Today Virginia is chatting with the delightful Julia Turshen! 

Julia is a New York Times bestselling cookbook author, and today we’re celebrating her brand new cookbook What Goes With What. WGWW is built on the simple premise that if we understand what makes food delicious, we can feed ourselves well. Nobody understands this better than Julia, who has been excavating the rules, limitations, and hidden diet mindset of food writing for years now, and in doing so, offers us all a better, more straightforward way to think about food and making meals happen.

If you have ever felt overwhelmed by the deeply loaded question of “What’s for dinner?” Julia’s work is a safe place to start figuring it all out.

You can order What Goes With What through the Burnt Toast Bookshop. Don’t forget, you can always take 10 percent off that purchase if you also order (or have already ordered!) Fat Talk from Split Rock Books! (Just use the code FATTALK at checkout.)

To tell us YOUR thoughts, and to get all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode, as well as a complete transcript, visit our show page. 

If you want more conversations like this one, please rate and review us in your podcast player! And become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber to get all of Virginia's reporting and bonus subscriber-only episodes. 

Disclaimer: Virginia is a journalist and human with a lot of informed opinions. Virginia is not a nutritionist, therapist, doctor, or any kind of health care provider. The conversation you're about to hear and all of the advice and opinions she and her guests give are just for entertainment, information, and education purposes only. None of this is a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice.

FAT TALK is out! Order your signed copy from Virginia's favorite independent bookstore, Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the US!). Or order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, or Kobo or anywhere else you like to buy books. You can also order the audio book from Libro.fm or Audible.

CREDITS

The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Follow Virginia on Instagram, Follow Corinne  @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing and subscribe to Big Undies. The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism. 

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Episode 164 Transcript

Virginia

Oh my God, my dishwasher. Julia. I’m so over it.

Julia

Can I tell you a story that might make you feel better? 

Virginia

Yes, please. I would love an uplifting or just in the trenches dishwasher story. 

Julia

It’s an in the trenches story. Grace and I had an old dishwasher that came with our house when we bought our house. So it was probably at least 20 years old. But it worked great, you know? And then it stopped working. So we were like, “oh shit, we finally have to get a new one.” So we did everything you’ve been through. We measured, got the new one, they took the old one out, they put the new one in. It fits, but it sticks out a little, which annoys us to this day. I feel like all the old appliances just worked better and were simpler. So we just don’t like our new one.

But the thing that sucks is that when we took out the old one, we realized that one of us, by mistake, had turned off some auto setting off or something. So I think it was working!

Virginia

It wasn’t even broken?!

Julia

And then we were just like, “Well, we got this nice new one, we’ll just use it.” But it just doesn’t work as well and we are still upset about it and it’s been years. 

Virginia

Oh my God. I mean the embarrassing story I won’t tell the whole Internet—although we’re recording now, maybe we’ll keep it—is somewhat similar. We had the dishwasher that came with the house that worked, that was 20 years old, that worked great until it didn’t. It died like a year ago. We bought a new dishwasher and Dan’s friend told us to buy this fancy GE one that has two drawers. He was like, “It’s going to change your life. It’s so great, blah, blah, blah.” And I did really love it for like, six months, because the ergonomics of having a big top drawer for unloading is really nice. But it clogs constantly because it’s two filters and they’re small, and it’s really meant to be in some rich person’s butler’s pantry for the wine glasses.

Julia

It’s for a fake kitchen. 

Virginia

Exactly. It is not for everyday baked-on mac and cheese duty. So it’s been driving me nuts for ages, and I had a repair guy come out, and he just shamed me for not cleaning it enough. He was like, it’s $150 for the call. It’s not broken. You just don’t clean it. I was like, I hate you? And then it started leaking water all over the floor. So this was a super high end, fancy dishwasher that has brought me nothing but pain. And so now I’m having to buy another dishwasher, maybe it’s like 18 months later? Like, it’s way too soon to have to be going through this! I feel like all I do is deal with dishwashers.

And then I ordered a new one and it arrived, and it did not fit. And I had to send it back and start again! I don’t understand. Why is 24 inches not the same to everybody? Why can’t the industry agree on standards? 

Julia

What did you say? It was so funny.

Virginia

Why are women’s clothing designers making dishwashers? Literally. It’s blue jeans sizing all over again. And the installer didn’t understand why I was mad about it. He’s like, “Well, for KitchenAid, 24 inches is 24 and a quarter, but you only have 23 and three quarters.” But they all say 24, that should not be allowed. You have a standard, it’s called inches. Just use the same standard. 

Julia

It drives me so nuts.

Virginia

Why are we living like this? I don’t know. Meanwhile, I have so many dirty dishes.

Julia

Paper plates!

Virginia

I think it’s takeout tonight. But anyway, now let’s record an episode about cooking, which is something I’ll do again some day. 

Julia

I mean, the dishwasher is not unrelated.

Virginia

All right, all right. Let’s get into this. We are going to talk about your new cookbook. So why don’t we just do that? 

Julia

Great. I’m so happy to be here. I feel like any excuse to just chat with you makes me very happy and I’m so excited to tell you and everyone who listens about my book. It is called What Goes With What. And I am just so happy with it.<