Geek Meets Eats: Chatting With Kitchen Overlord

I got the chance to chat with Chris-Rachael Oseland who is The Kitchen Overlord. What is a Kitchen Overlord and what does it do you ask? Kitchen Overlord is a website that has recipes that are geek themed. That's right, you can be watching your favorite show and eating food that is themed on that show. Pretty geektastic huh? 

I was fascinated by the site when I came across it which is why I got in touch with Chris-Rachael Oseland. Our conversation went like this:

 How did you come up with the idea to combine fandoms with food?
 
I think the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster would have me noodled to death in my sleep if I tried to take credit for inventing geeky cooking. It's always been there. Heck, if you can find photos of science fiction conventions in the 70's, look at past all the shiny metallic costumes at the tables in the back and you'll see home made rocket ships covered in fruit and dips shaped like UFO's.
 
People celebrate everything with food. A kid is born? Bring the exhausted parents food. It survived a year? Everyone gets cake! That kid's getting married? Time to decide whether you want the chicken or the fish at the wedding. Oh, they died? Bring the grieving family a casserole. First dates are over coffee or dinner. Business deals are signed at steakhouses. You'd be hard pressed to come up with any human celebrations that don't include food.
 

So when geeks get together to celebrate our shared love of Doctor Who, someone is bringing a TARDIS cake. That's great, unless four people bring a TARDIS cake. My job is to help people make something creative and different and tasty for their favorite geeky celebrations. Since geeks are notorious for having all kinds of dietary restrictions, I also try to come up with plenty of recipes that are gluten free, dairy free, vegan friendly, and occasionally paleo/primal, though that stuff gets expensive, fast.  

What was the first recipe you created?

Hmm. I wish I had a clever answer, but honestly, I haven't the faintest clue. That's like asking if someone remembers the first book they read or the first TV show they watched. Science says adults can't remember anything much before the age of four, so I'd say I've been assembling food in interesting ways since before I properly qualified as sentient. I'd honestly be curious if anyone can say, "Yes, this is the first time I assembled food in a way I wanted to recreate later." If they can, they're probably part of an alien species here to study humanity. Don't trust them.

What's the most complicated recipe you've made?

The Deadpool Sweet Rolls. Basically, you have three different sugary yeast doughs in three colors. It's hard enough to mix up all that dough at once so it rises at roughly the same pace, but then assembling the shape, taking into account the different amounts of time each one had to rise, cutting and shaping the log, etc, was almost as nightmarish as Deadpool himself showing up and slicing off various sores to make you some authentic 100% superhero sushi.

Are your recipes geared more towards kids or adults? Whether it's making or eating.

Oh, I'm totally about the adults. My recipes are all written as party food for grownups who want to show off their geeky cooking skills. I wouldn't have so many cocktail recipes if I was writing for kids. :)  I do have lots of fans who happen to be parents. The vast majority of them are awesome people who send me some of the funniest feedback, but a few of them will occasionally send me indignant messages about cleaning up my language. I even had a parent complain that I should take down a recipe because the knife skills were beyond their six year old. Protip: if you want the internet to babysit your kids, don't plant them in front of any site with the word "Overlord" in the name. Except for you, Mr. Luthor. Lex and I are making great progress on his new kryptonite infused pesto recipe.

What's your favorite kind of food to work with? (i.e. pasta, breads, hamburg, fish, ect.)

I'm a sucker for bread. In these gluten hating days, it feels lush and decadent and more than a little sinful. Home made bread is the bacon of carbs. I absolutely love turning $3 worth of flour, yeast, eggs, and oil into a geeky edible sculpture. Honestly, it's a shame so many people are intimidated by the idea of making bread. Humans invented it right after beer. In fact, the earliest breads were made using brewing leftovers. If a bunch of drunks in ancient Sumeria could hack it, so can you. I promise.

Sort of a chicken and the egg question, but what came first; the geekiness or the cooking?

I'm a second generation geek, so I'd have to say the geekiness.

What fandom(s) do you follow?

Oh, boy. Tons. On the literary side, I'm a huge fan of Terry Pratchett and Lois McMaster Bujold, though I've been going through a retro kick lately, reading a lot of Octavia Butler and earlier John Varley. None of that makes for good recipe ideas, though.

Comics are great for someone like me. In the great debate between the big two, I come down firmly on the side of Marvel. Readers usually think I'm more into DC because I have more DC related recipes. While Marvel is much better at storytelling and character development, DC wins for simple, evocative iconagraphy. Anyone can instantly recognize a Wonder Woman, Batman, or Superman logo. Simple, evocative logos are something I can work with.

My big love right now is TV. A decade ago I would've scoffed at the idea, but man, we're living in a golden age of Geek Television. Of course I love Doctor Who. Heck, I wouldn't have written an entire cookbook about it if I wasn't mad about the show. I've got a similar passion for The Walking Dead (and a delightfully gory cookbook coming out this fall where all the recipes look like human body parts.)

Some of my favorite current stuff is coming out of Canada. Seriously - when did Canadian TV stop looking like it rode the short bus to the broadcast station and start kicking our asses? I can't say enough good things about Continuum, Orphan Black, and Lost Girl. If you're not watching them, you're missing out on some of the best genre storytelling out there.

Do you have an current recipes in the works?

Always. I try to post at least 1 new recipe each week on Kitchen Overlord. Most weeks I'll post between 2-3, plus some videos of either Sci Fi Life Hacks or geeky kitchen gadget reviews.  I've slowed down during my Kickstarter. If you're contemplating one, let me warn you, the rumors are true. Running a Kickstarter is like having a second job. It will eat your life. Luckily, you know exactly when all the excitement will end.

Do you have any cookbooks out for people to purchase?

Of course!

My most popular book is Dining With the Doctor: The Unauthorized Whovian Cookbook

My personal favorite is Wood for Sheep: The Unauthorized Settlers Cookbook

And my bet reviewed is SteamDrunks: 101 Steampunk Cocktails and Mixed Drinks

I have two more cookbooks coming up this fall:
The Noshing Dead: The Unauthorized Walking Dead Cookbook
An Unexpected Cookbook: The Unofficial Book of Hobbit Cookery



Any other projects in the works that you'd like to share?

I'm in the last days of a Kickstarter for the Illustrated Geek Cookbook, which has 50 lushly illustrated recipes covering 120 years of geek culture.  It was an interesting challenge. In addition to keeping the recipes really geeky, I had to focus on keeping them easy enough to illustrate. This meant no more than 8-10 ingredients or steps. For most of my recipes, I start things from scratch. If you want bread, get the flour and yeast. We're going to be at this for a couple hours. For this cookbook, though, I had to use a lot of pre-made things, like grocery bought crescent dough and marinara sauce for the Eye of Sauron. The feedback was great. People love the simpler recipes as much as they love Ton's art. I've loosened up a lot since then. While I still revel in scratch cooking, I have a lot more recipes now using convenience items.

So the next time you get a hankering for something geeky go to Kitchen Overlord and see what Chris-Rachael Oseland has that you can whip up.