Recipes 4 Survival, Mindful Meals, & Sustainable Living Tips

Magic happens when you cook with what's already in your pantry.

• Donna Goldman • Season 2 • Episode 4

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When two friends with a passion for food connect over a simple soup recipe, they unlock a treasure trove of wisdom about resourceful cooking that feels particularly relevant in today's economy. Listen in on a kitchen conversation that just might transform how you think about cooking. 

The heart of this discussion centers on the beauty of improvisational cooking – making magic with whatever ingredients you have on hand. From reviving floppy celery stalks to transforming a leftover rotisserie chicken into a healing soup that sustains a family for days, these practical cooking strategies transcend mere frugality. They represent a meaningful connection to food that many Americans have lost in our convenience-focused culture.

Cultural influences weave throughout the conversation as the speakers explore how heritage shapes cooking styles. One friend's Middle Eastern and Italian background informs her approach to ingredients, while class experiences – like growing up with food bank donations rather than planned grocery lists – taught invaluable lessons about adaptability in the kitchen. There's a fascinating generational element too, as Gen Z now turns to millennials for guidance on "recession meals" during economically challenging times.

What emerges is a philosophy of cooking that values simplicity, resourcefulness, and mindfulness. The friends critique "aspirational shopping" that leads to waste and instead champion "eating to the back of the cupboards" – using what you already have before buying more. They celebrate the joy in maintaining a thoughtful rotation of pantry staples and mastering simple techniques that empower home cooks of all backgrounds.

Ready to revolutionize your approach to cooking? Listen in and discover how embracing resourceful cooking might just change your relationship with food forever. Share your favorite "back of the cupboard" creation with us!

MINDFUL MEALS & SUSTAINABLE LIVING - The Art of Living an Elevated Lifestyle


Speaker 1:

My friends, I'm so excited because I'm doing a podcast with a friend. This is my friend, marcella. I've noticed this soup recipe that you made. Marcella, you are gonna put recipes for survival to shame you are, no you. I. It has nothing to do. You are putting out really important work about economical, simple, nutritional, nutritional food. Do you do TikTok, are you?

Speaker 2:

like, yeah, I do, I do TikTok, but the food stuff you know, my daughter's saying she has a friend who's you know all like teenage girls go through that. Well, not all, but a lot of them go through that restrictive eating thing and this girl's not eating anything and she said Raquel's missing out. On culture, like food is how we experience cultures. It's, it's, uh, how we experience community, and if you're not willing to try other people's food, you're missing out, you're losing that experience what is your cultural background?

Speaker 1:

that you, because it's not just American that I get from you at all. And even the food that you eat is not well. Let's not talk about America right now. We'll just keep it at that for a simple question.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so you know my mom, her father's Middle Eastern, her mother's Italian, my dad is a total wasp, so they you know Yorkshire pudding, nothing. But my mom wasn't super into cooking either. But her like extended family was like all right, olive oil, and then yogurt should be savory and sweet yogurt. Still like I right, olive oil and then yogurt should be savory and sweet yogurt. Still like I don't get it.

Speaker 1:

I became a vegetarian at 10 years old. My dad was diabetic. My mom cannot cook even to this day nothing, see. That's why you got good, though.

Speaker 1:

Right Now my cooking is on a level that I'm very happy with because I have a job as a private health supportive private chef. But what I want to do is I really want to read your post and how you describe the soup that you made. My friend wrote I've been working really hard to be more efficient with our food and less wasteful. Yesterday I bought a rotisserie chicken to make a soup, since everyone is sick. I discovered with no onions or garlic left, but we did have spring onions, so I used those. We also had a few zucchini and a bag of jalapeno, some bok choy, baby kale carrots and some floppy celery stalks that I revived by cutting and soaking in cold water. Okay, my friends, could I have loved this anymore? No, this is the greatest thing I wrote her. This is the greatest thing I've read. I'll continue.

Speaker 1:

I roasted the jalapeno with one leftover tomato and the zucchini. For the base, I added lemongrass and fresh ground ginger, since I didn't have any garlic. Ginger is just great for you. When you're not feeling well, ginger is just great for you when you're not feeling well. I boiled the carcass for some time and also added a miso paste into the broth Not too much, though it came out good, and who knows if it's just because we're sick and we can't even taste the spice after adding an entire bag of jalapenos in addition to cayenne pepper and chili flakes For starch. I prefer egg noodles, but I don't mix them into the soup. I make them on the side and add them when I'm heating up individual portions later. Carmelina prefers potatoes and Charlie is agnostic. I am going to have all this written out. I think it's just genius. I feel so lucky Now I came across that and how much I've missed of what you've posted. You made brownies with black beans yes, black beans, but the other one.

Speaker 1:

you also did a very good staples piece with cans of beans and the rice.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because all these Gen Z people now on social media are asking millennials, which I am, who are now like sort of middle-aged, like how did you live through 2008? Like, what were your recession meals? And that's when you were back to your first question about what influences like how you cook and what it is culturally. The other part of it culturally is class right, because I never in my life growing up had an we never had a situation where we're like we're going to follow a recipe, what ingredients do we need?

Speaker 2:

Let's go to the store and write out a list and buy these things, and that never happened a day in my life. It was like we'd go to the food bank and you a list and buy these things, and that never happened a day in my life. It was like we'd go to the food bank and you got a box once a month and it was random stuff and a lot of it was dried lentils and dried beans and things you kind of had to figure out. And then sometimes there were things like canned chicken that you're like what can I do with that?

Speaker 1:

can I do with this? But I really want to go back to this statement of Gen Z's. Looking to millennials, for, would you say, recession proof? What was the word you used?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, recession meals.

Speaker 1:

Recession meals.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

This is funny because when I started Recipes for Survival because I used to work in the music industry and then my job completely unraveled I had always cooked. And I was watching the Food Network had just started and one of the episodes that I had my tirade at was Emeril Lugasi making a forced meat duck soup with three bottles of red wine. I kid you not, and I'm sitting here that I couldn't even get out of my clothes, right, and I'm like this is, this is fucking, this is stupid.

Speaker 1:

And I'm going to do recipes for survival and I always wanted to make documentary films and I had a camera that I got from the peter gabriel's witness program. That's how I got my first video camera and I started shooting in my east village apartment recipes for survival, no more than four dollars for ingredients. That's awesome. And at the time I was in an art collective and one of my friends invited us to watch his show on Manhattan Public Access Manhattan Neighborhood Network. It was sock puppets and music like a keyboard that he played something and I'm like, wow, this is, I could hone my skills on this Manhattan Public Network, because I thought I would get a job at the Food Network as a producer, because I'm a production person right and then I put out.

Speaker 1:

I started making these videos. I still had to light my oven with a match. I love it. Right, Like within three weeks to a month, somebody recognized me in a restaurant and I got a primetime slot. That was the other thing. My show aired in between Seinfeld and ER oh my yeah, On channel 17. And MTV was like 15 and A&E was eight. It was like crazy and I wore the jumpsuit and my FBI shooting target apron which I'm going back and doing that whole thing. Anyway, I'm sorry that I wandered off like that. I'm only to say when I was doing recipes for survival, it was not the time like you're talking about right now.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, now is the time not for fringe people, for mainstream people. And you know it's weird, but a lot of Americans don't even cook, right? I mean, I had this benefit, right? My kids, their dad, remarried so they had a stepmom and she was much nicer and did a lot of activities. I never did because I was always tired, but I always won on cooking. And I remember Carmi saying Mom, you don't understand what it's like there, she boils rice in a bag. Don't understand what it's like there, she boils rice in a bag. Oh my, and I you know. But that's how a lot of americans are. They're intimidated, they're like so everything's hyper processed, but it's like the, the price you pay for that rice in a bag you boil. You could buy, you know, pots and pots worth of rice, and rice is so good and simple and there's a million ways to do it, you can do sweet rice right now.

Speaker 1:

Right now, I have a pot of rice on the stove that I'm going to scramble an egg into. Yes, and cheese. That's it, some Parmesan cheese. Wait, okay, let me just. Let's also. I'm sorry, yes, are you?

Speaker 2:

Do you really?

Speaker 1:

want to boil rice in a plastic bag.

Speaker 2:

No.

Speaker 1:

And this is so funny because the episode, the piece that I did just before this I made rainbow carrot salad. It's the most delicious thing I've eaten. And then I did a cannellini bean puree. Oh, I love that.

Speaker 2:

that hello, you can add protein today.

Speaker 1:

So many things, and then this the romanesco cauliflower, cut like this so it looks like flowers on the plate, roasted the most delicious meal. You've got to see this carrot salad that I made. But when I was doing the episode of, of course, by myself talking to myself and all you great friends, I was like if any of you buy carrots in a bag because I'm like, then you should not be listening to my show. I was like, you know, I bought the I because I I found this delivery service called Imperfect Foods. It used to be called.

Speaker 1:

Misfit.

Speaker 2:

Right, right, misfit, misfit, market yes, Now it's Imperfect Food.

Speaker 1:

The best shopping experience online. I I'm dyslexic. It works like crazy. They know their product inside and out. I've been thinking about trying that. I'm telling you, martella, it's the food. Everything is like handpicked, exquisite, the carrots, every single thing that comes, and I do these unboxing because the food is so beautiful and reasonable, you know, and they're very and their whole thing is that people are gonna waste it right like this yes it's a little weird, they would throw it out it's called odd ends or right right I mean that's so insane.

Speaker 2:

I mean we have so much hunger and people need nutritious stuff and we're chucking it out because the pepper's not shaped the right way.

Speaker 1:

That's insane and and the food packaging was. They're also pretty conscious about the food packaging that's really good you know, um, but the food is impeccably beautiful, everything that comes, and for my day job, I sometimes have to use Instacart. Oh yeah, all right, let me tell you something. It's like aliens shopping. I order a papaya, and what do they bring you? First of all, I always order the small one, right, the small yellow. They send the one that's like a football. You can put your thumb through it.

Speaker 2:

With produce. I don't trust other people and, to be honest with you, unless there was a man with a certain culinary aptitude as a base level, I wouldn't trust any man to buy produce for me as a base level.

Speaker 1:

I wouldn't trust any man to buy products for me. Martella, I can't tell you what I go through to pick an onion, and also the shopping and the awareness of what is going to be a good ingredient to work with is really important Also.

Speaker 2:

That's so true Because some people do aspirational shopping and then they over shop and then most of the food goes to waste.

Speaker 1:

That's what Recipes for Survival started maintaining basic staples in your house, that's your arsenal For you to have, bok choy, baby kale of carrots, jalapenos and a few celery stalks. You revived you're fine, and that was the same thing. I found like if there was the blizzard was coming and then you'd go to. Yes, I would just pass by trader joe's. I didn't have to go. I knew I could survive for a week with snow up to my knees, didn't?

Speaker 2:

matter exactly. I know you're not, you're not big on the spam, but I gotta say if you look at it through an asian lens, not in an american, lens, yeah, yeah and spam fried rice. I mean, yeah, my kids love it. We make it with eggs, whatever vegetables. We have a huge wok. It's just as good as pork fried rice. You know, it's easy. I mean same thing. If there's a storm, we don't have to be scared.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, exactly, the importance of maintaining basic staples and really keeping things simple. I am so angry I can't think of what I call that.

Speaker 2:

I am so angry I can't think of what I call that. You know, shopping just with no, just grabbing at things. Because I've been through it, like when you have a demanding corporate job and you don't really have time to be human period and you do. And I always love to cook and I found there were times where I would buy stuff and it's like, realistically, you can only cook on the weekend, you can't, you work too much. What are you doing? And that's when I realized I really got to be simpler.

Speaker 1:

And I think the most important thing that we can share is the importance of maintaining being mindful and also trying your best to not use boil in a bag rice and also using what we already have before we buy more.

Speaker 2:

You know what I call it eating to the back of the cupboards. So sometimes I'll go on like a fast where it's like, no, we are eating to the back of the cupboards we're not buying anything new unless we are eating to the back of the cupboards. We're not buying anything new unless we need it to eat something we already have. I don't want things to just sit in the back of my cupboard that never go through the rotation yeah, the rotation.

Speaker 1:

And also it's funny because I'm going to do a hummus piece with a friend of mine and she cooked the beans off and I always have also. But right now tinned beans are just fine and the tin is disposable. I cannot thank you enough for taking your time to help me with this and share what you're doing, because I'm so flattered you invited me, because I'm not a professional like you.

Speaker 2:

I'm just someone who there's nothing to do with being professional at all.

Speaker 1:

What you're doing is more important is the way people need to do this and when. I please God, stop my workshops. All I'm doing is basic knife skills. I'm making carrot apple ginger soup for my first episode.

Speaker 2:

And that's like one thing.

Speaker 1:

Somebody learns that now they have something in their arsenal exactly that's simple, that they can make for people that's, that's, and you'll feel great from it and, yes, this soup that you made it did heal us, by the way.

Speaker 2:

I mean we literally just continued to eat that soup for like four days straight.

Speaker 1:

It's fantastic. I just love it. Thank you so much for your time. Let's talk when you finish your trip or whatever you're doing, and I can't thank you enough. I hope we can do this again. Thanks, michelle, I'll speak to you soon. I don't say goodbye, I'll see you.