Abra Berens is the author of Ruffage, Grist, and Pulp, as well as the culinary director at Granor Farm.

Alicia Kennedy: It's so funny because I realized that I haven't talked to you about your work since Ruffage was coming out. And then Grist happened in the middle and now it is Pulp and everyone is talking about it as the conclusion of a trilogy. But do you see it that way?

Abra Berens: I certainly see it that way for right now. I hope it's not the last book I ever write or the last project I ever do, but I definitely…there's nothing else in the works right now. Now it's just that, you know, I have a full plate at Graner, literally, no pun intended. And then also, yeah, it's been nice to kind of get to settle into these books a little bit. So in that sense, it is I certainly could envision the Practical Guide series doing another set of ingredients, but I also feel like it might get really boring if it keeps going in this way. So yeah, it's nice time to just be reflective a little bit.

AK: I mean, when you started with Ruffage, did you envision this trilogy?

AB: No. So well, we were just talking about how you're in kind of that nerve wracking time between when the book is completed and before it pubs. And I think, apparently, I've learned that this is true for a number of authors and other people who make stuff that [during] that time a lot of the coping mechanism is about like just working on another project so you can like channel that frenetic energy into that. And so that's how Grist happened. You know, in the time before Roughage pubbed, I was like, Oh, I really like doing this work. And maybe there's another set of ingredients that we could do. And Grainer had, you know, really expanded its green and legume production. So they were just all these new ingredients to work with. And no publisher seemed to want to do a fruit book and so…Chronicle was thankfully interested. They weren't interested in doing the fruit book off the bat and said, What other ideas do you have? And so when we said grains and legumes, Sarah Billingsley, who has just shepherded all three of these books through lit up. And so she we kind of compromised and we're willing to do. I wasn't sure about Grist and she wasn't sure about Pulp, so we just did them both, and I feel grateful for that. And so, it hadn't seemed like it would be a trilogy, but now it feels like it works in a way that I wasn't expecting.

AK: Yeah. And you called it kind of the Practical Guide series -that's obviously in the subtitles. What is the word practical mean to you? Because it does come up in in the books too…

AB: Yeah, it's an interesting question because you know, on the dark days when you read review like Amazon reviews or whatever, and you've got people that are like, These are not practical recipes! And I wonder what that word means to other people. For me, practical came out of the sense of wanting them to be teaching books that make it so that ideally, people move beyond the book itself. You know, I don't like the part of food media that's like, Do this thing that I tell you to do and your life will be better because of it. I wanted to have a book that allowed people to go to the market or go to their fridge and find something that would reference a recipe, not have to go to the store to get auxiliary ingredients or order them or whatever and then learn how to cook so that then they could feel confident making that without having to reference it.

So I think that's what it means for me, is looking at something, learning enough to apply a technique or a flavor profile and then going from there and also that they're not multi-day processes. There's a couple — that got harder with Grist especially, but a little bit in Pulp too. Like there's this dish that I love that is a roasted carrots with a beet cream and then it's raspberries and cocoa nibs and chili oil, and I love that combination and it started as a dish that we did at a farm dinner up in bare knuckle in 2013. And we've done it a couple of times here at Greener and I just love it.

And now the more I think about like, is it practical to ask someone to like cook a beet and then blend it into a cream, and then put it with carrots and then make a chili oil?

I don't know…

AK: Well, I think it's really interesting and I think we're in an interesting moment in recipe writing because there still is so much of that, as you said, like food media, you know, Do it my way, or everyone's been doing it wrong, this is the right way to do it kind of thing… And I think it started, you know, around when you had Roughage come out, and that was when Samin put out Salt Fat Acid Heat. And I always think about The Nimble Cook too, which is another cookbook that came out around that time by Ronna Welsh. And then, you know, now I think there's all still more of those, like Tamar Adler's Everlasting Meal cookbook, and you're still writing cookbooks…

You know, I just talked to Melissa McCart and Rick Easton, who wrote a book called Bread and How to Eat It, and their whole thing is like, you know, it's kind of like, here's what to do with bread in your house after it goes bad. Like, here's what to do with it when it's good, but also here's what to do with it when it goes bad. And…these aren't cookbooks that are about, you know, forcing kind of a perspective on people. Or you know, it's about giving people the guidelines that they need to know how to make things that they like. Which I think, and I hope that this is kind of overtaking the ‘personality driven’ cookbook sector, but I don't know. And it's just really hard for like as someone who also occasionally writes recipes - it's also really hard to kind of like navigate that world. How are you navigating it as someone who's published three cookbooks now, you know, that kind of real market demand for you to probably write a different kind of recipe or cookbook…

AB: I mean, maybe not that well, is how navigating it truth be told, but no… I mean I think…one of the few perks of capitalism is that there are options for people, so you're not going to please everybody. And so this is probably, I hope, that these recipes in these books start to attract people who are looking to have that skill set and who need inspiration. But as you were talking, I was just, well, I'm sorry to finish my thought — I think that while there is pressure to do that, it does feel like there's a lot of space, you know, to be able to put what you want into the world thankfully. And yet, it does seem like…I'm kind of intrigued by the idea of writing a book that is like, no variations, no teaching, just make tomato soup this way… 

And also using part of it too is like using the most basic grocery store ingredients. And for example, it's hard - I think one of the things that's really challenging is how to write a recipe that bridges people who are spending money on artisan ingredients and people who are buying things from Sam's Club. You know, because I don't want anybody to feel…like there's enough judging in food. I don't want anyone to feel like they're lesser than because they're shopping at an ALDI or something like that - like that's still food that feeds you. 

But there was somebody who made the cornbread recipe recently and they were using like an artisten cornmeal and it souffled like crazy. And so they were like, I don't think this recipe is right, I don't think the pan is big enough… And so when I tested it again, it was interesting. I did a second test of like I went out and bought just like a Quaker cornmeal and then use some stuff from the farm and it is really different. 

So I don't know. I think that there is kind of a movement towards people just trying to share their experience from their craft in a way that hopefully gives inspiration and doesn't feel like poo poo-ing. I think you can sell more stuff by poo poo-ing, making someone feel inferior. That's how the entire makeup industry, you know, made it. And I think about…there's a book that my friend Tim Misuric just gave me, or gave Eric actually, called Living With Objects. And it's a book about how a lot of us can't afford to have a like, beautifully architecturally designed house. So instead, we live with objects and how to bring objects into your space in a way that feels artful and that feels beautiful but not pretentious and isn't like a museum, you know, and all those things. And I think that there's something similar happening with food and with clothing and with beauty, potentially. And just what you were saying, that you can find your own voice by leveraging someone else's experience. And I hope that that's what these books do. I don't think I've ever quite said it like that, but I think it that is what I hope for them.