Food writer Ariel Kanter fell in love with food by accident.

“I grew up as a little ballerina ,and food, if anything, was really not part of the lifestyle,” Kanter, whose lifestyle Substack is called Rel’s Recs, told the Journal.

In high school, Kanter started watching the original Japanese version of “Iron Chef,” because the Food Network didn’t run scary commercials late at night. Kanter was “so into it.” She loved the experimentation and all of the wild ingredients; Mostly, though, it was the warmth, something Kanter was missing in ballet.

“The ballet studio is beautiful, but I always felt like it was cold, whereas in the kitchen, there is warmth, fulfillment, experimentation and there are other people sharing [the experience]; it’s multicultural,” she said. “I think that’s why I love cooking so much now, and writing about it.”

By the time Kanter got to college at New York University, she explored different restaurants and got excited by the menus.

“I realized that other people [were] not as excited about food as I [was],” Kanter said. She started a food blog, did a lot of cooking in her “crappy little New York apartment” and, after working in an editorial department, decided to go to culinary school at the Institute of Culinary Education.

“That for me was such a dream,” she said. “It was really hard and it totally kicked my butt every day.”

Kanter went on to stage at Osteria Morini in Soho. After that experience she decided, “I definitely don’t want to be a chef, but I want to write about food.”

Armed with a food science and food preparation background, she dove deep into writing about food, including working at “Serious Eats” for five years. Kanter has written for “The New York Times,” “Vanity Fair,” “New York Magazine,” “Apartment Therapy,” “InStyle” and more.

All this food and cooking was a far cry from her upbringing.

“Growing up, there just was not a lot of food happening,” she said. “My parents didn’t cook, we didn’t have a lot of food moments.”

The one exception was the Kanter family meringue. Recipe is below.

“We had a family recipe passed down on my mother’s side,” she said. “These were the cookie that we made for every birthday, every Jewish holiday.”

They’re not like the kind you get from the grocery store that are dry and you kind of break your teeth on. With a lot of textures, these meringues are “this perfect magical recipe,” she said.

Kanter said the sound of the stand mixer, whirling, brings her back to that time.

“When I finally could afford to buy my first KitchenAid stand mixer–I got it on sale, when I was living in Brooklyn–meringues [were] the first thing I made,” she said.

Kanter made meringues the first time she went to her future in-laws; she now bakes them with her 8-year-old niece and her 2-year-old nephew for every holiday.

“It’s all science, but … they’re just so fluffy and fun,” she said. That sense of whimsy has never really gone away for me.”

Kanter’s niece and nephew live around the corner, and are “so into food,” she said. “My niece is obsessed with “The Great British Bake Off” …  It’s the greatest joy as an aunt to … be in the kitchen [together] and get to have this great bond over something that we both love.”

Kanter, who considers herself a cultural Jew, did not grow up very religious. “We were very High Holiday Jews,” she said. “When I was in college, I befriended a rabbi, because of a boy that I had a crush on.”

This led to Kanter becoming part of a special Jewish community. She led a Jewish heritage program for a while at NYU; it was for less-affiliated Jews who still wanted to be part of the cultural traditions.

“There’s so much warmth to cultural Judaism,” she said. “That’s a big part of [cooking] meals, spending time together and respecting your ingredients and the people around you; that is something that anybody can learn from and enjoy.”

Kanter added, “I feel very lucky that I met the people that I met who influenced me in all of the right ways and that “Iron Chef” wasn’t scary [to watch] in the middle of the night.”

Subscribe to Ariel Kanter’s Substack, Rel’s Recs and follow @arielkanter on Instagram..

For the full conversation, listen to the podcast:

Kanter Family Meringues

6 egg whites

1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

2 cups sugar or extra fine sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 tablespoon vinegar

1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips or your favorite chocolate bars, chopped

Preheat the oven to 275F.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, add the egg whites and cream of tartar. Whisk on medium-high. After about 30 seconds, when the eggs are just starting to foam, start adding the sugar slowly. Just keep slowly adding the sugar until it’s gone, about two minutes.

At this point, the egg whites should be getting glossy and voluminous. Keep whisking and add in the vanilla and vinegar.

Whisk for about five more minutes until the egg whites are just ever so shy of stiff peaks.

Take the bowl out of the stand mixer and add your chocolate. Stir it together gently.

Use a two-tablespoon cookie scoop and plop blobs of meringue on parchment-lined rimmed sheet pans. They don’t spread, so they can be fairly close together.

You’ll have about two sheet pans’ worth of meringues and it’s okay to bake them both at the same time. I like to check them after 30 minutes to make sure nothing is browning too much, especially on the top rack. After 45 minutes, take them out and eat immediately or let cool if you have the patience.

You can store them for a few days in airtight containers. Just remember that they’re ridiculously delicate and will shatter if you stack or put weight on them.

Debra Eckerling is a writer for the Jewish Journal and the host of “Taste Buds with Deb.” Subscribe on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform. Email Debra: tastebuds@jewishjournal.com.