What You Really Want to Know About the Famed Blogger Behind Smitten Kitchen

Updated on 6/19/2016 at 9:30 AM

Blogger Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen conjures prose that's quite possibly just as delicious as the recipes she develops in her itty-bitty New York kitchen. If you've read her blog over the years, you're probably the proud owner of her sole cookbook, The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook (a New York Times 2012 bestseller that remains on the Amazon bestsellers list to this day). But, did you know she met her husband through her blog? Or that you might not find spicy (like cayenne-dusted) recipes on her site, despite her vast spice collection? Read on for more intriguing facts about one of the most popular food bloggers there is:

Before the blog, she was an art therapist.
The blog's original name was Smitten, and the fourth person to comment eventually became her husband!
She reads every comment on her blog. She told NPR it has become "invaluable" when writing recipes . . . and obviously her dating life.
She used to be a vegetarian.
She may have a small kitchen, but it remains very well-stocked. She has 78 spices, including her favorites: smoked paprika, Vietnamese cinnamon, fennel seeds, and sumac.
"Homemade vanilla extract will change your life" she told Slate.
In that same Slate interview, she joked, "Sprinkles. Essential, when you have a child and also when you are a child yourself."
When it comes to parties, she told New York Magazine, "I have one big rule for dinner parties: I will be at my party. Not in the kitchen, not chopping salad, not washing dishes — I will be at the table, sitting down, drinking my wine, my shoes off because I'm in my own home."
Deb's essential kitchen tool are "tongs that self-lock . . . basically an extension of my hands," she told The Guardian.
You probably won't ever find spicy recipes on her site. She told The Guardian in the same interview, "I love Mexican food but I'm kind of a wimp; I can never handle it as hot as I wish."
She wasn't on board with the kale craze until she made this salad with pecorino and walnuts. "I'm going to have to reconsider my identity as a kale skeptic," she told NPR. True story: even we have a riff of Deb's recipe.