Alexis deBoschnek wants to help you become a smarter, more efficient cook
The cookbook author on the inspiration behind the new book, how growing up in The Catskills influences her cooking style, and brainstorming fresh ideas.
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Alexis deBoschnek is a cookbook author, recipe developer, and writer based in the Catskills in upstate New York. She has a very seasonally-driven cooking style, using produce she grows or is able to forage for, and her and her husband recently started a free range chicken business on their farm. Her latest book, Nights and Weekends, comes out on August 12 and features over 100 recipes for time-constrained weeknight meals or more-involved weekends.
We chatted about the inspiration behind the new book, how growing up in The Catskills influences her cooking style, and brainstorming fresh ideas.
Brianna Plaza: How did you get into food media and cookbook writing?
Alexis deBoschnek: I went to FIT for college and I thought I was going to be in fashion. I had read Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl and I was like, oh wait, there’s a world in food that’s not just being a chef? I want to do that. I want to be a food writer, but I needed to pivot. I finished college and got an internship at Eater.
Eater was very exciting at that time and it was a real introduction to chefs and dining in New York City. I was a student with no money, so it was a whole new world. I then got hired at Tasting Table as an editorial assistant, which I was totally unqualified for. Within the first month I realized that if I wanted a career in food media, I need the credentials to back me up, so I went to culinary school while at that job. For me, it was the best thing I could have done. It kicked off a decade of working in food media.
My last full time job was at Buzzfeed working as the kitchen manager in LA. When I started there, I was shy and never had aspirations to be in front of the camera. But I realized pretty quickly that I have an ease in front of the camera that other people don’t. Buzzfeed has a creator program that I was a part of, and this was when Bon Appétit was really getting going, so I though it might be my way out of the full time grind.
I signed with a talent agency before I quit my job, and I also got a literary agent. I felt like I had some support. Getting my first cookbook happened really easily for me, which rarely happens. I wrote a proposal, I sold it, and got an advance. That was not the experience of my second book.
I’ve freelanced for six years and my second book is coming out this August.
Brianna Plaza: So you didn't sell two books together, you sold each as their own project?
Alexis deBoschnek: I feel like up until recently, I never really had a path that I’ve been following, I’ve just done things that I thought were fun. Of course I wanted to write another cookbook. But after my first book, I couldn’t really see past that point.
For my first book, a few things happened. Two weeks before it came out, my editor left and I was given a new editor, then that person left two weeks after the book came out, and then never heard anything from Simon & Schuster again. It was just a really hard experience.
I had planned a book tour that I ended up cancelling for a few reasons. But I’d felt really proud of the book and I really enjoyed the process of writing, and I knew that I wanted to do it again. I ghost-write and test other people’s books, and I feel really grateful for that work. But I just really love making my own books, and I hope I can keep making books for many years to come.
Brianna Plaza: Tell me a little bit about the inspiration behind the new book, Nights and Weekends.
Alexis deBoschnek: Transparently, I had a few other ideas first, which my agent was like, "I don't think this is quite right."
My husband and I started living with my mom in 2020 during the pandemic and we live on a 100-acre farm in the Catskills. We have 14 horses, my husband and I have started raising pastured poultry. We have dogs, we have cats. There's a full-on operation here.
My mom got into an accident and I was full-time caretaking for her in addition to running the whole farm. Up until then, we had all taken on our different roles. After her accident, it fell on my husband and me in a totally different way. It was just really overwhelming.
I love food and cooking, but suddenly I had gone from having all this time to make dinner to only having 20 minutes. What am I going to do? And while I was having this experience, friends started having kids, people started getting promotions at their jobs. It was a shift for me in terms of how I was cooking and the kind of recipes I wanted to develop.
I also love hosting dinner parties and having people over. I love having recipes that carry you through the week. You’re probably not going to roast a chicken on a Tuesday, but maybe you would on a Sunday when you have a little more time. Or you might not make dessert on a Thursday night after four days of work, but maybe if you’re having a BBQ on Saturday, you will.
Brianna Plaza: There are a lot of recipes in the new book! How do you brainstorm recipe ideas without being repetitive or boring?
Alexis deBoschnek: It’s over 110 recipes, which is a lot. There aren’t a lot of essays, there’s no pantry section.
Some recipes were based on things that were already in my weeknight rotation and I was like, “how can I maybe make this better, or smarter, or more efficient?” I also polled friends asking about things they make, so some really fun recipes are based on what they’re doing.
And there’s a lot of experimenting. I really wanted these recipes to really deliver on the promise of a doable weeknight dinner with as few dishes, utensils, and ingredients as possible. What ingredients are brining big flavors or do the heavy lifting? Can you cook these two things together or do you need to cook this at all? I was taking all of that into consideration. And if something wasn’t working or taking too long, oh well, it just doesn’t belong in this book.
Brianna Plaza: Recipes also reuse ingredients that might be leftover from making another one. Talking to me about that thinking.
Alexis deBoschnek: I have a really well-stocked pantry, but I also live in the Catskills. The closest Whole Foods is an hour and a half away. We have some nice smaller stores, but there's no specialty stores like Kalustyan's, no aisles of Indian spices.
I think for me, I need what you can find at a regular grocery store to be used in many preparations. I need the same 10 spices to be able to transformed into many different ways. I do cook with speciality things, but when it comes to weeknight meals, people are really looking for what they have access to. Maybe that’s in the pantry, maybe it’s at their local Kroger, or whatever it is. I was like, if I can’t get it here, it shouldn’t be in the book.
I really wanted to be conscious of how I was using ingredients and making sure they were used again.
Brianna Plaza: How did growing up in the Catskills influence your cooking style and the recipes in the book?
Alexis deBoschnek: I think in a general sense, my mother is an amazing gardener. We were eating with the season. In the spring, we picked ramps. In the summer, we picked blueberries and foraged for chanterelles. In the fall, we picked apples and chestnuts. We were really dictated by the seasons, and that has stayed with me.
I lived in LA for seven years before moving back to Catskills, and in LA there’s such an abundance of everything year-round. And since I’ve moved back, I’ve been trying to stay with the seasons.
In developing recipes for Nights and Weekends, I wanted to make sure that there were ingredients for every time of year. You don’t need fresh peas for a recipe or you could use frozen corn instead of fresh in another. I am trying to cook with the seasons, but I'm also trying to make sure people have access to these ingredients year round.
Brianna Plaza: You’ve recently started a chicken business in the Hudson Valley. Why did that seem like a natural extension of your professional path?
Alexis deBoschnek: Well my husband gets full credit for all the chicken endeavors. He’s a cinematographer and has worked in the film industry for his whole career. He shot a documentary about a farm and it really stuck with him that there was a way to raise animals more humanely. And so he’s had all these aspirations of farming, and once we moved to the Catskills, he really felt this calling to it.
And as a cook, there’s really nothing cooler than cooking the food you’re raising. I already practice this with the large garden we grow, but now it’s a step further. Being able to make a meal from the land really is so special.
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So fun to chat with you!!
❤️ such a great interview.