How Alexis Deboschnek Found Her Voice in Cooking and Community

By Stacy Adimando 
Photography by Steven Randazzo

After fulfilling big goals in Los Angeles food media, Alexis Deboschnek moved back home to her family’s hundred-acre farmhouse in the western Catskills. There, among her mother’s gardens and her childhood kitchen, is where things really started to click.

When everything stopped at the beginning of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, a new way began for Alexis Deboschnek. Like many of us, the cook and culinary school graduate had been preoccupied with her busy job and social life where she lived in Los Angeles, excited about pursuing opportunities as a freelancer since leaving a recent job. She’d gone from being Test Kitchen Director at BuzzFeed’s blog and video channel Tasty, where much of her days were dedicated to making clickable recipe videos, largely trafficked by millennials. One series, Cook Out of Water, challenged Alexis to make a three-course meal while using only wacky, and often not culinary, appliances (a clothing iron, a wax warmer). While you could see in her videos, she is a natural on camera, and while she says she knew the exposure was probably a good thing, something about the role just felt unnatural. “Looking back, I was kind of like, ‘I’ll do whatever you want me to do,’ and it didn’t feel genuine or authentic to me,” she says.

It took a Covid-inspired move across the country and a somewhat uncertain decision to move with her boyfriend back into her mother’s 1802 Greek revival house in upstate New York for her to realize what was missing at the time. Everything from the landscape to the mediascape looked very different in her tiny, rural hometown of Delhi, New York, but the vast swaths of farmland, the young businesses starting up, and the people — friendly, looking for connection, and quick to jump in and help one another — put her at ease. Something about it felt as if the community there had been waiting for her return all along.

So much began to click, like a new tight-knit community and some new skills she now knows she will have for life. Her mother has long been a proficient gardener and an occasional forager, who would often cook Alexis’ family elaborate meals with local produce and international flavors, even on weeknights. She has an extensive vegetable garden with fruit trees, grows her own flowers, and tends and boards more than a dozen horses on their farm. The same rolling fields that, Alexis admits, had little luster during her adolescence in comparison to NYC and LA became absolutely magnetic to her. 

When you watch Alexis on videos more recently filmed at her home, with its dark wooden countertops and soothing neutral tones, you feel at ease. Everything from the earthy-colored canvas aprons she wears to the way she stirs brownie batter with bare wrists or picks chestnuts from her family’s own trees in the fall has an easy country appeal. “I don’t really know what I’m doing,” she laughs in the chestnut video. But you feel as if you are learning alongside her. 

When we talked recently, Alexis detailed with giddiness how fun it’s been to throw continuous dinner parties on the property while working from home on her second cookbook. “We’re hosting at least twice a week, sometimes more,” she says. Winter is no different: She keeps fires going for guests and friends and lately has been rolling out comforting but special recipes that she’s testing for the book, slated to be called Nights & Weekends. “Coming back here, I’ve been appreciating the sense of wintering, starting with the garden,” she says. “You can appreciate that the plants need some time off, as do we.” 

There’s a palpable maturity in her approach, and her dishes, which feel comfortable yet inspiring, helpfully use up all parts of the ingredients and lack overly fussy finishes. It’s not effortlessness because you know what effort it must take to, say, grow a potato and then make it into a flaky, gruyere-covered tart. But her food just looks like home, and she feels like herself while serving it.

Here is what Alexis had to say about growing up in the Catskills, her second coming, and her plans to stay a while. 

You have been upstate since an early age, right? When and where, and also, what was it like growing up here for you?

My parents moved upstate from Brooklyn, so this place has been what I’ve considered home my whole life. We rented a few different spots around Delhi as they hunted for their ideal home and finally bought a place in 2000. It’s an old Greek revival farmhouse from the 1820s, which they did a major gut renovation. This house specifically — and land — is home to me. As a child, growing up in the Catskills was completely idyllic. I spent most of my time outside, no matter the season. My mom gardened for other people, so I was dragged all around Delaware County to these really impressive gardens and picked up a few things by osmosis. Our life was really guided by the seasons — in the fall, we’d pick apples behind our house and turn them into cider. In the winter, we’d go skiing. In the spring, it was time to plant and take advantage of the longer light. In the summer, we’d forage for chanterelles and take long walks. 

Of course, as a teenager, things changed, and I couldn’t wait to leave. I’ve found that no matter where you are, most teenagers complain about not having anything to do. That wasn’t really my issue — I just felt like I had different aspirations than most of my peers and didn’t fit in. I ended up graduating a year early and taking a year off before college. I left Delhi and spent five months in NYC interning at Cynthia Rowley and three months in France “trying to learn French” (eating pastries and smoking hash — maybe we’ll leave that out).

“As much as I loved coming home to visit, I couldn’t imagine what living in Delhi as an adult would actually be like. Who would I be friends with? What would I do for work? Where would I live? ”

After 14 years away exploring NYC and LA, you found your way back to your childhood home and town. What spurred that on? Did you ever or always think you’d end up back upstate?

If you can believe it, it was my husband’s idea to move back to the Catskills, specifically, that we move in with my mother. I loved living in Los Angeles and had thought that I’d spend the rest of my life in California. As much as I loved coming home to visit, I couldn’t imagine what living in Delhi as an adult would actually be like. Who would I be friends with? What would I do for work? Where would I live? The Covid-19 pandemic completely turned our lives upside down, as it did for so many people. I had left my full-time job nine months before and was still trying to establish myself as a freelance recipe developer and writer. I was starting on my first cookbook but was pretty financially insecure at the time, and when work dried up, I started to panic. Similarly, my husband is a DP (cinematographer) and was also out of work. After six months of locking down in Los Angeles, he suggested we downsize and go back to Delhi for a few months to ride out the pandemic and save money. 

My friends in Los Angeles seemed to know that I wasn’t coming back from the get-go, but it took me much longer to come to terms with that. Fairly immediately when we moved back, we were greeted with this incredible community of people. Delhi, Delaware County, and upstate New York had changed so much. Suddenly, I found a whole community of like-minded people, a ton of creativity, and so many shops and restaurants (you know, comparatively from when I grew up). Six months into our new life, we made the decision to stay. I love my friends in both New York and Los Angeles, but I’ve never felt such a strong sense of community as I do now. There’s a real thread of people being there for one another and showing up — whether that’s to dig a friend out of a literal ditch, to bring food when someone’s sick, or to support each other at events. There’s a strong feeling that we’re all in making this place better together. 

You’ve mentioned in some of your work that your mom is an excellent cook and gardener. What were some of the iconic things she grew and cooked during your youth? These days, who does most of the daily cooking at home?

My mom made [every meal] when I was growing up. For lunch, there would be prosciutto and Brie on sourdough. Sometimes, she’d roast vegetables the night before and layer them with goat cheese on a sandwich. While weeknight dinners featured a lot of simple pastas and rice and beans, she threw regular dinner parties and pulled out all the stops. There were miniature pumpkins filled with corn soup and topped with crab. Indonesian feasts with too many sides and toppings. One Christmas, we decided on a smoked goose. Another year, she made everyone a personal quail. She seemed to do all of this effortlessly, although now I know how much work went into making it happen. These days, my husband probably cooks once a month, and my mom might cook once every three months. Otherwise, I do all the cooking. 

Images from her cookbook To the Last Bite:
Recipes and Ideas for Making the Most of Your Ingredients

Career-wise, how and when did you find your way into food media? Give us a little recap of your career past.

I went to FIT and interned at Eater New York, where I got my first real taste of food media and was completely sold. After college, I landed a job at Tasting Table as an editorial assistant. Within my first month, I realized there was a real difference between being a home cook and being a professional, and enrolled in the International Culinary Center. I was working from 9-6 and going to class from 6:30-11. It was a fairly miserable time, but I think having those credentials really got me to where I am today in my career. After Tasting Table, I moved to Los Angeles and worked at a few different food media jobs there. In 2017, I saw a job open at BuzzFeed’s Tasty and applied. Everywhere I had worked or freelanced up until this point was on a much smaller scale, and I was curious what it would be like to create content on a massive scale. After two years there, I went freelance and landed a book deal shortly thereafter. 

In my experience, up here, ambition can often look totally different than it does in the city media life — work-wise but also just lifestyle-wise. What does it look like to you right now?

I felt really set on writing a second cookbook, but my career aspirations have overall really shifted. I feel so much more aware of having a balance in my life and doing things that feel fulfilling. To me, that means making sure I have room to spend a lot of time with friends, contribute to my community, and dedicate many hours to our garden. While I still have career ambitions, I’m prioritizing happiness in a totally different way that feels much more authentic to who I am and what I want out of life. My whole career, I’ve been hyper-focused on encouraging people to cook more, and I feel like being here and getting to be more intentional with the type of content I create or the projects I do, I’m making that happen. 

What’s typical for you in terms of how you buy, grow, or source your food and groceries?

Grocery shopping is entirely different living in Delhi. We have a fantastic farmers market on Wednesdays. That’s where we get the bulk of our meat and most of our produce. There’s a local food shop in town that gets fish in on Fridays, and we have some great general stores in the area that carry specialty goods, like First Bloom in Bloomville or Hamden General in Hamden. We do have a few conventional grocery stores that I go to regularly, but my week is really structured around the farmers’ market.

“While I still have career ambitions, I’m prioritizing happiness in a totally different way that feels much more authentic to who I am and what I want out of life.”

 What else do you find different or significant about the kinds of resources you have to work with upstate versus elsewhere? How does it affect your work or your daily life?

In terms of recipe development, I think it’s actually been a real asset to live here. It’s made me really consider what kind of ingredients most people have access to and changed the way I create recipes. If I can’t find it at Price Chopper, I’m not going to put it in a recipe. It’s made me get more creative in terms of coaxing flavor out of ingredients in different ways. 

What gave you confidence as a cook when you started out? What gives you confidence as a cook now?

I admittedly had little confidence when I first started cooking. Over the years, I’ve become more confident as I’ve found my own style of cooking. This is a bit of a bragging moment, but Kim Severson reviewed my first cookbook, To the Last Bite, for the New York Times and wrote about how the recipes really do work (which not all cookbooks can say!). That felt like a huge feather in my cap and really gave me a boost of confidence that my recipes do work and are delicious. 

You’re not tied to any particular brand or company now. How do you satisfy the desire to create or to achieve within the context of a freelance life? 

I love not being tied to one brand. It’s given me the flexibility to work with a lot of brands I admire and create different kinds of content and recipes that I may not have otherwise. I also have a newsletter on Substack called Side Dish, where I share weeknight-friendly recipes. I think I actually get to be more creative now than when I was tied to one brand. 

Do you imagine living upstate for the long term now or even forever?

Life is long and unpredictable, but I really can’t imagine living anywhere else. I feel like I get to be my most authentic self living here, and it’s the happiest I’ve ever been.