Season 6

This week we’re reheating one of our favorite recent episodes on the ongoing struggle between ICE and the immigrant-driven food cultures of major American cities. LA Taco‘s editor-in-chief  Javier Cabral explains how and why his website became one of the leading voices of ICE resistance in the “City of Angels’.  Learn about your ad choices:...

On part 2 of our revealing and refreshingly honest conversation with three of the best food critics in America, Hannah Goldfield of The New Yorker, Bill Addison of The Los Angeles Times, and Elazar Sontag of The Washington Post, all three are not feeling particularly sanguine about the future of restaurant criticism in general. And...

Are restaurant critics dinosaurs in the age of social media? We discuss that and more in part one of our critic’s roundtable with The New Yorker’s Hannah Goldfield, The Washington Post’s Elazar Sontag, and The Los Angeles Times’ Bill Addison.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This week Pete Wells and I talk about our mutual worst food enemy, our addiction to sugar. Pete explains how the hidden added sugars in many packaged and processed foods just compound our dietary problems. We also talk about how the mixed messages we get from the government add to our dietary woes.  Learn about...

On this first of two episodes featuring The New York Times‘s Pete Wells, the former Times restaurant critic explains how he learned to eat differently after a trip to his doctor scared the crap out of him. Yes he eats many more whole grains and avoids added sugar any way he can. But as you’ll...

For millions of serious eaters the Super Bowl has turned into a food event almost on a par with Thanksgiving. With the Super Bowl coming up we thought it would be fun and edifying to reheat last year’s Super Bowl episode featuring Kenji Lopez-Alt giving serious eaters sage advice about making pizza and wings at...

On this episode of Special Sauce the Minneapolis Star-Tribune’s Sharyn Jackson reports on the devastating effect of the ICE operation on the Twin Cities’ restaurant and food community. ICE’s terrifying tactics in Minneapolis have been met with many creative forms of resistance. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On this episode of Special Sauce we go deep into the story of the not famous enough Jewish roll known as a bialy (which is far superior to its kind of distant cousin, the bagel) with the celebrated chef, Mark Strausman, who is merely one of the great bialy bakers of our time. Learn about...

On this episode of Special Sauce the Washington Post‘s Tim Carman and the Los Angeles Times‘s Stephanie Breijo discuss the enormous headwinds facing restaurants all over the country in 2026. High food costs, tariffs, the uncertain economy, and the ICE Raids’ chilling effect on restaurant workers, and business in general, have left restaurant owners wondering...

On this episode of Special Sauce, The New York Times’s superb wine critic Eric Asimov details the many challenges facing the wine industry. He cites high prices, over-production of factory wine, and the snootiness of too many wine enthusiasts AND the people that serve and sell wine. Eric even offers his prescription for many of...