Fun is an important part of our fulfillment. So what makes food fun? In this Feed Your Fire podcast episode, we explore the playful side of food and prepare a recipe perfect for summer—whether you’re entertaining friends and family or wondering what dish to bring to someone’s house. Join us on this 10-minute bite-sized episode as we discuss how food can set the tone for a lighthearted experience.
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Episode Transcript:
Hello, I'm Kim Baker, and this is Feed Your Fire, a podcast from Kim Baker Studios. Anyone ready for summer? Yeah, me too. Next week marks the unofficial start to summer, and many of you will be heading to the beach or grilling out with friends and family. We're here to help you figure out what to bring, and we're going to talk about what makes food fun.
So what do you think makes food fun. In the spirit of summer, we want to create a menu that has every bit as much personality as it does flavor. Summertime foods are often about what's in season, tomato, salad, watermelon, corn on the cob. Who doesn't love fresh seasonal produce?
But is that what makes it fun? The environment where we eat food kind of rubs off on the food itself. It's like they become a combined memory, and the way we think about the food is the way we think about the event.
There are also certain attributes about food that make them fun. How about mini anything? Just make something small and it instantly becomes more playful, or make it giant, and that's fun too, just distorting something from its usual size makes it more playful.
To me, that's why pigs in a blanket are one of the most fun foods. Not only is it a hot dog that we have summer memories and childhood memories about, but they're cute.
When I was a kid, my mother always made them when we had a babysitter, and it meant we had the house to ourselves, four kids, a substitute teacher, we were like, woo, this is fun. In this case, the food represented kind of total abandon, which is the spirit of summer. It's adventure.
We also love foods that are interactive. Think about low country boils or oyster shucking. My sisters live in New York, and anytime they come to visit, it's always an interactive menu. It might be make your own rice bowls or homemade sushi, the mixing and matching and sharing and combining create conversation. They create moments that are bigger than the meal itself.
Some foods are more fun because they have this cultural spirit and energy around them. Tacos, anyone and even a food's texture can make it more or less fun. Think about cheese and a cheese pull - now that's some serious goodness.
And of course, foods that are bad for us tend to be pretty fun. It's kind of like State Fair Food and funnel cakes. Yes, indulgent foods can kind of make us happy in the moment, but if you think about all of these other factors, healthy foods can also be fun. And let's face it, while we want to have fun with food, we also want to feel good about ourselves. And so striking that balance between fun and good for us is a really critical intersection.
So today we're aiming for a crowd pleaser, something that you can enjoy at your event or bring to someone else's and be proud of the dish that you made. So the base of today's recipe is going to use cauliflower. If I were to have recorded this podcast 10 years ago, there's no chance cauliflower would have been favored as a fun food, but the vegetables come a long way, and we love it.
So we're gonna make some cauliflower skewers with a peanut dipping sauce. Now this cauliflower is going to be marinated in a combination of yogurt and red curry paste, a little bit of orange juice and some maple syrup. The cauliflower has been cut into little florets, and once it marinates, we're going to put it on small skewers, alternating the cauliflower with red onion and a sturdy fruit like pineapple or Apple. And the reason for this is that the cauliflower is raw when we put it on the grill, and it will take some time to tenderize. And so if we were to put something like tomatoes on the skewers, that wouldn't work, the tomatoes cook super quick, and the cauliflower doesn't. So we need things that all can cook for that duration.
If you're using wooden skewers, make sure they're soaked thoroughly in water, preferably overnight. You'll want to rub the skewered Cauliflower and onions and fruit with an oil that can withstand the high heat of a grill, like an avocado oil, and you'll want to season them with salt and pepper.
These will need to cook for at least 15 minutes to make the cauliflower tender. So once you turn on your grill, get it nice and hot, and then drop the temperature down so that these can cook without burning. Because these skewers are grilled, they naturally fit into the summertime vibe, and you can use a plant based yogurt in your marinade to keep them vegan, if you'd like.
I just recently brought this recipe to my boyfriend's parents house for dinner, and I chose it because we had been on a food bender and were eating horribly for days celebrating his birthday, and I wanted to sort of get back on track.
This is a fabulous recipe for summer. The curry paste gives it that subtly spicy flavor, and when we pair that with the peanut dipping sauce, which is a little sweet, it just all really works together.
So once the cauliflower is tender, you can take these off the grill, just use some tongs to kind of grab them and put them on a platter. I like to put a little bit of micro greens or something, just to make it look beautiful.
And then we're gonna go ahead and make this dipping sauce, grab a small bowl and put about two tablespoons of natural peanut butter in it, then add some soy sauce and maple syrup and a little bit of rice wine vinegar and lime juice.
As soon as I start making this dipping sauce, my dog comes running. She can smell peanut butter from anywhere in the house.
Fun was meant to be shared, so we're gonna give her a little bit of peanut butter on a spoon.
Then we're going to finish our sauce by adding in some heat. You can use Sriracha or chili paste. I'm going to use chili crunch, which I buy at the grocery store. It has chili flakes and sesame and a little bit of oil, add in some garlic powder and ginger and a little bit of water to thin it out and whisk it all together, and then I like to sprinkle in some chopped basil to give it freshness, and that, my friends, is all there is to it.
The ease of this recipe is another thing that makes it perfect for summertime. We all need to reset and refresh. It is a time of rejuvenation. Take it, enjoy it. One of the things that I've come to know is that fun and pleasure and making time for the things you enjoy is part of our journey. It's a critical part of what shapes us.
I learned this very acutely watching my brother and how he lived his life. He worked hard, but man, he knew how to have a good time. I often think of the strength that that gave him and how much fun lifts us up. It enables us to actually do more when we embrace pleasure and enjoyment. We are kinder. We are better versions of ourselves. We're capable of taking on more because we're not depleted, and in those moments of fun, we build connections with people that take us forward.
So though this episode was lighthearted in nature, it's because that also is part of the recipe for fulfillment, and it pairs wonderfully with this meal we've prepared today. With that, I say, so long.
Feed Your Fire, where food nourishes growth.