What the Executive Editor of Food & Wine Really Cooks at Home
Karen Shimizu shares her go-to recipes and most beloved cookbooks.
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I love talking to cookbook authors on the show every week, but once in awhile, it’s refreshing to bring in someone on the editing side—someone with a little perspective on the whole recipe archive of a magazine or newspaper food section.
I’m so curious how they think about cooking, and what they really make at home, off the clock. (In case you missed it, here’s my conversation with the editor in chief of NYT Cooking, and here’s my chat with Joe Yonan from the Washington Post.)
This week, I loved talking to Karen Shimizu, executive editor of Food & Wine. Karen shares a bit of how an idea goes from pitch meeting to printed page—and gives us a list of the deep cuts from the magazine that she adores.
Of course, she’s not always cooking strictly from recipes; her dinner ideas tend to emerge organically from whatever else she’s eaten that week: “ I like to kind of make too much of something,” she says, “but it’s not necessarily because I want to eat the same thing for days on end. I love the kind of daisy-chain effect of like where one meal kind of becomes 20 minutes you don’t have to spend on that next thing that you make.”
Karen talks about the little kitchen lessons she’s learned along the way, and what she’s really looking for in a recipe—and a cookbook: “I love books that come from people who really love to cook, and who really know who they are as cooks, I guess, and are able to translate the flavor combinations that they love.”
She’s happiest when the “kind of rhythm of cooking that they love comes through in the recipe and how they teach you to approach it.”
Get a few of Karen’s longtime recipe and cookbook favorites below—and don’t miss this week’s giveaway.
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Karen mentioned:
Marcella Hazan’s Tomato and Butter Sauce (Food & Wine)
Bachan’s Dipping Sauce
Megachef Oyster Sauce (Mala Market)
Suvir Saran’s Crispy Okra Salad (Food & Wine)
Sam Fore’s Mango Fluff (Food & Wine)
Lisa Donovan’s Dried Apple Handpies (Food & Wine)
Sachai Tea Co.
Von Diaz’s Red Lentil Akoho Sy Voanio (Food & Wine)
Thomas Keller’s Roast Chicken (The Kitchn)
Nikujaga from Keepers by Carolyn Campion and Kathy Brennan (Bookshop here)
Andrea Nguyen’s Vietnamese Food Any Day (Bookshop here), especially the microwave eggplant (see similar here on
Andrea’s perimenopause series on Substack
Carla Hall’s Soul Food (Bookshop here), especially the brown sugar chicken thighs
Coming soon: ’s new book, Good Things (Samin chats about it here.)
Maggie mentioned:
Melissa Clark’s Lemony Farro Pasta Salad (NYT Cooking, gift link)
Yangjiang Extra Pure Fujian Oyster Sauce from Mala Market
The Ruby, a coworking space in San Francisco
Diaspora Co. profile in Food & Wine
Caroline Schiff’s Broccoli Melt (Food + Wine)
How to Make a Better Cup of Iced Chai, by Leena Trivedi-Grenier (Epicurious)
Andrea Nguyen’s Ever-Green Vietnamese (Bookshop here)
Sana’s Bhindi (Diaspora Co.)
BLTs (Serious Eats)
Tony Mantuano’s Frittata Sandwich (Food & Wine) / Heidi Swanson’s Frittata Sandwich (101 Cookbooks)
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We need to know what’s in your fridge!
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Just record a voice memo or mp3 telling us your first name, location, and a few things you have on hand. Tell us about the produce that you’ve gotta use up and the half-full bags of dry goods in your pantry. About 30 seconds is ideal.
Attach it to an email to thedinnerplanpod@gmail.com, and we’ll play it on the show and offer a few dinner ideas. Thanks for your help.
Always so happy to see your Dinner Plan in my inbox 🥰
I love the love for magazine recipes!