Molly Yeh

“I always enjoyed baking, but as far as eating, I always picked cheese fries over sweets.”

“I'm not above jarred baby food, if it's good ingredients, for convenience sake.”

“I got so excited, just talking about hummus to the Food Network. I feel like you don't see a lot of hummus and challah and shakshuka on the Food Network and that was really the meat of the process.”

“Writing a blog that is free to read on the internet is one thing, but taking up physical space in the world with a product that costs money ups the ante, so the quality has to be at a high enough level for that.”

“I live about five hours away from a Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, so I have to make extra sure that I get everything I need, otherwise I'm totally screwed.”

“There were a lot of publishers that I loved, so the book went to auction. An auction is where you sit nervously by your phone and eat potato chips for two days waiting for your agent to text you numbers of the highest bid for each round. I ultimately went with Dervla Kelly at Rodale Books.”

“Having an agent who had been through the process a million times and who could walk me through the process freed up a lot of mental space for me to just focus on the creative. I also worked with recipe testers, photographers, and assistants who were invaluable in creating a book that I'm truly proud of.”

“Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago and living in New York, it didn't even strike me as a possibility that a place could really exist without tons of Jews.”

“It's never been my goal to create something that is found on the internet elsewhere. I only want to create things that are new.”

“Think realistically with what you're going to eat - don't plant 200 radishes!”

“My greatest inspiration is my Chinese and Jewish heritage and my travels.”

“By the time a meal I'm preparing rolls around, I'm usually so full from tasting that I'm not hungry any more.”

“Question: How do you make a plate of hummus filling enough for a bunch of big burly farmers? Answer: Put meat all over it.”

“I treat every reader as if they were a close friend.”

“The culture of home cooking is so strong.”

“I keep everything in Notepad: shopping lists, to-do lists, recipe tasting notes, my blog content calendar, recipe inspiration, blog-post drafts.”