Cara Mangini will be our honored guest at the Roadhouse’s Tomato Dinner #214 on September 12th! We will be tasting delicious recipes from her new book, “The Vegetable Butcher”, and watching a live demo of her butchering vegetables! Don’t miss out. Grab a seat today!
In the meantime, sink your teeth into Ari’s recent interview Cara.
ARI: I love that you focus so much on vegetables. How did that happen? Did you grow up a vegetarian?
CARA: The ritual of sitting down to share a meal has always been extremely important to me. Since I was a kid, I enjoyed the daily celebration of food and my family, and how those moments marked the year. I knew there was a special kind of magic that was created at the table. I also thought a lot about what I ate and the connection between food and health—how certain foods made me feel beyond sheer enjoyment.
I started to gravitate specifically toward vegetables when living in Paris and traveling around Europe in college. I continued to travel, cook, and eat my way through France, Spain, Italy, Croatia, and Turkey in my 20’s. Those food experiences had a profound effect on my perspective and path. It became very clear to me that I wanted to contribute to making vegetables second nature in our culture—the way they were in so many other places. At the same time, I lived in Brooklyn for 10 years while a vibrant farm-to-table movement was making big waves around me. It completely inspired me. I realized that vegetables have always been the most exciting and delicious part of the plate for me.
A: I’m sure you get asked this all the time but, what’s a vegetable butcher?
C: A vegetable butcher is a trusted professional who demystifies produce with tips, tricks, and practical, how-to information (the stuff that somehow no one ever taught you). We have professionals that we turn to for advice in so many areas of our life—traditional butchers, cheesemongers, doctors, hairdressers, attorneys. A vegetable butcher is that person you can count on and who will help take the guesswork out of breaking down and cooking with vegetables—an artisan who has dedicated her life to getting to know the ingredients so that you can benefit from her knowledge, lessons and recipes.
A: As someone who’s not a vegetarian but who eats a lot of vegetables, I’m excited to see them being put front and center in a cookbook like yours. Can you talk about that a bit?
C: At it’s core The Vegetable Butcher is a celebration of vegetables! It’s both a guide that will help readers break down vegetables with knife lessons, insider tips, and approachable preparations as well as a comprehensive collection of produce-inspired recipes (over 150). My hope is that The Vegetable Butcher will give readers the confidence, encouragement, and motivation to cook and eat vegetables every day—and ultimately, find the joy in cooking with seasonal ingredients that connect you to nature and to each moment of the year.
A: Tell us about your restaurant in Columbus? You also have a new place opening up soon? And how did you get to Columbus anyways?
C: Little Eater is a produce-inspired restaurant and farm stand in Columbus’s historic North Market. And, yes, we are in the middle of opening our second location which is our first real home where we will be able to welcome guests for a full experience. Everything on the menu in our restaurants is inspired by local ingredients and is designed to bring everyone to the table with focus on flavor and abundance (never sacrifice or obligation which can too often be the case or perception with vegetable-driven food). It is our mission to honor the work of our farm partners and to support the health of our community.
I am from the San Francisco Bay Area, went to school just outside of downtown Chicago, and spent most of my adult life in New York. Columbus was not on my radar! I met my husband at the Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams booth at the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco. I was living and working at a farm and associated farm to table restaurant in Napa Valley at the time. I moved to Columbus six month later and started actively working on my business and book. I always say (and it’s the absolute truth), Columbus was the missing link in my business plan. We are surrounded by inspiring entrepreneurs, incredible farmers and farmland, and a community that is just as invested in our success as we are. I am so grateful for it.
A: What are some of your favorite dishes in the book?
C: I can’t pick favorites, but I do have go-to recipes in every season!
Spring: Asparagus, Hazelnuts, and Mint with Quinoa and Lemon Vinaigrette, Snap Pea, Asparagus, and Avocado Salad with Radish Vinaigrette, Artichoke Torta, Swiss Chard Crostata with Fennel Seed Crust, and Ramp (or Leek) and Asparagus Risotto.
Summer: Corn Fritters with Summer Bean Ragout, Marinated Peppers with Goat Cheese Tartines, Seaside Gazpacho Zucchini, Sweet Corn, and Basil Penne with Pine Nuts and Mozzarella, Eggplant Polenta Cake.
Fall: Fall Farmers Market Tacos, and Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Chard and Coconut Black Rice, Turkish Carrot Yogurt.
Winter: Celery Root Pot Pie, Broccoli and Radicchio Rigatoni with Creamy Walnut Pesto, Parsnip Ginger Cake with Browned Buttercream Frosting.
A: What do you think are some of the biggest misunderstandings about vegetables amongst Americans?
C: Vegetables don’t have to equate to sacrifice. They can produce over-the-top flavor and craveable, deeply satisfying food. Vegetable-based food isn’t about what isn’t on the plate, it’s about everything that is.
A: Given that you’ll be here for the dinner in mid September what are some of the dishes you’re thinking about for this special menu?
C: We’re going to highlight the tomato harvest and all of those late summer ingredients that we’ll be missing a few months later. For sure we’ll do an heirloom tomato panzanella to highlight all of the different colors, textures and varieties of tomatoes grown at Roadhouse Farms. It’s going to be a beautiful celebration of that specific and fleeting moment of the year when the sun is that golden angle, and the food coming out of the ground and the people who grew it deserve to be honored.
A: Have you been to Ann Arbor before? Are you excited about coming?
C: I have never been to Ann Arbor and cannot wait! I have heard about what a special place it is and I’m excited to experience the food scene, most especially Zingerman’s that, honestly, I have admired from afar for so long!
A: What else should I ask?
C: I think you asked good questions, nothing to add. I always ask people that by the way! Always the best question… sorry, I don’t have a better answer:)
Purchase tickets today for our Zingerman’s Roadhouse Tomato Special Dinner #214: Featuring Vegetable Butcher, Cara Mangini! Sign up here to receive weekly E-news, featuring more Roadhouse stories and special dinner information.
When we think about traditional food, we tend to view it as something complex, as something toiled over. An image comes to mind of an Italian grandmother, rolling out the dough for pasta, painstakingly shaping it. There is familial warmth and a dusting of flour, hands work the dough and words of encouragement are laid down as it’s stretched out on a drying rack, the grandmother hoping to pass on her technique to her family. It is the endeavors that people put into making food that makes it taste so good, that work into the historical character of a regional dish.
When we consider foodways and a desire to get back to traditional methods of creating cultural recipes, it can seem overwhelming and elaborate, leading to a belief that not just anyone can cook anything so rooted in our past. While Ari Weinzweig definitely challenges this belief cycle in his latest book, Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading Part 4: A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to the Power of Beliefs in Business, there is another author who connects the past with a contemporary approach to food and cooking while protecting the integrity of time-honored cuisine. Amelia Saltsman, the author of the Seasonal Jewish Cooking: A Fresh Take on Tradition cookbook, brought a profound perspective on how we regard food and traditional cooking during our Tomato Special Dinner #200 at Zingerman’s Roadhouse earlier this month.
Amelia Saltsman with Chef Alex Young and Ari
The foremost idea that Amelia reminded us of is that cooking good food started in a territory sense. Historically, people cooked what was available to them, locally and seasonally. When we get back to our roots, by embracing what is right in front of us, we can welcome the idea that simple ingredients will bring the best flavor. We do this at Zingerman’s Roadhouse with our menu when we explore various foodways and focus on what makes them unique. By incorporating ingredients that represent the character of their regions and their producers into our dishes, we protect their integrity.
While it sounds straightforward in theory, many cuisines have transcended into something more global as cultures have expanded over time. Taking just into consideration, for example, the cultural crossroads of the United States, Amelia muses that “food morphs into something that is bigger than the sum of its parts.” While she intends with her book to explore Jewish food as a regional, cultural cuisine, she admits that there is not just one region to promote. She contradicts a romanticized notion of Jewish culture that stems from just one facet, when in truth, it is richly layered by so many different regions and sub-regions, each place having a different impact on flavor based on the ingredients that are within reach.
Coming from a mixed background (Syrian, Iraqi and Romanian), Amelia embodies the intricacy of the different paths that Jewish cuisine has taken. With her book, she conveys the idea that by opening up to the diversity of Jewish food, she is unlocking the depth and flavors of a myriad of places. She says that when we think about variegated heritage, it is important to remember that “it is not the hallmark card of what we think culture looks like.” She is connecting the memories and stories of people from all over and questioning the idea that Jewish food is just one type of cuisine.
Concerned that some believe Jewish cuisine is heavy or bland, Amelia insists it actually stems from a history that holds treasures of flavors that are waiting to be unearthed. She shared a memory of her Romanian grandfather making salata de icre (known as ikra in Israel), a spread made with cured fish roe emulsified with oil and lemon. The result, she says, is a briny, creamy delicate spread that is exquisite when layered on black bread with a little bit of garlic. Top it off with fresh tomatoes and cucumbers from your garden, and it becomes a heavenly alternative to processed mayo. By digging up recipes like ikra, we can tap into the abundance of flavor that is present in Jewish cuisine.
Amelia also touched on the importance of agriculture. She talks about the “beautiful synchronicity of the 21st century sustainable approach to our food with ancient traditions and blessings”, how the seasons roll together with the holidays and the harvest. Her book is divided into six micro-seasons that tie together Jewish traditions with the earth’s annual cycles. Farming itself, she says, is an ancient art, but many of the practices are are still sound.
Just as The Roadhouse’s Chef Alex Young focuses on the importance of terroir, people can continue to produce food that is healthful, yet full of flavor. By paying attention to what is immediately around us, we can discover that the ingredients in food that we source from local farms do not need anything extra. In the same way our ancestors created delicious recipes using what was available to them, we can buy from the local farmers’ market and recreate the satisfying, nutritious meals that seemed so daunting before.
The heirloom tomatoes we brought in from Cornman Farms for the Tomato Dinner are a perfect example of how to achieve this–each variety of tomato brings its own essence of taste with no need for frills. At the dinner we offered really good olive oil and sea salt to enhance the tomatoes, or there was an option to create a Caprese salad with our homemade fresh mozzarella and hand-picked basil. Similarly, Amelia creates her recipes by “letting the ingredients tell her what to do”. While the recipes come from a long-established place in time, she adapts her techniques to a modern sensibilities.
Chef Alex and team hard at work
While nearly all the ingredients used at the dinner came from Cornman, Amelia hand -carried precious strands of golden barhi dates from California, making sure that the just under-ripe fruits stayed delicately intact. Fresh and crisp, with a slightly firm texture, the dates were so unique in comparison to what we typically eat in the Midwest. Chef Alex prepared Amelia’s dates in a luscious wheat berry salad with plump blueberries and a splash of freshly squeezed orange juice. The nuttiness of the wheat berries brought an early autumn subtlety to the dish.
Amelia’s recipes, each one capturing a story from her incredible Jewish heritage, made the Tomato Special Dinner #200 more than just a success—it was a momentous event for Zingerman’s Roadhouse. It was one more opportunity for us to learn about the rich and soulful foodways we are constantly searching out. With Ari and Amelia connecting us with the importance of regional, full-flavored food, and Chef Alex’s talents to incorporate his cherished product from Cornman to recreate the depth of Amelia’s heritage, the Tomato Dinner achieved great heights for our Roadhouse family.
To recreate the delicious recipes we featured at the Tomato Special Dinner #200, pick up a copy of her beautifully written and illustrated cookbook. In the meantime, our heirloom tomatoes from Cornman Farms still brighten many of our dishes at Zingerman’s Roadhouse, so there is still time for you to come in and enjoy them!
