This week, author and illustrator Michele Humes joins host Kristen Miglore to discuss the most underdog of underdogs: the green bell pepper. Michele also shares what it's been like recovering her sense of smell and taste after contracting COVID-19, and the powerfully flavored ingredients and dishes that have been pulling her through.
Author and illustrator of The Noodle Soup Oracle, Michele Humes, joins Food52 Genius columnist Kristen Miglore to talk about the most underdog of underdogs: the green bell pepper. With just a quick flash in the pan (plus salt, pepper, lemon, and sesame oil), these peppers will have you saying "shishito, who?" Michele also shares what it's been like recovering her sense of smell after contracting COVID-19, and the powerfully flavored ingredients and dishes that have been pulling her through. Special thanks to listeners Wesley (@wesmak), Kristi (@triadfoodies), and Tara (@taraobrady).
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Kristen Miglore (voiceover): Hi. I'm Kristen Miglore, lifelong genius hunter. For almost a decade, I've been unearthing the recipes that have changed the way we cook. On The Genius Recipe Tapes, we’re sharing the behind the scenes moments from talking with the geniuses themselves that we couldn't quite squeeze into the column or video. The extra genius tricks, the off-road riffs, and the personal stories that actually have nothing to do with the recipe that week.
My guest this week is Michele Humes, illustrator and author of The Noodle Soup Oracle. Michele makes a very strong case for green bell peppers with her genius shishito-style recipe, which she created to be mixed and matched in noodle soups. But it's also become my new favorite ten-minute green side dish. Michele also talks about what noodle soup has meant to her over the past 30 years, and especially now, as she's been slowly regaining her sense of taste and smell after recovering from COVID-19.
Thank you so much for joining Where are you right now?
Michele Humes: So I am right next to Prospect Park in South Brooklyn.
Kristen: Okay, You're at home. You're where you live.
Michele: Yes. I forgot to even specify that because it seems so obvious. Like, where else would I be? Andi? I have. I have my cat at my feet and I'm wondering if she's gonna make an appearance.
Kristen: Well, it's It feels obvious because we're so mired in whatever existence we're in right now. But some people have left and holed up somewhere else. I'm also in Brooklyn right now in my apartment. So
Michele: What neighborhood do you live in?
Kristen: In Park Slope. So we're not very far from each other.
Michele: We're not
Kristen: Except we are.
Michele: It's so bizarre, So bizarre.
Kristen: So how are you? How are you feeling?
Michele: I'm experiencing this sort of weird loss of time and space. Like many people in New York, I think, that is amplified by a near-total loss of smell as well, which makes today's conversation about peppers and cooking kind of a strange one to have.
Kristen: You lost your sense of smell because of COVID-19, correct?
Michele: Yes. Yes. I came down with COVID-19 nearly two months ago and a few days into it, I completely lost my sense of smell and then most of my taste with that. But I have since made a complete recovery in every other way. I feel very healthy. There's this kind of thin wall that has descended between me and food. So I haven't been doing as much of the cooking that a lot of people have during this time to keep themselves motivated and alive and connected. Which is strange, because cooking is what I do.
Kristen: Well, I'm so happy to hear that you're feeling healthy and that your smell and taste is coming back. What have you been eating? What have you been cooking to feed yourself when you don't have taste and smell?
Michele: I would love to say noodle soup. That would be a great answer, but I'm so emotional about that food that knowing that I won't be able to experience it fully makes me want to not engage with it at all. Noodle soup, whether instant or slow-cooked, would have been perfect for a time like this, except I emotionally can't do it on the day. Since I can't taste well, I've been going for two types of food. One is Thai. Because I can still taste basic sweet and salty and Thai food really delivers. I want the absolute lowest quality take-out Pad Thai, it makes me really happy right now because it's so sweet. And also textures are really important. So last night I made roast potatoes. When you cook it in the baking soda and that really rough texture. So you parboil the potatoes in a baking soda solution that wraps up the outside and then you could get them really, really crispy in the oven. So the contrast between the crispy and the creamy when I can't taste well, that's giving me something that noodle soup right now is not.
Kristen: But hopefully soon.
Michele: Yes, it is coming back.
Kristen: Good. I'm so glad to hear it. Well, speaking of noodle soup, do you have your book nearby?
Michele: I do, it just so happens. What do you know? The noodle soup article by me? Words and pictures? Yes.
Kristen: And the pictures you painted with watercolors?
Michele: I often work in watercolor, but these are all digital.
Kristen: You can do everything. I think
Michele: I can't smell so well. But I could do a range of other things. I am very, very passionate about noodle soup. And I wanted to get it from all possible angles. This dish has been a lifelong obsession for me. So even before I started writing it, I've just been collecting noodle soup information on all the countries I've visited wherever it was possible to eat noodle soup. I was always doing that, so I was ready to go before I started.
Kristen: So you've been doing this research on this book without knowing it your whole life?
Michele: Pretty much, yes. I mentioned in my book that when my parents got divorced when I was about eight or nine years old, noodle soup was the dish that my mother turned to because she was still working full time. She was suddenly a single mother, and we just lived off noodle soup, and it just became this dish that whenever you don't know what else to eat or to do, that's the dish that you reach for. So it has just always been a big part of my life.
Kristen: And in the book you have both the long-simmered, big project style noodle soups and also the kind that you can make spur of the moment when you get home and you're tired.
Michele: Yeah.
Kristen: And you have hacks for it, you don't need to have a luxurious broth. You've been simmering all day that that's one of the things that I love singing your book to.
Michele: I went to culinary school and I trained in classical French cooking. But it's not every day I walk into the kitchen and make from scratch, and I want to be honest about that. I do make stocks sometimes, and other times I don't think it should be seen as a failure at all. And that's what I wanted to get across. And if you are going to use broth out of the box, which I often do, there are ways that you can tweak it a little bit. This is not a book for shaming anyone for shortcuts, but you also don't have to take the shortcuts. The dish that could be high or low, or any combination in between.
Kristen: All of the above. While speaking of shortcuts, finding Shishito peppers is not always easy. They're not always in season.
Michele: No.
Kristen: And certainly not now. I wouldn't know where to get them right now.
Michele: Yeah, it's a summer kind of early fall thing, and then the crops vary from year to year. I don't know if you've experienced it. I think the dictionary definition of a Shishito pepper should be one in 10 that are spicy. But in reality, there are some years where none of them are spicy, and then sometimes they're much spicier. Apparently, it has to do with how warm the season was.
Kristen: Which so if it's warmer, you get spicier ones or vice versa?
Michele: Vice versa.
Kristen: Oh, colder seasons create spicier crops?
Michele: Because if it's warm, they just ripen really quickly, and they just get sweet.
Kristen: Got it.
Michele: I don't want to give you a lecture about peppers. It was news to me until relatively recently that red peppers, yellow peppers, and green peppers are one thing, but at different stages. I didn't realize that Shishito is the same idea once it's ripened past a certain point, you're not gonna have that spice. It's not that one in ten is spicy genetically.
Kristen: Okay, so they're just at different stages of ripeness, their spicier or less so.
Michele: Yeah.
Kristen: Well, and I should say, when you can find shishitos, they are just as easy to make it home.
Michele: Yeah, they can be quite pricey. Yeah, but that also varies from year to year. It's a very elastic lee priced little pepper I love. I love them to death, but they are work to track down sometimes. Which is why I do this thing with green peppers.
Kristen: This is The Genius Recipe Tapes. We'll be right back.
Kristen: So what is the story behind this recipe? How did you decide that you were going to do this? And how did it end up in the book?
Michele: The concept of my book is that noodle soup is much looser than. Just some of the big-name noodle dishes we've heard of, like phở, the various regional ramens. I wanted to fill the book with just lots of little things that if you had on hand, you could put into noodle soup, and I really do love Shishito peppers. But as I mentioned, they could be really difficult to obtain, whether it's because of the season or the price. And the green pepper is so humble and often they're sold alongside red and yellow peppers cheaper, even though it's the same product. So I wanted to give this little pepper a chance. I guess I also grew up really hating green peppers, And it wasn't until later in life that I realized if you cook them a certain way, they didn't have to be bitter or mushy the way they can be improperly prepared. So the inclusion in this book of this recipe is me making my peace between peppers.
Kristen: So what were the ways that you would have them as a child that you did not like them prepared?
Michele: Well, I definitely don't like them raw. You know, if they're on a crudités platter, that I really, really struggled with that as a kid. And I also found that if they were in a stew and they've just been cooked a really long time, they could just be very limp and bitter. And so I grew up in Hong Kong and the way that green peppers are cooked in stir-fries very often with beef and black bean sauce. It's a very common combination. It would be flash sauteed and just have black blistered spots on the skin barely cooked on the inside. That's how I like them. So this kind of borrows from that. The Chinese technique that gives rise to that, people often refer to the breath of the wok, wok hei, I don't love using that term because I feel like it sounds a little too mystical. I think what it really means is super high heat. Once you start talking about the breath of the wok, I think people get intimidated or they think it has to be a wok. It doesn’t, it just needs to be a good pan that can conduct heat, a high flame, and you just do it quickly. The green pepper won't have time to develop any of the bitterness and will have all of the smokiness that I love in Shishitos. It's a very long answer to your question.
Kristen: It's a great answer, though. To the skillet point that you're making. Does it matter whether you don't have a wok, whether you're using a heavy cast iron or stainless steel skillet or something else?
Michele: Well, so for conducting heat. Once you get cast iron really, really hot, that's ideal. But what I find difficult with a cap sign is how heavy it is. I like to be able to toss with my wrist, and I am not that, what's the word, jacked? So I think that if you have a heavy-bottomed stainless steel pan, that's totally fine, too. What matters is how it conducts heat.
Kristen: So you want it to be able to get really, really hot and then hold that he basically so that when the peppers go in the pan, they don't just immediately cool it down.
Michele: That's right. You definitely don't want to be non-stick. Yeah, yeah.
Kristen: Why is that?
Michele: I just find that it doesn't get as hot as other pans or if it does, that's bad for the pan. So I just feel much better if I have a pan that I can feel confident in heating up for, 3 to 4 minutes and you know it's going to be fine.
Kristen: Perfect. Okay, I have a cast-iron skillet, so I think that's what I'll be using.
Michele: Do you have the arm strength to really flip with that?
Kristen: Definitely not. But I would say I'm a little bit too timid to flip anyway, and I don't know why that is because my husband, who is not really an active cook, flips things all the time when he does get to the stove and it doesn't seem to be a problem. But if I'm gonna be turning things, I think I just want the control. I guess of using a natural or something.
Michele: I think I may have given the impression of more emotion. It’s not that extreme, they're not really flipping their per se, but definitely a little bit of a jump.
Kristen: I don't think I don't even really do that. I'm pretty meek with the skillets. I should get braver.
Michele: Speaking of bravery, a couple of months ago, there was an article on serious eats about how to maximize this breath of the wok, wok hei, in the home, if you don't have a stove with a huge amount of firepower and their answer was to use a blowtorch
Kristen: Oh, wow.
Michele: The wok in one hand and a blowtorch to the other and I think that would be fantastic. I definitely think it would work, but I would be terrified. And I have a very inquisitive cat who is often present when I'm cooking, and I just don't think that I need to have a projectile stream of fire, but definitely, that would make unbelievable peppers.
Kristen: Well, I have to say I have an electric stove and a heavy cast-iron skillet. And when I have made these before, they have still been incredible. I'm sure that the heavy firepower would also be wonderful. But just the way that you cook these and also the way that you season them, I make green peppers like I've never tasted them before.
Michele: Thank you. And that's something that I thought of when I was writing the book. Not only did I want to provide lots of options of things that you could put in a noodle soup, but those things are in themselves, stand-alone recipes. So even if you're not making noodle soup that night, you could just make the pepper. You've made me want to make my own peppers tonight.
Kristen: Well they might work for you, actually, in this moment because you could just crank up the heat. Put as much shichimi togarashi as you want and really feel them.
Michele: And MSG is very helpful now. I've spent my life very wary of MSG. But in the last month, I have used it and it helps.
Kristen: So that savoriness carries through? It doesn't depend on smell.
Michele: No. [Remember] when you do biology class and use it like they split the tongue into maps? Those things are our constant. Even if you've lost your sense of smell. And umami is one of those things.
Kristen: So you're getting bitter and sour as well.
Michele: Yeah, it's just hard to explain when it's divorced from any other fragrance. I could eat a steak and I have the texture of the beef and the salt. But then nothing in between. But it's coming back. I don't want to upset anyone for myself. It is coming back.
Kristen: That must have been an incredible feeling when you started noticing it coming back.
Michele: I could tell you what day it happened. It was Day 16. I've been counting every single day. From 16 to 50, the increments are really, really teeny.
Kristen: And is it just pretty linear, or is it like some days you could taste more? Some days less?
Michele: Well, I haven't. I haven't had it fall back, but I found that I can start smelling some things. But other things like I haven't been able to spell it all. Last night when I was making roast potatoes, I chopped rosemary. I mean, if you can imagine not being able to smell rosemary, that's one of the most fragrant things. And yet other less fragrant things in my kitchen. I can smell, so I don't know. It's all a mystery. It's all a mystery I know this has happened to a lot of people, and I'm constantly googling to see who's written an essay about how many days it took.
Kristen: Have you found much writing about it?
Michele: Well, I was actually interviewed in Eater about it because Amanda Klutz, who wrote the piece and who was editor in chief, also lost her sense of smell and taste. But she got back to me afterward, and it took about a week for hers to come back. So it seems to be some variation
Kristen: That's so interesting. I have been eating these on their own every time because I love them just as they are. But if you were putting them in a noodle soup, what would you put with these peppers as your ideal noodle soup?
Michele: Well, I mentioned earlier. I love the Cantonese dish of beef and black beans and green peppers. I would do some like that. I mean, I would take any kind of clear chicken or beef or vegetable stock. You wouldn't want to use coconut or a rich soup with this. So let's say beef broth with rice noodles, some seared sliced steak, and these peppers on the side. Sprinkle some sesame seeds. And I also love to stir in a little bit of yuzu kosho into the broth. And I think that's a pretty perfect bowl of noodle soup.
Kristen: That sounds perfect to me. I love that you could just come up with that off the top of your head so I didn't send you these questions beforehand by any means, and you just centered up a perfect bowl of noodle soup.
Michele: That's what 30 years of fixating on one dish will do. I'm really glad we talked about that because now I'm motivated to make it myself because I know that I need to kind of step back into that world of cooking, even if physically I'm not 100% ready emotionally, I have to. I have to delve into this food again. So maybe that's where I start.
Kristen: Well, you would know the right places to start.
Michele: It hasn't quite felt that way, for a few weeks, but I'm getting there.
Kristen: Well, your book is just such a testament to how intimately noodle soups and all the components that can go into them. And I find it incredibly inspiring that it is so flexible and you can be so creative with the different components that you put in. That was not something that I had ever really thought about before. I thought I would need to find a recipe. Thank you so much for that.
Michele: Thank you so much.
Kristen: Again. Thank you so much for taking the time and for making this amazing book that is so full of treats like this not just the noodle soups, but all of the different components that people can use in all kinds of dishes. I really love this one in particular, but I've made some of the other recipes and love them all.
Michele: Well, so thank you so much.
Kristen: I really hope that the book does well and it gets out into a lot more homes because I think people do need noodle soup right now. .
Kristen: (voiceover) Thanks for listening. Our show was put together by Coral Lee, Gabriella Mangino, Alik Barsoumian, and me, Kristen Miglore. You can find all the Genius Recipes, videos and stories on our site, Food52.com. And if you have a Genius Recipe that you'd like to share, please email it to me at genius@food52.com. I am always hunting. If you like The Genius Recipe Tapes, be sure to rate and review us. It really helps. See you next time.