Photo by Melissa Coleman
Melissa Coleman never planned on writing a cookbook. In fact, she swore she wouldn’t. But in reality, the graphic designer-turned-food blogger had been laying the foundation for a book on her wildly popular minimalist lifestyle blog, The Faux Martha, for years. So when an editor approached her about translating her thoughts from pixels to print, she (eventually) agreed.
Through new recipes and old favorites, The Minimalist Kitchen teaches readers how to pare down and make the kitchen a fun, manageable place to cook again. Ahead of the book’s release on April 10, we spoke with Coleman about the misconceptions around the word “minimalist,” fine-tuning her own kitchen, and what’s next.
When you last spoke to Mpls.St.Paul Home & Design about your home remodel in 2016, you had 67,000 Instagram followers. Now you’re at 111,000. What have you been up to in the last year and a half?
You’re hitting me at such a weird time because all of these amazing things have happened, and now I’m asking myself: What am I doing? What should I focus on? What’s giving me life? What’s taking away life? I’m at this pivot point where I’m trying to figure that out. I’ve always loved food and design. Even as a kid, I did arts and crafts and I always loved to make stuff. And then in college, I cooked my way through the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking book while studying design. Then I graduated and my profession was graphic design, but I was blogging about food. I always wondered: How can food and design work together? I never realized that the two were always influencing each other. So I guess the long answer is that I have been dancing between design and food, and always asking myself: Which one should I stick with? I think the two are influencing each other and that's what creates something good or makes something better.
And now you’re combining those passions into a book. In the acknowledgments, you wrote that this was never something you planned on doing.
In June 2016, my now-editor pitched the book to me. I didn’t even respond to the first email. And then I thought about it. How did she know I could write this book? I thought to myself, if I don’t write this book, somebody else has to. There are a lot of really great cookbooks that are inspiring, and you cook a couple recipes from them and maybe you go back to them, but there’s not a lot of cookbooks that really show you how to navigate the kitchen, how to make this space work for you and not against you. So when she pitched this book to me, I was already kind of writing about it on my blog. I had to write this book. I swore to myself that I would only write a book if it poured out of me, and this was the book to pour.
Since you were already writing about this topic on your blog, was it pretty easy for you to put it all on the page?
It was. I finished writing the book at The Lynhall. I went there for two weeks in a row and someone that worked there kept coming up and saying, “Are you OK? Your brow is so furrowed.” So I would say, yes, it poured out of me, but there were parts that were difficult to communicate. I didn’t want it to read like a curriculum. I wanted it to be readable and something you wouldn't want to put down, and not just a list of rules and guidelines, because who wants to read that?
What was your favorite part about writing the book—writing about crafting a “minimalist kitchen” or writing the recipes?
I love the recipes. I thought about: How do I use these recipes to teach what the minimalist kitchen is so that even if you don’t like these recipes—because some people will come to this book and not like the recipes—they teach people how to use the minimalist kitchen, how to make your kitchen work for you, how to cook things in advance, how to package components of a meal into an entirely new meal so you’re not eating leftovers. I love the recipes, but I’m more excited about writing chapter one on how to actually do this.
How did you decide which recipes to include? Were they created just for the book, or are they old favorites?
It’s a big mix. Some of them are old favorites, but for the book, I took extra time to develop and research and talk about the DNA of the recipe. I didn’t want people to just cook the recipe. I wanted them to understand how it works. And then some of the recipes were developed specifically for the book. I tried to design recipes that worked within the rhythm of the week, like make-ahead meat recipes you cook on the weekend or if you have a chunk of time during the week, and then you can freeze them and use them in multiple meals. I would say those are the two big things: There are a lot of favorites from the blog done better, and then some specifically to match the rhythm of the week. [Editor's note: Preview one of the recipes in the book, Biscuits with Bourbon-Blueberry Quick Jam, below.]
Despite the name of the book, this isn’t just for minimalists.
“Minimalist” is a tricky word to use for this. People already have thoughts about it, and those thoughts won’t pair up with what people read. The audience in my head was not minimalists, because I imagine minimalists are probably practicing similar things already. I wanted to make minimalism tangible for other people whose brains don’t work that way. I think we assume that simplicity is easy, but simplicity is really hard to achieve. It’s paring down, paring down, paring down. It’s a lot of testing in a lot of ways. Even the way I organize my pantry, that took a lot of trial and error. So simplicity is hard. It’s really hard to achieve because everything is in balance. Everything counts. You can see it when you design a space, but you can feel it when you’re working in your kitchen. When it’s not properly organized, it feels so clunky to work in the kitchen, and when it’s organized, it feels really good.
What do you hope readers will take away from this book and incorporate into their lives?
Two weeks before I turned in the manuscript, I asked myself: Why in the world am I spending all this time writing a book on how to do this? Because it takes work. Somebody is going to have to do a lot of work to get their kitchen in this kind of shape. There are a thousand other things you could spend your time on. Why this? I remember my parents gave me a dinner every night, even after soccer practice. Gathering around the table was something they valued. Getting to the table is really hard with how busy our lives get. It’s ordinary, it’s nothing novel or new, but there is something so magical about gathering around the table, and I think that’s my whole purpose of the book—to make the kitchen feel more doable so you can gather around the table with people that you love.
While you were writing the book, did you fine-tune anything in your own kitchen?
Absolutely. As I was writing and telling people that you don’t need a ton of knives, I looked at my knife block and was like, why am I keeping these knives I don’t use? It’s an ongoing process that I will probably do the rest of my life. It’s not a one-and-done thing. I want people to know that it’s OK to make this a slow process and do it the right way. This is not intended to be a quick fix. It’s a lifelong thing that you can do and that you can find success with. I’m still paring down.
On your blog, you wrote that you considered stopping blogging, and called 2018 the “year of the pivot.” What does that mean?
It’s an ongoing conversation actually. It’s kind of what makes a minimalist. You’re asking: Why am I doing this? Why do I have all this stuff? Or, why am I doing things this way? Why am I always saying work is going to get better, and it’s three years later and it hasn’t gotten better? It’s more my work-life balance. Blogging is just a really complicated thing. My life and my work—there’s not a cut off point. They just dissolve into each other. It’s hard for me to know when to turn it off, especially for my family. I don’t want to make this choice for them. It’s OK for me to talk about my life, but now my husband goes to work and they’re like, hey, I saw your wife in the paper. It’s just weird.
Do you have any other projects on the horizon?
I kept thinking I would catch my breath after the book and I haven’t yet. So I’m really trying to hunker down and take care of myself a little bit. There will be some book events but I am spending a lot of time rebuilding myself after writing the book. It’s really hard to live like a minimalist as blogger because the pace of life is really fast and the content is fast. It’s just not the way I do life. That’s mostly what I’m wrestling with. Making sure I practice what I preach.
Join Coleman for the launch party of her book on April 10 from 6–9 p.m. at The Lynhall, or stop by her book signing on April 14 at 1 p.m. at the St. Louis Park Costco.
Recipe: Biscuits with Bourbon-Blueberry Quick Jam
Photo by Kim Cornelison; food styling by Diana Scanlon
Had I written this recipe a year ago, I would have told you to “be gentle” every other sentence. It’s what every good biscuit maker said. But if you turn down the volume, you’ll notice them kneading, folding, and rolling out the dough multiple times. The real key to making good biscuits at home is using as little flour as possible. But folds, turns, kneads, and layers are a must for mile-high results. And then there’s jam. We’ve gotten into making quick jams, especially when our fridge is overflowing with fruit. It preserves the life by a couple weeks. Quick jams are known for being a bit loose. Let them be.
Hands-on: 20 min. Total: 35 min. Yields: 8 (2 1⁄2-inch) biscuits and 1⁄2 cup jam
Quick Jam
- 1 1⁄2 cups fresh blueberries
- Scant 1⁄4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon bourbon
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
Biscuits
- 1⁄4 cup cold unsalted butter
- 2⁄3 cup cold whole milk
- 1⁄3 cup cold heavy cream
- 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for shaping
- 1 tablespoon aluminum-free baking powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
To make the jam:
In a small saucepan, combine all of the jam ingredients. Bring to a simmer; cook for about 8 minutes, swirling every so often. The berries will begin to burst and the mixture will slowly thicken. To keep this jam on the looser side, it is ready when it barely coats the back of a spoon. The jam will thicken a bit as it cools. Store covered in a glass jar. This can be made 4 weeks in advance.
To make the biscuits:
Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat. Set aside.
In a liquid measuring cup, measure out the milk and heavy cream. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt with your largest fork. Cut the butter into skinny shreds (as if you were cutting thin slices of cheese) and toss them into the flour mixture to coat. Using your hands, quickly break apart the flour-covered butter into pea-sized pieces. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour in the liquid mixture. (Don’t rinse out the measuring cup just yet. You’ll need the remaining liquid mixture later.) Using the fork, gently stir together until a shaggy mass forms.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Add a bit of flour to your hands to keep the dough from sticking. Press the dough into a rectangle (about 8 x 5 inches). Use enough flour to keep things from sticking and no more. Using a metal spatula or sharp knife, cut the dough in half and stack the two. Repeat 5 more times. (You’ll have a total of 6 cuts.) Press the dough out until about 1 inch thick. Using a 2½-inch biscuit cutter, press straight down without a twisting motion to cut out the biscuits. For larger biscuits, use a 3-inch biscuit cutter for a yield of 5. Place the biscuits close enough on the prepared baking sheet that they rub shoulders while baking. Stack the leftover dough making sure to keep the layers parallel. Gently press out again and cut until most of the dough has been used.
Using the tiny bit of liquid left in the measuring cup (add a little cream if the cup is dry), lightly brush the tops of the biscuits. Bake for 13 to 15 minutes until the tops are golden and the sides look baked through. Serve warm with the jam.
Notes
To reheat, preheat the oven to 350°F. Place a damp paper towel on the top of the biscuits and wrap them completely with foil. Bake until warm. The damp towel keeps the biscuits from drying out.
Minimalist Tip
If you don’t stock a round cookie or biscuit cutter, make square biscuits and cut with a sharp knife or metal spatula.
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