Good morning,

Among the questions accompanying my Pistachio Non-Blondies recipe (honestly one of the most addictive things I’ve ever made) that

The book was first published in late 2014, and an updated tenth-anniversary edition comes out this Tuesday, April 29. A few days ago, I met with Amy at a cafe in rural upstate New York to discuss this significant occasion. I’ll share the highlights from our conversation below.

Two exciting supplements to the interview are:

• A recipe*: Below the interview, you’ll find a recipe from Amy’s book for Cinnamon Caramel Popcorn, made with cashew butter and brown rice syrup. I haven’t yet made it because I’m traveling this week, but it looks incredibly delicious and easy.

• A giveaway: For a chance to win a copy of the 10th anniversary edition of At Home in the Whole Food Kitchen, just click “❤️” at the end of this post (and make sure you’re subscribed to Formal Assignment so that I have your email address to notify you if you win) — that’s it! I’ll also run a giveaway on Instagram — so enter there, too, to double your chances of winning. (Enter by 11:59pm EST on Sunday, May 4. Sorry, I can only ship to addresses in the US.)

Disclosure: I first met Amy (by chance, in a shop in SoHo on my birthday) shortly after the publication of her first book. Years later, she’d write the forward for my own first book, and I consider her a friend.

I hope you’ll enjoy our chat as much as I did — and the recipe as much as I plan to ASAP.

Talk to you soon.

Brian

*Formal Assignment P.S. is for paid subscribers. It’s just $6 a month—or even less for an annual subscription. I’m also trying out a pay-what-you-can subscription option.

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AT HOME, 10 YEARS LATER
An Interview with Amy Chaplin
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Amy Chaplin is seated by the window at Bartlett House, a cafe and bakery in rural Ghent, New York, with a cappuccino and a butter croissant before her.

Her first cookbook, At Home in the Whole Food Kitchen, was published ten years ago and won a James Beard Foundation Award for best cookbook in the vegetarian category. She has come here, not far from her home, to talk about the updated tenth anniversary edition that will be released on April 29.

These days, she’s still a celebrated whole food chef (having won another JBF Award for her second book, Whole Food Cooking Every Day), frequently sharing recipes and advice at her

Chaplin’s work now holds an undeniable place in the cannon of whole food, vegetarian cuisine that includes Mollie Katzen’s The Moosewood Cookbook, Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, and Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian; she has influenced countless home cooks and cookbook authors (including me).

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.

In as few words as possible, where did you live and what did you love at age five? I lived in the country in the house my parents built, that I talk about in the book. And being in the garden and at the river is what I loved.

And at 15? At 15, I was an hour away in a small town called Bellingham in New South Wales, Australia, at the local high school, planning my escape from school in Australia and I was already into the idea of traveling and just couldn't wait to get out.

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At 20? Twenty, I was in London.

You had already gone to Sydney? Yeah, I had. I left school at 16 and worked in Sydney and then went to Amsterdam at seventeen and I turned 21 when I’d just moved to London. And I was trying to open a restaurant.

Ambitious! Yeah, with my friend who said, Come to London. I'm going to open a restaurant. I’d met her in Australia but she was British and she'd moved back.

At 25? I moved to New York at 25, almost 26, and was very into it. I was probably working at Other Foods on 12th Street and University Place. I don't know if you’ve heard about that? It became Terra 47. Anyway, I started doing pastry there. It was three women that owned it, they all went to the Natural Gourmet [Institute], a culinary school on 21st Street, together. And walking in, I just remember one of those moments where you're like, Oh yeah; this feels good. Anyway, I’d been interested in Natural Gourmet, but I got to learn everything they’d learned at that culinary school. So I was kind of like, Well, maybe I won't go there.

At 30, where were you and what did you love? I was living in the East Village, and I'd just taken on the executive chef position at Angelica and I was hating it.

Did you hate it the whole time you did it? No, I just hated it at first. I was already the pastry chef for a little bit before that, which was just three or four days a week. And I was personal chef-ing as well, so I had this nice, free lifestyle. And then they designed this position that was Creative, Executive Chef. I had a Co-Executive Chef who did all the ordering and staffing that I didn't want to do, and I did ingredient research and recipe development and creative menu planning. It wasn't too many hours, and I still did my Pastry Chef shifts and the savory chef shifts too. Everything started at 6am. But I lived in the East Village still, so it was a walk, which was good.

And then, when I found my rhythm, I loved it. But in the beginning, it was just a very male-dominated kitchen, and I got so much pushback. But then, finally, they started respecting me, and it got better.

How long were you there? Seven years, total.

That takes us up to where you were past 35. Where were you at 40? At 40, my first book came out. And then at 45, I was not working. I was busy with kids.

What have been the most pleasant surprises for you over the past ten years? Oh, well, probably mothering is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. The most internal growth that I've ever done, being a parent, and continues to be.

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What do you think made this book stand out to so many readers? And what do you think makes it unique from other vegetarian books at the time? I don't know, actually. It's a combination of things, right? But I put so much into it, and I did not have any expectations. I just was at a time in my life where I was like, Okay, I'm done with restaurants. I was teaching and working privately when I got the book deal. So I didn’t jump straight from a restaurant, but I still had that all in my mind -- restaurant work and how to get the most out of plant-based ingredients and turn them into something special and elegant. And so I was trying to get that out in a way. I just knew that I needed to do my own book. So I launched into it thinking, I am just treating this like the best creative project I've ever had in my life. And I'm not working, and I'm going to borrow money. And I'm just going to indulge myself in my creative process.

So I did. I spent everything on ingredients, and every day, I just experimented. And it went on and on and on and I just kept adding and adding and adding to the book until I was like, I've got to start writing some head notes here. And then I realized, Oh, my God, and I've got to edit all those head notes. And every recipe has to be tested over and over. It was such a long process.

And I think my editor was like, You know what would be great? If you had a couple of sentences in the beginning about each ingredient and about pantry stocking. So that took me three months. Because I was researching all different angles and writing it in my own words.

Were there any things you had to update for the anniversary edition? I could have gone there, but we didn't end up having the time. We were going to add gluten-free crusts (a sweet and a savory) that you could use with all the recipes that need a crust. But then that would need to be tested each way. The question I get most is, How do you switch out the spelt flour? That is probably the only thing that's dated. But even then [when the books was originally published], people were wanting gluten-free. I didn't mind either way. I loved to go down that rabbit hole with no wheat. And in London, we loved using barley and oat and millet and rice flours. But now it's just become so normal. Everything's gluten-free, right? And so I could have gone there. But then I was like, no, that would be another book. You know what I mean? I just don't have the kind of time that I used to have. But I did want to update. The introduction got updated. And I got the opportunity to change anything that was bugging me or that didn't work.

And there is a recipe that stopped working. Who the hell would believe that?

Which recipe was that? The pumpkin bread. It was tested until I was blue in the face and it used to be perfect. And for some weird reason, I kept making it for clients and I was like, I mustn't be following the recipe properly; It's kind of dense and a bit gummy. I was seeing it on Instagram — Yay, Amy's pumpkin bread! — and I messaged a couple people like, Do you find it a little bit dense? And they were like, Yeah, actually. So then it turned into a whole thing. And there was no squash around, so I was using sweet potato. And then I was doing the banana option that's there. And then my mother was testing it with squash in Australia because it was in season there. Anyway, I did a few tweaks and got it much better. I think I ended up adding almond meal and an egg. And now I feel like it's much better.

Do you have any idea why it stopped working? Someone was like, Squash has changed. I'm like, It shouldn't be that touchy, right? So anyway, I was just happy to get it fixed. And I will announce that at some point. And you can be the one to announce it if you want!

You wrote in the introduction “I use local goat dairy products and occasionally yogurt…this way I’m not always relying on avocados, nuts, and seeds to add richness (none of which are local to the region where I live). So choosing a vegetarian diet over a vegan one means that I can support a variety of local farmers and artisans.” Do you find readers to sometimes be resistant to this nuance – that they prefer extremes and pureness (as in purely vegan)? Maybe there was a certain point in the last decade where people would put a vomit face on Instagram if I had an egg on top, you know? Sort of like, what? You know, it's weird. I mean, that's a very small population, probably. But no, I feel like that book is, like, 90- to 95% vegan, right? And then even when there's cheese on top, you can just leave it out if you want. There is one dessert that I think benefits from butter, and I don't usually cook with butter either. I love butter on everything, but not in it.

It’s the same when I travel. I think, Thank God I'm not vegan, because I can actually try a lot of the local stuff. I'm already missing out on a ton, not having meat, you know? And I would eat it, if I wanted to. But I just can't. I tried, just for health reasons, to have a bit of red meat. But I just, it just doesn’t-- I think it's just growing up vegetarian, I'm just not used to it. I know there's plenty of people that grow up vegetarian, and they finally have a steak.

Are your parents vegetarian? Yeah, since they were like 18. My father now eats a bit of fish. But my mother is. But with plenty of dairy. I think that's a good, I think it is really good to support. Otherwise you're at the farmer's market, and you're only able to buy vegetables. You know, unless you live in San Francisco, where you can't buy nuts and avocados and everything.

Do you feel like people would find it easier to categorize you as a vegan cook, or a gluten-free cook? I'd rather be known as a whole foods cook. Paul Pitchford’s Healing with Whole Foods is like my Bible, which I'd definitely save from a fire. He's been vegan his whole adult life. But he's got bone broth in there for when you need it. I feel like, you know, it's about being healthy.

You know, now we're just discovering this ancient tradition that's been around forever about bone broth, for example, which became so popular. But now people are into raw milk and ghee and all these things that are just so good for you. And I see with children, I see them reaching for what they need. It's so fascinating. My son will have this phase of just eating massive spoonfuls of ghee. And I'm not going to stop him because it's not a mental thing, it's a physical need, you know? And he's a meat eater. They both are. And, actually, I'm like, Thank God, because we're not eating any veggies here. There’s just nothing that I can win them over with right now. And then my partner, luckily, will cook a steak. You know, local and good. And I feel like, wow, they're getting a lot of what they need.

But the kids aren't eating vegetables at all? Well, no, that's not true. One of them--he'll eat raw vegetables, but not cooked. But then he will, at school, eat soups. Then they'll eat seaweed. They'll eat certain things. But, you know, it's hard. And I just thought -- and I wrote about that in the updated introduction -- I can't wait to make pureed soups for my kids. But they're just like, Mama, that's awful! I was actually surprised.

Yeah, I was kind of pleasantly surprised reading that. Yeah. Because mums really go through hell. You think, well, if you're making good food, they're just going to eat it, right? It's got to be, like, award-winning, delicious.

Yeah, as a backseat parent, I've always thought, like, oh, my kids would eat right! Yeah, why are you feeding them that? Now, I'm so much more like, it's OK. There's a cheese stick. Cheese sticks? My kids are eating that. I mean, yeah, they're organic. But it's not good food. But it's, like, that's what we need right now, you know? And fruit, too. It's so funny, because I was always, like, a little bit of the macrobiotic approach, which is: fruit is sugary, and you don't eat a whole lot of it. Whereas kids just eat fruit. And now I think fruit's great. Like, they're eating fresh fruit. And I think it is actually good for you.

Are there dishes that you've created to accommodate the kids’ tastes? One would hope! I have brought back some things my mother made us. Like, she used to make us this milk pudding. My mother’s very into millet. It's like a souffle: ground up millet, but then, and it's got honey, butter, milk, eggs. And I never thought of that as healthy. And, look, now I'm, very happy when they eat it. I tried to do it with non-dairy milk and without eggs, and it didn't work. But I did work out a recipe with non-dairy milk, so that will go somewhere at some point.

How do you feel about soy? I feel fine about it. I mean, I eat tofu probably once a week.

I just made my own soy milk for the first time. Was it amazing?

Yeah! I'm like, why aren’t we all drinking soy milk (as opposed to oat or nut milks)? I know. I think it's actually good. Look, I just think about it like this. Any soy that you're going to eat frequently, it's better if it's fermented. So miso and everything. But we do eat tofu, and my second son is just, he sees it raw, and he wants to eat it. My other son won't eat it.

I should make soy milk again, because they actually love drinking it. I don't really, we occasionally have it in tea, because I love soy milk in tea. I always have.

Have the contents of your pantry changed over the past decade? Any additions or subtractions? Or new favorites or things you got sick of? Oh, that's a good question. What do I have now? Maybe some mushroom powders that I didn't have then. But I don't really use them, honestly, and I'm not sure how I feel about them. I went a bit crazy and bought, like, all these different mushroom powders, and then they went rock hard.

I'm not a huge mushroom eater, like you might have noticed. But I know people are crazy about them, and I'm very curious about that. And I love shiitakes; I do love putting them in a broth. I do that every time with my miso soup. I've always got those dried. And then fresh. And I do love those roasted shiitakes on that cauliflower soup [the Creamy Cauliflower & Celeriac Soup with Roasted Shiitake Mushrooms in At Home in the Whole Food Kitchen].

They are really good on that soup. And nothing you've eliminated from? Well, now you'll probably find some white einkorn flour in there. And there's probably some more refined stuff. I make Heidi's Swanson's waffles—they’re in both her books--all the time. You probably see it on Instagram. And I sometimes mix the white einkorn flour in, but actually they're great all whole grain, because of the buttermilk. Her waffles are so easy, and it’s an easy-to-remember recipe.

Whenever I see your waffles on Instagram, I think, I need to get a waffle iron. Oh, I know. And everyone asks me what kind. The one I have is my sister's. We've done a trade: she's got my ice cream maker -- I don’t make ice cream – and I've got her waffle iron. And I never want to give it back, because you can't buy it anymore. And people are asking me all the time. It’s a Calphalon, but they don’t make this waffle iron anymore, I’m told.

Do your parents still have that house they built? My mother still has that house. It's not lived in full time. It's a lot of work for her. She lives on the coast further north. Everything grows so much in Australia, year round, so it's a lot of work just keeping nature out. There's still an apple orchard, and there's the best blackberries in the world there. So she drives down and harvests some of those blackberries.

I’m going to skip to some questions from questionnaires I like. What's your greatest extravagance1? Probably my matcha tea. I used to drink it in the more traditional way when I wasn't so addicted to it. But now I'm definitely addicted and I have it as a latte. And I feel like it's kind of indulgent to be using this limited edition matcha, but I make my own nut milk. And I did share it a little on Substack. But, you know, it's got almonds that I peel, a little bit of coconut, which I feel the sweetness really enhances the flavor of matcha. And I do put some dates in now. (In both of my books, I never sweetened it. But it really takes the flavor to another level. Just a touch.) A tiny bit of sea salt. And some cashews for richness. I feel like matcha really goes well with nut milk. Anyway, I did do a disclaimer on Substack: I was like, this is not the traditional way, and I'm probably bastardizing this beautiful matcha. But anyway, that's why it's an indulgence to me. Because I'm not doing it the proper way.

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What kind of matcha do you get? I try different ones from Rishi Tea.

Do they have a shop or do you always order online? Online. And they have different kinds that are seasonal. They're just all good.

Do you have coffee in the morning? No, tea. I start the day with the best sencha tea, which I guess is another indulgence. It's juicy. I've been out for three days and I'm counting. It's arriving today. So tomorrow morning, I'm going to be like [mimes happily drinking tea]...

Is this from Rishi also? Yeah. This sencha, I have to say: It’s juicy and grassy and umami and seaweed-y. And first thing in the morning, that's what I like. It used to go to lemon water and now I just go to green tea. I just love it so much.

Which talent would you most like to have2? Oh, my God. Maybe to be able to ski. Like, in a free way. I don't know, I've never wanted that. But having children, you want to do things with them. I did have lessons with Ezra one time. And he said to me, Mama, why do you just keep falling over? And I'm like, Because it's hard. But he's just, like, zooming down the first time.

What's your most treasured possession3? Maybe my rings: wedding and engagement rings. Yeah.

Do you know how long your family’s been in Australia? My mother's grandfather, so my great-grandfather, was one of seven brothers that came from Ireland and the rest came to the US and they live all around the Finger Lakes in New York.

Do you know them? No, and at one point, there was some kind of contact with a distant cousin who lived like a block from me in New York, but 9/11 happened and I didn't actually meet them. My mother's side is Irish. And I did meet my great-grandmother who was an actress and she was quite interesting. She lived in the red light district in Sydney. I'll never forget visiting her and eating these custard tarts. Awful (the tarts — not her)!

Did she make them? No. And we had to wait outside her apartment while she did her make-up. I'll just never forget it. Eve Wynne. She was really interesting. She married a much older man who passed away and then she just travelled.

And was he your great-grandfather or not? Yes, he was my great-grandfather. He passed away. He got hit by a tram in Melbourne. But he was the doctor that delivered her. Like, in training.

He delivered your great-grandmother and then married her? Yes! I know that's crazy. When I say that, I'm like, hang on, I've got to check this is true. He was in training, right, so he was like 20 years old.

Wow, that's crazy. I've got to check with my father. Why am I telling you this? [Amy confirmed the story with her father. His only correction: the age difference was thirty years, not twenty.]

I'm interested! I also only met one great-grandmother, and she made Swedish meatballs. She was actually from New Orleans and spoke Creole.

Is there something you've dreamed of doing for a long time that you haven't done? Go to Japan. Oh. Yeah, I'd like to do that.

What books are on your nightstand or on your kitchen shelf? (This is an adaptation of one of my favorite questions from the “By the Book” column in the New York Times.) Okay, in my kitchen that I refer to, I've got My Darling Lemon Thyme's recent one [Emma Galloway’s My Darling Lemon Thyme Every Day]; Aran Goyoaga's Cannelle et Vanille. And I've got my books. And Joshua McFadden’s Grains for Every Season.

And I just have so many kids' books. Nighttime reading, you know. And I recently got Sally Fallon' book, [The Nourishing Traditions Book of Baby & Child Care].

While on the subject of books, which recipe from At Home in the Whole Food Kitchen, do you continue to make most? I looked the recipe up when I made aduki beans recently. I was like, I'm going to make that aduki and rice. And, you know, I can wing it. But I just know I've got it good in the book, so why not just look at the bloody recipe? It's not that hard to pull the book out.

And, like, I might refer to... What else is in there? Kerrilynn Palmer, from CAP Beauty, she always makes my millet-cauliflower mash. And I'm like, maybe the kids are going to like that. And I kind of followed the recipe. Oh, I recently looked up the kanten recipe because I was doing kanten. I was like, why am I trying to figure out a kanten recipe [when I have one in my book]?

Ezra came home saying, Mama, I want jello. Someone at school had this pineapple jello. So I was like, I can make jello. And he was like, really? You can make jello? And I was like, Yeah, actually, I can. So I did. Now, he hasn't tried the other kind, so he doesn't know what he's missing, but it's a major hit for him. So he gobbles it up and I feel like, well, he's eating seaweed. It's got iron and calcium and all the good things that seaweed has. And it's just juice.

I like it to be creamy -- like when it touches your tongue, it should melt. You shouldn't have to work. But the kids like it jello-y.

You know, the whole goal with agar and kudzu or arrowroot, what I learned from a Japanese cook back in the day in Amsterdam at a Japanese restaurant was how to use agar and kudzu: once you find that it sets something, you can reduce it and reduce it, till it's to the point of like, it may not set, which is what happened live on my Substack. The arrowroot is for creaminess but the structure is from the agar. And there's just a world of stuff you can do once you know that, testing it in the fridge and just seeing if it's the right and just pushing the boundaries of agar. That’s really where I feel like my desserts stood apart.

Oh, I think Jacqui is here. Here they are, the little boo-boos. Ready with your questions for Ezra?

I'm ready.

Mini interview with Ezra, 6:

Does your brother talk yet? He can say “mama” and “no” and “yes.”

Can he say your name? Yeah, he just learned it.

What's your favorite thing to eat that your mom makes? Um, avocado and toast and salt.

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Do you eat that for breakfast or lunch or snack or what? Anytime when I ask her. I also like porridge. And sweets.

And what's your favorite thing to eat that your mom does not make? Lollipops.

What color or flavor? Rainbow color.

Speaking of sweets, here’s a very tempting recipe from Amy’s book . . .

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Recipe:
CINNAMON CARAMEL POPCORN
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Excerpted, with permission, from At Home in the Whole Food Kitchen, 10th Anniversary Edition, by Amy Chaplin (Roost Books, April 29, 2025)

Something magical happens to popcorn when it’s coated in this caramely mixture of cashew butter, vanilla, and brown rice syrup. Baked until crisp and golden, it seems to shatter when bitten but manages to remain a little chewy too. Subtly sweet, kissed with cinnamon and a touch of salt, this is a truly irresistible treat. Luckily, it’s also superfast to make.

Makes 1 tray that serves 4 to 6

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INGREDIENTS
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