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Eitan Bernath does not grocery shop like a typical 20-year-old. When he’s not traveling for work, the social media personality, author of Eitan Eats the World, and part-time student at Columbia University likes strolling through Eataly to build out his collection of balsamic vinegars and olive oils, or combing through spices for inspiration at Kalustyan’s in Manhattan.
Shortly after he was appointed to the United Nations World Food Programme, and right before he started planning his Passover menu, I sat down with Bernath to hear about the contents of his freezer and why he likes to do as much grocery shopping as possible in New Jersey.
What kind of cooking mood have you been in lately?
It’s funny to say this because when I was 11 I was actually on Chopped. But I kind of just play Chopped a lot of nights and look at what I have in the fridge or what I have in the pantry. And I love Indian cuisine, so I do a lot of taking whatever veg I have, taking whatever protein I have, and making an Indian-ish dish with it.
Sometimes I like to treat myself. Last night I made a little solo date night dinner. I made a wild mushroom risotto. Wild mushroom risotto is one of my favorite things on earth. And I live right near Eataly, so I went there.
I know you probably cook more than the average college student because it’s your career, but what’s your most college-y food habit lately?
I love keeping things in the freezer that I can very easily heat up. I feel like college kids are super busy, they don’t always have time to cook, and with my work schedule I’m often too busy to cook. So I like to keep a lot of frozen cookie doughs. I feel like most college kids probably buy cookie dough and freeze it, but I like to make the cookie dough when I have time and freeze it in balls.
So honestly, I would say freezing items. A lot of times, I’ll make biscuit dough, and then I’ll freeze precut biscuit dough, and then bake that in the morning. So if I don’t have time to make breakfast, I’ll just pop it in the toaster oven, cook it, and eat it.
I at all times have at least one to three types of cookie dough in my freezer. So there’s one on my website—it’s a caramelized white chocolate oatmeal cookie. The caramelized white chocolate was a technique I wanted to teach when I did the recipe, but it’s a little laborious, so I usually just make it with regular white chocolate. The other cookie on my rotation is just a classic chocolate chip cookie—you can’t go wrong with that. The one I made yesterday was a dark chocolate cookie dough with dark chocolate chips, and it was heavenly.
What are three items on your grocery list?
I do my food shopping every Sunday because I visit my family in Jersey. And the price of food in New York City is absolutely insane. I would say every week I buy cauliflower. There’s no week that goes by when there’s not one meal where I want cauliflower in it. I’m someone who hyper-fixates on food. So when it was in season, any type of squash. Delicata squash, acorn squash. In October and November, I was always buying one of those.
I always keep English muffins on hand. I keep them in the freezer so I can quickly microwave them, have them with jam. I love doing tuna melts with them.
And the other thing I always buy is some kind of dark chocolate. I don’t like milk chocolate that much, but one of my favorite little, very easy snacks is I take a little piece of dark chocolate and a cashew and pop it in the mouth. Am I going to go through the process of melting the chocolate and coating the cashews? Absolutely not. Will I occasionally be high-maintenance and do a little bit of chocolate, a cashew, and a piece of Maldon salt? Yes. If I’m feeling fancy.
What are your favorite places to shop in New York?
I have very specific places in the city I like for specific items. Union Square Greenmarket for whenever I need high-quality produce, things that are super seasonal, great to support New York’s farmers. And they also just have great produce. Right now it’s a lot of apples, potatoes, onions, some gourds. But in the summer is really when it shines. My favorite thing to get there in the summer is watercress. I only discovered this in the past year or so, but I love watercress.
I also live pretty close to Eataly. I would say I’m in Eataly once or twice a week. That’s where I’ll get cheeses. Their parm is the best. They have great burrata, great mozzarella. And I collect balsamic vinegars and extra virgin olive oils, and they have a great selection there.
And my last favorite place is Kalustyan’s, which I also live close to. One of my tricks when I feel culinarily stunted is that I’ll walk into Kalustyan’s and find a spice and google what to cook with it.
There was once a month when I bought Sichuan peppercorns four times from there, and I kept forgetting that I bought them. I bought the Sichuan peppercorns, made something delicious with them, and then I went back like a week later, saw them, said, “Ooh, this looks fun, let me buy it.”
How many different kinds of balsamic vinegar do you have in your collection?
Right now I really only have three or four left. But typically I like to keep on hand six to 10. I like the thicker balsamics. With olive oils, I probably have 12 to 15 of those.
What are your cooking goals for Passover this year?
One thing I’m very excited for is that I cooked with one of my culinary idols, Michael Solomonov. He and I became friends recently—we met at a Hanukkah event in DC. We did a video making matzo meal schnitzel. So I’m very excited about that.
My mom’s gluten-free, and everyone always says, “You must love Passover because everyone’s not eating wheat.” But the hard part is, I’m Ashkenazi, so we don’t eat legumes. So it’s always a fun challenge to make desserts my mom can eat on Passover that aren’t just, like, potato starch. Pavlovas, I find, are great. I’m a big Passover pavlova man.
