Half Hour Meals Member Patti lives in Los Angeles and authors a fun-filled 
blog about unpretentious (“Larry approved”) food, her experiences owning her own food-oriented PR company, and the camp for food bloggers that she runs. From hanging out with Julia Child at IACP meetings to having actress Mandy Moore cooking in her kitchen, Patti’s life is quite busy and always fascinating. Add to that the worldwide travel adventures she shares with her husband Larry, and the comical antics of her pug, Sake, and Larry’s kitten, Penny, and there’s never a dull moment! Read on and get swept up in Patti’s world!
Your blog, Worth the Whisk, is two parts fun mixed with one part great recipes. Tell us more about the inspiration behind your blog. Thanks for the nice words! I started working in food at age 16, and earned my college degree in home economics. Pretty much every job I’ve had, including running my own PR firm for 25+ years, has been within the food world. Earlier this year, I was a guest speaker at the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) and decided to sit in on a session about food blogging. And *lightbulb!* It just seemed like a natural new challenge for my skills – AND my kitchen full of stuff! Since I’ve always cooked, my collection of recipes, clips, friends’ recipes was also the inspiration. So many things collected, yet not cooked – now was the time!
Every cook has had at least one kitchen disaster. Tell us about your most memorable disaster in the kitchen, and what you did to turn things around. One Thanksgiving, my girlfriend Gail suggested we make the “turkey in brown paper bag” which meant slathering it with mayo and roasting in a supermarket bag to soak up the oil (folks, DON’T try this at home, I came to realize those bags are recycled and full of toxins). We oiled up that big bird and – ZOOM – like a giant bar of soap; it flew out of our arms and skidded across the kitchen floor. We applied the Universal Five Second Rule and managed to wrangle it back into our arms, then wiped it off and kept going.
If Julia Child were coming to dinner tonight, what would you serve? I’ve had the opportunity to be around Julia a few times at IACP meetings and know she loved many things – except airline food. She ate asparagus with her fingers, the mark of a Swell Gal. I’d probably roast a lovely chicken with rosemary red potatoes, definitely asparagus plus make a foolproof chocolate dessert so I could sit and enjoy her company. No use trying to impress her, just feed her well.
Name the one ingredient you can not live without. Eggs.
Tell us what you eat/cook when you’re home alone. Usually a starch topped with butter. Brown rice, noodles, spaghetti, toast, bagel. On the sofa. Larry and I always eat at the table, so when he’s not here, sofa eating happens.
Where does your inspiration in the kitchen come from? Hunger, plus what’s in the ‘fridge. We joke about “refrigerator management,” which means we need to eat what’s in there or cook with what’s in there. Usually with the type of produce and proteins we have, an Asian or Mexican inspired meal can take place almost any day.
I enjoy reading about your pug Sake, and Larry’s kitten, Penny. Do they get along? Yes, in an unbalanced way. Poor ol’ Sake is 15, mostly deaf and quite blind, but we know he sees a bit. An orange maniac kitten flying at him from all directions happens several times a day and for the most part, he participates (Duck! Run! Watch out!). But he draws two boundaries – he won’t share a lap or a bowl.
How long have you been blogging and how has blogging changed your daily life? Literally the day after I returned home from that IACP conference, I jumped on it, excited! Choosing a name, figuring out hosting, testing the name on my sisters, changing the name, buying a URL, designing the graphics, writing posts, deleting posts because they were lousy. I took notes of my process, which now I am incorporating into my presentation at the Let’s Get Cookin’ culinary school in Westlake Village, CA, on January 27 called “How to Become a Serious Blogger.” My schedule is fairly rigid now with planning what to cook, making the dish, photographing it, posting, producing the weekly newsletter, tweeting, guest posts and more. Luckily, we food bloggers get to eat what we blog about.
Do you see yourself still blogging several years from now? Like lots of serious bloggers, yes, I really do. And because this is an industry still in its infancy, I decided to conduct a weekend bootcamp for food bloggers called Camp Blogaway in the mountains near Big Bear, CA. Sessions on bettering our photography, food styling, Photoshop, recipe writing, copyrighting, SEO and more will take place, plus lots of good old fashioned camp fun.Half Hour Meals was recommended via a tweet from a food blogger. I joined the day I saw the tweet, which was about a month ago.
Why and when did you join Half Hour Meals?
What’s your favorite thing about the site? Who doesn’t love meals you can make in 30 minutes? It’s my favorite way to cook.
Have you tried others’ recipes from Half Hour Meals? Yes I have, soups especially. And pumpkin recipes right now, as I made a very large quantity of homemade fresh pumpkin puree and need LOTS of ways to use it up.
If others were to ask you about Half Hour Meals, how would you describe the site to them? An easy, fresh resource for realistic recipes by capable cooks. The clean, uncluttered site is a breeze to negotiate. Try it!
Thanks for sharing with us, Patti! I hope you all will stop by and visit Patti’s page here at Half Hour Meals, and be sure to check out her wonderful blog as well! Also, any of you serious food bloggers interested in attending Camp Blog-Away don’t forget to find out more by clicking here.
Tags: community member, food blogging