Graphic communications sophomore Melody Braunstein vividly remembers her obsession with American Girl dolls as a child. But while her peers’ focus was centered around their outfits or doing their hair just right, Braunstein instead focused all her imagination on what the dolls should eat, making them “food” out of different colored paper and any art supplies she could find that would bring these imaginary dishes to life.
Young but equipped with a keen eye for artistic qualities, it was this innocent process of styling and staging small photoshoots of those created dishes that her life-long passion for cooking was playing out before her — unbeknownst to her at the time.
In a way, Braunstein, like in the case of many great artists, did not specifically choose her art form but instead, the art form chose her. Flowing out of every art medium –– whether that be collaging, block printing, crocheting, drawing and everything in between –– is an opportunity to express oneself, challenge the norm or communicate in ways words don’t allow. But what makes art so fascinating is that nothing can be forced, and for some, the inner equilibrium is achieved through art forms they least expect.
For Braunstein, the act of cooking reaches far beyond the pan and the plate. It requires years of practice, meticulous research and light-hearted exploration to grow and build a vocabulary of recipes and ingredients to pull from. It calls for a smooth blend of quick decision-making in the kitchen and an artistic touch as it is styled.
This is how she explores creativity in the kitchen.
Origins
Beginning around fifth grade, Braunstein filled her summers with cooking camps at Sur La Table that formed her basic knowledge and set the foundation for this ever-growing fascination and knack in the kitchen. She later enrolled in an extensive culinary program through Newport High School in her hometown in Bellevue, Washington, commuting each day and cooking for three hours straight with others as passionate as her. During the summer of 2019, working in a professional kitchen setting at the culinary arts camp known as CampusNYC, gave Braunstein the opportunity to hone her skills and acquire new recipes.
But while attending these camps over the years offered her exposure and a solid foundation in cooking, much of her expertise has been formed outside the kitchen as well. Braunstein attributes a mix of observation, curiosity, exploration and an easy-going acceptance of failure to her growth as a cook, all having fostered space for her culinary skills to blossom to new heights.
“If I go out to eat, there’s lots of times where I’ll see something on the menu that I’m not familiar with and that will kind of inspire me to research it and figure out what it is and then try to create something of my own,” Braunstein said.
Working as a line cook in an authentic ramen restaurant as a senior in high school is one instance that inspired her recent creative attempt to make shoyu ramen void of all animal products.
While boiled animal bones and lard are the base ingredients in traditional ramens, Braunstein challenged herself in hopes of sharing a bowl with her pescatarian friend. Multiple weeks of planning and trips to the Asian markets in her hometown at the end of spring break, paired with her extensive knowledge of Japanese cuisine, made for the successful result: a kombu dashi with bonito, dried anchovies, ginger, onion and dried shitake, topped with naruto, scallions and nori.
While preparing this dish, Braunstein also researched plating and food photography, leaning into her stylistic side.
“It was a whole artistic process for me, honestly,” Braunstein said.
This curious exploration driven by sheer passion is what has propelled her growth as a cook.
“I just try to learn as much as I can,” Braunstein explained. “Like I’m really interested in cooking dishes from other cultures. But whenever I do that, I try to research as much as I can to get it as authentic as possible.”
Gearing up to study studio art and fashion design abroad in Florence in the fall, she looks forward to also learning a lot about food simply by indulging in the city’s cuisine.
“It’s just the quality of ingredients you’re getting is so much better and it makes the biggest difference,” Braunstein said.
Having been to Italy before, Braunstein experienced tasting authentic Italian dishes and authentic carbonara.
Tapping into a mixture of online resources, including the new wave of Instagram and TikTok accounts run by private chefs that began popping up post-COVID-19, like @millyrocklobster, @broccoliraab and @babytamagooo, she has derived extensive inspiration in regards to recipes and plating as she flips through these short videos of unique flavor-mixing and styling.
“I noticed that those videos are getting pretty popular,” Braunstein said. “Besides flavors, another part that I’m really trying to get more into is styling.”
It’s with this focus on the details of a dish and the story it can tell when it’s thoughtfully plated that Braunstein started her own Instagram account. Initially created in early high school, @melodycooksfood featured content unlike the high-quality dishes of meticulous style that color her feed now.
“I was kind of going back and forth between trying out veganism or trying to eat super, super healthy,” she said. “So the content that I was posting was just like weird, vegan healthy stuff. Not bad but just less actual cooking and professional style.”
Over the years Braunstein has developed her methodology and found what she wants most out of her cooking account: to highlight her journey making eclectic foods and share them with others.
In recent months, dishes featured on her Instagram profile include spaghetti pomodoro, chicken katsu curry and shakshuka, a North African and Middle Eastern meal perfect for breakfast time. Reminiscing about France, Braunstein once made a caramelized leek and gruyere quiche served with a mixed green salad. Wanting to bring some Spanish influence into her college days in San Luis Obispo, she recreated the unique dining experience of tapas by making bacon-wrapped dates and albondigas.
“I still try to eat pretty healthy but my whole thing is balanced eating,” she said.
“[@melodycooksfood] is definitely a lot more focused on professional knowledge and techniques now rather than just quick, healthy eating.”
Braunstein said that every single post is methodical, and with the time it takes to come up with a recipe, cook it and then style and photograph it with the right lighting and setting, it can be hard to manage to the level she expects it to be at.
But nonetheless, whether it’s posts that include detailed captions describing the steps and ingredients required to recreate her dish or simply visual displays of her plated meals, Braunstein has tapped into her passions and shared it with the ones around her, regardless of her busy schedule.
However, social media isn’t the only way she connects with others, as the various dinner parties she hosts or simple dinners cooked with her roommates are also rooted in this belief that food is one of the strongest connection points for humans.
This past Valentine’s Day, Braunstein hosted a dinner for her closest friends with a fixed-course menu she designed herself using InDesign. Integrating her newfound knowledge of typography and composition learned in her graphic communications classes, she decorated each menu with everyone’s personal name, combined with watercolor sketches.
The long dining room table dotted with roses and red accents was soon lined with smiling faces, as Braunstein slowly brought out a frisée radicchio salad, followed by ragu bolognese and bucatini carbonara, as well as tiramisu and chocolate fondue strawberries to top off the night.
Most weekends, Braunstein invites friends over to share a meal, for as she said, “Food is like the way that people connect with each other.”
“I feel like in America, people are so quick to just eat all their food super fast and not fully connect with people with it. So that’s something that I try to implement here, just really connecting with people through food,” Braunstein said.
Carving out time in her busy school week to prepare nice dinners with her roommate is also special to her.
“Never really having cooked for myself in my life, rooming with Melody was quite perfect because I knew I would be fed well… I can 100% say she inspired me to get into the kitchen and learn about the art of cooking myself,” business administration sophomore Alara Wiefling said.
Even after a long day, cooking these simple meals with Wiefling or by herself, Braunstein derives a new wave of energy from getting creative with the process.
“I know a lot of people will say they don’t like cooking because it’s a lot of work and it stresses them out,” she said. “But some days I’ll be in the kitchen for six hours straight and it just feels so calm and relaxing to me.”
Living in an apartment with ample kitchen and dining space that was less accessible as a freshman has made sharing meals full of conversation and friendship much simpler.
Even in the Muir Hall last year, Braunstein found a way for her food to foster community with those around her, making huge pasta dishes after a night out, at a time when every freshman, stuck with limited dining hall food, missed home-cooked meals the most.
“Every single weekend, it was just me feeding everyone pasta,” Braunstein said.
One friend blessed by Braunstein’s weekly cooking outbursts was business administration sophomore Ben Snider.
“We would randomly be out with friends or in the dorms having a fun night and all of a sudden Melody would have cooked these amazing pasta dishes that no one was expecting,” Snider said. “She made fettuccine alfredo once and I just remember all of my friends going in to take bites and when I went in for the food, I stayed there and ate the whole pasta.”
Pasta dishes aren’t the only thing she regularly prepares for her friends, however.
“What I like doing at Cal Poly is introducing all my white friends to Asian foods that I like because it just feels special to share parts of your culture with people that don’t really understand it,” Braunstein said.
Going to Korea and experiencing the places where her mother grew up only inspired her to devote more time to cooking traditional meals. In preparing one of her favorite Korean dishes, bibimbap, for many of her friends, Braunstein said, “I feel like I’m pretty traditional when I make Korean food, so it’s kind of nice to show people oh, maybe you’ve had this before, but this is how it really is.”
Countless hours spent in the kitchen over the years have left Braunstein well-versed in a rich variety of cuisines. What has been left more unexplored on the other hand, is baking.
This, she can attest, is to its structured nature that leaves her feeling pinned to a certain recipe. While baking opens the doors to many creative endeavors, like experimenting with new flavors or styles, for Braunstein, tapping into her freedom comes more naturally while embarking on the process of preparing a home-cooked meal.
“When I cook, people are always asking me for recipes and I just don’t have any because I feel like I’m kind of at the point where I can really just figure it out as I go along,” she said.
Having built up a vocabulary of ingredients to pull from, the process of tasting something and saying, “it can use a bit of this or that,” is what keeps the experience feeling new and exciting.
“I think the biggest thing I always tell people is that cooking is my art form,” Braunstein said.
As a creative process with infinite combinations and spaces for an innovative mind to explore, cooking serves as her way of expression. There is an attention to detail, in the way that her dishes look to the eye, down to the colors and subtle intricacies sometimes glanced over by those who aren’t paying close attention.
But as a highly artistic person, this isn’t the only medium she’s explored. Her love for making charcuterie boards or staging photoshoots of her dishes –– rooted in her methodical arrangements and presentation –– is very similar to how playing around with cinematic framing and composition makes filmmaking another special art form to Braunstein.
“Over winter break, I made a cooking film which is the first time I’ve ever done something like that,” she said. “It was great to just kind of combine two of my passions into that.”
As the title, “A French Christmas Dinner” appears on screen, Pierre Barouh’s “Samba Saravah” plays over warm-toned shots of hands chopping at the cutting board, ingredients and lighted candles scattering the foreground. It tells a story through this unique blend of cooking and filmmaking, both passions working in unison, never overpowering the other.
Other short films of Braunstein’s capture scenes in Joshua Tree, Big Sur and along the bluffs of San Luis Obispo. Each one is a peek into her creative mind; a story built up and released to her audience through visuals.
The future
Looking into the future, where Braunstein will be or what she will be doing is still up in the air. There are thoughts of pursuing culinary school after college as well as interests working at a food magazine. But with two solid foundations in graphic communications and cooking, it will be just like honing in on a recipe and discovering that perfect ratio.
“I do know for a fact that I don’t want to work directly in the industry as a chef because I just know it can get so glamorized,” Braunstein said.
That level of intense commitment might also, as she said, “make me lose my passion a bit, so I’d want to keep it at some sort of a distance but still have it.”
A career that incorporates food and also calls for an artistic mind seems to be the golden recipe. And the only way to perfect that recipe, as Braunstein knows, is to keep trying and reworking, while being receptive to new and interesting flavors.
