Carter’s Kitchen No. 16

Fanny Singer, Los Angeles, California

Fanny is a writer, cook and mama living in California, and I have followed her along since I first heard about her mum, Alice Waters, when I was in my twenties. One of my most cherished memories is from when Patience was a baby and we were touring with Jack’s band, and none of them knew what Chez Panisse was but I had booked a table. We showed up looking really messy, but we were treated just like everyone else, and the waiter even gave us two desserts. To me, a great meal isn’t just about the food, but also the service. Not only am I inspired by her mum, but I’m also inspired by Fanny and her work too. She has an online shop, her own books (a new one coming out soon) and co-author of a Substack I love too.

Where is your kitchen, and what does it look out onto?

We have a small Victorian bungalow so when you walk into the house you’re walking directly into the living room. The kitchen is a little further beyond off to the left on the other side of one of the loveliest remaining original features of our 1900ish craftsman: a green tiled fireplace. The kitchen itself is a bit of a galley, and a room sorely in need of some updates to make cooking and moving around in it easier and more pleasurable. But for now, it gets the job done just fine. We live in Highland Park, a neighborhood in northeast LA, so our view from the kitchen is a stretch of the San Gabriel mountain range. I love these mountains, especially in the wintertime when the early evening light turns them violet. A Dutch door at the back of the kitchen leads onto the garden and immediately outside is my modest herb plot, a place I visit multiple times during meal prep for an array of fragrant leaves.

What’s the first thing you do when you walk into it?

I walk over to the speaker and turn on NPR so I can bask in the horrifying news du jour. Then I put a pot of water on to boil for my daughter’s breakfast oatmeal and make (or commission my husband to make) a matcha with beautiful tea from Kettl.

What’s usually left out on the bench or always within reach?

A pair of semicircle cutting boards from my homeware brand, Permanent Collection. I designed them on the model of an antique key-maker’s work board— thick enough to stand up on their ends which makes them great for small(er) kitchens. Not a plug just a fact—ha!

What do you make when you don’t feel like cooking at all?

Coming Home Pasta always cure the cooking blues

What’s something you cook on repeat?

Garden Salad Tacos. Simplest, most satisfying, endlessly appealing breakfast/lunch/dinner

Who or what taught you how to cook?

My mother is the chef and activist, Alice Waters, so, needless to say, I’ve been exposed to cooking and a love of food all my life. But I had a lot of other people in my world who were fantastic cooks and from whom I learned about ingredients and textures and flavors less common in my mother’s kitchen: the cooks and writers Niloufer Ichaporia King and David Tanis, namely, and also the many chefs at my mom’s restaurant, Chez Panisse, under whom I staged during summer breaks.

Describe a meal that felt really good recently.

I’m up in Winnipeg, Canada currently, whose seasons are radically different from those of Los Angeles, so we found a huge bag of locally-grown English peas that were just exquisite: right at that magical moment when they’re big enough to shell easily but still super tender and sweet and not at all starchy. I decided on the spot to make a Risi e Bisi for my husband’s family and it may have been the best risotto I’ve ever made. I give the lovely sweet carrot broth that my mother-in-law had on hand a large portion of the credit. It was mild but interesting—a perfect backdrop for the peas.

Who do you most like cooking for (or eating with)?

My daughter, Cecily. She’s nearly 4 and eats everything and is always so genuinely excited about dinner. When we start eating, if she likes something, she’ll declare it “the best food ever” and that right there is enough to fuel the endless cooking that parenthood requires.

What’s a small food ritual or habit you have?

I love popsicles. We make them out of blended fruit on a weekly basis because my daughter is crazy for them too, but I finally had to give in and start supplementing with store bought ones (generally from Goodpop—they’re made with just organic fruit, no dyes or flavors or added sugar) because some days are just 3-4 popsicle days and even the most industrious home cook can’t keep up with that kind of demand!

What did you is something you love making?

Salad. I’m just obsessed with salad and love the ritual that it requires: a genuinely contemplative moment with the season’s produce to decide what type of salad to prepare; the time it takes to trim and wash and carefully roll up leaves in kitchen linens; to prep other veg (slice and ice bathe, or roast or blanch or braise); pounding garlic in my mortar and pestle for a vinaigrette; selecting which type of vinegar or citrus might be the best complement; GLUGS of green-gold olive oil from my dad’s Sonoma orchard, etc, etc. I have a dedicated salad cookbook, Salad, Always, coming out with Knopf next spring so, needless to say, I’ve taken my obsession to the max.

Where do you eat your meals most of the time?

At home, around our dining table, at 6pm, generally the moment my husband walks through the door. I never imagined I’d be a 6pm dinner-eater, but then I had a kid and now an 8pm dinner makes me feel like I’m dining in Spain lol. Breakfast, on the other hand, is something my daughter eats while sitting on the countrer while I prepare her lunchbox contents.

What do you like listening to in your kitchen?

Either the aforementioned sense-of-doom-inducing public news radio station, or endless seasons of old ER which I often have running on my laptop while I cook and scarcely look at but rather half-listen to like a radio play.

What’s something slightly imperfect in your kitchen that you still use?

I’ve made a pretty concerted effort to weed out plastic implements and tools from our kitchen for all the obvious reasons but I cannot let go of an ancient bright, egg yolk-yellow plastic handled Tupperware strainer that belonged to my husband’s grandmother. It’s both pleasing to look at and incredibly functional—exactly the size I always seem to need for whatever task I’m undertaking.

A meal or food moment that stays with you:

The way my mother holds a piece of fruit as she deftly slips the skin from its flesh at the end of a meal. The dining table in my childhood home—where my mother still lives—has always had a bowl placed at its center containing some variety of seasonal fruit. This was dessert every night, with few exceptions. I can hear the phrase from my childhood ringing in my ears: “Fan, can you get me a sharp knife and a plate, please?” And I would cross the room to the knife drawer, which I knew to approach with caution, and select a small wood-handled paring knife. I would bring this and a small salad plate to where my mother was sitting in front of the fireplace and she would feel around the fruit bowl for the best specimen. The moment would endlessly elongate as she methodically relieved a peach of its fuzzy sheath or shimmied a ripe pear from its gritty skin, or sectioned an orange, but slowly, slowly. Then she’d cut the thing into perfect crescents and, depending on the company, either directly drop these in our mouths or array them on a plate to pass around. I will hold this memory with me always.

Follow Fanny here: @fannysinger and her shop Permanent Collection and also The Green Spoon Substack

Fanny loves making popsicles for her daughter Cecily and we enjoy making them too. Especially since the good ones from the store are so expensive! I also like adding smoothies to them and they think they’re ice cream. I have great stainless steel moulds and here’s how I make them.