(gentle music) (bright theme music) - Welcome to The Newsfeed.

I'm Paris Jackson.

We're here in the Cascade PBS kitchen and for many of us, the kitchen represents a place to celebrate, socialize, and enjoy great food with one another.

Our resident foodie Rachel Belle joins us to dish on her exciting new project, her new cookbook, "Open Sesame".

Let's jump into my conversation with Rachel about her new cookbook and everything else she's been working on.

Welcome, Rachel.

Thank you for joining us on The Newsfeed.

- Thanks for having me back!

- Absolutely.

You have so much on your plate and your latest serving is your new cookbook, "Open Sesame".

How did it all come about?

- So my book story is a story of why you should go into the office, even if you can work from home.

- Okay.

- Two years had gone by, the pandemic was happening.

I was working at KIRO Radio and we weren't allowed to have guests in studio.

Finally, we were.

I invited somebody to come in.

It was the publisher of Sasquatch Books.

I was interviewing her for a story.

Three months later, she messaged me and asked me if I wanted to write a proposal for this book because she had heard a "Your Last Meal" episode where I'd talked about tahini.

My dad's Israeli, so my blood type is tahini+.

I've been eating it my whole life.

And she said, "we want to do a tahini book.

Do you want to write the proposal?"

So if she had not come in, if we had done it over Zoom, none of this would've happened.

And I just so happened to have a passion for tahini and I'm a home cook, but I cook a lot, and I came up with 45 recipes in, like, one day.

It just all started flowing out of me.

- You talk about tahini, but tell me about the other elements of sesame within the book.

- Well, sesame is prominent in a lot of cuisines.

So, yeah, it's tahini, sesame oil, black sesame paste, sesame seeds.

And you'll find this all over the world, so there's recipes from Mexico in my book, from India, a lot of Asian recipes, Middle Eastern recipes.

So it's kind of an easy ingredient.

And then tahini is so creamy that you can kind of use it in place of dairy, so it's good for vegan recipes.

For people who are allergic to peanuts, it's a good substitute for peanut butter.

And it's really, really good in dessert.

So it's kind of an interesting ingredient that it's just as good savory as it is sweet.

- What are some of your favorites?

'Cause you have a lot of unexpected delights in the book.

- Yeah, so my favorite dessert are the chocolate whoopie pies that have miso, so chocolate mio whoopie pies with the tahini whipped cream.

As for the savory dishes, I love congee, which is like a rice porridge that you'd have for breakfast.

There's sesame soy mushrooms.

There are these hard boiled eggs, actually, like, seven-minute eggs, that you marinate overnight in soy and sesame oil and jalapenos and garlic.

And actually the Korean name for these eggs translates to "drug eggs" because they're so addictive, you can't stop eating them!

- Last thing before we let you go, you're currently in production for the new season of The Nosh.

What's in store?

- So we have a zero-waste episode, which is really speaking to what I'm interested in.

Actually, we have two zero-waste episodes.

One of them we go down to Portland to visit Salt & Straw, everybody's favorite ice cream company.

I won't give too much away, but we make up a new flavor on the spot, which was very fun.

Last season, I think the most popular episode was about bagels in Seattle, so this season we're doing pizza, which I know a lot of people have a lot of opinions about.

We're gonna be talking about coffee because Seattle's such a coffee city, but coffee that is not traditional, y'know, Italian or American coffee.

We're gonna go to a Vietnamese roastery and then a place in Pike Place that does a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony, which is really amazing.

She makes delicious pastries from all over Africa.

So we're kind of all over the place.

- Rachel's book is available at local indie and major bookstores.

(bright music) This time of year, health experts have advice to keep sickness at bay.

Emergency room visits spike 10-15% and children are often among those injured.

Doctors warn to get your COVID-19 and flu vaccines before the holidays, if you can.

Infections spike around this time.

I'm Paris Jackson.

Thank you for watching The Newsfeed, your destination for nonprofit Northwest news.

Go to cascadepbs.org for more great local coverage.

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