Danielle Kosann - Great tastes: cooking (and eating) from morning to midnight

Thank you to Amanda Englander, our editor, for making this book happen, and to the wonderful team at Clarkson Potter: Doris Cooper, Ian Dingman, Christine Tanigawa, Heather Williamson, Kevin Sweeting, Natasha Martin, and Erin Voigt; and our amazing photographer Aubrie Pick and Cortney Munna. Thank you to our recipe maven Kristin Donnelly; our favorite agent, Margaret Riley King, for always having our back; our associate editor, Catherine Collentine, without whom we could never have found the time to do this book; Laura Brown, Aubrey Anderson-Emmons, Katie Couric, and all the other fantastic people who inspired us to write the stories that make this book what it is; Christina Tosi, for your endless support and inspiration; our family and friends, for always being there; our grandmother Katharina Perlow, for making us love food, and our grandfather Bill Perlow, for being one of the best people to share a meal with; Seth and Matt (We love you!); and lastly to our parents, Monica and Rod Kosann, who always told us anything was possible.

DANIELLE AND LAURA KOSANN both live in New York City. Visit them at TheNewPotato.com.

MORNING

BREAKFAST

(AND BUBBLEGUM IN A DISH)

WITH AUBREY

ANDERSON

EMMONS

We thought it would be fun to do a short video in which we go trick-or-treating with a child starand whether this was a calculated creative decision or a ploy for us to load up on candy as adults is a question we choose not to answer. Our trick-or-treating comrade of choice was the adorable Aubrey Anderson-Emmons, who plays Lily on Modern Family.

We were to arrive at Aubreys house in Los Angeles first thing in the morning. Laura tends to approach every videoeven four-minute oneswith a Spielbergian seriousness, so even though trick-or-treating was not the most complex of plotlines, an early start was essential. Danielle emailed Aubreys mom, Amy, the night before to get breakfast orders. (You wouldnt want to show up empty-handed, would you?) Aubreys request was a cinnamon bagel with cream cheese. Easy enough.

The next morning we stood at the bagel shop completely dumbfounded upon seeing both cinnamon-raisin bagels and cinnamon-sugar bagels as options. We were at a loss. Which one had Amy been referring to, and if we messed it up, what would happen? Wed watched enough Modern Family to know about the wrath of Lily, and were convinced the actress and character were one and the same.

Our stress might sound ridiculous, but as our mom always said, you only get one chance at making a first impression, and meeting someone under ten is no exception to this rule. Also lets face it, as far as children go, mixing up something like raisins and sugar is the adult equivalent of showing up drunk to a job interview; its not just frowned uponits utterly unacceptable. The stakes were high.

We stood at the counter analyzing Amys email, as if there were some sort of code to be unlocked from the words Cinnamon bagel. The man behind the counter eyed us like we were lunatics; even by Los Angeles standards, we were taking an oddly long time to ponder our order.

After debating the matter for a good twenty-three minutes, we went with our gut and decided on cinnamon raisin. We figured we could always say we picked the more nutritious of the two breakfast options in case we had guessed wrong. As this was one of our first video shoots for the website, though, our nerves were making us imagine unreasonable things, like a No wire hangers!!!! Mommie Dearest scene of sortsjust replace the hangers with a cinnamon-raisin bagel, and Joan Crawford with a four-foot-five seven-year-old. In the end, the catastrophe wed imagined was avoided. The New Potato and Aubrey Anderson-Emmons became fast friends, thanks to our solid bagel-ordering skills.

While Laura is the younger sister and Danielle the older, the responsible versus irresponsible dynamic youd usually expect actually sometimes reverses during business matters. Lauras the bad cop, Danielle the good cop. Lauras more type A, Danielles more type Bor Cand this video was no exception. While Laura directed people to their positions, made sure everyone was getting micd up, and looked over the shots the crew was setting up, Danielle threw herself into her self-assigned task: playing bubblegum bubblegum in a dish with the talent.

The second Laura would say we were starting to shoot, Aubrey would snap into acting mode and abandon the tower of Reeses peanut butter cups shed built, or the game of rock, paper, scissors shed been playing. On the other hand, Danielle, the adult, would sit sullenly looking after her like a bored kid one hour into Bring Your Daughter to Work Day.

A few houses into our trick-or-treating mission, Aubrey started to get hungry for lunch. We hurriedly landed on ordering from Chipotle, and while all of the grown-ups opted for complex burrito bowls and salads, Aubrey went minimalist with a cheese quesadilla. We handed our intern John the list of orders and he sped to Chipotle, letting us know via text upon his arrival that there was a forty-five-minute wait. Aubrey said she was hungry a few more times, and we eyed each other nervously realizing there was only one solution: more bubblegum bubblegum in a dish. This time we all joined in and tried to make it as enticing and competitive as Super Bowl Sunday, tapping our fists and counting with as much fervor as Tom Brady himself.

By the time John got back, wed nearly forgotten about lunch, but Aubrey eagerly took her seat at the table as he unpacked all the bags. We watched him in what seemed like slow motion, as so many boxes came outbut none of them quesadilla shaped. The blood all but drained from our faces. Laura directed John straight back to Chipotle for that cheese quesadilla with the kind of command Moses used to part the Red Sea. Danielle began brainstorming what more she could bring to the table besides a counting game.

Forty minutes later, Danielle was on her tenth variation of the game, Laura was on her tenth call with John, and Aubreys attention was waning. We were about eleven minutes away from offering to buy her a puppy, when we finally heard John was on his way back, quesadilla in tow.

If anything happens to that quesadillaI swearJohn is fired, Laura practically shouted to the video team. It was an empty threat considering Johns internship was one day long. Danielle apologized for about the twentieth time to Amy, who told us for the twentieth time there was no need to treat this like the Greek tragedy we were treating it as. After all, at least Aubrey had had a hearty breakfast.

Aubrey gave us a taste of her bagel, and for the record, it was delicious. We love to start our mornings in a hearty way. We never skip breakfast, but weve upgraded cinnamon raisin for cinnamon muesli with dates. Read on for this and a few more of our favorite morning recipes.

CINNAMON MUESLI WITH DATES AND PISTACHIOS

Makes 3 heaping cups

2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats or other rolled cereal