Monique has spent over a decade in the culinary and hospitality industries at places like: Balthazar Bakery, Liddabit Sweets, and Russ & Daughters. She loves cooking, refining silly snack opinions, and devouring as many foods and experiences as possible to earn the title of “The Eatinist.” Monique lives in Jackson Heights, Queens and enjoys spending way too much money on live music, taking pictures of sunsets in the neighborhood, and eating ice cream for breakfast.
She is on all social media platforms but Insta is her most active one. Where she also shares her beauty moments like freshly done out of nail salon, new hairdo, her cat sitting moments just to mention a few. Her kind human self.
I also was obsessed with all of the cooking shows on public television! Right after Sesame Street and Mr Rogers were done for the morning, I would watch Julia Child, Martin Yan, Mary Ann Esposito, Nathalie Dupree, Cooking Secrets of the CIA – pretty much anything having to do with cooking
Oh and we now share the passion for some series, especially Severance which she got me totally hooked on. So many messages we’ve exchanged over the second season. (more laughs!!)
Thank you Monique for accepting to share your Kitchen Story.
1. What is the importance of your kitchen in your house?
My kitchen is really the heart of my apartment. As soon as I use the bathroom in the morning, the first thing I do is fire up the electric kettle so my husband and I can have our morning tea (Earl Grey for him, Assam or Chai for me). Mornings during the winter are difficult for me haha, so I need warmth and caffeine. I wander in and out of the kitchen most of the day eating snacks, figuring out grocery lists, washing dishes, and looking at the neighborhood cats from the window. There’s great light that streams in all day in there so it’s kind of like a beacon of coziness that calms me throughout the day.
2. What’s the best part of the day for you to cook?
Honestly? Early in the morning when no one else is awake. When I’m baking/cooking a bunch of things for an event or a holiday, I love to take advantage of the solitude. I think it takes me back to when I worked early mornings in a commercial kitchen and me and my coworkers would be working to music or even the thrum of the machines. It makes me feel purposeful and accomplished – and even though I love to cook with friends, I get easily distracted haha. Sometimes my brain works better with the quiet.
3. Are you a creative chef or simply love to follow recipes?
I love the structure of a recipe and I like to see how other recipe writers’ brains work. I’ll follow my favorite recipes for a while but then I’ll augment them to my tastes. I do wish I was better at writing down my changes though – definitely something to work on this year!
4. Three ingredients that are never missing from your kitchen cabinet?
Canned/Dried legumes, kosher salt, tinned fish
5. How did your passion for cooking come about?
Definitely from my parents. My mom would cook for my family during the week as much as possible (she worked too!) and my dad loved to go out to eat and try new things. I also was obsessed with all of the cooking shows on public television! Right after Sesame Street and Mr Rogers were done for the morning, I would watch Julia Child, Martin Yan, Mary Ann Esposito, Nathalie Dupree, Cooking Secrets of the CIA – pretty much anything having to do with cooking. My mom also has a small cookbook collection that I would spend hours reading. As soon as I was 9 or 10, I started helping to make dishes for our holiday meals too.
6. What’s your favourite dish to cook that you know can never go wrong with it?
Samin Nosrat’s Buttermilk Brined Chicken! And if you have a container of Puerto RIcan Sofrito in your freezer, you have a foolproof ingredient that will bring so much flavor to any savory dish.
7. Would you receive an entire TV crew in your kitchen for a day?
If you mean one person with a camera and one person with a boom mic hahaha – I have a classic NYC kitchen. It’s pretty dang small but also is fairly easy to cook in and navigate.
8. Do you follow any tv shows or have a favourite cooking book?
Oh gosh – that’s really hard. I don’t follow a lot of food reality TV if I’m being honest but when I’m in the mood for:
Something comforting: Great British Bake Off, any Nigella cooking show, Two Fat Ladies, International food videos on YouTube
Something silly/trashy: Kitchen Nightmares, Bar Rescue
Something educational: Tasting History on YouTube, High on the Hog (Netflix)
My favorite cookbooks right now are: Diasporican by Illyana Maisonet, Start Here by Sohla El Wally, I Dream of Dinner by Ali Slagle. My favorite food newsletters are Alicia Kennedy’s (a great combo of food/political writing and fantastic vegetable recipes/methodologies) and Hetty McKinnion’s (amazing recipe writer and person – she’s also very vegetable focused and her recipes are flavorful and well-written).
Monique and I also share the love for a great New Yorker baker, Jessie Sheehan. I’ve seen quite a few times Monique baking /sharing on IG stories great results from Jessie’s books! You can actually read Jessie’s Kitchen Story here.
Another curiosity that hit me while putting this post together was about Monique’s nickname – The Eatinist Bitch. So I’ve asked and she told me this pretty funny story from early years of college time, during summer job as a theatre usher…inside story. The things you do for an extra bite and $7 bucks. Put it that way, from early years of college to grown up life and it became her trademark.
A darn good I’d say!