Laura Scherb is the blogger behind Page & Plate a Chicago-based food and book blog. Every post pairs a recipe with a book! She also occasionally blog about her travels, including, most recently, New York City.
1. When did you start blogging and what inspired you to start you blog?
Page & Plate was born when I took a picture of the book Mosquitoland and a shrimp polenta dish I had made for breakfast one morning. The book and the dish looked so good together, and represented the perfect morning for me: cooking a hearty, healthy meal and then settling in with a book. On Page & Plate, I recommend books worth reading, recipes worth cooking, and other things that make life happy. I’m not a diet blog, and I don’t count calories. I don’t believe in obsessively tracking my progress in books, and I refuse to feel bad for not yet finishing Infinite Jest.
2. What is your favorite blog post that you have written?
My favorite post that I’ve written is the one that paired my eggplant parmesan recipe and the book Pasta Pane Vinoby Matt Goulding with meeting Phil Rosenthal, who hosts the show Somebody Feed Phil on Netflix. I loved writing this post because the recipe featured here is the one that means a lot to me: I often joke with people that if it weren’t for my chicken parmesan recipe, I wouldn’t have any friends from college. Though that’s mostly a joke, it reminds me why I started loving cooking to begin with: it brings people together! Also, meeting Phil was very cool and intimidating, as evidenced by my face in the picture of us that night.
3. What do you love about blogging?
I love cooking and reading, and it’s great to have a place to focus that passion. But my favorite part of blogging in Chicago is the community I’ve discovered here. Between the shop owners, farmers, fellow bloggers, cooks, restaurant owners, new readers, and wine enthusiasts, I’ve met a huge, wonderful group of people I never would have if I hadn’t started blogging.
4. What are some brands that you have worked with, or some brands that you would love to work with?
I’ve worked with Old Town Oil and Savory Spice Shop to design recipes for their products, which I’ve so enjoyed, and I’m currently in the midst of a monthly cooking and wine pairing class with the most amazing wineHouse Chicago in Lakeview (our next class is on December 18 and focuses on appetizers for New Year’s Eve!). I’ve also collaborated with Shop 1021 and CJB Creations. I’d love to work with Morton Salt, Eataly, and Whole Foods.