Michael Volpatt, the chef-owner of Big Bottom Market in Guerneville, has released a new book, “Cooking In Place: 50 Days, Stories, and 70+ Recipes to Keep You Sane in Challenging Times.”
The book is based on his Facebook Live cooking show titled “Cooking in Place,” which he produced starting on the Big Bottom Market Facebook page when the shelter in place order went into effect across Sonoma County. For 50 consecutive days, Volpatt produced the show using Facebook Live until Big Bottom Market reopened for takeout.
“This book is unlike any other cookbook I’ve read or worked on,” said Volpatt. “Part personal chronicle paired with some of my favorite recipes, it tells the story of my time in kitchen quarantine,” Volpatt said. “Already sheltered on March 14, I was making my mom’s marinara sauce while scrolling the news feed on Facebook. I looked down and saw the Go Live link and the rest is history. I spent the next 50 days on camera, cooking, writing, scripting, taking pictures and so much more. It was an amazing experience and I am proud of the end result.”
Volpatt, who is re-opening his restaurant today, June 12, for indoor and outdoor dining, said the recipes in the book are meant to be easy and accessible.
“I would define the food that I was cooking as approachable, because I wanted it to be ingredients that you could get easily, you could substitute easily and you could cook easily. You don’t have to be a genius chef to be able to make these dishes. That was a really big goal of mine, and hopefully I accomplished that.”
Like many people Volpatt was caught flat-footed by the shutdown with a mostly bare pantry at home. Unlike most people, he owned a well-stocked restaurant and was able to resupply his home pantry from there.
“I think my favorite section of the book is called ‘Pantry Preparedness.’ When this hit, we all entered into this with empty pantries or pantries that just weren’t organized properly to manage having to cook without having to go to the grocery store much.” he said.
A short list of pantry essentials, according to Volpatt, includes “Flour, yeast, cans of tomatoes (I like whole peeled), kosher salt, black peppercorns, canned beans (I always have black, white kidney and chickpeas); your favorite dried spices (I go for more Mediterranean and Italian kinds), olive oil, your favorite vinegars (I’m a rice vinegar, Champagne vinegar and red wine vinegar guy), and baking powder and baking soda.”
Although Volpatt said he cooked all kind of things during shelter in place, he found himself making two particular kinds of things: comfort foods from his childhood and salads.
In addition to his mother’s marinara, he said “I made spaghetti-O’s from scratch. Yes, you actually can buy pasta in that shape.”
But mostly, in shelter in place, one cooks with the ingredients on hand.
“I woke up one morning and I was like, ‘I’m gonna do an episode called ‘Cream of Refrigerator.’ My friend Heidi does this, and I learned from her,” Volpatt said. “I decided I was going to clean out my refrigerator and just figure out what I was going to make based on what I had. That’s one of the big things about cooking in place: you’ve got to get really creative, and a lot of people — even those who don’t cook — can get really creative very easily when you’re forced to be creative.”
Volpatt, who is also the author of a cookbook called “Biscuit,” said he decided to self-publish his new book when established publishers couldn’t meet his demand for a faster turnaround time than normal.
“My book agent and I would have gone to my current publisher with this, but we decided to bypass traditional publishing so we could get it out fast. As you can imagine, publishers are also facing some challenging times, and self-publishing using the Kindle platform is easy to do.”
The book is also coming out in a self-published hard-copy version in the next few weeks.
In addition to self-publishing, Volpatt also did all the photography for the book.
“All of the images were taken with my iPhone,” he said, “and I think they turned out pretty great.”
A percentage of each book sold will benefit two local non-profits: Becoming Independent and Food for Thought. Becoming Independent serves people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and Food For Thought provides food to over 850 people affected by serious illnesses in Sonoma County.
“The goal is to sell 10,000 books with a total donation of $5,000 to each organization,” according to a press release for the book.
The Kindle edition of “Cooking in Place” is available for $4.99 at https://amzn.to/2WGn1fW.
