“Why am I like this?” writes Ella Quittner on the cover of her own cookbook. She is delightfully obsessive — always striving to figure out the fluffiest pancakes, the crispiest potatoes, the juiciest chicken. Her new cookbook, Obsessed With the Best, is packed with recipes, but also such fun photos and voicey essays that it doubles as a coffee-table book. Here’s a funny Q&A with Ella…
What surprised you about writing a cookbook?
It completely takes a village. If I had done this by myself, it would have been a black-and-white printout with my serial killer handwriting.
And here you brought in brilliant photographers and stylists and designers.
Usually I write alone, but this project felt like putting on a circus or a debutante ball.
How long did the whole thing take?
Three years. It’s such a dense book. I spent a year and a half traveling everywhere from an Iowa bacon fest to Rome to rural Japan. Between those trips, I was doing the head-to-head testing at home.
The process sounds like so much fun.
I realized on set that everything that looks beautiful and easy is actually hard to make. That’s true of weddings and babies and family photos – and a cookbook. Just off frame is chaos, distress, emotion, tension, and three fried eggs that didn’t look right.
What made the shoots so intense?
We had to get head-to-head shots of, say, 20 to 30 scrambled eggs or pancakes that had to look ready at the same time — so the food stylists’ assistants were totally grinding, cooking six things at once with arms you didn’t know they had — and we did this all in my apartment’s 85-square-foot kitchen.
I’m curious, what were you like as a kid?
Very obsessive. I would go through phases where I’d learn everything about a certain subject matter in a way that was prohibitive to having a normal social life. Like, I memorized the 100 most dangerous sharks. My older sister got me into mummies and King Tut. I had a Lisa Frank phase; I put her stickers all over my closet and felt it was a deeply magical zone.
Do you have favorite recipes from the book?
Please edit this to sound less megalomaniacal, but I only really cook from my own book. I mean, obviously I love my friends’ books and read recipes, but every time I want to make something, I know the version I tweaked exactly to my favor and texture profile: braised tomato-butter cabbage, comté caramelized shallot eggs, my overachiever chocolate chunk cookies, and the vodka sauce I make at least every two weeks.
The book’s typography is also gorgeous.
We worked with Renata De Oliveira at HarperCollins and Chris Cristiano, an amazing creative director. I wrote an essay for each chapter, so we were like, how would The New Yorker format these giant walls of text so you’ll know it will be entertaining and not feel like homework and put you to sleep? We hired Olivia de Recat, who illustrates ‘Shouts and Murmurs,’ and her illustrations kept me from taking myself too seriously.
Tell us about the giant bow ties!
There are two fun shots of pasta: one is a weird pasta tower with a meatball on top and one is these bowties. We had so much fun on set because we thought we were channeling high fashion. It could be a Celine ad! Not that it really could, but we felt like that!
The whipped cream photo was also a showstopper.
One day, our set designer Kalen Kaminski, who’s such a breath of fresh air, was like, ‘Would it be crazy if I rented a bust from a bust warehouse in New Jersey?’ And we were like, DO IT. We named the bust Deb and gave her the personality of a sort of prim disapproving Victorian lady that was mad that we were doing silly stuff with her.
That’s hilarious.
After we covered her in whipped cream and took a photo, you then see her on one of the nightstands angrily turned away from me. We were really sad when Deb had to go home.
Now that your cookbook’s finished, do you have the book blues?
I was just talking about this last night with another cookbook writer! I heard it can happen after book tour. But as a massive introvert, sometimes I’m relieved for the big stuff to be over, so I can put my sweatpants back on and watch Grey’s Anatomy.
Thank you so much, Ella! Congrats on your incredible book.
P.S. Nine cookbooks that earn their keep, and behind-the-scenes of magazine covers.
