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Ezra Pound Cake: Interview with Rebecca Crump
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Rebecca Crump, author of the widely popular blog, Ezra Pound Cake, has been making her readers drool for years. Rebecca not only writes Ezra Pound Cake, she's also the Nashville Food Examiner for Examiner.com. I met Rebecca in cyberspace last year at Tuesdays With Dorie - a huge online baking club that follows dessert guru Dorie Greenspan. Rebecca is an awesome food stylist and photographer, and she loves to bake, hence the name, Ezra Pound Cake!
Rebecca claims, "Since I have already declared myself a baker by way of my blog name, it is a safe assumption that most of what you will find on my blog focuses on baking and the resulting sweets. You will find a smaller selection of meals scattered throughout the chocolate, cakes, and cookies. What you will find in the way of “meal-type-food” is a selection of more classic and comfort foods such as pastas, soups, stews, appetizers/dips, and an all-time favorite, roasted potatoes. "
Rebecca's tag line is 'Sweet, Savory, Sinful". Does that tell you anything? So, do yourself a favor and check out Ezra Pound Cake for the best in fine pastries, awesome desserts and a generous helping of Food Porn!
Rebecca Crump of Ezra Pound Cake
Ezra Pound Cake is an interesting name for a food blog. What does it mean?
- “Wheel of Fortune” has this type of puzzle they call a “Before & After,” so the solution will be something like “Toby Keith Urban” or “Whitney Houston Texas.” That’s what “Ezra Pound Cake” is. It combines Ezra Pound, the Modernist poet, with Pound Cake, one of my favorite desserts, and it spells out my own “before” and “after” as a writer-turned-baker.
What was your motivation for starting Ezra Pound Cake?
- When I started EPC, I had just left my job as head pastry chef at a German bakery to get married and move to another city. So, I saw food blogging as a way to reach out and keep challenging myself while I tried to figure out what was next for me.
Where did you get your culinary training from?
- I did it the old-fashioned way, as an apprentice. I’d been struggling with how to change careers, from writing to professional cooking. One afternoon, I was checking the Classifieds and saw an ad for a new bakery. The owner was taking applications that day, for just another hour! And that was my sign, you know? I walked in, hoping she wouldn’t laugh at me. Instead, she offered to train me to be the head pastry chef.
Does cooking and baking run in the family?
- Yes, definitely. My grandmother always had a vegetable garden and did a lot of cooking, baking and canning. Mom regularly sends me home with a pan of her frozen lasagna – pure luxury. And my sister makes a mean Red Velvet Cake.
I see you do a lot of Southern-style cooking. What other foods do you enjoy?
- I see cooking as a form of entertainment, so I love experimenting with techniques and learning about different foods. Lately, I’ve been stuck on Mexican food – all the peppers, grilled corn, chile rellenos, salsas, tacos, quesadillas … so much variety. We have Mexican food at least once a week.
Do you blog full time, and if not, what is your real day job?
- I’m a professional blogger and freelance writer.
Your photos are always so crisp and lickably real. What camera are you using, and if you had unlimited funds, what camera would you buy?
- Wow, thanks! For the past month, I’ve been using a Canon Rebel XT, and it’s getting very hard to leave it at home. I want to take it everywhere. Ooh, a flower! (Click!) Ooh, a mailbox! (Click!) If I had unlimited funds, I’d keep my camera and pick up some funkier models, like a Holga and a Diana. Professional photographers are hanging their heads in shame right now, because I could probably find both of those for less than $200.
Tell us more about your baking gig with Tuesdays With Dorie.
- Tuesdays With Dorie was the first online cooking group I joined. Basically, we’re a group of more than 300 bloggers who’ve agreed to bake our way through Dorie Greenspan’s book, “Baking: From My Home To Yours.” We all post our takes on the same recipe every Tuesday. It’s incredibly random but rewarding, and the group has a great sense of community.
- I’m also a member of Barefoot Bloggers, a group that tries different Barefoot Contessa recipes, and You Want Pies With That?, a group of bakers who create theme-based pies once a month.
- The online cooking groups are really fun, because the assignments push you to try recipes you might have skipped on your own and be creative. Plus, you have hundreds of people who can give you advice if you can’t find an ingredient or if something goes wrong.
How many cookbooks do you own?
- I own a little more than 100 cookbooks, plus binders full of recipes and food magazines. But I don’t keep anything that I don’t use. I don’t consider myself a collector. That makes the addiction OK, right?
Favorite kitchen equipment or appliance?
- I love, love, love my Wusthof Santoku knife. It’s a Japanese chef’s knife with a very slight curve – light and easy to handle. I use it for almost all of my slicing, dicing and chopping.
Do you taste-test everything you make?
- Absolutely! I taste a little as I go, because if something’s not right, I want to know as soon as possible so that I can fix the problem or start over.
What has been your #1 most memorable recipe?
- Jeff married me for my cinnamon rolls, but I haven’t posted that recipe.
- My most popular recipes have been home-style favorites, like chicken pot pie and those no-bake chocolate, peanut butter and oatmeal cookies everyone remembers their mom making. But I think the most memorable thing on the blog so far has been the catfish cake I made for my brother-in-law’s birthday a few years ago: a Neapolitan cake topped with a sculpted catfish. Hard to top that.
Any duds, something you threw away?
- You can’t become a good cook without leaving a trail of burnt biscuits and runny pecan pies behind you.
- My worst experience was trying to make a King Cake for Mardi Gras. Each recipe I tried only made things worse: they burned, they exploded, they cooked onto the top of the oven. Finally, I wrote a post about this epic failure, and a nice woman from New Orleans e-mailed me that they made their King Cake out of canned crescent rolls.
Where do you see Ezra Pound Cake going from here?
- My plan is to let EPC grow organically, so that it becomes a resource for people interested in cooking and entertaining at home. Right now, I’m expanding the recipes into suggested menus and planning to add tutorials and how-to photos.
Any cookbooks in the works?
- I’m still finding my own style as a recipe writer, but I’d love to eventually publish a cookbook.
What 5 food bloggers would you like me to interview next?
- I’d love to know more about Holly Hanks (PheMOMenon), Bren Herrera (Bren’s FLANboyant Eats), Dana McCauley (Dana McCauley’s food blog), Michael Procopio (Food for the Thoughtless) and Rachel Rappaport (Coconut & Lime).
Last meal - What would it be?
- I would finally be brave enough to try the extra-hot chicken from Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack. It comes in a paper bag with a big red “X” on it! They call it the “24-hour chicken” or the “cleansing chicken.” Scary! And then I’d have one last chocolate-hot pepper popsicle from Las Paletas. They’re addictive.
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Do you have an awesome food blog with sinfully rich photos we can lick off the screen? If so, email me at cruisingkitty@hotmail.com for an exclusive interview and some great press!
Photos and interview are copyrighted and used with written permission by Rebecca Crump of Ezra Pound Cake.
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