What’s the most important tool for the kitchen? “Good knives. Invest in quality equipment and you’ll have it forever.”
Food has always been a very important part of my life, almost as important as my family and culture. In a way, you could say, I was always destined to do a project like this. When I was a girl, I had the most creative lunches in school. My mom would craft salami, cheese, and olive toothpick skewers or lettuce leaf roll-ups with peanut butter filling, anything to keep it interesting and new for me. Dinner would then be prompt at 6pm around the table with a well-rounded meal of equal effort. Whatever it was, meatloaf to stroganoff, my mom made sure to create a full, hearty and delicious dinner. Every night. Maybe that’s where my passion for food originated… I’m not exactly sure but I do know that my fondest memories have always involved food. For a kid from the suburbs, I had a pretty diverse palate. German sauerkraut, French croquets, English roasts and Irish corned beef, Russian stroganoff and Hungarian paprikash. There wasn’t much I didn’t like. And I was always willing to try anything new.
When I think of food and where I got my understanding of cooking as love, I think of the women in my life, my mom, my aunts, and my grandmother. They showed everybody in the family just how much they were loved through the time and labor spent to creating our favorite dishes. My grandma, no doubt, is my foodie hero. I was lucky to have these strong ladies in my life who taught me cooking as tradition and a labor of love. They all crafted these foodie experiences that are the pinnacle of my youth. The rich, slow cooked sauces, soups and painstaking holiday meals fill my childhood memories just as much as the nightly dinners of beef stroganoff or pigs in a blanket that either mom or grandma would make. I’ll never forget my grandma kneading the dough for one of her three or four Hungarian pastry recipes at Christmas time. The beer cheese bread bowl and mini cocktail wieners, though not fancy, were something I looked forward to and tasted like Christmas to me. Whatever the holiday, there was a meal to go with it. Easter without ham, horseradish, deviled eggs and scalloped potatoes just wasn’t Easter.
But it was the flavors of Hungary I think of most. Recipes passed down from my ancestors, with paprika, butter, cream, rich sauces, the sour and tangy sauerkraut that I can smell just writing this. I still have my grandma’s old recipe box with those recipes written out in her beautiful cursive handwriting with “less than specific” directions. Grandma cooked a lot by feel. I still savor the memories of grandma’s cooking. It is my heritage and it was she who really taught me what it meant to be Hungarian and to take pride in it. What I learned was that part of being Hungarian was not being afraid of work, or putting in the laborious effort for those you loved because family was most important. You showed family how much you loved them by providing for them and taking the time to do it right. Her way to take care of her family was through her cooking, the effort that went into it and the quality of the result.
What have I learned from food? “To loosen up! That it can be fun and creative. It’s like art and I am an abstract painter. So, when I cook, I love to make easy, deconstructed, family style dishes with interesting combinations and lots of color.”
What’s the most fun you’ve ever had with food? “Fishing with my dad up north. We’d catch our lunch and set up camp on shore. He’d build a fire and fillet the fish. We’d dredge it in batter and fry it up in a cast iron skillet over the flame, sit on the rocks at water’s edge and eat. Delicious.”
My grandma passed away when I was seventeen and that’s when I started dabbling in cooking, working with my mom to keep some of those traditions alive. Even today, we’ll get the occasional craving for her Hungarian paprikash and my mom and I will spend days getting each other prepared for the task of making it from scratch, just like grandma always used to do. My love of the culinary arts also came from a different path. When I was a young girl, I discovered my love of the spotlight and began performing as a ballerina and working as a child model. Following this path through school, I worked as a model until I graduated and it became my full-time job. I found a successful career as an international model, which opened up even more opportunities for me in. Landing in Los Angeles, I worked in tv and film as well.
Through all that time, like most other L.A. transplants, there have been some moments of serious home sickness and those are the times I found my footing in cooking. There’s nothing like the smell and taste of something familiar that can bring you such joy and comfort. The further and longer I was away from home, the more I cooked.
What two things make the best dish? “Love and attention.”
The career itself also led me to cook more. The more I saw of the world, met its people, learned of it’s many cultures and tried all of it’s decadent food, the more I wanted to savor, re-create and live in the memory. My travel bug started when, as a high school graduation gift, my parents gifted me a trip to our ancestrial home in Budapest, Hungary. It was the first time I’d been to Europe and I was in awe. The sights, sounds, and mostly the taste of authentic food were captivating. I was hooked on travel and discovery. I was curious about what the native’s everyday lives were like in these small towns, so foreign to me. I still feel this way when I travel. The best experiences are getting to know the locals and being lucky enough to make your way to their dinner tables. Luckily, through modeling, I got to see a large part of the world and I continue those adventures today. Hanging on to those memories I’ve created through traveling and adventure is one of the many reasons why I cook and a wide variety of dishes and am always up for trying something new! A few years ago, I began to feel a desire to start my second career. Not knowing exactly what that meant to be, I searched and searched, figure it out. One day, I sat down and started repeating a mantra, “Do what you know.” I knew I loved food, entertaining, and bringing people together around a dinner table. I also knew photography, composition and the power of a beautiful image. This led me to the idea of this book, my blog BeautyInTheBite, and not only a whole new career, but a new passion for life. I have a lot of appreciation for my days in front of the camera, but nothing has ever fulfilled me as much as my work behind it with photography, food and the amazing people I meet along the way. I am a foodie through and through. I relish in meeting other foodies and learning from them. Let’s be honest, most of us are, or at least we have an interest in us. Who doesn’t like good food? I feel lucky I get to fill my life with it – I wouldn’t have it any other way. Trying new things, finding the next hot restaurant, preparing exotic dishes, cooking, baking, grilling, frying, broiling, smoking, savoring, and so on…all of it brings people together. All of it is a way to share an experience, a moment, a memory. Love.
Who do you want at your table? “Close friends, old friends, new friends and anyone willing to help clean up!�
What’s your favorite snack? “Anything pickled and, cheese.”
It also can bring you back home to your roots, to where you’re from, who you are and what you represent. And that’s the most amazing power behind food and how it relates to your culture. Food helps us connect, remember and feel. It’s excitement, comfort, happiness. It’s both something new and a celebration of something old. I hope you are inspired by these amazing women whom I had the pleasure to work with in creating this book and I hope you spend some time not only preparing some of the amazing food you see within these pages, but also connecting to the dishes of your past that mean something to you, your family, your culture. Happy eating!
What’s the best bite? “The first taste of something never tried before.”
Sweet or savory? “I like savory with a hint of sweet. I’m definitely a salty girl who would choose a cheese plate over a dessert. But, I need a bite or two of something sweet to finish it off.”
When’s the best time to eat? “I love dinner time, relaxing with a glass of wine, getting the cheese out and cooking. I like making an event out of it.”