Quotes from Molly Yeh

On an ideal Saturday night, I'll go to the New York City Ballet, where my friends play percussion.

I am that dork who packs a bike helmet in her suitcase.

If people feel inspired to try something new and different in the kitchen then I'll have accomplished what I wanted to accomplish.

When the chickpeas are still warm from boiling, you get warm hummus, which feels more like a meal. And it's not that hard. Just plan ahead, soak them all night, and dump them in the food processor.

In most places in the Midwest, the best food is found in people's homes, on their farms, at church potlucks.

Think realistically with what you're going to eat - don't plant 200 radishes!

Don't plant too deeply. Pay attention to the directions on the seed packets as far as how deep and how close together to plant the seeds.

Question: How do you make a plate of hummus filling enough for a bunch of big burly farmers? Answer: Put meat all over it.

I always enjoyed baking, but as far as eating, I always picked cheese fries over sweets.

By the time a meal I'm preparing rolls around, I'm usually so full from tasting that I'm not hungry any more.

I keep everything in Notepad: shopping lists, to-do lists, recipe tasting notes, my blog content calendar, recipe inspiration, blog-post drafts.

I live about five hours away from a Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, so I have to make extra sure that I get everything I need, otherwise I'm totally screwed.

My journey from the blog to my books to the show has been fueled by a love of food and sharing it with others, and being able to pursue my passions as a career is a dream come true.

I got so excited, just talking about hummus to the Food Network. I feel like you don't see a lot of hummus and challah and shakshuka on the Food Network and that was really the meat of the process.

There were a lot of publishers that I loved, so the book went to auction. An auction is where you sit nervously by your phone and eat potato chips for two days waiting for your agent to text you numbers of the highest bid for each round. I ultimately went with Dervla Kelly at Rodale Books.

I suddenly had all of this time on my hands, so I just threw myself into the blog and then worked on photos, recipe development and networking with other bloggers, growing a following and growing it into something that could be a business.

I love finding ways to bridge the gap between my heritage and my new farming community. An ingredient such as za'atar might be foreign, but throwing it into something familiar - a hot dish or an eggbake - makes it more approachable.

Having an agent who had been through the process a million times and who could walk me through the process freed up a lot of mental space for me to just focus on the creative. I also worked with recipe testers, photographers, and assistants who were invaluable in creating a book that I'm truly proud of.

I don't want to take up space with another avocado toast.

The first five years I lived in New York I was going out every night, to restaurants and album releases and parties.

Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago and living in New York, it didn't even strike me as a possibility that a place could really exist without tons of Jews.

In the beginning, my blog was exclusively read by my mom.

I'm not above jarred baby food, if it's good ingredients, for convenience sake.

My greatest inspiration is my Chinese and Jewish heritage and my travels.