A Conversation with Ken and Verveine Oringer
After Verveine Oringer was diagnosed with celiac disease at ten years old in early 2020, mealtimes quickly became a family affair as everyone adjusted to her new gluten-free diet. Still, unhappy with the way many gluten-free dishes tasted, Verveine and her dad, Ken Oringer, an award-winning chef and restaurateur, soon started working together on an array of gluten-free recipes. At mom Celine’s suggestion, the duo’s kitchen creations eventually gave birth to a book: Cooking With My Dad the Chef: 70+ kid-tested, kid-approved, (and gluten-free!) recipes for young chefs!
“Every recipe in this book was carefully tested by my dad and me, by the team at America’s Test Kitchen Kids (ATK Kids) and by their group of at-home kid recipe testers to make sure they work, and they also taste great,” writes Verveine in the book’s introduction. “My hope is that this will become your go-to cookbook for any occasion, that it will teach you something new, and that it will bring joy into your kitchen! Have fun!”
With fun still on the menu, Verveine (now 14) and her dad are happy to serve up the story behind the book.
Photos courtesy of America’s Test Kitchen
EDIBLE BOSTON: Who’s the mastermind behind this cookbook and how long did it take?
VERVEINE: This idea was actually my mom’s. While I was working with ATK [as a kid recipe tester and making cooking video content for ATK Kids], she just threw the idea out there and was like, “What a cool idea would it be to share all of your gluten-free recipes with the world?”
And my dad and I loved it. We wanted to collaborate. We obviously have a great relationship, and it was just something that I would be more than willing to take on.
KEN ORINGER: From beginning to end, the book probably took about a year and a half to two years. We wanted to have it be a kids book and to be available for anybody that really was curious about the food that we serve in our restaurants and the food that a chef’s kids would grow up eating. With 70-plus recipes, it was just a lot of recipe writing and recipe testing and eliminating dishes and putting some others on and always adding to it. Then we had them tested for months and months and months, each recipe tested by kids. There were lots of people and lots of great feedback; some dishes were too complicated and some hit the spot and some we adjusted. It was a really incredible effort by a lot of talented people.
EB: Verveine, between your schooling and your dad’s many restaurants, how did you find time to do the book?
VERVEINE: We had weekly meetings with the people at ATK. I also had homework, so it was this little snippet for this chapter, this little snippet for that chapter and it kind of went along with doing my homework. It was like, OK, I'm going to do my math, I’m doing English and then I’m going to do my cookbook writing. I’ve always loved writing, so it didn’t really feel much like work. It was fun!
EB: So, what was it like working with your dad on a cookbook?
VERVEINE: It’s like anything else I’ve done with my dad; we’ve done mock cooking shows, we’ve done baseball practice… We’ve done so many things together that it was just natural collaborating with him. I think we have a really good relationship. It was good to work with him because he could answer all of my questions. It was a process that he was probably more familiar with than me, even though he’s never made a cookbook.
EB: What was it like working with your daughter?
KEN: It was a dream come true. It was just heaven being able to do anything together and just being able to just spend time just bonding and working on a project to an end goal. It was one of the best experiences of my life. It was incredible!
EB: What are your favorite dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner from the book?
VERVEINE: This is a really difficult question, but if I do have to pick, I would say for breakfast, the mochi waffles with caramel sauce—they are so good and they are really fun to make! We had this amazing caramel sauce that my dad helped me make that I love to put on literally anything, and we always put them with strawberries and powdered sugar. For lunch, either taquitos or maybe sopes. I love sopes because they’re like little tortilla things with a border around them and you can put whatever you want on them. I love putting steak, guacamole and cheese in them. And then for dinner, I would have to say probably beef Bourguignon or truffle pasta. Delicious! I love filling meals like that for dinner.
KEN: Well, my one favorite dish from the book is probably the beef Bourguignon. My wife is French, my kids are dual citizens—my mother-in-law makes amazing beef Bourguignon, so it's something my kids have grown up eating a lot. It was fun to really cook it because I've been making it my whole life, but I’ve never written down a recipe before, so I had to backtrack and weigh everything and go through the recipe. I think it’s a great recipe that I can’t imagine anybody not loving as long as they’re a meat eater.
EB: Of all the places you’ve traveled with your family, which is your favorite?
VERVEINE: I have to say France, because in fourth grade we lived in France for eight months and that’s where a lot of these recipes were born. It’s where I tried a lot of new foods. It opened my eyes to different restaurants, and it was really cool exploring the city. I also am pretty fluent in French, and I'm really thankful. That experience has been amazing.
EB: How about for relaxation, Ken?
KEN: I’m just happy spending time with the family, just doing whatever. Playing soccer with the kids or throwing a baseball around with the kids and the dog and just chilling out. I’m just into family time for relaxation. I like to go for bike rides and be outdoors and just enjoy not being in a restaurant sometimes. My ideal vacation? Put me on a beach anywhere where I can cook, especially outside with my family, and I’m very happy.
EB: Verveine, you have a mature palette; you like oysters, sushi and ingredients some of us haven't even heard of! How do your friends react to your food choices?
VERVEINE: Well, I think they know I’ve grown up around restaurants and I’ve tried lots of different stuff, but when I bring my friends to my dad’s restaurants and they say, “Can I have plain pasta?” I’m like, “You can have anything you want!” So sometimes it’s just plain pasta, but that’s OK. We’ve had some friends who’ve tried oysters for the first time or discover they love sushi, but never had it before…
And hopefully, our cookbook can help get other people to have that same enthusiasm.
EB: You seem very close with your father. How would you describe him to our readers?
VERVEINE: I think he’s different from the type of father that you see in movies or other dads of my friends and stuff.
KEN: You mean with a tie and a suit on?
VERVEINE: Yeah! He wears white shirts all the time that he stains really easily because he’s always in the kitchen. But I would describe him as really fun. I think we have a really great relationship. We don’t fight, and he has been a great cooking teacher.
He’s also really honest. I just started singing, and he told me last year that I had a really bad voice. But now I’m getting better! [Laughter] We did a mock cooking show when I was 11. My brother filmed it. I had to make a cake and it was Christmas-themed and my dad had to rate it out of 10, and he rated me a 6.5! An 11-year-old who made a chocolate cake alone! And I plated it all pretty and with all this different stuff. So, he’s honest and that’s what makes this process really good, especially with the cookbook.
He’s also really funny, and he’s just an amazing person to have as my dad. So, I’m really thankful to have him in my life.
EB: Verveine, do you cook dinner at home?
VERVEINE: I don’t always cook dinner, but I do actually want to try doing weekly dinners with my brother. I cook all different stuff. Just last week I cooked (from our book) the cacao with chocolate ganache. I like to cook all different types of things—baked goods, dinners, lunch, little snacks like gougères. A lot of the stuff I cook is in this book, but sometimes we like to experiment with some other books or some other fun recipes.
EB: Do you think you'll follow in your dad’s footsteps and become a chef?
VERVEINE: This is an interesting question because I think I will follow in my dad’s footsteps for his love for food and for the community he’s built around his restaurants. I will definitely follow that; it’s been a great influence on my life and I’m really thankful. But since I was eight years old I’ve aspired to be in the film industry, to be a filmmaker or a director, so I really would be eager to achieve that.
But I think food can help people with whatever they choose to do in life. I think it’s something that anyone should have an appreciation for.
EB: What are you going to make as a special meal on Father’s Day?
VERVEINE: We don't really celebrate Father’s Day and Mother’s Day at home. But now that you say that, maybe we will! Maybe I will make him something for Father’s Day. And speaking of that, I do owe him—it’s a really long story [laughter], but there was some type of dare that me and my brother would make dinner, a Chinese noodle dish from this Ninjago show that my brother watches. We might do that!
Thank you for asking that question. I think my dad thanks you, too. So now I’m going to make him a meal [on] Father’s Day!
EB: Is there another cookbook on the horizon?
KEN: I don’t think anytime soon. I can’t imagine another book being any more enjoyable than this was. It has so much meaning to it. So, I think I’m fine with this one.
This interview was edited for length and clarity and appeared as a To Market online exclusive in June, 2023.
