PerFUCKtion

The art of getting in your own way and an exclusive recipe from Brave New Meal

Blueberry Thyme Marble Rolls from our new book Brave New Meal

Hey again, nice to see you back here. Grab a seat. Dunno about y’all, but between Mom’s Spaghetti opening in Detroit, Kellogg’s dropping this nightmare while it’s workers strike, and FB/IG being down, this week has been wild. So since it's hot enough out there, let’s keep it classy in this edition and show y’all the many stages of making a recipe for the new book.

this shit must have Count Chocula rolling in his cartoon coffin

Over the last couple years, we’ve been experimenting more with sweet and savory flavors, trying to make common tastes and ingredients surprising and fresh again. And thus, Michelle’s idea for a Blueberry Thyme jam was born. We boiled it up and obsessed over the flavors for weeks. We tried it with fresh blueberries and frozen, both successful and equally delicious, and slathered that on damn near everything. But we didn’t know how to make it a real recipe for the book, not just a condiment. We tried a lot of different stuff but nothing felt good enough.

these looked like shit and tasted like disappointment

The idea for making a ribbon of savory jam through a roll was born through struggle and many, many mistakes. We were eating entirely too much jam during this part of quarantine, so we had to figure this shit out before we went full Violet Beauregarde.

Willy Wonka was doing a public service weeding out shitheads

Somewhere between a sourdough side plot and restarting The Sopranos, we figured it out. These are savory, just a little sweet, and delicious for days if you manage to not eat them all in one sitting.

so good you’d *almost* eat them raw

But when we took the first photo for the book, we absolutely hated it. This happens sometimes because we’re both perfectionists, to a debilitating degree. Michelle finally gets a recipe exactly how she wants it, we get it under Matt’s camera, and for whatever reason, that shit doesn’t translate. We’ll swap plates, change the lighting,  use different props, backgrounds, hell we usually have spare portions on hand so that we can COMPLETELY RESTYLE each dish while we shoot it but sometimes it’s just not hitting how it should. So again, we had to tinker and fuck with it until we thought the photo let the food speak for itself. Everyone’s first bite is with their eyes, so we understand what an important and fleeting opportunity it is to entice someone’s taste buds. 

first shot attempt vs redo that got published

So how long did this all take? Roughly a year. From dreaming up the recipe, testing it, tweaking the visual composition, and then actually executing a photo and recipe we’re both proud of takes a metric fuck ton of time and effort. That’s why we save only bangers for our books. But because we love y’all, here’s the recipe a lil early. We think you deserve it for having such great taste and supporting us as we experiment in the kitchen trying to dream up new shit. Also have we mentioned how fucking great you look today? Whatever you’re doing, it’s working. 

Our new book Brave New Meal is full of more recipes like this. If you haven’t preordered yet, there’s an easy way to fix that.

And if you have already order it, wow did you just get MORE attractive? If you’re about that jam life, the book has a passionfruit recipe that is NOT to be missed. We even swirl it in to a cheesecake that we still dream about. Sigh. We just got our first real life copy of the book this week and one of us may have gotten a little misty. Can’t say who though. We’re taking that shit to the grave.

Is it gorgeous?

We really appreciate every single one of you guys for joining us here in our new project. We don’t take it lightly that you’ve decided to share some of your hard-earned money with us by becoming paid supporters of this newsletter. If there’s content you’re interested in seeing or questions that you’re dying to ask, reach out. We’re trying to build a community here and you’ve got our ear. We’re making you dinner so we want to know what you like.

It’s gonna get messy here in The Broiler Room but don’t worry, we’ll do the dishes. Hope you’re hungry. 

Michelle and Matt