Special Sauce with Ed Levine

By Ed Levine

Arts Food

What's Special Sauce with Ed Levine about?

Serious Eats' podcast Special Sauce enables food lovers everywhere to eavesdrop on an intimate conversation about food and life between host and Serious Eats founder Ed Levine and his well-known/famous friends and acquaintances both in and out of the food culture.

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Fuchsia Dunlop on Chinese C...

12.01.2023

This week on Special Sauce, we’ll hear about Fuchsia Dunlop’s journey from her first Chinese cooking classes to the researching and writing of her 7th book, Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese Food. We'll find out what she's ...

Special Sauce with Ed Levine episodes:

12.01.2023 Fuchsia Dunlop on Chinese Cuisine This week on Special Sauce, we’ll hear about Fuchsia Dunlop’s journey from her first Chinese cooking classes to the researching and writing of her 7th book, Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese Food. We'll find out what she's ...
11.24.2023 Thanksgiving Leftovers with Kenji and Deb On this episode of Special Sauce Kenji Lopez Alt and Smitten Kitchen's Deb Perelman come to our rescue with some helpful hints about what to do with Thanksgiving leftovers.
11.17.2023 Thanksgiving: Kenji and Deb Reduce Your Stress On this episode of Special Sauce Kenji and Smitten Kitchen's Deb Perelman give us some tips on how to cook up a Thanksgiving feast in a small space without stressing out.
11.10.2023 Hetty McKinnon: The Vegetable Whisperer Part 2 This week on Special Sauce we hear more about the joy of vegetables and the importance of family with “Tenderheart” author Hetty McKinnon.
11.03.2023 Hetty McKinnon: The Vegetable Whisperer On this week's Special Sauce I talk to food writer Hetty Liu McKinnon.With her five vegetarian cookbooks, her popular Substack newsletter, and her ingenious vegetarian recipes for the New York Times, food writer Hetty has been called the vegetable whisperer, ...
10.27.2023 Hunger Pangs Part 2: A Father and Son Connect Through Food Last week, we got an inside look at the father son relationship at the heart of the YouTube series, Hunger Pangs. This time we pick up our conversation with Kevin Pak, the Editorial director of Digital at America's Test Kitchen ...
10.20.2023 Hunger Pangs Part 1: A Chinese-American Family Food Saga On this episode of Special Sauce I talk to food writer Kevin Pang and his dad Jeffrey about how they bridged their substantial generation gap through their shared love of food and cooking.
10.13.2023 Chrissy Kinsman Part 2: Pie Baking Tips For All of Us On this episode of Special Sauce the great "pie-stress" Chrissy Kinsman is back with pie tips for amateur baking.
10.06.2023 Chrissy Kinsman: A Life of Pie On this episode of Special Sauce the great pie baker Chrissy Kinsman of Pie Chicks on Martha's Vineyard tells us about the trials and tribulations of trying to make a living selling pies year round on a sparsely populated island.
09.29.2023 Dorie Greenspan Redux: Reflections of a Legendary Baker On this episode of Special Sauce we revisit my nifty 2016 conversation with the legendary baker and cookbook author Dorie Greenspan, which became one of our most popular episodes of all time. Fast-forward to the fall of 2023, when many ...
09.22.2023 Ann Kim 2: A Korean-American Chef's Story On this episode of Special Sauce Ann Kim talks about the evolution of her relationship with her Korean parents. You won't believe what happened when Ann invited her parents to her about to open first restaurant Pizzeria Lola.
09.15.2023 Ann Kim: A Working Actor's Unusual Path to James Beard Award-winning Chefdom On this episode of Special Sauce I talk to the James Beard award winning chef Ann Kim. Ann opened her first restaurant, Pizzeria Lola, in Minneapolis in 2010 without ever having cooked professionally. In fact, she was a working actor ...
09.08.2023 JJ Goode on Hot Dogs Part 2 On this episode of Special we dig still deeper into America's regional hot dog styles with food writer JJ Goode, who just wrote an entertaining and informative guide to American regional hot dog styles for the NYT.
09.01.2023 JJ Goode on Hot Dogs Part 1 On this episode of Special Sauce we go deep into dogs, hot dogs that is, with JJ Goode, who wrote a guide to regional hot dogs styles for the NY Times. We also checked in with a few hot dog ...
08.25.2023 Grilling Veggies with Kenji On this episode of Special Sauce Kenji is back with some tips for grilling vegetables.
08.18.2023 Grilling Chicken and Fish with Kenji On this episode of Special Sauce Kenji is back with some surefire (pun intended) tips for grilling chicken and fish.
08.11.2023 Grilling Pizza with Kenji On this episode of Special Sauce, we talk about the joys of grilling pizza with Kenji. J. Kenji Lopez Alt is a New York Times cooking columnist and the host of Kenji's Cooking Show on YouTube. He’s also the best ...
08.04.2023 Natasha Pickowicz: Baker & Activist This week on Special Sauce we talk to pastry chef extraordinaire Natasha Pickowicz. Natasha is as the title of her new book More Than Cake implies, much more than a baker. Natasha is an original thinker, a fine writer, and ...
07.28.2023 Hamissi Mamba Part 2 This week on Special Sauce Part 2 of my conversation with chef Hamissi Mamba, who runs the amazing East African spot Baobab Fare in Detroit with his wife Nadia Nijimbere. With the restaurant, their African market called Soko, and their ...
07.21.2023 Hamissi Mamba Part 1: From Burundi to Detroit This week I'm talking with Hamissi Mamba about the long road to success from his native Burundi to the vibrant food scene in Detroit.
07.14.2023 Kenji Live at the Bell House Redux Pt 2 On the second Special Sauce episode Kenji and I did live from the Bell House in Brooklyn, NY last March we talked about his latest book ‘The Wok’, Kenji and I successfully cooked eggs and tomatoes in a wok onstage ...
07.07.2023 Kenji Live at the Bell House Redux Last March we did our first ever live to tape episode of Special Sauce with our great friend J. Kenji Lopez Alt. It was taped before a wildly appreciative audience at the Bell House in Brooklyn. We were celebrating the ...
06.30.2023 Rodney Scott: How to Throw a Kick-Ass July 4th Barbecue This week on Special Sauce pitmaster, chef, and whole hog barbecue evangelist Rodney Scott gives serious eaters great tips for our July 4th backyard barbecues.
06.23.2023 Ali Slagle: The Life of a NYT Recipe Developer This week on Special Sauce I talk to NYT Cooking contributor Ali Slagle about her path to becoming a recipe developer. Slagle just published her first cookbook ‘I Dream of Dinner (so you don't have to)’.
06.16.2023 Rick Easton: Eat Bread, Don't Make It This week on Special Sauce, we have a chef who suggests you DON’T try his recipes at home.It’s part 2 of my conversation with Rick Easton, owner of Bread and Salt, the casual spot in NJ that draws rave reviews ...
06.09.2023 Rick Easton: How To Eat Bread Pt. 1 This week's guest on Special Sauce is the extraordinary bread baker, chef and pizzaiolo Rick Easton, who owns the terrific weekends- only Bread and Salt Bakery in Jersey City. Rick and his partner Melissa McCart have co-authored the provocative new ...
06.02.2023 High on the Hog's Jessica Harris Redux This week on Special Sauce, we’ll revisit my conversation with one of our greatest food writers, Jessica Harris, who introduced many of us to the food of the African Diaspora. Jessica was awarded the James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award in ...
05.26.2023 Kenji and Deb on the movie Fresh On this episode of Special Sauce we're talking about the film ‘Fresh’, which Amy Nicholson in the New York Times described as a wickedly funny cannibal romance. The movie stars Daisy Edgar-Jones, Sebastian Stan and Jonica T. Gibbs Helping me ...
05.19.2023 Jing Gao Redux On this episode we revisit our conversation with Fly by Jing founder Jing Gao. Jing has not been idle since we spoke to her last August. She's getting ready to open Sua, a restaurant/market in LA in July. And in ...
05.12.2023 Beverly Kim Part 2: From Cooking to Parenthood to Activism On this episode of Special Sauce James Beard Award Winning Chicago Chef Beverly Kim tells us how how she went beyond serving food to serving her community. Kim explains how she juggles motherhood, running two restaurants, and her activism.
05.05.2023 Beverly Kim: A Chicago Chef's Delicate Balancing Act This week on Special Sauce Ed Levine talks about the difficulties of work-life balance in the restaurant biz and much more with the James Beard Award-winning chef Beverly Kim. Her first restaurant Parachute is the critically acclaimed contemporary Korean restaurant ...
04.28.2023 The Menu: Kenji and the NYT's Glenn Kenny This week on Special Sauce, Kenji and film critic Glenn Kenny dig into The Menu, the satirical horror comedy film set in an exclusive restaurant on a private island. The film, starring Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor Joy, skewers foodies, ...
04.21.2023 Anthony Mangieri & Brian Koppelman Redux This week on Special Sauce, we're revisiting a great 2022 episode about pizza featuring the great pizzaiolo Anthony Mangieri and his friend and fellow pizza lover Billions co-creator Brian Koppelman. At the time pizza purist Mangieri had just reopened Una ...
04.14.2023 Kenji on Foolproof Pan Pizza This week on Special Sauce Kenji goes deep into his foolproof pan pizza recipe, which is one of Serious Eats' most popular posts of all time.
04.07.2023 Kenji on Thin Crust Chicago Pizza Kenji created quite a stir recently with his column on Chicago Thin Crust Pizza in the New York Times. We're gonna talk about that column and many other pizza related topics on this episode of Special Sauce.
03.31.2023 Raghavan Iyer: The Healing Power of Comfort Food *It is with much sadness that we acknowledge the passing of this week's guest on Special Sauce, Raghavan Iyer. Raghavan died just after we posted the second part of our extraordinary conversation. Iyer was a passionate, fierce advocate for Indian ...
03.24.2023 Raghavan Iyer: The Curry Whisperer Raghavan Iyer has written 6 influential cookbooks on Indian food, including the all-time classic 660 Curries. On this episode of Special Sauce we’re going to hear about his own personal food journey, from the family table in Mumbai to a ...
03.17.2023 Kenji on Potatoes This week on Special Sauce Kenji waxes (pun intended) poetic on the secrets to both seriously delicious french fries that taste just like McDonald's when they are fresh out of the fryer (that's when you have to eat 'em). He ...
03.10.2023 JJ Goode: America's Best Worst Cook This week on Special Sauce hilarious cookbook author JJ Goode is back to go into detail about why he insists he's "America's best worst cook." JJ explains why and how he's ruined innumerable grilled cheese sandwiches at home. And yet ...
03.03.2023 The Korean Vegan Redux This week on Special Sauce, we're revisiting my conversation with Joanne Lee Molinaro, AKA The Korean Vegan. When we last spoke Joanne had already gone from corporate litigator to writing the James Beard Award-winning ‘The Korean Vegan Cookbook’. Now less ...
02.24.2023 JJ Goode Part 1: A Cookbook Writer with No LImits On this episode of Special Sauce we talk chef cookbook collaborations with the extraordinary James Beard Award-winning food writer JJ Goode. JJ has collaborated with everyone from Iron Chef Morimoto to Sam Kass, who cooked for the Obamas at the ...
02.17.2023 Christina Tosi Redux When I interviewed Milk Bar co-founder Christina Tosi last summer we talked about her extraordinary journey from home baker to pastry chef to entrepreneur. Tosi had an inspirational story to tell, and we thought it was a story worth repeating. ...
02.10.2023 'The Bear' Part 2 with Kenji and Helen Rosner On this episode of Special Sauce Kenji, The New Yorker's Helen Rosner, and I dig further into the first season of ‘The Bear’ and also muse about what we'd like to see in the second season of the show, which ...
02.03.2023 The Bear Reflections Kenji and The New Yorker's Helen Rosner reflect on the first season of the compelling TV show The Bear, now streaming on Hulu. J. Kenji Lopez Alt is of course the author of bestselling cookbooks like the Food Lab and ...
01.27.2023 Grace Young Redux With An Update This week I decided to revisit my interview with the extraordinary Grace Young, Why? Well, for starters Grace, cookbook author, cultural anthropologist, and wok therapist, is a wonder, a Chinese-American treasure. And when someone else might be resting on their ...
01.20.2023 Kenji on Scrambled Eggs On this episode of Special Sauce we take a deep dive into scrambled eggs with eggspert egg maker J. Kenji Lopez-Alt. He tells us about his latest eggprerimentation with one of the world's favorite egg preparations.
01.13.2023 Restaurants Now: Critic's Roundtable Part 2 On this episode of Special Sauce The New York Times’s Pete Wells and Brett Anderson, and The New Yorker's Hannah Goldfield all weigh in on what serious eaters are likely to see (and taste) when they walk into restaurants in ...
01.06.2023 Restaurants Now: Critic's Roundtable Part 1 On this episode of Special Sauce I talk to The New York Times's Pete Wells and Brett Anderson, and the New Yorker's Hannah Goldfield about what and where they ate in 2022, and where they think restaurants and the food ...
12.30.2022 Eric Kim Redux In 2022 I got a chance to chew the fat with so many interesting people on Special Sauce. I couldn't possibly pick a favorite episode to leave you with, but I can certainly say with confidence that my conversation with ...
12.23.2022 Kenji on the Holidays On this episode of Special Sauce I talk holiday food with Kenji. In Kenji's case we get to hear about holiday traditions in his Colombia-born wife's family. And we also get to hear about his own family's holiday traditions growing ...

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