{"id":573,"date":"2012-03-05T20:08:12","date_gmt":"2012-03-05T20:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=573"},"modified":"2012-03-08T18:33:59","modified_gmt":"2012-03-08T18:33:59","slug":"know-your-local-cook-erica-clark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/know-your-local-cook-erica-clark\/","title":{"rendered":"Know Your Local Cook: Erika Clark"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Position & Restaurant:<\/strong><\/span> Sweetpea Sweets<\/strong><\/span>, home baker and owner. I pay the bills by rolling sushi\/serving at Two Stick and bake in my spare time.<\/p>\n

Hometown:<\/strong><\/span> I was born in Tupelo, Miss., but from moving all over I claim Louisiana as my home (and heart).<\/p>\n

How did you get into cooking?<\/strong><\/span> I was born into it. Part of my family is from Italy and like all good Italian families we have our signature secret recipes we swear are better than all others.<\/p>\n

Who is your favorite cook\/chef?<\/span><\/strong><\/span> I don\u2019t tend to follow chefs like some foodies. I follow the food. If it\u2019s good, I\u2019ll eat it…doesn\u2019t matter if it was my best friend\u2019s mom or the chef at the French Laundry.<\/p>\n

What kitchen tool\/utensil could you not live without?<\/strong><\/span> My KitchenAid 5 qt. Professional stand mixer.<\/p>\n

What is the best thing about your job?<\/strong><\/span> Being my own boss and deciding what recipes to create next and when.<\/p>\n

What is your favorite flavor combo?<\/strong><\/span> I love anything sweet and sour…and spicy.<\/p>\n

Name three items in your fridge:<\/strong><\/span> homemade yogurt cheese, strawberries, and eggs.<\/p>\n

Where do you get your best recipe ideas?<\/strong><\/span> The internet. I think of a flavor combination and then see if it has been done yet and how. Then I try to top it. I also love to recreate old classics such as my red velvet cheesecake or peach cobbler cheesecake.<\/p>\n

What is the best meal you\u2019ve ever eaten?<\/strong><\/span> How does any chef narrow this down to one thing? I loved the \u201cwood-oven roasted pork shoulder with smoked ham hock, braised black turtle beans, charred salsa verde and spiced carrots\u201d and affogato for dessert from Avec in Chicago. I love the bananas foster french toast from Stanley in New Orleans. One of the most unique and freshest by far was all the Thai food I had in Thailand from street venders of fresh mango and chicken satay to the best papaya salads (and spiciest!) made fresh every time you order.<\/p>\n

Personal specialties:<\/strong><\/span> Everyone knows me for the specialty cheesecakes I do at Two Stick. Between my Italian food and fancy desserts I\u2019m sure to fatten up the diners.<\/p>\n

Favorite Midnight snack:<\/strong><\/span> My mom and I would always buy cheap yellow cake mix just so we could snack on cake batter before making a small cake.\u00a0 Now they make cake batter ice cream so we can skip the Salmonella risk.<\/p>\n

Favorite Kitchen Music:<\/strong><\/span> Typically I don\u2019t listen to anything, but if I do I have to be able to sing to it.<\/p>\n

Who would you most like to cook for and what would you prepare?<\/strong><\/span> My grandfather died when I was 12, so he never got to try my cooking after the country fried steaks and chocolate oatmeal cookies.\u00a0 I would love to cook for him a starter of grilled ravioli, grilled bread salad with a balsamic-honey-thyme dressing, family recipe lasagna (with handmade pasta), and finish with an assortment of bite-sized cheesecakes and lemon sponge pudding.<\/p>\n

Where do you like to dine in Oxford?<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 SNACKBAR!!<\/p>\n

Favorite restaurant in the world:<\/strong><\/span> It\u2019s all about the desserts for me. I could eat the pistachio gelato at Spindini in Memphis every day.<\/p>\n

Aspirations:<\/strong><\/span> Hopefully I\u2019ll have my own shop to set up a commercial space where I can have room to spread out all my baking stuff and not contain it to \u00be of my kitchen space at home.<\/p>\n

Fried catfish: eat the tail or not?<\/strong><\/span> I\u2019m not a big catfish person. So, I\u2019ll say no. But if you\u2019d asked, \u201cCrawfish: suck the head or not?\u201d I would say definitely suck the head.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Position & Restaurant: Sweetpea Sweets, home baker and owner. I pay the bills by rolling sushi\/serving at Two<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[184,68],"tags":[220,218,219,149],"class_list":["post-573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cooks","category-local-food","tag-cheesecake","tag-erika-clark","tag-sweetpea-sweets","tag-two-stick"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}