Chef shares her past — and her recipes

Chef and food stylist reveals her complicated relationship with food

It would be easy to give yourself over to the esthetics and enticing flavours of Aran Goyoaga’s food, without ever looking deeper.

The Seattle-based writer and photographer is adept at creating a world you want to curl up in — dishes you can’t wait to make, gather around and unreservedly dive into.

If you skip straight to the recipes, though, you’ll miss the backstory — which makes all that she does that much more compelling.

In opening up about her experiences with disordered eating in her second book, Cannelle et Vanille (Sasquatch Books, 2019), Goyoaga tells a fuller story of food. While many will relate to its themes of identity and healing, few share their eating struggles publicly, let alone in a cookbook format.

From a childhood spent in her grandparents’ pastry shop to an eating disorder she kept secret in her teens, Goyoaga traces her path from the Basque Country in northern Spain to the U.S.

After leaving a career in business to become a professional pastry chef and working in the kitchen of a five-star Florida hotel, Goyoaga started a blog — also called Cannelle et Vanille — which laid the foundations for her career as a photographer and food stylist. Cooking, which she had initially resisted, had become both a sanctuary and creative outlet.

“Restriction or expression — (food) has been the thread in my life,” says Goyoaga.

Her decision to frame the book around a day in her kitchen arose from a video series she produced several years ago, A Cook’s Remedy.

In it, she addressed the “complex role” food has had in her life and paired each of the four episodes with a recipe (all gluten-free and inspired by the seasons).

Looking at food and nourishment through recipes “that represent who I am, my history, how I cook for my family and my friends, and myself ” became the backbone of Cannelle et Vanille.

“I knew people would resonate with it. Not everybody has gone through what I’ve gone through … but everybody has felt alienated or stuck or anxious, or not knowing where they belong.

“These are universal ideas and having some way to express yourself is really important. Whether that’s through music or writing, through cooking or through making socks for your neighbour,” says Goyoaga.

The significance of the book’s title, Cannelle et Vanille (cinnamon and vanilla) lies in her earliest memory — the scent of cinnamonand vanilla-infused custard cooking on the stove, tended to by her maternal grandmother Miren.

A pastry chef herself, her grandmother pasteurized raw milk in large pots every day, skimming the cream once it rose to the top and spreading it on toast with a sprinkle of sugar and cinnamon for a snack, and using any leftover milk from the custard to make arroz con leche (rice pudding) or flan.

“There are just so many little things like that. It almost sounds made up, but they were really moments and that’s how we remember my grandmother,” says Goyoaga.

Recipes excerpted from

Cannelle et Vanille by permission of Sasquatch Books.