Welcome to another episode of "Dishing with Stephanie's Dish." Today, we're thrilled to talk with Rebecca Blackwell, a recipe developer, Substack writer, and published cookbook author of the “Lets Get Lost Cookbook”. Rebecca shares her fascinating journey of selling her possessions to live and travel full-time in an RV with her husband.
Join us as we dive into Rebecca's upcoming cookbook, "Let's Get Lost," her inspirational journey of writing and recipe development, and the launch of the “Lost Supper Club.”
We'll explore how she balances creativity and connection while on the road, finding community through food, and the power of diverse culinary experiences that make the world feel a little bit smaller and certainly more delicious. Get ready for a heartwarming discussion about food, community, and life's unexpected adventures!
Here is a recipe from the book
This is an upside down cake, with a sticky caramel date mixture that’s baked on the bottom of the cake but is then flipped over to become the top. The batter is flavored with pureed dates, an entire orange, a bit of miso, and a lot of vanilla.
Wait. Miso? I fell in love with miso in baking after making the Miso Maple Loaf in Baking With Dori and I haven’t looked back. Just as it does in savory dishes, miso adds layers of complex flavor, including a hint of umami - and a little umami is always a good thing, even in sweet treats.
Candied pistachios add some crunch, and I would like to mention that if you want any leftover for the actual cake it’s wise to make extra because you and everyone around you will find them irresistible.
It’s also worth mentioning that one of our Lost Supper Club guests (you know who you are, Narissa) actually squealed with delight after tasting this cake. Like an actual, alarmingly loud, squeal. It was really more of a scream, and I can’t imagine a higher endorsement.
Orange and date cake with candied pistachios
Ingredients
For the caramel and date glaze:
* 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
* 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons brown sugar, light or dark
* 1 tablespoon corn syrup
* 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
* 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt, OR 1/2 teaspoon table salt
* 8 ounces dates (about 1 cup), pits removed, cut into bite-size pieces
For the cake:
* 1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
* 1 3/4 tsp baking powder
* 1/4 tsp baking soda
* 1/4 tsp salt
* 1 medium to large size orange
* 1/2 cup brown sugar, light or dark
* 1 stick (4 ounces/ 8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
* 1/4 cup white miso
* 2 large eggs, at room temperature
* 8 ounces (about 1 cup) dates, pits removed
* 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
* 1/3 cup plain, unsweetened greek yogurt, whole milk or 2%
* 1/2 cup orange marmalade
Instructions:
Get Instructions for the recipe here
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Stephanie Hansen [00:00:15]:
Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's dish. I'm Stephanie Hansen. You are here at the podcast that talks to foodies, cookbook writers. And today, we have, I would say, all 3 plus more. We have Rebecca Blackwell. She is a recipe developer. She is on the verge of releasing her “Let's Get Lost”, the cookbook. She is a Substack writer who has a Substack newsletter called “Let's Get Lost. She also is starting and launching the “Lost Supper Club” and has been out in the space. One of the things about Rebecca that intrigues me, not the most because you're just a nice person, but beyond that, you live in an RV. You kinda upended your life, sold your worldly possessions, and bought a pull behind, and you and your husband travel all over the United States in your RV. We are talking right now in your RV, which I know you've got a good cookbook shelf. I see it behind you. Welcome to the show, Rebecca.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:01:11]:
Thank you so much for having me, Stephanie. I'm so happy to be here.
Stephanie Hansen [00:01:14]:
Me too. So for people that maybe aren't familiar with your story, can you talk about how you decided to just chuck it all and get into the RV?
Rebecca Blackwell [00:01:24]:
Yeah. Absolutely. So, we had 3 children, and, when our youngest was about 7, we decided that we wanted to work towards getting to the place where we could work from anywhere in the world by the time all of our kids were graduated. And so our youngest was getting off or getting ready to go off to college in in 2019, and and we had done it. We were both working virtually, and and we could work anywhere where there was an Internet connection. And and so we were our initial plan was that we were gonna just rent Airbnb's in various places for, you know, 3 months or 6 months or whatever at a time. So some friends of ours in Southern California were heading off to Europe for a couple of months and asked us to come house sit, and we were like, great. This will be a great test run for how this works.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:02:11]:
And we loved living and working in a new place, but we hated living in somebody else's home. And so we weren't sure what we were gonna do about that, and, we met up with some old high school friends while we were there that lived in an RV, and it was like the answer to all of our problems. We had never considered living in an RV. We had never in our entire lives spent one night in any kind of a camper of any kind. We're just not the camping kind of people. But we went home from that trip, and, within 5 months, we had sold our house and bought a 5th wheel RV and moved ourselves into it. So the first night we ever spent in a camper, we had already sold the house and bought our RV. So and that it's been a long time 5 years.
Stephanie Hansen [00:03:00]:
Did you feel brave doing it at the time?
Rebecca Blackwell [00:03:04]:
You know, we just felt very exciting until the night we closed on our house, and then I got a little freaked out. Understandably. What have I done? But, you know, the first night, we, we lived in Colorado, and we drove, we closed on our house on a Monday, and we drove to, Katy, Texas to pick up the RV on a Tuesday and, picked it up on Wednesday. And that first night in the camper, I wasn't worried at all. It it instantly felt like the right decision. We felt at home in it almost immediately. And, you know, we really haven't looked back. We we say that we'll keep doing it until we get tired of doing it, but so far, you know, it's been almost 5 years, and we're not anywhere close to being ready to stop.
Stephanie Hansen [00:03:53]:
What I think is kinda hilarious about you in particular is you have this sort of idea of who might be in an RV park, and I've been in a lot of RV parks.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:04:02]:
Yeah.
Stephanie Hansen [00:04:02]:
And you're I don't know about your husband, but for sure, you are like this type a organized, hyper productive person who's doing all this work from an RV park. I mean, your substack newsletter alone with Let's Get Lost kind of focuses on the RV living aspects and the travel aspects, but also recipes. And then as if that wasn't enough, you've launched the Lost Supper Club that just launched. What made you decide you needed yet another outlet? Because you just seem super prolific.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:04:34]:
Yeah. Well, you know, ask me at the end of the year if I regret adding another thing, and I'll I'll let you know. But but, really, at the end of last year, I I was just looking for more ways to connect with people on a more meaningful way as we travel around. It you know, we love being in a new place and kind of immersing ourselves in the culture of the place as much as we can. And we have met people without even trying all over the country, and that's been really fun. But this year or this last year, I I was just thinking a lot about how, when we're in a new place, when I have the opportunity to spend a few hours with somebody that lives there, it it just enriches both of our lives, in a in a really meaningful way. And so I thought, well, with the lost supper club, if I can do that and then write about it, then maybe I could also inspire other people to get together with friends over dinner on a more regular basis. I feel like it's kind of a a lost art that, and we're we're we're just craving that in person connection.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:05:42]:
Everywhere I go, I talk to people about this, and everybody seems to be craving that in person connection, but they're not really sure how to go about starting it. So that's kinda what I'm hoping to do is by doing it myself and writing about it, inspire more people to do the same thing.
Stephanie Hansen [00:05:56]:
I think food too is so common in that everyone speaks the same language when it comes to food. You know, no no matter what you eat, whether what you prepare, it has a way of bringing people together. And one of the things that you and I have talked about offline is how challenging you know, when you're a a nomad, we'll call it, it's challenging to keep up those, relationships with friends and family because they don't know where you are, and you can't just, you know, have your weekly tennis date.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:06:27]:
That's right. That's right. Yeah. That's been a big challenge with our friends back home in Colorado is maintaining those relationships with some of our closest friends. Thankfully, we tend to attract the kind of friends that are also similar in that they, they're very independent. They have they travel all over the place. And so it's pretty easy to just pick up where we left off. But, but I I'm just I'm starting to become a little more conscious of, trying to do things like phone calls and just just text messages and and just reaching out in any way I can to some of these relationships while we're on the road because because they are important.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:07:05]:
They're, those those connections that we form with people that become lifelong friends, you know, it's it's one of the most valuable things, in my life. The older I get, the more I realize how how deeply important they are.
Stephanie Hansen [00:07:22]:
Also, like, I'm curious what your thoughts are because I don't know your husband at all. But, my husband has a small group of friends, and they're the same friends he's had since, like, 6th grade. Oh, wow. I am, like, someone that craves a lot of friends, lot of different types of people. Everyone I meet becomes my friend. Like, we just have different needs. I'm an extrovert. He's an introvert.
Stephanie Hansen [00:07:46]:
Like, how to fill our buckets. Would you say you're more introverted? Or how do you is your husband, like, on the same page with you? Or do you spend a lot of time forging connections?
Rebecca Blackwell [00:07:56]:
Yeah. So, both of us have a strong tendency to just keep to ourselves and hold ourselves away. And that's part of the the more concentrated effort on my part of reaching out to more people and making those connections. Because if it's not deliberate, we won't do it. We're very happy parking ourselves in the middle of nowhere for months at a time and not really talking to anybody except each other.
Stephanie Hansen [00:08:23]:
My god. That's horrifying to me.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:08:27]:
We love it. We love it. We love it. But the like, no matter how introverted you tend to be, those those connections with other people are are just important. And, and so, you know, my my husband's a little worried about how many social activities I have planned for us this year because he, he gets really worn out by it. But, but, also, when he's there, he has a good time, and he knows that it's good for him as well. So, so we'll see. At the end of the year, we'll we'll take stock and see if it was too much for us or or not.
Stephanie Hansen [00:09:07]:
So let's get lost details. It's your newsletter on Substack that details all the places that you are and what you're cooking along the way. The Last Supper Club is the new paid version of substack that you will belong to this club. You'll talk about ways to entertain. You'll share recipes in your January edition. You did a really nice overview of homemade pasta. Because I just filmed a TV show about pasta, and I made pasta myself at home for the first time.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:09:37]:
Oh, fun.
Stephanie Hansen [00:09:38]:
Yeah. So it was really fun to read your recipe and your techniques. And then the let's get lost, the cookbook is on the verge of coming. So tell me where you're at with that and when we'll be able to get our hands on it.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:09:50]:
Yeah. So that should be out the last week of this month, January, the last week of January. And, there'll be links on, rebecca Blackwell.com and on both of my blogs. So, yeah, I'm I'm very excited about that. It's a 140 something recipes, 135 page cookbook, full color photos of every of every recipe. And, it wasn't a book I had intended to write last year. I just I was publishing so many recipes on substack that I thought, you know, I'm just gonna throw these together into, like, a quick little downloadable book, and then it turned into a full blown a full blown cookbook. So
Stephanie Hansen [00:10:35]:
So how do you do it? Are you printing on demand? Because you're obviously not warehousing things in your RV.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:10:41]:
Exactly. Yeah. No. Yeah. We're printing on demand. So it'll be available on print and, downloadable PDF and Kindle. So 3 different options for that. And then I'm already started on volume 2.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:10:55]:
So this year's volume 2 will be focused more on, supper club, and it'll be organized by the areas, that we've traveled to. So Southern California, Louisiana, the Midwest. There's a there's a pool. Yeah. And it'll include other people's recipes as well. So as we travel around and and cook and have dinner with other people, they will contribute recipes to the book. So it'll be more of a a collaborate collaborative effort.
Stephanie Hansen [00:11:23]:
Oh, gosh. I just love it. You're so prolific. You were a marketer in your other life before getting into the RV and kind of branching off and doing your own freelance. What did you market?
Rebecca Blackwell [00:11:34]:
Yeah. So I mostly worked with, businesses who wanted to improve their online strategies. So, strategies. So, I put together very comprehensive strategies for them that included, you know, a lot of different factors, and I did a lot of writings, wrote a lot of websites, a lot of emails, a lot of blog posts. I was the ghostwriter for quite a few companies' blog posts over the years. So back in 2013, I thought, maybe I'd like to do this for myself, and that's when I started my first blog. And and then gradually, I started as the blog grew, I was able to let go of some clients on a very gradual basis and was finally full time with food blogging by 2020.
Stephanie Hansen [00:12:18]:
That's so exciting. When you're in your RV and you're, like, making a recipe, you know, do you find space as a limitation, or how do you get, like, the perfect photograph? And have you had to adapt?
Rebecca Blackwell [00:12:30]:
Yeah. Yeah. That has been a a big adaption in in our house before we sold it and moved into the RV. I had a whole room just for photography, and that was that was amazing. But I have discovered that there's really nothing that you can't do in a small space. If you have it's like money. If however much you have, you seem to need it all. And that's how space is.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:12:53]:
I think however much you have, you figure out a way to need it all, but you don't actually need it all. So, for an RV kitchen, mine is much nicer and much bigger than a lot of RVs. As we were looking towards buying an RV, we looked at, I don't know, a 100 different models and found one where the kitchen would work for me. And it hasn't limited what I've been able to do really at all, which has been really nice. And then photography, I just use these, like, 24 inch photography boards. And Yeah. You know, some of them, you would never know that it's a board even though it's a small little board. You know, the cover of the cookbook has a window in the background, the the cover photo.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:13:40]:
And people are shocked to know that that's not a window, that it's just a a board that I set up on on my kitchen table.
Stephanie Hansen [00:13:48]:
And create, like, a little good light, and there you go.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:13:51]:
Exactly. Exactly. Artificial lighting for photography has been a a game changer for me because, relying on how the light comes in and what time of day it is and where we are in the world and what the weather is doing and, you know, all of those things affect it. And so that's been that's been really important to use artificial lighting in in the RV.
Stephanie Hansen [00:14:14]:
One thing I'm curious about, I feel like travel and being in new spaces and meeting new people, I feel like that so, like, inspires creativity and gets you sort of out of your day to day existence. Does that persist when you're, like, your day to day existence is all those things? So I'm just curious. Like, I'm wondering how it is that you, like, ground yourself when everything around you is changing, or is that just a constant source of inspiration? Like food, like the ingredients. Everything is different everywhere you go.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:14:52]:
That's true. Yeah. That's very true. You know, it's interesting. I I just started listening to a book that's talking about the difference between, it's it's mostly focused on anxiety and the difference between right brain and left brain functionality. And our right brain is really where our creativity lies. And, the more stressed out and anxious we are, the the more it shuts down creativity. It, like, just closes that part off of us. And I feel like as we travel around, I can identify how when we get into a new place, the more I'm able to just be present in that place and appreciate the experience of being there, the more I can feel that creativity opening up and, just relaxing relaxing my mind enough to to, like, really see where are we and and and what is this place like. And and that just brings forth a whole bunch of new ideas. And then also What's the book?
Stephanie Hansen [00:15:55]:
Do you know?
Rebecca Blackwell [00:15:56]:
Oh, yeah. It's, Martha Beck.
Stephanie Hansen [00:15:59]:
Okay.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:15:59]:
And, I don't remember the title, but it's her it's her newest one, and there's the word anxiety in the title.
Stephanie Hansen [00:16:04]:
It's highly recommended. And just put it in the show notes in case anyone
Rebecca Blackwell [00:16:08]:
Very good. Yeah. Because she has this idea that we can use our creative mind to calm stress and anxiety in our lives, and I I love that idea. So and, you know, before we moved into the RV, I I could have, you know, shopped at the same places, and I could have very distinct ideas and just go to the grocery store and get them. And now I have to show up with a very loose idea of what I want because you never know. You never know what's gonna be there. Yeah.
Stephanie Hansen [00:16:33]:
And that just
Rebecca Blackwell [00:16:35]:
also been a creative, I think a creative boost to not be so rigid in that thinking.
Stephanie Hansen [00:16:41]:
Yeah. I love that idea. Also, I think for we're in this kind of weird political place where everybody is very polarized in their silos, and you're either all this or you're all that, and there's very little nuance. One thing I found about traveling that really helped me a lot is this idea that wherever you are in an RV park, like Yep. Whether you're alone or you're with others, everybody's kind of there for the same things.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:17:11]:
That's right.
Stephanie Hansen [00:17:12]:
You might approach them differently. Like, your political flag might fly differently. But at the end of the day, they're sitting out there at their campfire. You're sitting out at your campfire. It doesn't hurt you to kinda go over and introduce yourself and share a beer or a glass of wine. And I just felt so appreciative that I had that experience because when I'm in a dark place and I'm feeling like I'm alone in my own silo, I remember that, oh, no. There's all these other people out there, and we kinda get to it a different way, but we want security for our family. We wanna have jobs that are meaningful.
Stephanie Hansen [00:17:47]:
We wanna love and be able to be, you know, in a place that's beautiful. That really helped me have a lot of empathy for people that weren't like me.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:17:57]:
Yeah. I agree completely. We had this one experience a couple of years ago where we were talking to a couple in our campground, and, he got on a a tangent of all sorts of political ideas. And and we just stood there listening, and and I didn't agree with pretty much anything he was saying. And at the end of it, I I just said, you know, I didn't actually agree with anything that you just said, but one thing that I've learned is that there are good people everywhere even if they think differently from me. And so then we ended up talking about that. And that, I I have strong opinions about a lot of things. And so the more I meet people that don't share that same perspective, the the better it is for me, the better it is for my my state of mind.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:18:50]:
I can get very pigeonholed into thinking that the world is a dark place. And then when I'm out in it and actually meeting the people that live in all of these places, it's a it's a solid reminder that it's not it's not a dark place. Most people are very generous and very kind and very friendly. And in every state, that's true.
Stephanie Hansen [00:19:12]:
We Yeah.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:19:13]:
We have states that we enjoy more than others, but we have found good people and beautiful places pretty pretty much everywhere.
Stephanie Hansen [00:19:23]:
That is, like, the moral of the story, isn't it? Like, right what you just said. And it's why I I love sailing. I love RV ing. I love going to Europe. I love traveling. And Yeah. You know, I'm fortunate in that I have some reserves to do that, but you can just travel to your state park down the road and just really explore it in your car and sleep in your car and meet so many different people. And I didn't sleep in a tent for well, honestly, I've only slept in a tent, like, probably twice because I've either had an RV or a cabin or but it is a very eye opening experience to just put yourself out there and the people that you meet.
Stephanie Hansen [00:20:03]:
So I'm really excited about your lost, the let's, not the let's get lost. I'm excited about the lost supper club. Because in the Midwest, as you know, supper clubs are such a big deal here.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:20:15]:
Yes. I know. So that I did I didn't know anything about supper clubs until we visited the Midwest. And then I was like, well, this is cool.
Stephanie Hansen [00:20:24]:
Yeah. And some of them are they're sort of older, folks here, but then there's others that are more modern now, and we're kinda getting back to seeing fancy relish trays and fancy high end restaurants. And just the idea of the supper club being, like, a place where you gather on a Friday or Saturday night, and it can be with friends. And it doesn't have to be at a restaurant all the time, and it certainly does not have to always be steak.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:20:49]:
That's right. Well, and in the south, if you say supper club, people don't even realize that you're talking about an establishment. They supper clubs are a group of friends that get together on a regular basis. They're very organized, and, we we met some friends in Louisiana a few years ago. We're we're gonna do a supper club, at her place this year. But but she invited us to her home for dinner, and that's what it was. It was a supper club, and the table was tablescaped, and the China was out, and everybody was in their Sunday best. And, I mean, like, it was a it was an amazing dinner, an amazing event, and they they just she just does that all the time.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:21:29]:
It's just a a normal part of life to have these
Stephanie Hansen [00:21:32]:
Oh, fun.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:21:33]:
Amazing dinner parties with groups of people gathered around her table. And and so that's more what it is in the south. So, there's there's a lot of options and a lot of variety, for people to kind of create more community over food. And and, honestly, there's something about humans where we want if we're gonna get together with people, we want there to be food.
Stephanie Hansen [00:21:56]:
Yeah. Yes. Hot tea does not do it. You gotta have a stone or a biscuit or something else.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:22:03]:
Yes. That's right. That's right.
Stephanie Hansen [00:22:24]:
You can preorder the book now. We will provide a link in the show notes. Rebecca Blackwell, thank you for being our guest today. It was super fun to just chat with you. I think it's funny too the cookbooks behind you that made it on the RV list. You have probably, like, 30, way more than I would have thought.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:23:09]:
I have another 30 in our bedroom.
Stephanie Hansen [00:23:12]:
Okay. So do you read cookbooks like you read novels? Yes. Same. Like, at night when I'm in bed, I'm, like, reading a cookbook, not necessarily a book as it were.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:23:23]:
Yes. Well and I'm starting to order more on Kindle because, you know, I only have so much space. And Yeah. And I don't love the the Kindle cookbooks as much. It's ugh. I love having a book in my hands, but I can't stop buying them. So Yeah. Something has
Stephanie Hansen [00:23:40]:
Yeah. You gotta make make do where you can. Well, it was great to chat with you. Like I said, I'll have all the links for everything in the show notes here, and good luck. And I can't wait to connect with you next year after you've had this whole year of creativity behind you to see where it goes.
Rebecca Blackwell [00:23:56]:
Thank you so much for having me.
Stephanie Hansen [00:23:58]:
Thanks, Rebecca. We'll talk soon.
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