait Mizzi  5:45  

Sure. So obviously, it depends on the client. And of course, I meet every client where they are for sure. So that’s the fundamental sort of law within my practice is that you know, nothing like you said is like a giant one-step process. It’s, you know, a choreographed dance of like all of these little baby steps that then add up to what you know, you ultimately want to achieve. So, you know, with say, you know, your most average person who is eating out most meals of the week, or grabbing to go or even getting maybe some food delivery, if that’s something that they can afford, but they’re not really spending a lot of time in the kitchen, other than sort of popping something in the microwave, or what have you, then we would definitely be starting really from the ground up and creating a really foundational sort of set of rules, if you will, for the kitchen. And that could definitely look like building their pantry. So creating a list of what those staples sort of need to be every day. So ensuring that whenever you run out of one of those staples, that they’re refilled, and why they’re important, so you know, making sure that we have the basic spices and herbs, good salt, good pepper, like all of the really fundamental sort of seasoning aspects to food. And then that could stretch into things even like jarred sauces. So like tomato paste, or tomato sauce, or vinegars, oils, making sure that we have a conversation about what oils are healthy, and what oils perform at, you know, low heats and high heat. So really making sure that all of those staple pantry products or ingredients are for sure locked and loaded would be like the very first layer of making sure that that works for a client.

James Connolly  7:34  

So let’s get a little bit more specific. So basics like pantry items, things that you consider absolutes that you want somebody to have, or somebody to aspire to. So let’s talk a little bit about that. Refrigerated and non-refrigerated.

Cait Mizzi  7:51  

Okay, so non-refrigerated first is definitely the most important if you ask me. And you know, really if you weren’t super particular about all of the complicated nuances and flavor in your meals, you could really do a kitchen pretty simply with like salt, pepper, and oil. You don’t need to go too far past that to be honest if you can actually utilize really great ingredients and just use those simple flavoring possibilities. Obviously, I encourage people to go a little further than that but you know, having an oil that performs really well at high heat so something like an animal fat would be really good – so tallow or duck fat or lard that you know you can fry with, you can roast with you can pan-sear with those are really, really stable, they’re healthy, they’re cheap. So having something one of those on hand is really important and then you know an oil that maybe performs a little better for salad dressings or cold items like an extra virgin olive oil is a really good option or even a coconut oil that can kind of bridge the gap that can go either way into high-temperature cooking or you know salad dressings if you want so making sure you have your fats dialed in those that’s a really important conversation right there. Avoiding vegetable fats so, canola oil, safflower, sunflower, cottonseed, soy, all of those that are you know, really highly refined industrial and really not fit for human consumption from a nutritional perspective. And then good quality salt, everyone has to have that you can’t make a meal without salt. First of all, we need it. It’s not available in all foods all the time in nature, some. But it’s how we get the crust on our meat. It’s how we get the flavor in our stews, it really you know enhances and brightens a lot of dishes. You’ll use it in sauces and salad dressings and seasoning meat and you know everything in between. It’s also a really great functional food because it’s super hydrating. So in the summer you can put it in your water, sprinkle it on your fruit and really elevate super simple things with just a little bit of a really good quality salt. So like pink, Himalayan or Celtic salt or kosher salt, sea salt of any kind, that is a really, really important staple.

James Connolly  10:13  

Yeah, and I think if you are cooking at home and trying to remove as many ultra-processed foods as possible I think one of the bigger problems for people is that they underestimate the amount of salt that they need, especially if they’re active. And I mean, most of these ultra-processed foods are just so heavily layered with salts, because otherwise, it wouldn’t taste like anything. I do think if you are eating out a lot, one of the problems that you will find that especially if you’re a city dweller, like walking around during garbage pickup, you’ll see every single restaurant is using soybean oil, or they’re using corn oil, from Per Se in California or all the way down to your local sort of dive, whatever, like restaurant, every single one of them, it makes up close to 8% of calories in the United States, total calories in the United States is in some sort of vegetable oil. And so it’s sort of a hidden fat that we’re consuming on a regular basis. And removing that I think actually has a real sort of knock-on effect on any number of different things, but also taste. I save a lot of my bacon fat. So when I render my bacon in the morning, I scrape all of that off, I put it into a jar, it sits right next to my stove it is one of my go-to fats actually use it in salad dressing sometimes. So I cut it. Yeah, I cut it a little bit with olive oil. And then I use a lot of acids to kind of cut through the fat. But it gives that smokiness to a salad or to a vegetable that actually I really, really like. And it’s usually like people are like, “Wow, this is really different. Where is this flavor profile coming from?”

Cait Mizzi  11:49  

Oh, the beautiful, magical world of bacon and pork fat. Endless there’s endless possibilities. Yeah, I do the same thing. I do render my bacon fat. I also render any other fats. So if I have pork or beef big, like big cuts that I’m maybe butchering down into smaller cuts on my own, then all you know, trim off all the fat and then render that down in a pot, which is really easy to do. And then you just skim off any of the yucky stuff that sort of bubbles up on the top, pour it into a glass jar – has to be glass. You don’t want to do that into plastic or you’ll either melt the container or you know, leach some of those plastics from the container. But glass and then let it cool at room temp and then throw it in the fridge and that stuff is Apocalypse-surviving basically, as long as it can stay like dark, closed away from air and a little bit cool, that stuff lasts forever.

James Connolly  12:41  

Yeah, it’s got about five jars in right now. You’ll almost never use as much as you can pull off of that bacon. Especially if you’re making bacon on a regular basis. We’ll kind of dive a little bit more into spices. But I think when we underestimate the amount of salt that we need, one of the things I find is the meal can actually become highly unsatisfying. Salt is a flavor enhancer. It has all of these wonderful properties that then take what is whatever you’re serving it with, to a whole new level. And so when I was in culinary school, we would go and say we’re making a carrot soup or butternut squash soup, our chef would make us smell. So we had added our spices, we had chicken stock that was in there, we had butternut squash, and it smelled like nothing. And then you would just salt, salt, salt. And you would just see this rise in a flavor profile, because it’s taking all of those layers that you’ve added into whatever you’re making, and then just amplifying all of them. And I think that that is because we’re so afraid of salts. And because we’re so afraid of like real traditional fats, we sort of grew up I think, not learning the degree to which how much those things are integral to a really well-made meal. So when you got to the restaurant and you’re tasting something, you’re just like, “Wow, what is this?” You know, it’s a combination of that thing.

Cait Mizzi  14:05  

You know, you mentioned the fear of salt and fat. And that definitely is a real thing, for sure. Still to this day, although it is slowly getting better. But most of my patients are still very apprehensive when I say don’t be afraid of either of those two things, you know, assuming that they’re the right quality versions, but what’s interesting to me is that the same subset of people will go to a fast-food chain or even a high-end restaurant like you said, and really devour and enjoy and just like absolutely bask in the flavors of a restaurant-quality meal or a restaurant meal period, because those two things are there, but then there’ll be afraid to have them in their own home. And if you had them in your own home and you were actually using them properly, you’d probably be far less likely to even venture out into a restaurant and have a meal where you’re probably eating way more calories. It’s probably way more fat of various kinds that you don’t want to be having, because you’re not utilizing those ingredients properly at home and not finding yourself satiated or satisfied by the food you’re cooking at home. So it’s an interesting sort of like, catch 22 that we find ourselves in with those two ingredients or two flavor profiles, I guess you would say. So yeah, I just think that’s a really important thing to cover is that the salt and fat component of home cooking like has to be there, or you’re just going to be so bored.

James Connolly  15:28  

When I went to French culinary, one of the things that we used to talk about is the 80s craze in low fat. And so you go out to restaurants and everybody would order filet mignon because it’s the lowest fat cut. And they would order like egg white omelets or any number of different things. And so you’d have these really high-end restaurants that were like, what are we supposed to do, somebody would come in, they order a filet mignon and ask for it well done. So what they would do is they would, because obviously, you have to do it, the client is asking for it, they would rest the filet mignon in clarified butter. So they would do it to taste. And then they would rest it in there to get some degree of flavor it kind of like infused back into this thing. Or with the egg white omelets, they would cook it in butter. Right, so and you know slow cook it in butter. And so you would go and you get this egg white omelet, you think you’re eating low fat, but meanwhile, these restaurants they were… they had to figure out a way to satisfy the consumer, the customer, and also kind of lied to them as well. And so like French cooking has always known that fat equals flavor. I wonder if you want to like add into that as well?

Cait Mizzi  16:40  

Well, I mean, I can’t I can’t disagree with you on that. French cooking definitely one of my all-time favorites. And probably the basis for you know, most of my own like sort of techniques in the kitchen. And I don’t have like a proper training like you do in the kitchen. Mine is more or less self-taught, although a little-known fact about me is that I did go to pastry school for a short blip for cake decorating a long, long, long time ago. So that was really like the only opportunity I had to have any sort of real training, which I never utilized. However, even in that, it was a lot of fat, a lot of butter, you know, buttercreams, all those things. So it’s so essential, it’s so necessary, it’s a major component of cooking. And it’s, I think there is a lot more information available now to help transition people who haven’t still come back from that low-fat craze, to get a little bit more back on the bandwagon and open up their minds and make them feel a little more a little bit more comfortable in terms of consuming fats for food, at least for the very sole purpose of flavor. You know, everything you said you cannot achieve those complex, satisfying flavors with any food really not even like a salad or even a veggie platter has to have some element of fat, whether it’s a dipping sauce, or some sort of seasoning to really bring it to life. Otherwise, like you’re eating rabbit food, you may as well just head out into the back garden and start chomping right off the bush. You know, it’s just such a huge part of our food culture, right across the globe. And every in every society and every culture and every nationality. It’s there.

James Connolly  18:23  

Yeah. And I find that really interesting that the distinction now between as we’ve moved further and further away from the sort of vilification of fats, and depending on how much you’re paying attention, even some of the health-related issues associated with meat, they’ve really sort of doubled down on the climate change environmental aspects of it because they think it is actually going away. So I agree. Yeah. And so there is an ideology out there to get people to reduce the consumption of meat, which, obviously, we talked about forever. But the only reason I’m bringing it up is because I think it’s important that we start to dismantle some of the aspects of the way that we think about food in the same way. And so if we are not as afraid of saturated fat, if we’re not as afraid of cholesterol, then we can actually look at what they used to call like the French paradox, right? I don’t know if you ever saw that book? 

Cait Mizzi 19:18

No, I don’t think I know it. 

James Connolly 19:20

It’s a great book because it’s totally wrong in every but it’s the French Paradox is that all of these French women and French people, even though they smoke and drink and do all this stuff, that they have really low rates of heart disease and all this other stuff. And so this guy literally jumps around the fact that they’re eating paté, and saturated fat and all of these really beautiful, wonderful meals made with butter and he jumps all around it. So the French, “Oh, they just walk everywhere and they reduce their consumption of very satisfying meals. And so they always live to leave a little bit on their plates and all this stuff.” You spend any time in France, people sit around for five hours. They don’t walk anywhere. Like, it’s just a ridiculous assumption, but it’s like, he could not admit that their French chicken was a completely different bird, that it’s like it’s all legs, the breast is really small, it’s there’s so much fat that drips off of this bird because it’s eating its ancestral diet. And it’s in, they have protocols in place to ensure that this is a proper breed of chicken that actually carries fat. That the skin and crisps up, it’s a completely different bird from the American bird in every single way. Or…

Cait Mizzi  20:35  

And not just that, that extends to all of their other foods as well like the grains that they’re consuming, the wheat that they’re using to make their breads and their croissants, and all of these other fabulous carby foods that now we’re starting to fear over here. But, you know, yeah, all of the ingredients are of a different caliber to what we are used to here in North America, that has way more to do with their longevity and lower heart disease and have lower risks of heart disease and things like that than their walking.

James Connolly  21:10  

And also, I mean, leaving something on the plate actually makes sense if you’re eating a very satisfying meal, but like, Alright, so let’s get back to the kitchen. Let’s kind of talk about, like, how we can go in so many different directions. Well, you talked about olive oil and salt and pepper and spices. Refrigeration, like what do you have in your refrigerator that you consider to be staples,

Cait Mizzi  21:31  

Okay, so if that’s going to start to include food, like actual consumable food, not ingredients that helped to put a meal, then that would be you know, your produce. So again, in a perfect ideal world, it’s going to be organic or local, you know, Farmers Market quality produce. That’s not always possible for everyone. And that’s totally fine. Get the best quality that you can afford of those things. So I try my best to get people on board with at least seasonal foods because they’re usually cheaper, you can get them much easier closer to home. And then you can decide what you do with them from there, if you want to freeze them or preserve them or whatever, that’s a topic for another day. But you know, I always have carrots in my fridge, for example, that is one vegetable that is always in my fridge. You will never open my fridge and not find enough carrots to do something with. They’re so versatile. And you can eat them raw or cooked. Same with probably some sort of an onion. So like a shallot or an onion, or you know, yellow onion or red onion, whatever, whatever your preference is really, I like shallot. I always call them the elite onion, because they are just so beautiful and delicate in flavor. I find that much easier to digest too. So that’s something that’s always going to be in my fridge. Likewise, for ginger root, that’s definitely not something well, it is local, you can grow it in most climates, actually. But I would say that the majority of the ginger you have access to in a grocery store is probably not local. However, it’s, you know, again, just like this powerful powerhouse of flavor that lends itself to so many different dishes. And again, can be consumed raw or cooked. So I always have that in my fridge. And then I have a wide selection of jars of various concoctions. And this is something that you kind of build over time. So it’s not that you know, I would have any expectation for someone who’s just starting off as a home cook – do you have you know the full arsenal of flavors that I have in my fridge, but you know, I love lots of acids. So I have lots of different vinegars, things that have been pickling. Brines, like every time I run out of a jar of pickles, the brine is always… I never dumped that down the drain that is just cooking gold. You can brine meat in it. You can brine veggies in it, you can then roast them or barbecue them or whatever. So that stuff is absolutely worth keeping. And again, just another sort of easy way to prevent waste. Most people buy a jar of pickles, whether it’s you know, Vic’s sandwich pickles or fancy properly fermented garlic pickle doesn’t matter what the selection that brine is just so amazing to work with. So lots of stuff like that. Mustard. Various mustards are really great for cooking again for creating a crust on a piece of meat, making salad dressings using that mustard, and ways to you know, whip up with an olive oil and a lemon to create a great salad dressing. And again, you’re then buying a bottle of canola oil, fancied up canola oil from the grocery store. You’re just making the amount that you need to fit the flavors of the meal that you’re making. And it’s super easy and fast. So lots of those sorts of things will be in my in my fridge. Butter. We talked lots about fat. There is never a day… it would be a bad day if you opened my fridge and didn’t find some gorgeous butter in there. Same thing with ghee, if you have access to get your own ghee, it’s another clarified butter you actually mentioned that they, you know, with the filet mignon in the 80s, that they were sort of resting it in ghee, so things like that. And then in the freezer, that’s where you’d find mostly fruits that are not necessarily in season but that we might want to eat throughout the year. So things like blueberries or strawberries, blackberries, those things freeze really well right off the vine. And sometimes I’ll actually do this myself or recommended to clients that in the summer if you have access to a berry patch a year in North America, we have plenty of access late summer early fall to all of those great berries. And you can go and pick your own and get absolutely stocked up and then just freeze them all and have more than enough to carry you throughout the whole year. And then you’re eating seasonally and locally off your own handiwork for the whole duration of the year. So freezer stuff like that. And then of course, you’re gonna find all the amazing cuts of meat which I like the not-so-standard cuts. I like the cheap, fattier cuts of meat because they’re the most nutritious, the most affordable, and the most delicious, for sure. So a lot of those will go in the freezer. And if you are someone who consumes nuts and seeds, I actually store those in the freezer too just to prolong shelf life, they don’t go rancid as quickly they stay more fresh. So if that’s part of your diet, and that’s a really good place to hide those. Broths – great place to store those in the freezer too. And those are an excellent addition to meals, you know, cubes of broth that you freeze after you make it and then add them to you know, you can add it to pasta sauce, or soups or braising dishes, you know, the possibilities are sort of endless there.

James Connolly  26:56  

So I’m sensing somewhat of a pattern here in that the majority of vegetables you consume are long shelf life vegetables, they can sit there for a very long time before they start to go back to the earth. That same thing with me brussel sprouts, cauliflower, I try to have as many vegetables on hand that I know will actually be in there. Ginger is going to stay in your fridge for a long time. Any number of different ones that you’ve you’ve already mentioned will actually also work well together. And so if you’re roasting, or if you’re preparing something I always have in French cooking, for most soups, you’re going to start out with sort of holy trio, right. So that’s carrots, onions, and celery. So always have those on hand again, like long shelf life vegetables. So a lot of salads don’t last, I mean, by the time they reach your grocery store, they’re already two weeks old, at least. They’re packaged in carbon dioxide so that they don’t brown but they’ve lost a lot of nutritive value. So I don’t really use them all that much. Sometimes they use them as a garnish. But for the most part, I need my refrigerator to be something that I can go to at any point during my day and envision taking all of those things and making them into something, whether it’s a soup base for fish, or, you know, a really nice stew or something like that. I always have those things on hand. So yeah, I mean, I think part of sustainability is also understanding there are vegetables that are not going to last all that long. And then there are ones that are like so uniquely like compatible with each other, and really fun to use and all of that stuff. So it’s a good point.

Cait Mizzi  28:37  

Yeah, and the one place I would say where there’s sort of room to always have some of those more delicate leafy plants on hand is where you can grow them yourself on your kitchen counter. So like things like basil or mint, chives, thyme, rosemary, like a lot of those, you can just if you have a little windowsill like even if you’re in a tiny bachelor apartment in the middle of New York City, you can have those on your windowsill or your balcony most of the year, and grow those at home and not have to go into the store and buy a little box of them that you’ll never get through and end up throwing them away. You can have them right there on your kitchen counter. And those are really all you need. As far as like fresh greens are concerned, there’s gonna be a lot of people that like, “What you don’t need, like spinach and lettuce every day?” No, you don’t. You simply don’t. There are so many other ways to get those exact same nutrients that aren’t as expensive that don’t go bad as easily like you said. I mean, how many memes have you seen, or like Ticktoc videos that are like kind of poking fun at folks who buy box spinach in hopes that they’re going to like eat the whole box but no one ever eats the whole box unless you’re making a salad for like a table of 14 people at Thanksgiving or something. You just know it’s never going to happen. So give up the ghost on that one and move forward from that and just choose vegetables that you know you’re going to consume or that will last in your fridge or in a cold cellar or closed pantry. You know, for weeks on end without going bad. So couple things we didn’t mention there would be like potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, parsnips, rutabaga. You know, turnips, those are amazing nutrient-dense foods, squashes, different kinds of butternut squash, things like that.

Diana Rodgers, RD  30:26  

Hey Guys, I wanted to tell you about my experience with using Levels, a continuous blood glucose monitor that I’ve been trying out as one of their early access members, and let you know how you can get an early one too. As you know, I pay close attention to what I eat and where it comes from. I’m one of those people who always wants to know how food impacts my health and I’ve known for a long time that excess carbs have been a big problem for my blood sugar levels. Before I started eating this way, I was on a blood sugar roller coaster and would feel really terrible if I skipped a meal. I constantly felt like I needed a snack and I didn’t understand why. The great thing about wearing a continuous glucose monitor is that you know exactly what’s happening inside your body minutes after you eat a meal. It’s been a huge game-changer for me to learn that certain carbs or food combinations work better than others and the cool thing is, everyone is different when it comes to how certain foods spike your glucose. For example, white rice, even in the context of a meal, will send my glucose soaring. But potatoes with the same amount of carbs keep me pretty level. I also learned that I don’t need to be quite as low carb as I thought I needed to be and certain tricks like eating salad or vegetables first or taking a walk after a meal make a huge difference in my spikes. I’m recommending wearing one for a month or so to everyone I work with. Levels currently has a waitlist of over 150,000 people but they are offering my listeners first come access to their beta program. So just go to sustainabledish.com/levels to get yours without a prescription. That’s sustainabledish.com/levels to jump ahead of the line and try it out for yourself to learn how your individual body reacts to food. I know you’ll think it’s pretty cool.

James Connolly  31:17  

I want to kind of go off on what you were saying before about using off-cuts of meat and using stuff that people wouldn’t normally buy. So when I started out apprenticing with Master butchers, I was 14 years old. And I did it again when I was in my late 30s going into my 40s. And the difference between what was essentially kind of throw-away short ribs used to be super cheap. I mean like nobody wanted short ribs. We were afraid, so afraid of fat that they were, in essence, like cuts that you would give away to your dog or would be kind of leftover 99 cents a pound or something like that. And now it’s used… It’s absolutely insane. Bones, we would give away like bones for stock and marrow, we couldn’t go near marrow that was to kill you on the spot. And, you know, in the same way that like skinless chicken breast and all you’re paying a premium for foods that I find just completely unsatisfying, you know, in every single way. So as that is kind of shifted, it’s become more expensive, but there’s still cuts of meat that you can buy that are very inexpensive and it’s going to feed a lot of people.

Cait Mizzi  32:29  

Yeah, so I do miss those days. Those days of you know, 99 cents a pound short ribs are for sure a thing of the past and it’s so sad because that really… that was actually my favorite birthday dinner growing up as a kid my mom would always make short ribs for me. It was just the most delicious thing in the world still to this day love but for sure are more expensive now. But they’re still cheaper than other cuts, like you said, like a filet mignon, for example, is an absolutely outrageously priced piece of meat. And it’s not very big, really, if you’re not going to get the eight-ounce you know filet that you might really want to eat not saying everyone’s going to eat eight ounces of steak but a lot of people can. That’s just like, you know, unattainable for most people to pay that. Same thing with sirloin cut or something, you know, all of these like really lean cuts, you’re paying by weight. So these are the muscle meats like chicken breast or sirloin or filet. They’re like pure lean muscle and so you’re gonna pay a lot more for those cuts. So I really like choosing pieces of meat that have either the bones, ligaments, skin, fat still somewhere on there. First of all, they’re way more nutritious because all of those tendons and ligaments and all that connective tissue is where a lot of the really important nutrients hide so things like gelatin and collagen and all the amazing amino acids that make up those things that we don’t get a lot of unless we’re eating those cuts. And those are the… those cuts may be a bit intimidating for some people because they’re like, well what the heck do I do with this like I don’t know how to remove the bones or I don’t know how to get rid of the skin. I don’t know how to crisp the skin. There’s maybe some more technique involved. But it doesn’t have to be intimidating because a lot of those cuts can easily go into a slow cooker or stockpot or a braising pot. They can roast in the oven almost endlessly as long as there’s some like moisture in there – either steam or liquid that it’s cooking in. And the great thing about those cuts of meat is like you really can’t mess it up. You can’t you really can’t overcook a slow-roasted six-hour you know lamb shank.  It just gets better. So you can you know, you can really start there I think is great. A great place for these new home cooks is braising, slow roasting, and making stocks out of those cheap bony, ligament, tendony pieces of meat. I’d say like master that first and foremost, for all of those reasons cheaper, more delicious, more flavorful, makes a bigger portion, healthier, more nutritious. I mean, it checks all the boxes, whereas the chicken breast is a chicken breast to like you really have to do a lot to that chicken breast to make it delicious. Or you have to be okay with eating something that as far as I’m concerned, tastes like cardboard. Because there’s just nothing there. There’s no fat, not an ounce of fat on a chicken breast to keep it moist and lock in that flavor. Maybe we could specifically just throw out some of the cuts that I think are great. Yeah, are really unusual. I would say for most people. For example, I love trotters and chicken feet. They are dirt cheap. Some butchers will give them away still pending on where you live. You can make the most delicious stocks and soups out of chicken feet and trotters that you will ever taste in your life. And you can use those stocks for so many different things. You can eat them as well. But I really like the advantage of always having a couple of mason jars of soup stock in the fridge or bone broth, because you can cook your rice in it for added flavor. You can cook pasta in it instead of using boiling water and again you’re getting more minerals, you’re getting healthy fats and with more flavor with all of that rich collagen and gelatin, lysine and proline, and all those great nutrients that come along with it. So those things like those unlikely bits, the scraps. Same with chicken backs, those are another really great option that are super cheap. And then like meatier versions of that that you could actually eat as opposed to maybe make a stock with – pork hocks or hanger or skirt steaks. Those are great. Different ribs like riblets or short ribs, spareribs – those are all more affordable cuts as well. And oxtail. Oxtail is something I love.

James Connolly  37:18  

Absolutely.

Cait Mizzi  37:21  

Love cooking. Super rich and delicious.

James Connolly  37:23  

When I used to work at – there was a restaurant in England, we used to have these huge vats, I mean massive vats that a human being could fit in and they would use chicken feet and chicken wings to make this the chicken stock and it would just boil for days and days and days. It would be rendered down. It was the basis for almost everything that they use to add layers to. And so when you’re thinking about like say, you know, a lamb shank stew, what I’m always trying to do is add layers of flavoring to it. And so what I’ll start out with is I want to brown the meat, right. So that just adds another layer of texture. It’s a really nice sort of flavoring, adding profile to it. You’re going to take all those bits that are kind of left at the bottom of the pan, you’re going to utilize that to add another layer of flavor. So I will say for this lamb shank, I will go brown the meat. Yesterday I was using my bacon grease to add some fat so it didn’t stick to the pan. I use a lot of high heat, I find amateur cooks are very afraid of heat and then pull that off. And then I started to add in carrots, onions, and celery and that provides the base for my garlic or my ginger that I’m going to add in. If you just added either two of the garlic or ginger into the pan right after you’ve got all that high heat on there, you’re just going to burn it. So the vegetables provide a base so that you can then add in these layers of flavor. Yesterday was a beer that I added to deglaze the pan. It’s another layer I’m going to cook off some of that alcohol and you can use that. You can actually smell – there’s an acidic smell that kind of dissipate usually takes about 10 minutes if it’s boiling. And then I’m adding chicken stock in and sometimes I’ll add the spices or chicken stock depending and then I’m adding the meat back in. That’s in the oven at 250 for say, yesterday was five lamb shanks for about four hours until it’s falling off the bone. And so for me like that is… it’s 25 minutes of prep time, very quick, just because of I organize my kitchen in a way they don’t have to think all that much. I can listen to podcast and then it’s in the oven. I don’t even think about it. I get to go off and do the rest of my day. For that my spices were cumin. I had in a berbere seasoning which is kind of a combination, which I actually really love combination seasoning. I know there’s a lot of purists out there were like, “No!” But you can always add a little bit more into it. I find they’re actually a very unique combination, depending on what you get. There are taco seasonings and Fiesta seasonings and stuff like that. But actually kind of a really nice, I find that some people will… are afraid of spice. And so they layer in spices as if they were like, you know, just taking a little pinch of something, you need a lot more spice to add to layers, because one, people are going to be tasting a little bit of the fat that’s going to carry that flavor. A lot of that is water, right. So you need to add layers into the water, even if it’s chicken stock. In order to get that full kind of range of flavors in every bite. Sometimes you have to be a little bit more adventurous with your seasonings. And then salt is the thing I added last because I know my water is going to render down. I know I’m going to lose a little bit of that. So I don’t want to over salt, anything. So adding salt as I’m going just to test flavoring and then I’ll finish up. There is a bliss point with salt that you’ll just get used to as you do it more and more. And I find it’s very, even if you’ve over-salted it, add some acid in there or add a little bit more water, you can always bring it back. A lot of cooking is very forgivable. Yeah. And just knowing what to do when those things had gotten to that point. If it became too spicy yesterday, I added some lemon juice in there and kind of took down the spice a little bit. So keeping those things in mind as you’re working is also very important.

Cait Mizzi  41:25  

Yeah, a really great book that I can give a shout-out to and most people are familiar with it is Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, I think that’s the name of the book. Samin Nosrat or sommm… I may be butchering the name, but a really great book to have in your kitchen or your home or you know, grab it from the library, at least give it one read because it really does help to break down the importance of those four things salt, fat acid, heat, as a means of creating like an incredible meal. Because really, you just need those things. As long as those things are there in some capacity, you’re gonna hit the mark. And like you said, cooking is very forgivable for the most part, like you really have to burn something to an absolute crisp or, you know, really pour the wrong thing in or something’s expired for it to go all like all the way bad. You can always claw things back a little bit. And I think the biggest issue for people getting comfortable in the kitchen or sort of taking that first step into becoming more of a home chef is just their fear of messing up. And that’s it. And that’s the only thing in their way. And as long as we can just sort of break that down and kind of give everyone permission to just get in there, take some risks, be creative, most people are going to find that they’re actually pretty decent at cooking. If they just like allow for that anxiety around making a mistake to sort of dissipate a little bit because it’s not, it’s not as difficult as a lot of people believe it to be. It’s really, I think, innate within us. Obviously, we’ve been cooking together as human species for 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of years. And you know what’s good, you know, you can go to a restaurant, you can taste what’s good, you know what you like. You just need to play a little bit to master how those things are achievable in your own kitchen. And just like I really wish people would realize that they have so much ability in the kitchen that they’re never giving themselves credit for. It just takes like a free weekend and nothing else to really like, try that on for size and then feel pretty good about it.

James Connolly  43:44  

Yeah, and I think that there’s so many topics.

Cait Mizzi  43:49  

I know you’re trying to prompt us through this next layer of the conversation. But I think one thing that’s sort of important to note too, is that a lot of people are really afraid to leave any dairy, eggs, or cheese meat out on the counter for even like a minute. It has to go in the fridge right away, or it’s gonna go bad. And it doesn’t really work like that. So I’m liberating a lot of you from that fear. Because I think the best steaks or the best roasts or the best pieces of meat that I’ve ever cooked have I’ve left out so long on the counter, and I’m not talking irresponsibly long, but you know, you get home from the grocery store or the butcher or whatever, at you know, I don’t know 11 am in the morning, and you’re not going to eat your dinner until six o’clock at night. It doesn’t need to go in the fridge. That piece of meat can actually stay on your counter, you can open it up and it can start to dry out on its own for all of those hours. And their only way that that meat could be like I guess tainted in any way is if something touched it that was dirty. So like if your dog licked it or your hands aren’t clean and you manhandle it or whatever it is, but if it’s just sitting there open to the air, that meat is totally safe to stay on the counter at home and come to room temperature and dry out on its own.

James Connolly  45:02  

Yeah, most pathogens that will be on the meats will be on the surface area. So say it’s chicken breast or anything like that it’s going to grow in those areas. And so part of the reason why ground beef is so susceptible because you’ve actually increased the surface area for bacterial pathogen growth. So steak, in essence, is very safe. And when you’re cooking under high heat and all of that stuff, you’re killing off those pathogens as well. Yeah, I could talk about this all day. Yeah, one of the general fears, and I do actually do need to kind of state that. I’ve never actually given anybody who’s coming to my house food poisoning that they’ve ever told me about. But I think that cross-contamination is probably one of the bigger ways. So if you’re handling meat, and you don’t wash your hands, and now you’re handling a salad or something like that, now you have something that’s not going to cook. And then you have a pathogen that’s sort of sitting on that. So keep that in mind. I tried to keep everything separate. My cutting boards for meats are very different from my cutting boards for vegetables, and stuff like that, it’s important to keep that in mind. One of the things that I find actually really helpful is, let’s talk a little bit about fat and acid together, either in salad dressings, or stuff you’re going to use for roasting vegetables or stuff like that. I don’t do marinades, I find marinades don’t work. The science is in essence proof that actually doesn’t go into the meat at all. Whatever flavor it’s adding to the meat is tangential to the marinade. So you’ve just left this thing in there for like 48 hours. And in some sort of marinade, you’re going to get flavoring but the flavoring is going to happen when you’re cutting the meat in and of itself. I find that’s a huge waste of time for people who get heavily involved in these things that then… because doesn’t necessarily give the bang for the buck that you’re spending all this time on. So say I’m doing a skirt steak, I will do a marinade, it’s five minutes before I cook it. So I will add spices to it. I’ll add salt, I’ll add a fat. And then I cook it under really high heat and all of that flavor is transferred. It’s still sitting on top, your tastebuds are going to touch it. And of course, like I want to layer flavors onto things. So I don’t necessarily have a problem with adding flavoring components to the meats that I’m cooking, I just don’t find the marinates work.

Cait Mizzi  47:30  

Instead of marinades, I often use sauces that you’re going to put on after you’ve cut the meat. So like a big fan of chimichurri, also like another great way to get some other nutrients in there. You know, like fresh, fresh, fresh nutrients, but also those jars of chimichurri or like a mint salsa or whatever you’re going to do can sit in your fridge for definitely a week if not a little longer because they’re typically built on a vinegar or a lot of salt or something that is going to kind of preserve those herbs for a little longer. So they’re nice because you know, the one thing I find that super wasteful about marinades is like you have this meat sitting and all of these ingredients, all these juices and flavors, and things. And then you pull the meat out and you throw the marinade away. And it just takes like, what is that like that doesn’t make any sense at all. So you know, yeah, another way to sort of just like simplify your cooking is don’t rely on those things. You don’t need to get fancy with all this, like pre-cook stuff. Get nice meat, cook it simply. And then if you want to add those more complex flavor profiles, do that with a sauce or salsa, or something fresh that you can just spoon across the top of it. It’s beautiful, it adds color to the plate, and then you get that what you were sort of hinting at earlier is that fat and acid relationship, which is like the match made in heaven that everyone is looking for. And that always keeps you wanting to come back for more because it fires off all your senses at the same time.

James Connolly  49:07  

Yeah. And the way that I try to conceptualize when I’m teaching somebody about what a salad dressing is, or something like that, and I want them to understand that when I’m building a fat to acid profile, that is so many different things, right? So I use a lot of yogurts, sometimes I’ll use heavy cream, sometimes I’ll use mayonnaise, like, that is my fat. Sometimes it’s olive oil, sometimes it’s like I said before with like a little bit of bacon grease to kind of add another layer of texture to it. But when I think of fats, I’m very, very open to the idea of what it can be. And then my acids – I actually really love acids so my ratio is sometimes like 60/40 fat to acid. Acids are so good at cutting through the fat to add layers of meaning… “meaning,” you know, to the meal. Yeah. So I do make a distinction, obviously, like, if you’re doing if you’re roasting vegetables, and you decide you’re going to do like five cloves of garlic for that roast, obviously, that’s going to cook off. I would never use that amount of garlic for a salad dressing. Just overpower it. So there’s distinctions that we need to kind of make. But for the most part, what you’re trying to do is take that fat, and that acid, whether it’s lemon juice, or vinegar, or champagne vinegar, like whatever you have, like, something that’s going to cut through that. Sometimes it’s pickle juice, right? Taking those things, adding it together, mustards are great emulsifiers, meaning that it’s going to take that fat, and it’s going to take that acid, and it’s gonna make those two hanging out together for as long as possible. Yeah, and so like taking all of that stuff, and understanding that those ratios are so adaptable to whatever you have in your fridge, that they’re actually like playful, you should be playful with them as much as you possibly can. You know, and so, like, I have ginger juice that I use as sometimes my acid that you know, just I’m trying to go through like all of the weird stuff concoctions that I have. Olive juice, you know, any number of different things, they’re kind of adding in flavor profiles to that. Sometimes, if I’m trying to add body to my salad dressing, I’ll use an egg yolk.

Cait Mizzi  51:27  

Yeah, I love using an egg yolk as an emulsifier as well. And then the other important thing I think about the concept of flavor, or at least, you know, maybe using that term a little bit more broadly, not necessarily just like the flavor you have in your mouth, but like the overall experience of the meal. And the ability to find it enjoyable isn’t just what happens in your mouth, from what you perceive as the taste. It’s the texture, not just the texture that you bite into, but the texture that you cut into, or the visual appearance of that food, the way it’s plated, the smell of it like it is all of our senses together that create the beauty of a meal. And I think that a lot of people forget how important that part of the puzzle is when they’re trying to become more of a home chef or entertain for a small group or a large group, or what have you is it’s so important to just spend like a couple minutes, finessing your play, like pay attention to how it all looks because your tastebuds are built not just on the act of like actually consuming the food. But the whole, the whole experience of that meal is happening, like rapid-fire through all your senses at the same time. So if you can sort of keep that in mind, while you’re cooking and entertaining, you’re gonna have an even more successful experience. If you’ve kind of married all of those things together.

James Connolly  52:59  

I mean, maybe we’ll just finish off with kitchen utensils, I’ve shaved most of my stuff down to very basics for what I need to cook.

Cait Mizzi  53:09  

Anything with slow cookers or instant pots too. Those are just such excellent tools for people that are really busy. So have you working parents or what have you, you can set a meal and forget it at the beginning of your day. And it’s like genuinely ready for you the second that you’re ready to eat dinner, you might want to, you know, throw a salad together or something like that. But you don’t even have to do that. So those are really, really helpful gadgets if you will. I don’t rely on them a lot, because they just like getting my hands dirty in the kitchen, if you will like I just enjoy the experience. It’s very therapeutic to me, it isn’t for everyone, I recognize that. So yeah, you know, those folks can totally rely on those gadgets. But like I said, I’m a bit of a traditionalist. So like my kitchen staples are a cast iron pan, the Dutch oven, you know, again, like the best quality you can afford in those situations is going to serve you well. And then a good oven that actually works. That’s you know, that’s tuned, that you know that the heat is even and you know you have all the broilers working and all of that good stuff. So many people use ovens that haven’t been maintenanced and so long. And so just like those basic things, like making sure that your kitchen appliances are working properly is something that I don’t think people think a lot about, but that really makes a difference to your success rate.

James Connolly  54:33  

Yeah, I use tongs it’s probably the thing I use most, a good knife. Most kitchen accidents happen because of dull knives. And so getting yourself a good knife. There’s so many tutorials online on how to use a knife and use it well so you don’t cut yourself. You know, maybe cutting boards like stuff like that, but yeah, a good oven, something you trust.

Cait Mizzi  54:56  

One of my other must-haves in the kitchen is mason jars of various sizes and I’m going to tell you the reason why because I don’t think people give mason jars enough credit. And I’m not talking like DIY Pinterest projects with Mason jars, I’m talking functionality. I’m gonna make a beer stein out of a mason jar. But they’re great weights. So if you’re going to like weigh down like butterflied chicken or like something like that, you can fill them, you can just weight them. They’re great for that and cover them in tin foil, but then the oven as a weight. Excellent. You can use it as a shaker. So like you’re making salad dressings or sauces, you put a lid on, you shake it, keep it right in that jar, and put it in the fridge. You can use them for pickling like preserving, you know, that’s another conversation but one I’d love to have because I love fermentation. I love doing stuff like that in the kitchen. So you can use them as Tupperware. You can use them as a rolling pin. You can use them as so many different things. You can plant herbs in them on your kitchen window, like, I have to have a huge selection of mason jars. That’s like a huge essential for me, they’re so cheap, you can literally get them at the dollar store. And they just serve so many purposes. So that’s one of my other purist kitchen gadgets.

James Connolly  56:12  

Well, I don’t want to take up too much more of your time. And I think we got through almost everything that we want to talk about. It was great. So how do people reach you, your Instagram, your social media, all of that stuff.

Cait Mizzi  56:24  

So I’m really only active on Instagram, I’m not the best content creator in the world. So that is the place for people to find me. It’s just at Cait Mizzi. And then you can book with me, one on one by visiting caitmizzi.ca. And then I do have a Patreon, which is like a low monthly fee. And you get some new content each month, different recipes, different articles, some little how-to things that I might run with patients, one on one in practice, so some like goodies there that you can’t access off of social media. And that’s about it for now.

James Connolly  57:01  

All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I think this came out great. So…

Cait Mizzi  57:06  

Well, thanks for having me. Anytime.

Diana Rodgers, RD  57:10  

Thank you so much for tuning in to the Sustainable Dish Podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a review on iTunes and check out my website at sustainabledish.com where you can sign up for my newsletter, catch up on the latest blog post, and check out my courses and favorite products. See you next time and thanks again for listening.