Dig In: Cooking, Family, and Finding Yourself in the Kitchen with Erin O’Brien

On the podcast, I recently chatted with Erin O’Brien, the creator behind the Erin O’Brien lifestyle blog and a trusted voice for anyone trying to answer that daily question: what’s for dinner?

In her debut cookbook, Dig In! Over 100 Easy, Delicious, and Stress-Free Recipes to Make on Repeat, Erin shares a collection of recipes inspired by family, heritage, and real life in the kitchen. Woven throughout the book are the stories of the women who influenced her cooking and the idea that feeding people can be many things at once: love, necessity, and a form of reinvention.

In this episode, we talk about the three generations of women who built a life through food, how a pandemic-era blog became a calling, and the philosophy behind a cookbook that is as much about connection as it is about cooking.Listen to the full episode or keep reading for some of the highlights from our conversation.

How Did You Get Started in the Kitchen?

From a young age, my mother let me help in the kitchen, get creative, and run wild — and that made a real impact on me. I was born and raised in Pasadena, and food was always at the center of our family life. But my first career was in real estate, and my heart was never fully in it.

During the pandemic, I started a blog as a hobby and a creative outlet. We were renovating our house, the world felt heavy, and I just wanted more connection. I started sharing family recipes, and six years later, it has changed every aspect of my life.

The women in my family are the heart of everything. My great-grandmother Willa was the first to build a life through food — she owned Lupita’s Cafe in what is now the Gaslamp District of San Diego, and she inspired my grandmother to do the same. My grandmother Nana, now 89 and living nearby, opened her own restaurant, Lupita’s La Jolla, in the 1970s as a single mother. She was an extraordinary entrepreneur who found a way to support her family against all odds, and she did it with so much grace. She taught me everything I know.

My mom brings another kind of magic — she can create something delicious out of nothing, and her creativity in the kitchen is something I carry with me every time I cook. Her famous salsa recipe is in the book.

In my family, feeding people has always been an act of love, survival, celebration, and sometimes reinvention. Being able to preserve and document those stories and recipes means everything to me.

Tell Us More About Your Book, Dig In!

The title comes from something my mom would always say right before we all sat down to eat together. “Dig in” is that moment just before the meal begins, and it felt like the perfect way to capture what this book is about.

The recipes in Dig In! span the culinary heritage my family brought from Mexico through generations of home cooks and restaurant owners, alongside the kind of everyday cooking that makes a real household run. 

Salads are a personal love — a great salad, to me, is about texture, crunch, a dressing that actually coats the lettuce, and enough extra elements like stone fruit, cheese, nuts, or protein to make it a satisfying part of a meal and not an afterthought.

Throughout the book, I also try to pass along what I’ve learned about documenting family recipes before they’re lost. Spend time with the people who carry those recipes. Follow them around, ask questions, pay attention to what they’re doing and why. Keep the authenticity, but make it your own.

More than anything, I hope Dig In! empowers home cooks to feel more confident in the kitchen. Not everyone grows up with the teachers I had, and I want this book to be that for people.

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