Other People's Kitchens Q&A: with Julie McCoy
Julie lives in an 1850's colonial house, in the Mohawk Valley close to the Erie Canal.
Q: Hello Julie. Can you please tell us a little about yourself, where you live and your substack publication?
A: I grew up and lived in Munich, Germany, for 10 years (and went to an American high school there), so my European background has definitely given me a different perspective about cooking and traveling. I met my husband in college, ironically only an hour from where we currently live, but we spent over 30 years living and working in New York City and Long Island.
We now live in the Mohawk Valley, very close to Lock 17 on the Erie Canal, which is about an hour west of Albany, the capital of New York State. I mention the canal because not only does it provide some great outdoor hiking opportunities, but also inspiration for many of my stories.
My substack publication, “Something Tasty” includes fictional short stories from four different sources:
Chapters from a new book, Wonder Bread, that I’m writing.
A couple of old travel essays that I’ve rewritten.
A manuscript from a book that I wrote 40 years ago and recently “found,” but never published.
New fiction.
To clarify the last point, I got tired of “borrowing” from material I had previously penned, so I started writing some new short stories – all with a food focus.
Q: Can you please describe the layout of your kitchen, how much of a role it plays with your family, and when writing your short stories on 'Something Tasty’?
A: The house we live in now is an 1850’s colonial that we purchased in 2010. It was a foreclosure, so although it was a bargain, it had no working kitchen or heat, and everything needed to be renovated. My husband, Lynn and I spent nine years commuting nearly every weekend from Long Island and worked on most of the renovation projects ourselves. That said, I knew I wanted the kitchen I have now to be a “dream” kitchen. While it might not have expensive cabinets or appliances, it’s large enough to accommodate multiple cooks, which is great since our adult children, when they visit, cook, too. Since I know most people like to congregate in a kitchen regardless of the size, I made sure our kitchen would be able to accommodate that.
Also, when we were building the kitchen (and hauling up kitchen cabinets from Ikea in a station wagon we had at the time), we realized that our number one priority was to build a very big island. Since we kind of skimped on the countertops (they’re just laminate), we decided to splurge on a granite countertop for the island. This was a great decision even back in 2010, since we use the island for all our food prep and baking. Plus, it’s a great space to have cocktails and appetizers before dinner!
Ironically, most people our age “downsize” when their children move out. We “upsized” and this is the largest house we have ever owned. I have been cooking since I was a teenager, and now that I am no longer employed, I cook breakfast, lunch and dinner! Another factor contributing to this abundant kitchen usage is our rural location. There aren’t a lot of places near us to eat out or even do take-out, so there’s really no other option but to cook.
We do quite a few road trips throughout the year and many of my stories are inspired by these trips. I also take an enormous amount of photographs (mostly food-related) when we’re traveling which I usually post on my Instagram account (redhouseproject). Sometimes all it takes is for me to look at a photograph of a place we’ve been or a dish I’ve eaten, and the story kind of writes itself. My kitchen also plays a big role in getting the details correct if any of my characters are describing food they’re preparing or eating.
Q: What are your most used kitchen gadgets that you cannot live without? Do any of these gadgets feature in your stories?
A: I decided I cannot live without a paring knife, immersion blender, or toaster oven. I thought about adding my food processor to the list, but really the immersion blender does everything I need it to do. Also, I know many good cooks have fancy knives, but as hard as I try to keep my knives sharp, they’re always dull, so I generally use a sharp paring knife to cut everything. As far as my toaster oven goes, it’s just a lot easier and quicker to use for baking almost anything since I’m usually only cooking for two.
I talk about using a whisk in many of my stories because it goes back to the time when growing up in Munich, we did everything manually. Since I also have a lot of time on my hands, I don’t care if it takes 2x as long to make something “old school,” especially if I have nothing else planned for the day.
Q: You have been writing Food and Travel stories for over 20 years and have recently returned to fiction writing. Can you please tell us something about this and what were the influences behind this decision?
A: I originally started a blog (eathappy.net) over 25 years ago, writing travel stories and restaurant reviews. When we bought our current house, this morphed into a blog called “The Red House Project” which described the food I was cooking with no kitchen in the middle of a home renovation.
I eventually got tired of writing about both of these subjects and decided to go back to fiction writing because that’s how I started. When I was working in New York City in the early 1980’s, I started writing screenplays, often while commuting on the Long Island Railroad. This became a project I haven’t completely abandoned, and between 2004-2005, I had three original plays produced on Long Island based on screenplays I had written. That said, I’m a strong dialogue writer and love to create conversations between my characters that I hope my readers can relate to. I also have a tendency when traveling to eavesdrop on conversations I hear which really gives me an enormous amount of material to use that I don’t even have to make up!
When our house was almost finished in 2019, I started a new blog, “Let’s Go!” with every intention of writing about traveling, food, and life in the Mohawk Valley. Then the pandemic hit, and I, unfortunately, was forced to take an early retirement from my employer. The traveling stopped for a while, but recently I’ve resumed posting some food and travel essays about our trips.
The irony of the situation is that throughout my working career, I basically hated every job I ever had. And while other employees would spend the day playing solitaire on their office computer or shop online, I would write short stories. Since I always wrote everything by hand on legal pads, everyone assumed I was hard at work! But nearly every day I would fantasize about how my “perfect” job would be to stay home all day and just write fiction. The moral of the story is, be careful what you wish for, because now I’m home full time and I can write as much, or as little as I want.
Q: You have a podcast to accompany some of your stories. Can you please tell us a little about this, where the story ideas come from and are any of them based on real life situations?
A: I started recording some of the stories I wrote but stopped because I was cringing listening to my own voice. I’m not a great public speaker so this might have contributed to it. I started the podcasts only because I saw other people were recording their stories, but I’ve never been one to do what everyone else is doing, so after recording a bunch, I stopped.
Q: How would you describe the regional cuisine where you live in Upstate New York? Are there fresh food markets, or farmers markets available?
A: My parents are originally from the Midwest, and even growing up in Munich, meat and potatoes were our “staples.” When I first moved to NYC, I was spoiled with all the varieties of ethnic food and enjoyed it while we lived there. Unfortunately, having moved upstate, it seems I’ve come full circle in that I see a lot of meat, potatoes, and bread on everyone’s plates.
There is also a large Italian-American community here, so many dishes reflect that. If you haven’t heard of “Tomato Pie,” it’s basically pizza with tomato sauce but no cheese. Also, “Utica Greens” – escarole that’s been sauteed with bacon, olive oil, peppers, and cheese. And let’s not forget “Chicken Riggies” - rigatoni pasta with chicken and usually hot peppers or jalapeño peppers from a jar. (I’m not quite sure why that dish is so popular, but it is.)
However, since we live in a rural community, we are surrounded by lots of farms, many of them run by Amish or Mennonite communities. The growing season is short here because of the weather, so the farmers have to work extra hard. There are a few farmer’s markets and CSA’s within a 45 minute drive from us, but truthfully the best farmer’s markets I’ve found have been up in Canada! Also, we are about two hours from the Finger Lakes area of New York which gives us a taste of wine country without having to get on a plane.
My love of farmer’s markets also stems from growing up in Munich and visiting the famous Viktualienmarkt in the center of town every Saturday. Also, traveling through southern France, I was spoiled by the French markets (particularly the Cours Saleya in Nice), as well as the few I’ve visited in Paris. I lived briefly in London, as an exchange student in the 1980’s, and I remember that Covent Garden was still a market, and not the collection of upscale shops and restaurants it is now.
However, since our house also came with four plus acres of land, I do have a small vegetable garden. Over the past few years, I’ve grown tons of herbs, broccoli, zucchini, lettuce, garlic, beets, green beans, peas, tomatoes, and cucumbers.
A neighbor insisted I take a rhubarb plant off his hands a few years ago which means I now make orange rhubarb butter and strawberry rhubarb jam regularly. I also bake and freeze both zucchini nut bread and rhubarb tea loaves from the bounty I’ve harvested.
Growing cucumbers forced me to learn how to pickle, so I bought Marisa McClellan’s Food in Jars book which is my go-to-source on how to can safely. To date I have about 25 jars of bread and butter pickles sitting in a hutch in my dining room. And 14 jars of homemade apple sauce, made from apples from an Amish farm. (Luckily, we both love pickles and applesauce.)
Because of everything I now grow myself, I don’t frequent local farmers as much as I used to. But occasionally, I will buy some chicken or cheese from a local farmer.
Q: Is there anything about your kitchen that you would like to change or improve on?
A: I would have liked a walk-in pantry, but since the house is old and I only have one closet in the entire house, this wouldn’t have been doable. Also, for the nine years we were renovating the house, we still had a home on Long Island. This meant that we had two, sometimes three of everything (pots and pans, dishes, silverware, etc.). The upside of this is when something breaks, I can simply throw it away and not have to worry about getting a new one. The downside is I would have a lot more room in my cabinets if I didn’t have so much stuff.
I can’t think of anything in my kitchen that would make fiction writing easier, but one thing that helps me tremendously is that I love going to the supermarket. Really, I’m the only person I know who doesn’t mind browsing the aisles, seeing what’s new, and even standing in line. I get a lot of dinner ideas that way, as well as story ideas based on what my fellow shoppers have in their shopping carts. (Read on about how “The Camp People” came about.)
Q: What tips can you give us that will help keep our kitchens neat and tidy and easy to manage?
A: Clean as you cook. Don’t put the dishes in the sink because you are too tired to put them in the dishwasher. Even when we didn’t have a dishwasher, I always did the dishes, dried them, and put them away because I didn’t want to deal with a mess in the morning.
This clean as you go approach probably stems from having to deal with bugs (roaches) in our first apartment in Brooklyn. If there was anything I could do even back then to keep the bugs from coming into our apartment I would try it. Unfortunately, the only way we could get rid of the bugs was to eventually move.
I also make sure to throw out spices I don’t use. And since I’ve started canning, I now check the expiration dates on everything.
Q: How many cookbooks do you have and do you have any favourites? Can you also tell us a little about the books you have written?
A: I probably have about 40-50 cookbooks. But I also have at least another 40 books that are in some way food-related. For example, Rachel Roddy’s My Kitchen in Rome, Julie Powell’s Julie and Julia, as well as Cleaving. I have nearly all of Ruth Reichl’s books, and then there’s Anthony Bourdain. When our son was in high school, his summer project was to read at least ONE book. Shameless mother that I was, I told him if he read Kitchen Confidential, I would give him $20. Twenty years later, he still talks about me bribing him, so mission accomplished.
Then there are the chef-written memoirs. Perhaps because I once imagined myself going to culinary school and working in a professional kitchen, I’m attracted to the ugly side of the business. Hence, I have bookshelves that feature Eric Ripert’s 32 Yolks, Grant Achatz’s Life, On the Line, and Marcus Samuelsson’s Yes, Chef, among many, many others.
I also subscribe to a number of food magazines and get The New York Times cooking section regularly. And, I have my own three-ring binder of favorite recipes that I use again and again. If I had to name a few favorite cookbooks, it would probably be Sarah Leah Chase’s Open House Cookbook, or any of the Silver Palate cookbooks. The recipes are easy and usually contain ingredients I already have on hand. (I’m also currently reading Ina Garten’s memoir, Be Ready When The Luck Happens, and am enjoying it immensely.)
Moving on to the books I’ve written. Get In the Car: A Food and Travel Memoir available on Amazon, is based on stories from the first blog I wrote and tying them together with journals I kept when traveling with our kids. It was a fun book to write, and it also gave me time to think how lucky we were to have so many great trips together. (Expensive but definitely worth it.)
My second book, The Camp People, also available on Amazon, is a collection of short stories that involve food in some way. One of the stories in the book, “The Camp People,” (also the title of the short story collection) came about because of the following:
We live on a road that in the summer months has an incredible number of RV’s going up to a very popular campground in the area. A few summers ago, I happened to be food shopping and saw two guys loading their shopping carts with fun stuff to get them through the July 4th weekend. Besides the usual hamburgers and hot dogs, they also had cases of beer, steaks, salad, cheese, cookies, and tubs and tubs of ice cream! Really, I wanted to hang out with these guys after I saw all the goodies they were buying. And that was how “The Camp People” came to be written.
Q: Do you have a favourite story or recipe that you would like to share with us?
A: I don’t really have a favorite recipe (believe it or not) because I like to switch things around and not make the same dishes or even cookies or cakes every holiday or family gathering. I don’t want to be that “Here comes Julie with her pan of brownies” lady. I also like to keep the family guessing as to what I’m bringing.
I do have quite a few favorite stories from “Something Tasty.” Since I’ve mentioned before where my inspiration comes from, I’ll include the source as well.
“Tarte Tatin Is Definitely Not Like Apple Pie” (from Wonder Bread)
“The Marshmallow Factory” (from a “found” manuscript)
“Whining and Dining” (from my old travel blog eathappy.net)
“Oysters with Anne (of Green Gables)” (a new short story)
Q: Have you had any kitchen disasters that you would like to share?
A: I’ve probably had numerous kitchen disasters but am kind of a “no big deal” person so I just manage. However, since we like to spend much of our summer months outside, there have been many instances when we thought we had enough propane to keep the grill going, only to discover in the middle of grilling steak or chicken that we didn’t! The solution to this has since been resolved and we now always have a spare propane tank on hand.
We also have a new stove with convection bake and roasting capabilities, and it seems to set the smoke alarms off in the house with greater ease. The remedy for this noise and inconvenience usually involves my husband waving a dish towel over the offensive device while I scurry around opening doors and windows. But sometimes I just ignore the whole thing.
My cooking is never so bad that I throw things away. Plus, food is so expensive these days, who would do that? But fun fact: topping most any dish you’ve burnt with some cheese usually solves the problem. Obviously, this won’t work on a cake, but you get the idea.
Further Insights from Julie.
I started writing Wonder Bread over four years ago, and it got so complicated with tons of different characters and generations, that I had to put it aside. Some of the material (as mentioned), was then rewritten as short stories for “Something Tasty” on substack. This may sound like a lot of work, but it was actually quite easy. (Easier than finishing a rough draft of the novel!)
In the meantime, I decided to work on a short novella, Randy & Rini. I have a tendency to write about relationships quite a bit, primarily because my husband and I have known each other since we were teenagers. I’ve been thinking recently a lot about the year we met (1979), and what we were like back then. While Randy & Rini is not about us, they definitely reflect what we liked to do even back then – travel, listen to music, fool around, and most importantly, eat good food. Luckily, this has not changed in the 45 years we’ve known each other.
So, it’s fun writing about being 18 again, plus I love the characters. Stay tuned for more on that project!
Thank you for sharing your kitchen with us
. Visit and Subscribe to Julie’s substack ‘Something Tasty’.
Read more from the series Q&A: Other People’s Kitchens.
Thank you. Lynn H. (FSL)
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Lovely kitchen. Such a charming read.
Beautiful kitchen ❤️