When Jane Goldman founded Chow in 2004, she envisioned a new kind of food magazine: one that eschewed the stodgy, elitest air that typifies the world of gourmet food, and embraced the sense of adventure and joy that can be found baking a pie from scratch, or throwing your first dinner party.

With no formal culinary training herself (but plenty of experience in magazines and media), Goldman knew what her audience of home cooks were looking for: entertaining features, friendly culinary advice, instructional videos, regional restaurant recommendations, and a community board (originally the independent Chowhound) where they could chat with one another about their favorite pastime.

Three years, later, Chow – which more recently converted to an online format – is earning a reputation as the go-to spot for enthusiastic – or simply curious – do-it-yourself foodies.

I spoke with Goldman (who was recently named one of Heeb’s 100 most innovative Jews) about the fun side of food, the emerging community of DIY cooks, and, when it comes to “good chow” – why a good poppyseed hamentashen always trumps a latke.

Read the interview below the jump…

LK: Before founding Chow, you edited the business and technology-focused publication, The Industry Standard. Where did your interest in food stem from?

JG: I’ve been interested in food for a long time. I travel a lot with a friend, and we always find that we end up understanding a place best through its food – whether through going grocery shopping or going out to eat. It seems more of a visceral connection to somewhere than just what you get through your eyes and your ears.

So when the Industry Standard was folding and I began imagining what I might do next. A friend of mine mentioned that she wanted to be the cheese editor at Saveur. And I thought “oh, wow – that’s a great job!” I’d been working for a long time in magazines and movies, and even randomly went to law school, but I hadn’t yet thought of working with food. So I started thinking about it, and I didn’t really want to work for Saveur or Gourmet. As I went through the list, I realized there was no medium that dealt with the subject matter in a way that spoke to me.

LK: What was it about those magazines that didn’t speak to you?

JG: They all seemed to focus on food as domestic chore, or food as elite hobby, or food as one-upmanship. To me, food is about discovery and a way to be social and get together with your friends, and explore new things. I love Saveur, but I wanted something that was more about the experience rather than about the food itself.

LK: It definitely seems like the people who are attracted to Chow are not necessarily people who have degrees from the Culinary Institute of America. They’re home chefs and do-it-yourself types. Do you think this new DIY trend is changing the way people think about food?

JG: I think so. Obviously there’s nothing new with home cooking. But there is a new tendency for people to make a big deal out of what used to be thought of as a chore – like dinner. They’re finding that the experience and the process can be as rewarding as the finished product.

LK: How does Chow foster this new community of DIY cooks?

JG: One of the most important things is fostering curiosity. There’s a feature on Chow called “The Nagging Question” – it always cracks me up. Right now the question is, “What is pink lemonade?” Last week we had, “What’s so kosher about kosher salt?

[Turns out, "the name stems from the salt’s original use: to draw blood out of meat so that it meets the dietary rules set by Jewish law."]

So there’s those things, and then we also do a lot of “how tos.” We had a story about, how to brew tea at your desk. It happened because a colleague of mine loves tea and was asking people on Chow’s message boards how to make a decent cup of tea given what she had at her cubicle. So we came up with a cool story with a video about how to brew great tea at the office.

I think things like that speak to your point of the DIY community, and quality being something people are interested in, even if they’re limited to what’s in their cubicle at work.

LK: Switching gears a bit, over the last couple of years eating locally, seasonally, and ethically have become huge buzz words. What’s your take on the localvore movement?

JG: People today think about food as politics and food as business. When you look at a menu today and see veal, I guarantee that something will cross your mind. You may still order it, but you will have a thought.

I think [food ethics] is part of the mix on Chow. When we talk about flying in some ingredient from far away, we’ll acknowledge that it might be controversial. [We know that] the downside is we’re using a lot of energy and disrupting the economy in ways that might hurt farmers. So it’s all part of the conversation. It may not be something that we end up having orthodox views about, but its definitely something that is in the general consciousness.

LK: Has being the Editor-in-Chief at Chow changed the way that you personally eat?

JG: Definitely. I was a pretty half-assed cook when I started Chow. I’d gotten lazy. Now, because I am around our food team and I watch how they do things, I’ve actually learned a lot about making things easier. I know the right way to dice an onion or cook a steak. People think that the more sophisticated you get about food, the more difficult it gets. But I’m more likely to do stuff, now that I know how.

LK: You must have great lunches at the office.

JG: (laughs) Yes, well it’s almost random – the food kitchen had been cooking in this little corporate apartment 6 blocks away, and had to run back and forth between the kitchen and our offices. But now we finally have our own test kitchen. So our food team runs in and out with food at inappropriate times of the day. We’ll get a cranberry pie at 9:00am, or 3 days worth of chocolate bark.

LK: Speaking of cranberry pie, after Thanksgiving, the next upcoming Jewish holiday is Chanukah, which is not necessarily the most gastronomically exciting holiday. What suggestions do you have for someone who wants to “Chow up” Chanukah?

JG: We have a great menu coming up. We have an entire fried food menu. Obviously, Chanukah is all about the oil, so it’s really quite overwhelming.

[Sneak peak: Jane shared a glimpse of Chow's Chanukah menu with me: fried garbanzo beans, turnip and potato latkes, tempura style radicchio and apple, and honey apple fritters]

Plus we have a great interview [planned for Chanukah.] Did you ever see the site Feed Me Bubbe? It’s amazing! It’s run by this guy who videotapes his grandmother teaching people how to cook. So, we interviewed them and are featuring his grandmother in our Chanukah stories.

LK: So, have you heard of the Latke vs. Hamentashen debate?

JG: No, I haven’t.

LK: It started at the university of Chicago 60 years ago. Each year, professors debate the merits of latkes vs. hamentashen from the point of view of their academic tradition. The feminist professor debates from one view, the psychology prof from another. It’s hilarious.

JG: Oh yeah, I did see a book about that!

LK: Well, Hazon has a Food Conference coming up in December, where we feature our own annual Latke vs. Hamentashen debate. So – from, the Chow perspective, what would it be – latke or hamentashen?

JG: Oh wow! Off hand, it depends on the hamentashen, but if we’re talking poppy seed, I’d have to say it has the perfect balance of sweet and sour and rich as opposed to the latke. The hamentaschen has a perfect cerebral / visceral balance, while the latke is a little heavy on the visceral. Don’t get me wrong, that’s good at times, but it’s little on the yang side, whereas hamentaschen has both yin and yang.