Chef Vivian Howard

Bland Rescue

Vivian Howard shares her pro tip for make-ahead flavor “heroes” that swoop in for a rescue from bland food

BY TARA Q. THOMAS

For restaurateurs across the country, this spring was brutal It wasn’t until she was well invested in running the restaurant that with shutdowns due to the coronavirus pandemic forcing she returned to the idea of being the storyteller she had once dreamed them to shutter their doors or pivot to entirely different of. “About five years after opening the Chef and The Farmer, I reached business models. For Vivian Howard, this forced her to temporarily out to a childhood friend of mine who’s a documentary filmmaker to close Chef and The Farmer, the restaurant that brought fame to her see if she would help me make a documentary about the dying food and her small town of Kinston in Eastern North Carolina, and pertraditions of Eastern North Carolina,” Howard explains. This documanently shut down the Boiler Room Oyster Bar, a well-loved local mentary turned into “A Chef’s Life,” which ran for five seasons on spot across the street. Meanwhile, she retooled Benny’s Big Time, her PBS, garnering a Peabody award and a daytime Emmy, and drawing pizzeria in Wilmington, North Carolina, to offer delivery and pickup unprecedented attention to her and her corner of the state. only. And all of this happened while she was still reeling from givIt also gained her the opportunity to finally write a book, as agents ing up her award-winning PBS television show, “A Chef’s Life,” and came knocking on her door. That first book, “Deep Run Roots” launching a new series, “Somewhere South,” which premiered at the turned out to be a phenomenal success. But the TV show was drainend of March 2020 on PBS. ing. Not only did it take her away from her restaurants and

And yet, when I catch her one hot, humid afternoon her family, but she ended up feeling trapped by the gulf in early June, she sounds positively rejuvenated. “It’s between viewer expectations and the complicated, been going really well,” she says. “I may never messy reality of cooking and farming today. open the dining rooms again.” It’s a startling admission for someone who was recently “Coming up Its success and that of her growing restaurant empire also taxed her relationships with her named the South’s Best Chef by Southern with recipes was staff and her family. And then there was Living and has been a six-time semifinalist the new book to write—promised back for the James Beard Foundation’s Best Chef so easy because when she had signed the contract for her Southeast award. “I’m not saying we’re not going to reopen our dining rooms,” she it’s what I cook for first book. In the chaos of her life, she struggled clarifies, “but it’s certainly given me time to think about the things that I’d like to be myself all the time. to figure out what the book should be, let alone when she would have time to write different, and things that would make my life more comfortable.” I really have these it, and missed her deadline. “Every day I let more and more people down. I felt lost,”

Her new book, “This Will Make It Taste things on hand.” she writes candidly in the intro to “This Will Good,” played a pivotal part in her newfound Make It Taste Good.” optimism, though it was a struggle to get there. —Vivian Howard Her editor, however, didn’t give up on her. “My life was a dumpster fire,” she says bluntly, thinkInstead, he issued an ultimatum: Finish it in five ing back to 2019, when she began writing it. The book months or forget it. Never one to back down from a was just one of the things going wrong, she says—but one of challenge, Howard began writing at 5 a.m. daily—anathema the most disappointing, since all she’d ever wanted to be was a writer. to restaurant people, who rarely get to bed before midnight. She

“I started working in a restaurant as a means to translate that expethought back to “Deep Run Roots” and the comments it attracted rience to a career in food writing,” she says. “I found that I really loved on Amazon. “I woke up every morning for a year and the first thing working in the kitchen: I liked making stuff, I liked the camaraderie, I did was read all the reviews,” she recalls. “I wouldn’t have kept I liked working toward a common goal—and it was a lot easier to get reading them if most of them weren’t positive,” she jokes, “but the a job in a kitchen than to get a job writing.” thing that came up over and over was, ‘So many of these recipes are

Like many young people with liberal arts degrees, Howard started too complicated.’ That really bothered me, because I didn’t think working in restaurants when she arrived in New York City. She liked that they were complicated. Some of them were, but that’s just what the restaurant world so much that she enrolled in the Institute of people were seeing in a four-page-long recipe.” So she decided to Culinary Education and went on to work in a number of acclaimed focus on simple. “I felt like, I’m at home, and I cook dinner at home restaurants, including Jean-Georges Vongterichten’s Spice Market. in 30 minutes for my family, and that’s simple.” After she moved back to Eastern North Carolina to open a restaurant But simple turned out not to be so simple. While the basics of with her husband, Ben Knight—an artist whom she had met while Howard’s everyday family dinners are simple, “there are all these they were working in the same New York City restaurant—the dream things I’m pulling from to make it exciting,” she says. “When I was of becoming a writer moved even further away. trying to write a simple cookbook without those things, it felt like

“The hero that makes my heart beat fast, the one I would rush in to save from the flames if my house were burning down, is Little Green Dress. Also affectionately known as LGD, this little number is like chimichurri and salsa verde had a baby in a bed of olives. LGD is condiment, ingredient, texture, acid, herb, oil and salt all at once.”

—Vivian Howard

RECIPE AND PHOTOS REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION FROM “THIS WILL MAKE IT TASTE GOOD” BY VIVIAN HOWARD, COPYRIGHT © 2020 VORACIOUS / LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY HACHETTE BOOK GROUP. PHOTOGRAPHS BY BAXTER MILLER.

I was just dumbing down everything that I actually did. It felt like I was almost writing in someone else’s voice—and kind of aimlessly.”

By the time she had struggled through writing out a detailed proposal for the book, she realized that there was only one chapter that excited her. “At the bottom of the proposal, there was a whole chapter that was like, ‘This will make it taste good.’ Basically, what I was saying is, if you find all this other stuff boring, make these things. It just became really clear— that’s what I should do, and just, like, take the time to do it, and don’t gloss over it. Make the whole book about this.”

In the end, the name “This Will Make It Taste Good” telegraphs the confidence she wrote her book with, and the conviction of her beliefs are evident in the energy of the prose and the boldness of the photographs. It shows what can happen when an idea fits so well that it essentially becomes an extension of yourself.

Essentially (and surprisingly), it’s a book about 10 condiments—what she calls “heroes”—and how to use them as shortcuts to deliciousness on the fly. “As soon as I figured out what I was doing and got the green light, I didn’t agonize over anything,” Howard says. “Coming up with recipes was so easy because it’s what I cook for myself all the time. I really have these things on hand.”

Some of the condiments are easy enough to whip up right before dinner time—like her favorite, Little Green Dress. As she describes it: “The hero that makes my heart beat fast, the one I would rush in to save from the flames if my house were burning down, is Little Green Dress. Also affectionately known as LGD, this little number is like chimichurri and salsa verde had a baby in a bed of olives. LGD is condiment, ingredient, texture, acid, herb, oil and salt all at once. Like the little black dress that’s your sure thing, LGD is pretty much perfect for every occasion. … It’s a key that opens the door to delicious and makes boring bold, makes simple shine. It’s the ultimate trick.” A spoonful is all that’s needed to take a hard-boiled egg or tuna salad to the next level; it also creates an insanely addictive version of what she calls Gas Station Biscuits, a local offering of biscuits with hoop cheese baked into their soft middles.

Other heroes take foresight to make ahead but will pay off in the long run. “With all the people who tested the recipes, the kraut has been a revelation for everyone,” Howard says of Can-Do Kraut. She’s upfront about the fact that many people will need coaxing to even try it, but she makes a strong case for it. “I’m well aware that a lot of you don’t look at kraut and see yourselves in it,” she begins the chapter. “But I’m here today on this page to tell you that you are wrong. You can make it. You can cook with it. You can and should eat it. Kraut can change your life.”

She then lays out just how easy it is to make the recipe, which takes only 20 minutes of active time before you let it sit and work its own magic for a week or more. And she follows that up with 11 great reasons to make it—from Picklesicles (yes, frozen pickle brine, which is incredibly thirst-quenching on a hot day) to a sweet potato-and-bacon chowder spiked with its crunchy, acidic punch. “We were all surprised just how much we enjoyed eating it out of hand, and in how many unexpected ways it makes things so much better. When you think about it, in so many ways it’s acid and texture.”

In fact, you could think of the condiments as building blocks of flavor—they are just more elaborate versions of the sweet, sour, acid and bitter notes you have in texture and flavor. “The interesting thing is, I shared this book with several of my chef friends, and one said, ‘This is such a brilliant idea. Anyone who cooks professionally has things we turn to over and over again.' If you’re in the dining room eating, you may not know it, but that thing is represented in several of the dishes you are eating. So this really is the way that we do stuff as professional chefs, but it’s always seemed too complicated to explain that to home cooks.’ ”

Whether readers will actually take the time to make the heroes remains a question in Howard’s mind—even though she thoroughly believes that spending 45 minutes on Sunday evening making her R-Rated Onions will get you further in the pursuit of deliciousness than spending the same time precooking quinoa and broccoli to be reheated later in the week. But while she was worrying about this, the pandemic struck. “Everyone was at home,” she says. “I kept thinking, God I wish this book were out.”

Unfortunately, she couldn’t get the book out any faster (it’s slated for October 2020), but she could get the heroes into people’s hands. She launched a mail-order business with the Little Green Dress and sold 500 bottles in 45 minutes. “It was like watching a ticker tape,” she says. The demand had her running all over the area, trying to buy herbs from people’s backyards so she could get more made.

She now credits the Little Green Dress with having saved her sanity. The success of the heroes not only confirmed her belief in their power to make people happy but also showed her the way to a new business. “It was the first time in five years that I felt I was really leading my kitchen and my small team with purpose— and I felt grounded, hopeful, full of gratitude and energized.”

You can follow Howard on Instagram at @handyandhot to get in on ordering the condiments for delivery to your door. But she hopes many people will take the time to try their own hand at it. “I just think if they do, they’ll understand how much easier it makes their life and how much more exciting it makes their food. And how they’ll become empowered to make dishes on their own. That’s really my goal.” 

Little Green Dress MAKES 2 CUPS

Here’s What’s Important: • This recipe is specific in calling for a certain variety of olive, shallots instead of onion, and a particular hue of vinegar. But know that it is LGD’s equation that makes it heroic, not its details. To make your own variant of LGD, you need fresh, fragrant herbs; something onionesque; the combined brine power of olives, capers and anchovy; the juxtaposed acid of both vinegar and citrus; and the fruity fat of a goodquality olive oil. Don’t get hung up on the variety of vinegar you don’t have or the fact that you’ve got onion and no shallot. Just follow the equation and taste what happens. • This is not the place for dried herbs. The parsley and mint must be fresh and fragrant. And with the exception of the woody ends, the stems should be included. • Don’t even think about fake lemon juice. • LGD will keep in your fridge for one month but don’t relegate it to your freezer. She doesn’t respond well to the lack of attention and its cold environment. Believe it or not, because of her high acid content, she’ll be just fine on your counter for about a week. • Honestly, I can’t think of a protein that doesn’t benefit under the weight of its dollop. From shrimp to steak, this hero of mine travels to all the places that make meat taste better than it did before. And mixed with fatty stuff like mayonnaise, sour cream, butter, cheese, or bacon fat, LGD provides magical yin to their yang and gracefully emerges as a sauce. • Don’t let some of the ingredients deter you: I’ve knowingly fed this to haters of olives and anchovies alike, and all of them wanted more.

2 medium shallots, peeled 2 cloves garlic, peeled 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar 2/3 cup Castelvetrano olives, pitted 1½ tablespoons capers, rinsed 2 oil-packed anchovy filets 1 bunch fresh flat-leaf parsley (about 1 cup packed) 2 (½-ounce) packages fresh mint (about ½ cup packed) ½ cup tasty extra-virgin olive oil grated zest of 1 lemon ¼ cup fresh lemon juice 1 teaspoon hot sauce ½ teaspoon kosher salt

1. In a small food processor, mince the shallots and the garlic, then stir them in a small bowl with the red wine vinegar. We want them to pickle a bit, so give them all some privacy for about 20 minutes before you add them to the rest of the ingredients. 2. Meanwhile, mince the pitted olives, capers and anchovies in the food processor. Transfer to a medium bowl. Pick the leaves and smaller stems from the parsley and the leaves from the mint and mince in the food processor; it may take a little while to get them all fully processed. Transfer the herbs to the bowl with the olive mixture. 3. Add the vinegar-shallot-garlic mixture, olive oil, lemon zest and juice, hot sauce, and salt to the bowl with everything else. Stir it all together and let this vinegary puddle of green sit for a minimum of 30 minutes before you bathe in it. LGD will keep for a month in a sealed container in your fridge as long as all the green stuff is submerged in just a bit of olive oil. Suggested Uses for LGD: Spoon on baked potatoes • Dollop on steak, roast chicken, lamb, pork or seafood • Add to salads with creamy cheeses • Serve with scrambled eggs or omelets • Spoon on top of bowls of soup • Mash into guacamole or avocado toast • Mix into chicken, potato or egg salad • Serve on top of deviled eggs • Simmer with ground meat for tacos • Spread on top of pizza • Use as a filling for grilled cheese or quesadillas • Thin with oil to make a vinaigrette