Home cooks of Sacramento, rejoice! Benjy Egel, Food & Drink reporter for the Sacramento Bee, has compiled a guide to some of the favorite recipes of the region.
Egel, who grew up in Davis, has seen the food scene in the area change firsthand, ramping up after Sacramento was named the “Farm-to-Fork” capital in 2012. In his role at the Bee, Egel has had the chance to try some of the fruits of that evolution.
The cookbook he’s curated, “Sacramento Eats: Recipes from the Capital Region’s Favorite Restaurants,” comes out on Nov. 17, and is available for preorder now. It features 60 recipes from Sacramento institutions like Frank Fat's, Zócalo and Freeport Bakery. He spoke with CapRadio's Kate Wolffe about how the book came together, his favorite recipes and the surprising Sacramento export most residents don’t know about.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Interview highlights
You've been a food and beverage reporter for the Sacramento Bee for coming up on six years. When did you first have the idea to put out a cookbook?
I think it was about two years ago now. I was driving back from Los Angeles. And as anyone who's ever done that drive on I-5 knows, it's long and it's tedious and it's boring. And for me, it was like a shower thought, you have so much space in your brain that you go to some crazy places. And I just thought, what if I could do this cookbook using recipes from Sacramento chefs and using the dishes that they make in their restaurants?
And from there, it sat in the back of my mind for a few years. And then I was a fellow through the Poynter-Koch Media and Journalism Fellowship, and I was able to use the connections in there, use their advice and use the inspiration of everyone being assigned an innovation project to make that happen and make that my project.
The cookbook is 160 pages and features everything from appetizers, salads, entrees, and desserts. What was the process like, putting it together?
I pitched my editors at the Sacramento Bee on the idea, I think at the end of last year or start of this year, and they were all for it. From there, I went and contacted a publisher where we struck an agreement that we would work on this book together. And then I curated a list of all the restaurants I might like to have involved. And I just started texting, calling all my contacts in the Sacramento restaurant scene.
How long did that whole process take?
It was about four or five months, I think, to put it all together. And for each of these I wrote introductory paragraphs as well and explained where the restaurant is and what kind of other food they're known for. And we have photos for each of the restaurants as well. So yeah, it was a pretty short timeframe to get the whole book out, but we're still working through some of the last editing steps, but it's pretty close to being ready.
You've been reporting here for six years and grew up in the region. How have you seen the food scene here change?
Sacramento's food scene has really changed in the almost 30 years that I've lived here, especially in the last 10 years. It was really associated with Capitol lunches and downtown workers grabbing something, maybe a happy hour. But the city closed down in large part after 7 p.m.
And now when you walk around Midtown, you see all kinds of restaurants from all kinds of culinary backgrounds. You have interesting new concepts that are starting here. You have restaurateurs that are starting second and third restaurants because they have the support from the community to do that. I mean, it's really just grown in leaps and bounds over the last decade. I think the Farm-to-Fork movement is a big part of that. At the same time, Sacramento's always been a very diverse city, and that shines through in our culinary scene.
Have you made all of the recipes yourself and have you tried them all yourself?
Not yet. I'm hoping to as we get through the process, but with the short timeframe, we just sort of relied on the chefs knowing what they were doing. If something seemed like it was a little off, we would follow up and we'd ask clarifying questions. And sometimes a writer is able to explain a little clearer than a chef what exactly they're talking about as far as technique for a home cook. But no, I haven't made most of the recipes so far yet. I'm hoping that when it does come out, I'll be able to have some friends over and we'll have some sort of potluck where everyone makes a dish from the cookbook and we can all enjoy that together.
And I'll be invited.
Of course, yeah.
You've described food as a prominent cultural beacon for Sacramento, and we are the Farm-to-Fork Capital. How do you think that this cookbook tells the story of the region?
I'm really proud of the scope of restaurants that we have included in it. We have a Michelin-star restaurant. We also have restaurants where you can spend single-digit dollars. We have Cambodian places and Mexican places and Vietnamese and Black-owned places. And I think that we really do capture the wealth of creativity and talent that we have in Sacramento's restaurant scene. Sixty recipes is a good amount to put together. And I think that by making it such a large scope, we were able to get a lot of the recipes, not just from Sacramento, but from Roseville or Davis or West Sacramento that are really special as well.
You've also said food tells stories of people's lives. Were there any recipes that really exemplify this for you?
Q1227 is one of the most popular restaurants in Placer County. It's started by Quentin “Chef Q” Bennett in Roseville. Before this, Chef Q was the chef at Echo & Rig, a downtown steakhouse near the arena. But before that, he was one of eight kids growing up in Gainesville, Florida, and he started his own restaurant here to really bring that down-home, soul food, Southern cooking to the big stage like this. So it's a fine dining restaurant, but the dish that he's submitted, jambalaya, is something that he grew up eating and has a lot of cultural relevance for him and his family. And so I love seeing it presented with saffron rice and with some airs on it, but still honoring who he is and where he grew up.
I am not the best cook in the world. What is a recipe I can look forward to finding in the cookbook that might be easy and quick but will still impress?
Kru Contemporary Japanese cuisine is one of the best restaurants in Sacramento by most people's measures. They're really known for their sushi, which is really excellent. They also have a great kitchen staff and hot plates that come out are really good, and they submitted a warm mushroom salad recipe. You have to find the right mushrooms and the right greens, but it's pretty easy to make and pretty easy to put together. And I know that's one of the fan favorites over there as well.
Is there anything surprising about Sacramento's food scene that you think people might not expect?
It's not in the book necessarily, but I always love telling people that we produce 80% of U.S. domestic caviar in Sacramento County. It's mostly in sort of the outlying regions, but there are huge sturgeon farms out there. And this is really premium stuff. It's served at Michelin-starred restaurants up and down the state. And yeah, it comes from right in our backyard, which is a fun fact not everyone knows about.
