Interview with Lisa Davis of Dish-trict

I interviewed food writer Lisa Davis, author of the wildly popular blog Dish-trict about the local, seasonal food trend, food writing, and why she loves the kitchen so much. 

I met Lisa for a happy hour at Commonwealth in Columbia Heights, an upscale gastropub known for using fresh, local ingredients—a rule that Davis follows as much as possible in her own kitchen.  I picked her brain over a pint and an order of Scotch Eggs—hard boiled eggs wrapped in sausage and fried—that she described as “a heart attack on a plate.”   

P: You’ve mentioned Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle on the blog a couple of times, and it looks like you’re pretty conscious of the “buy local” trend.  What are some things you do to follow that?  

LD: I’ve been trying very hard to do the local thing as much as I can…it’s not even about [what’s] local as what’s seasonal—what’s available now.  I mean, it’s winter, and I don’t have a garden, and I can’t put up a thousand different vegetables, [so] it’s limited.  But, I really do believe that waiting for the stuff is worth it—you know, it’s worth the wait to do it right.  And there’s great stuff now, it’s just when [it’s the middle of winter and you’re depressed] all you want is, like, a strawberry!  Well, wait for it! 

P: Imagine it’s your last meal on earth, and you can go anywhere in the world.  What do you eat?  

LD: I haven’t been enough places in the world to even answer, so my answer would be to let me go to all these different places in the world and experience it!  For me, vacation and traveling is about the food.  I plan vacations around which restaurants we’ll go to.  [My husband and I] went on a trip to San Francisco and I planned breakfast, lunch and dinner—he can pick what we do during the day, I don’t really care!  I’d want to do a whirlwind tour—I’d want to go to Italy and have some pasta, I’d want to go to Japan and have some amazing sushi…it would be my final culinary tour of all the places I’ve never been!

If I had to pick one thing to have on my final meal—oysters.  I love them, and it’s not something I even had until I was, like, 20, but I think it was one of the things that really opened my eyes.  When it’s been a hard day, I tell my husband, “we’re going to Hank’s!” Hank’s Oyster Bar, in Dupont.  They have a happy hour for just one hour, where all the oysters are a dollar.

P: If you could travel anywhere and eat for a week, where would you go?  

LD: Italy.  When people found out I loved to cook, they would ask me what my go-to cooking is, and I was always like “I don’t know, I just like to cook!”  But, when I really started thinking about it, [I realized] everything’s got an Italian [twist].  It’s probably because I was raised [with an] Italian mom, Italian grandma, and love of the food, but I’ve never been to Italy and I would love to take a month and explore.  My family’s from Calabria, the point of the boot, so I would [go there] and Sicily and experience that food, which is worlds away from the food in Tuscany and Florence, so I would just travel all over Italy and just really savor it.

P: Another thing Barbara Kingsolver mentions in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is that foreign food cultures are much more based on local ingredients than American food culture is. 

LD: To be fair, Italy and Greece have been around a little longer than the United States—we all got here because people left those places.  But, we’ve been around long enough to where we have some serious regional identities—think of the Chesapeake, the Southwest and California.  It’s time to really be proud of that.  I think Americans…we’re so lucky in the sense that whatever [we] want, [we] can get it now, and that’s great, but…the last thing I want is this recession, which is stressful for everyone, including me, but I could also see it helping people turn more towards the stuff that is local.  You know, we don’t have to get the caviar from wherever, we can get stuff right here that’s really amazing! 

P: When did you first start cooking and enjoying food?  

LD: As far as enjoying food, I feel like the answer is always.  That was always the best thing!  I’m Jewish on one side and Italian on the other, so we’re at one meal, and we’re [already] planning the next!  Celebrations [and] happy stuff were always around food, and not in an unhealthy way—it’s for celebrating and enjoying each other, so that was always a part of me and my family.

I really remember the very first time I wanted to cook, I was like nine or ten, and my dad was having a birthday, and I was like “I want to cook dinner,” and I had a random Joy of Cooking, and I pulled out a recipe, and even though I’m pretty sure it was a horrible meal, everybody [was] enjoying it so much, and I thought, “I made this for everyone to enjoy.”  [Being a chef] is a very selfish thing, in the sense that you’re making [food] to share because you get such a high off of everybody enjoying what you make…it’s such a giving and receiving feeling. 

P: You mentioned on your blog that you come from a Jewish and Italian background…how did food play a role in your childhood? 

LD: It was a major play. Anytime we have family get-togethers, we celebrated around the dinner table.  I think that has a lot to do with the reason I love food so much now.  I’m on my own, I’m in DC, the only family I have nearby is my sister, which is wonderful—she lives in Virginia—but, we’re not with our family anymore.  So, the food, especially making those things I grew up with, is like bringing a piece of that with me. 

[Also], I didn’t grow up with raw oysters and curries—I always had great food, but coming to DC opened my eyes to all the different kinds of great food out there.  I never tried to make a Thai dish, or a whatever-dish until I grew up a little bit.  When you’re a kid, you read The Joy of Cooking or Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and that was branching out, trying French stuff!  It’s amazing, you can spend a lifetime just on one cuisine, much less, trying to learn a whole bunch of them. 

P: Who or what inspired you to start a food blog?  

LD: When I was having a particularly low time at work, I thought “ohh, I need something new, I need to go into whatever!”  And everything I’ve ever done professionally has revolved around writing—I’ve always gotten paid to write, whether it’s a press release or talking points, and I was like “oh, wouldn’t it be fun to write about something I actually care about?”  And then I thought, “well, what do I care about?  Oh!  That’s easy!” 

The hard part, actually, has been sharing it.  I assume most people write blogs because they want to share and have a thousand hits a day, but—and it’s not an embarrassment, but it’s so personal!  I feel very vulnerable.  I don’t know if other people that write feel like that, but it makes you really vulnerable.  It’s like a diary for the world to see.  If you’re writing, you’re putting yourself out there, so, I had a hard time telling people I was even doing it.

P: What do you think about when you’re cooking?  

LD: If it’s just a week night and I’m throwing stuff together, usually I’m turning the oven on or boiling water before I even know what I’m making.  If [we’re] having friends over, I’m thinking for days, what do I know they like, what do I know how to make, what pairs well with each other, so, it’s fun for me!  It’s like a big puzzle. 

P: What do you cook on a bad day?  For comfort food?  

LD: Comfort food?  Pasta.  There’s actually a recipe on my blog from way back when—it’s called Pastina.  I don’t know what the real name is, but it’s something my Grandma used to make, and then my mom made [it] when we were sick or miserable.  The actual pasta’s called [acini] de pepe, it’s just these tiny little balls of pasta that almost look like couscous.  You boil that and add milk and butter, and that’s it!  Butter, salt…how could you go wrong?  Anything starchy, like mashed potatoes or pasta—those are my super, go-to comfort foods.  And of course, if you ask me in a different season, I’ll change my mind.  Winter is your pot roasts and summer…I don’t know what a summer comfort food is…sangria!

P: What do you crave when you have a hangover?  

LD: McDonald’s!  [Laughs.]  We’ve been sitting here talking about local, sustainable food!  It’s completely unscientifically based, but my friends and I say that the combination of grease, fat and starch, like McDonald’s breakfast, McDonald’s French fries…it cures all ills! 

P: If you could share a meal with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?   What would you make?

LD: I would make dinner with my grandfather.  He was as American as they come—not a drop of Italian in him, but he learned a lot of stuff through his wife, my Italian grandmother.  He loved to cook.  I have all these wonderful memories of him in the kitchen, grilling, cooking, whatever.  And I know I could pick anyone—Obama or whatever, which would be very cool, but just to make a meal with [my grandfather] and have the whole family there and enjoy it…He was a big roast guy, loved pork tenderloin.  So, not even anything fancy…that’s what I would do.

P: When you were growing up, what did you want to be?  Did you ever aspire to be a chef?  Do you now?  What is your dream job?  

LD: I never thought I did, but I was talking with my mom, who reads the blog, [and] she was was like, “you know, you were always into this stuff.”  I always loved to cook!  And she said—I didn’t even remember it, but in eighth grade when we had to do job shadowing, apparently, I went to some restaurant and shadowed the manager there.  I don’t remember very well, but she was like “this was always in you.”  However it ends up coming out as an adult—whether it’s just through recreation with friends, the blog, whatever…whether it’s a career change for me eventually, it’s always been there. 

P: Would you want to be a chef later on in life?

LD: Part of going to this recreational cooking class [I’m taking], since it is kind of a miniature [version] of the real cooking program, was to decide “is this for me, is this something I want to do?”  If I’m honest, I’m happiest when I’m cooking.  I love it!  Does that mean it has to be a career?  I don’t know!  Or is it just a passion on the side?  You do one thing to make money and then there’s your passion.  Being a chef, being in the kitchen is one of the hardest jobs I think there is.  When everyone else is coming home, relaxing, you’re going to work—you’re at work.  It’s hard on you, it’s hard on relationships…I don’t know if that’s for me.  My husband is wonderful, he says “if that’s what you want, we’ll make it work.”   Or maybe I’ll have to wait until I’m old and rich, and be a restaurateur.  I can dream!  So, I don’t know yet, but…we’ll see.