It's mid-August and the summer produce is rolling in strong, a perfect time for the release of Erin Scott’s first cookbook, Yummy Supper: 100 Fresh, Luscious & Honest Recipes from a {Gluten-Free} Omnivore. Erin is a food photographer and writer who runs an award-winning blog (also called Yummy Supper) from her home in Berkeley where she lives with her husband and two children. Erin’s work celebrates the abundance of Bay Area food with such generosity and exuberance that it’s easy to forget the other important fact about Yummy Supper, one that you will find tucked away in curly brackets in the subtitle: all the recipes are gluten-free, or can be made gluten-free with a few basic, easy to find substitutes.
The curly brackets are important because they highlight the mission of the book: to make delicious, fun, celebratory food that just happens to be gluten-free. Erin was diagnosed six years ago with celiac disease but she isn’t interested in separating out the gluten-free eaters from everyone else. “I want Yummy Supper to feel inclusive,” she said when we spoke on the phone. “When I was first diagnosed, I felt excluded from all the joy and pleasure around food, especially living in the Bay Area. I felt like I had to live in my sad corner away from everyone else.”
“I’m not a picky eater. Before my diagnosis, I would have never had a conversation with a waiter about what I could eat. I would just order food and eat it. So I wanted my cooking at home and the cooking I shared with people to feel like there's no worry, there's no fear, there's no separating. Let's just eat together. Let's eat really good delicious food together and not focus on the limitations.”
Yummy Supper fulfills Erin’s wishes by offering 100 delicious-sounding, easy to follow recipes. The book is divided into 10 sections: "Slurp" (beverages), "Egg," "Veg," "Sea," "Butcher Shop," "Grain and Seed," "Nut," "Fruit," "Kid Favorites," and a final "Odds and Ends" for salad dressings, a pot of beans, and an uncomplicated GF flaky pastry dough. There is truly something here for everyone, from the simple Watercress Salad with Balsamic Cherries to the more complex Pistachio Kebabs on Rosemary Skewers made with ground lamb, cumin and pistachios to a delightfully refreshing Honeydew Granita with Lemon Verbena and Lime.
Erin’s palate is fresh and adventuresome. It reflects and celebrates the flavors of the Bay Area with recipes such as her Bolinas Crab Pasta with Citrus and Mint or the amazing Candied Tomatoes which are best made with dry-farmed Early Girls, available now at most local farmers' markets. But don’t think you can’t share this book with your GF sister-in-law in New Jersey! Erin is careful to walk that thin line of celebrating our local bounty while making recipes accessible to the wider world, with maybe a minor adjustment here and there.
“I really tried to walk that line, to make sure that there were recipes available to people who live in other places. There are so many other incredible foodsheds around the country and around the world where people are embracing their local food treasures. I would love to go to a place like Madison Wisconsin and explore what they've got going on right now. Amazing corn and tomatoes, I would imagine!”
Yummy Supper’s offerings are also influenced by the year Erin and her family spent traveling around the world. There are recipes using black and red rice, a stew from Bali made with chicken and vegetables and topped with fried shallot and cashews, and some intriguing millet crepes inspired by a rental kitchen in New Zealand. Another important thread is family and cooking with children. It’s clear from Erin’s photographs that her son and daughter are no strangers to the kitchen and many of the recipes are introduced with stories of their discoveries and delights in cooking and eating together. Her parents make appearances, too, with mentions of her mother's influential organic garden and a trip to Tijuana with her father to hunt down the original Caesar salad.
