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Diane Morrisey: From Self-Taught Culinary Sensation to Adored Food Influencer
She's built a massive Instagram platform by sharing easy recipes and turned it into her first cookbook, ‘You Got This!’
A self-taught home cook with six mostly grown kids, Diane Morrisey redefines easy cooking.
AARP (Courtesy Sydney Sheehan)
Diane Morrisey, 58, originally got on Instagram to spy on her kids.
Then one day in 2017, the mother of six posted a photo of a birthday cake she’d made for her daughter, Frances. Users noticed. “My kids were like, ‘Mom, you got so many likes!’ I’m like, “What’s a like?”
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She started regularly posting shots of food, beautifully photographed and arranged.
“I was an art major in college, so I have always been creative with a good eye for composition,” she says. Later in her career, she ran the Prepared Foods department at Whole Foods. “I learned how to present food in a creative and attractive way ... so the jump to composing pretty food pictures for Instagram was not a big one. I understood what looked nice and what people responded to.”
“You Got This! Recipes Anyone Can Make and Everyone Will Love” hits shelves March 25.
Courtesy Simon & Schuster
Cook with Diane
Morrisey shared three recipes from You Got This for AARP members to try:
While this preparation isn’t an authentic version of the Louisiana classic, this sheet pan rendition will certainly be a welcome addition to your recipe arsenal.
Chicken and Barley Soup with Lemon and Dill
This soup is loaded with the perfect balance of tender chunks of chicken, hearty barley and vegetables in a flavorful broth.
This variation is super versatile because you can make them with any combination of jam and berries that you want.
A fan base quickly formed — not just for the food, but also for Diane’s genuine encouragement and down-to-earth delivery in her posts, ending with a “you got this!” message. New chefs could appreciate her patient explanations, while seasoned cooks could enjoy unexpected ingredients or techniques. Popular recipes on her page include decadent Roasted Garlic Garlic Bread and sweet-and-salty Carmelita Bars, and twists on old-school classics, like a green bean casserole topped with onion rings. Today, her Instagram following has hit an impressive 1.4 million followers — a big surprise to her, considering she didn’t always consider herself much of a chef.
“When I got married 30 years ago, I really didn’t know how to cook,” she says. “I had strong cooking influences — my mom and my grandmother, who came over from Italy — and I have been the recipient of amazing food all my life. I paid attention. But when I got married, I was like, ‘Oh yikes, I actually have to do this.’ ”
Her forthcoming cookbook, You Got This! Recipes Anyone Can Make and Everyone Will Love, includes more than 100 recipes and captures the same pep-talk energy she needed all those years ago. “Cooking is 90 percent confidence and 10 percent being able to read a recipe,” she insists. “You learn by getting in the kitchen. You can’t be afraid.”
Here, AARP catches up with Diane about the new cookbook, her best hack for plating food and her unconventional path to the food world.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Food wasn’t your first career path. You majored in art and even taught art classes for grammar school kids. How does that show up in your work?
I’ve always thought food was beautiful, that it was like an art project. I remember going to the prepared foods departments and standing in front of the chef’s case just watching, observing how they designed their platters. I was so intrigued by how things were presented and laid out. When I started making food and photographing it for my feed, the fun part was for me designing the photo! I was always a frustrated artist. [Laughs] But I think my creativity came out in my kitchen.
Your book and your feed include a wide range of recipes, including plenty of spins on the classics. What makes a recipe the right fit for your audience?
I have nothing against the classics, the things that we are familiar with. But I do love switching things up. In the cookbook I have a jambalaya that I did on a sheet pan — you don’t see that a lot! But it’s a really good way to use up extra rice, and that’s how the recipe was born. I had extra rice, so what am I doing with it? It ended up being a sheet-pan jambalaya.
A lot of my recipes include items that you probably already have. Today, for example, I was cleaning out my fridge. I had a thing of Trader Joe’s pie crust, deli meat, cheese and spinach, and used it to put together a free-form pie. Once you know how to do that technique, you really could fill it with whatever the hell you want! [My recipes are] about inspiring them to use what they have in a fresh way.
How has your approach to cooking changed as you’ve gotten older and moved through different seasons of life?
I’ve never been one to collect every new kitchen gadget and tool and new thing. But I do videos for Food Network — they send me recipes and then I make meals for them — and two years ago, one of them involved an air fryer, so I bought one. And it was like nirvana to me! [Laughs] It would have made no sense for a family of my size when they were all home; I’d have to fill that damn air fryer 95 times. But now I’m embracing different kitchen gadgets that I never would have when I had a full house.
Do you have any quick hacks to make a dish look prettier on the table?
To me, having fresh herbs is just such a no-brainer. Grow them! On my deck, I have 20 big pots, and they’re chock full of every herb you can imagine. And even if you can’t grow them, a bunch of parsley, a bunch of rosemary, a pack of thyme? You can get them at the store for $1.99 each. Herbs are the easiest way to bring freshness and a little pop of wonderful flavor and zhuzh to any meal.
Is there anything that hasn’t changed for you, after all these years cooking?
I got all of my cooking experience from my Italian grandmother. And it was so obvious from the beginning with her, and with my mom as well, that food is love. Food was always love.
My mom used to make things for each of my brothers and sisters that she knew we loved. When we went away to college, when we came home, she always had our favorite meals for us. And when it was someone’s birthday or a special event or we got a good grade, she always celebrated each of us with our special favorite meal. I’ve always raised my kids the same way.
I’ve been with my husband for 35 years now, and I still always make him the same birthday cake that his mother used to make him. I was the only one who really knew my grandmother’s Italian recipes; I lost my dad last year, and I used to bring them over to him. I had so much damn fun feeding him all the things that he remembered his mother cooking for him. So food is love, and I love celebrating my family and friends with the dishes that they love.
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