The Perfect Bite

Dana Cree has spent her career asking questions most pastry chefs never think to ask. Why does brown sugar make ice cream icier? What is bubblegum actually made of? Can a green bean casserole taste incredible as a frozen pop? The answers led her from restaurant kitchens across three continents to Penn State's Ice Cream Short Course, a James Beard-nominated book, and Pretty Cool Ice Cream, the Logan Square shop and ice cream pop brand she has been running for eight years.

Dana grew up in the Pacific Northwest with a grandmother who was a home ec teacher. Weekends meant turning the crank on the apple peeler and standing on a stool to learn pie crust. She fell in love with pastry the moment she spotted the words "pastry chef" on a dessert menu at a restaurant her father helped build on a Seattle pier. She went to culinary school, transferred into the new pastry program when it opened, and spent the next two decades working in some of the most celebrated kitchens in the world, including The Fat Duck, Noma, avec, and Blackbird, where she considers her work a magnum opus.

The idea for Pretty Cool came not from a business plan but from a road trip. After testing an ice cream bar machine at a friend's restaurant in St. Louis, Dana drove back to Chicago with the entire concept fully formed. She opened a Kickstarter, typed "My name is Dana Cree and I make pretty cool ice cream" as her introduction, saw the name, opened GoDaddy, bought the domain, and one year later opened the doors in Logan Square. The shop is 100 percent gluten-free, the result of Dana developing Celiac disease and no longer being able to eat what she was making.

Pretty Cool now has a new production facility that opens up wholesale, catering, festivals, and a future second Chicago storefront. The pops ship nationally through Lou Malnati's Tastes of Chicago platform. The holiday menu has included a green bean casserole pop that a food writer once said should have Dana's palate insured, alongside Thanksgiving sides, savory Super Bowl collections, and breakfast ice cream day specials that won the Idaho Potatoes campaign.

What we cover:

• Growing up in the Pacific Northwest with a home ec grandmother and first lessons in pie crust, canning, and applesauce
• Spotting "pastry chef" on a dessert menu as a kid and knowing immediately that was the job
• Building a career wide rather than climbing straight up: Poppy in Seattle, The Fat Duck, Noma, avec, and Blackbird, and why the lesser-known restaurants were often the ones where she did her best work
• What it actually means to be a pastry chef: being a chameleon, punctuating someone else's meal, and why Dana finds that the most creatively exciting constraint
• The bubblegum dessert at Blackbird: how you reconstruct a fantasy flavor that does not exist in nature using banana, lemon, orange, and vanilla
• The Pacojet that broke every one of her recipes and sent her down a 10-year rabbit hole into the science of ice cream
• Penn State Ice Cream Short Course, also known as ice cream college, and writing "Hello, My Name Is Ice Cream: The Art and Science of the Scoop"
• The road trip from St. Louis where the entire Pretty Cool concept was born, and how the name came from the first sentence of a Kickstarter form
• Opening in Logan Square, the soft opening where a neighbor started yelling "free ice cream" on the corner, and the pandemic year that followed
• Why the bar and pop format beats a scoop for texture, and how quiescent freezing makes vegan ice cream actually work
• Developing Celiac disease mid-career and building Pretty Cool as a 100 percent gluten-free company, including the beetle shellac detail in most commercial sprinkles
• Third wave ice cream: where Jeni's, Salt & Straw, Kith, and Pretty Cool fit, and the new classics that used to sound wacky (salted caramel, honey lavender, strawberry balsamic)
• The holiday and seasonal menu: green bean casserole, Thanksgiving sides, the Idaho Potatoes campaign win, and why Pretty Cool's best creative work happens in colder months
• The pastry garden: lemon verbena, apple mint, chocolate mint, cinnamon basil, hardy kiwis, and elderflowers grown from European stock because the American ones just taste like flowers
• Consulting work abroad and Max's Best Ice Cream in Bethesda, Maryland, where she helped design a menu with Best Buddies to create real, meaningful jobs for people with intellectual disabilities
• Advice for entrepreneurs: brace yourself, understand the honeymoon period, and plan your exit before you plan your entry
• Why Dana did not put her name on her business, and what it means to keep your identity separate from what you build

Find Dana and Pretty Cool Ice Cream at prettycoolicecream.com and on Instagram at @prettycoolicecream. Visit in person at California and Fullerton in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago. Order for national shipping through Lou Malnati's Tastes of Chicago.

This episode is sponsored by Vermont Nut Free Chocolates. Get 20% off your order through December 31st with code PERFECTBITE at vermontnutfree.com.

This episode is also sponsored by BLiS Gourmet, Michigan's small-batch producer of barrel-aged condiments, sauces, and caviar. Elevate your everyday cooking at blisgourmet.com. Get 15% off your order with code PERFECTBITE through November 8th at blisgourmet.com.

This episode is also sponsored by Takeaways. Indulge your salt tooth with Takeaways' cheesy, protein-packed snack bars. Get 20% off with code PERFECTBITE at eattakeaways.com.

This episode is also sponsored by Hej Hej. Treat yourself to imported Swedish candy mixes and experience the Swedish tradition of slowing down for a sweet treat. Get 10% off your order with code SWEET at chefhejhej.com.

Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube!

You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and sign up for our newsletter!

After a decade running Tail Up Goat, one of DC's most celebrated tasting menu restaurants, Jon Sybert and Jill Tyler did something most restaurateurs would never consider: They closed it on their own terms, gave their team almost a full year to celebrate and prepare, and started over. What they built in its place, Rye Bunny, is the restaurant they always wanted to run and the model they believe the industry needs more of.

Jon grew up in Chicago before landing in Northern Virginia and eventually dropping out of college to cook, drawn in by the industry before he even loved food. Jill grew up on St. Thomas with nightly family dinners and a hostess job at fifteen, eventually realizing she could not quit restaurants no matter how many times she tried. They met at a DC restaurant where Jon was staging, spent a summer of Jill looking for him at parties, and ended with her slamming a car door and telling him to ask her out. He eventually did.

Tail Up Goat ran for ten years, collected Michelin recognition, and changed how Jon thought about protein sourcing after his lamb ribs got so popular they moved the national lamb market and his D'Artagnan rep called to say a meeting was being held about pricing. The restaurant became more formal than they ever intended, accolades shaped guest expectations, and post-pandemic it never quite fit back together. When the lease came up, they chose not to renew.

Rye Bunny, which opened in Adams Morgan in April, is counter service with full table hospitality: guests order at the counter, then sit down to a server, fresh plateware, and a full meal. It covers 100% of full-time employee health insurance and offers a week of paid time off. Their two reservations per night carry a $25 booking fee that goes entirely to Dreaming Out Loud and Amica Center for Immigrant Rights. And it finally feels like the dinner party they’ve always wanted to host.

What we cover:

• Jill growing up on St. Thomas with nightly family dinners and Grandma Connie's pasta; Jon growing up in Chicago and falling into kitchens before he ever loved food
• How hospitality became a career, not a detour, for each of them, and why Jill kept going back no matter how many times she thought she was supposed to stop
• Their meet cute: a stage, a summer of Jill searching for Jon at parties, and eventually a date
• How the name Tail Up Goat came from a trip to the Virgin Islands and why the name informed everything that followed
• The lamb ribs that were so popular they moved the national lamb market and what that moment taught Jon about whole-animal cooking and responsibility
• Why Tail Up Goat became more formal than they ever planned, and how accolades quietly reshaping a restaurant is something you only understand in hindsight
• The post-pandemic reckoning: why things never fit back together, and why the end of the lease felt like a gift rather than a loss
• The send-off year: announcing the closure, watching the entire team stay, and filling the dining room with people who came back one last time
• How a trip to Austin to see friends Arjav and Tracy at Birdie's changed Jill's mind on counter service, and then changed Jon's in one dinner
• What Rye Bunny actually is: counter service ordering, full table service, earlier hours, and a kitchen that gets one ticket at a time
• Why 100% health insurance and a week of PTO were nonnegotiables from day one, and how the counter service model made them possible
• "A special place, not a special occasion": the single sentence Brian Miller wrote that became the mission of Rye Bunny
• The $25 reservation fee and why it goes entirely to Dreaming Out Loud and Amica Center for Immigrant Rights
• What is on the menu right now: anchovy toast, roast chicken on focaccia, and why a regular named Joe said the roast chicken is the most Rye Bunny dish at Rye Bunny
• Their favorite spots in DC: Seki, Martha Dear, La Tahona, Albi, and Yellow
• What they are most proud of and what is coming next, including a monthly bottles and bingo night starting in November
• Advice for entrepreneurs: find a mentor who has done it, find a partner who is great at what you are not, and always project for the worst case

Find Rye Bunny at ryebunny.com and on Instagram at @ryebunnydc. Visit them in person at 1827 Adams Mill Road in Adams Morgan, Washington DC. Note: there is a fake TikTok account — the one to follow is on Instagram only.

This episode is sponsored by Vermont Nut Free Chocolates. Get 20% off your order through December 31st with code PERFECTBITE at vermontnutfree.com.

This episode is also sponsored by BLiS Gourmet, Michigan's small-batch producer of barrel-aged condiments, sauces, and caviar. Get 15% off your order through November 1, 2026 with code PERFECTBITE. Elevate your everyday cooking at blisgourmet.com.

This episode is also sponsored by Takeaways. Indulge your salt tooth with Takeaways' cheesy, protein-packed snack bars. Get 20% off with code PERFECTBITE at eattakeaways.com.

Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube!

You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and sign up for our newsletter!

This episode is sponsored by Vermont Nut Free Chocolates. Get 20% off your order through December 31st with code PERFECTBITE at vermontnutfree.com.

This episode is also sponsored by BLiS Gourmet, Michigan's small-batch producer of barrel-aged condiments, sauces, and caviar. Get 15% off your order through November 1, 2026 with code PERFECTBITE. Elevate your everyday cooking at blisgourmet.com.

This episode is also sponsored by Takeaways. Indulge your salt tooth with Takeaways' cheesy, protein-packed snack bars. Get 20% off with code PERFECTBITE at eattakeaways.com.

For nearly three decades, Donnie Madia has shaped how Chicago eats, drinks, and gathers. As owner and partner of One Off Hospitality Group, he is the co-founder behind Blackbird, avec, Publican, Big Star, and a string of concepts that helped define Fulton Market, the West Loop, River North and now the North Shore. Along the way, his group has been credited with 12 James Beard Awards and a reputation for doing things right, not just first.

Donnie grew up in Chicago raised by his mother and her twin sister, two women who made handmade pasta every Friday and Sunday dinners that friends still talk about today. Before hospitality, he spent years at the Chicago Board of Trade, undercapitalized and inverting numbers, until bartending and hospitality took over and never let go.

In this episode, he talks about assembling the Blackbird team like a rock band, running out of money multiple times before opening night, and the moment his mother sat in a steel-studded, drywallless room and made peace with his dream. He also gets into his role as a hospitality advisor on The Bear, the avec expansion to Highwood, and why he still believes the best thing you can do as an entrepreneur is stay singularly focused on one great idea.

What we cover:

• Growing up Italian in a household run by his mom and her twin sister, and the Sunday dinners that shaped everything
• The Chicago Board of Trade detour: being undercapitalized, inverting numbers, and bartending his way to a new dream
• Meeting Rick DeArmit and assembling the Blackbird team like a rock band, each person an expert in their own instrument
• Running out of money more than four times and how his mom's blessing and seed money got them over the finish line
• Why Thomas Schlesser's minimalist design was ahead of its time and what it took to believe in it
• "Everyone is welcome": the phrase Rick coined that became the DNA of One Off Hospitality
• His role as hospitality advisor on The Bear and what he brought to set in seasons two and three
• avec coming to Highwood: the town hall meeting that changed the plan from Big Star to avec
• Post-COVID dining shifts, the suburbs having their moment, and why proximity to home is reshaping how people eat out
• Dyslexia, ADHD, and choosing to use them as abilities rather than disabilities
• The book he is writing and why he wants it to help other people navigate their own differences
• Why the best entrepreneurial advice he can give is to stay singularly focused, let it unfold naturally, and resist spreading too thin too fast

Find One Off Hospitality’s concepts and locations at oneoffhospitality.com and find Donnie on Instagram at @donniemadia, along with @avecchicago, @bigstarchicago, and @publicanchicago and more. Catch him in person at Publican Quality Meats in the West Loop during lunch time. 

Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube!

You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and sign up for our newsletter!

This episode is sponsored by Vermont Nut Free Chocolates, your new favorite 100% tree nut and peanut nut quality chocolates. Get 20% off your order through December 31st with code PERFECTBITE at vermontnutfree.com.

This episode is also sponsored by BLiS Gourmet, Michigan's small-batch producer of barrel-aged condiments, sauces, and Midwestern caviar. Elevate your everyday cooking and get 15% off your order with code PERFECTBITE at blisgourmet.com through Sunday, November 1. 

Exclusions for both codes: One use per customer. Offer valid on products, not on shipping.

When you think of food destinations, Utah might not be the first place that comes to mind. Father and son duo Brooks and David Kirchheimer are working to change that. Together with co-owner and mom Linda, they founded Hill Top Hospitality, a Park City and Salt Lake City restaurant group that has grown to five concepts and over 350 employees in just eight years.

Brooks brings a lifetime of hospitality experience: starting at age seven when he asked for a cash register for Christmas to play pretend restaurant, working his way through the Montage Beverly Hills, the Montage Deer Valley, and Merriman's in Hawaii. David comes from a career in finance, bringing sophisticated business practices to an industry famous for its thin margins and sky-high failure rates.

In this episode, they talk about why they planted their first restaurant in a then-overlooked neighborhood outside of Park City's touristy Main Street, how they've maintained a GM for five and a half years in an industry where 90-day turnover is the norm, and why they believe the restaurant industry may be the last human-centered platform standing.

What we cover:

• The origin of Hearth and Hill and why going where "nobody else was" turned out to be their greatest advantage
• How David brought Fortune 500 business practices, including root cause analysis, into the independent restaurant world
• Their mantra: Inspire our associates, thrill our guests, and enrich our community. And why associates come first
• The full benefits package they offer, from health insurance and 401k matching to free meals, English classes, and the first mental health appointment on the company
• How they scaled from one to five concepts without losing their identity
• Monthly cooking classes with the National Ability Center and why it fills their team up just as much
• Navigating a father and son business marriage and why healthy disagreement is part of the culture
• The food at Hearth and Hill: modern American cuisine that goes beyond the expected, and what "elevated everyday" looks like on the plate
• How Utah's dining scene has quietly become one of the most exciting in the mountain west, and why Brooks believes a James Beard Award is coming
• Advice for anyone starting a business: network without fear, know your risk tolerance, and do not be afraid to ask for help

Find Hill Top Hospitality at hilltophospitality.com for their various restaurants and locations, and on Instagram at @hearth_and_hill, @urbanhillslc, and @_hills_kitchen_.

Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube!

You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and sign up for our newsletter!

Chef Dominique Leach is a pit master, fine dining veteran, food entrepreneur, community builder, and the woman behind one of Chicago's most celebrated barbecue restaurants: Lexington Betty Smokehouse. And if you think you know what a pit master looks like, Dom is here to expand your imagination.

In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Dominique at the brand-new Lexington Betty location inside the University of Chicago's Hutchinson Dining Commons, just days before students arrived. Dom talks about growing up in Humboldt Park, finding her footing through culinary school and eight years in the catering world alongside James Beard-connected chefs, and making the choice that would change everything: narrowing her catering business down to the thing that lit her up most.

They get into all of it: the story behind naming the restaurant after her grandmother Betty King (90 years old and from Lexington, Mississippi), what it means to be the only independent restaurant in Pullman surrounded by mega chains, how she won best barbecue in Chicago on Good Morning America, what she learned about brisket by standing in the rain for an hour at a food truck in Austin, her retail line of sauces and seasonings, the real challenges of co-packing as a small CPG brand, and why she believes Chicago has a BBQ identity all its own.

Dominique is the kind of person who cooked food for 350 box lunches, two restaurant locations, and a downtown pop-up before sitting down for this interview. She is relentless, generous, and completely clear-eyed about who she is and what she is building. This one will stay with you.

In this episode, we cover:

• Growing up in Humboldt Park and finding her way to culinary school at the Illinois Institute of Art
• Eight years in catering alongside James Beard-connected chefs and what that training gave her
• Starting a catering business with her wife in 2016 and narrowing down to barbecue
• The story behind the name Lexington Betty and her grandmother Betty King
• Being the only independent restaurant in Pullman among major chains like Chick-fil-A, Chipotle, and Wingstop
• The history of Pullman National Monument and why the Labor Day holiday exists
• Bringing a fine dining lens to pit master culture and how she talks about it on camera
• Winning best barbecue in Chicago on Good Morning America
• Speaking at a pit master class in Nigeria for 500 people
• Her retail line: TeTe seasoning, Spicy Betty barbecue sauce, Wagyu beef franks
• The real challenges of co-packing for small food brands right now
• Opening at the University of Chicago and joining the student meal plan
• Employing young people from underserved neighborhoods and the unexpected hats that come with it
• Her advice for anyone starting something new: follow through

Connect with Dominique and Lexington Betty Smokehouse:

• Instagram: @chefdominiqueleach and @lexingtonbettysmokehouse
• Website: lexingtonbetty.com
• Pullman location: 756 East 111th Street, Chicago
• UChicago location: Hutchinson Dining Commons, Hyde Park

Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube!

You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and sign up for our newsletter!

They rented a cursed venue in Toronto with a leak and a fire alarm. They put everything they had into it. And by the end of the first week, there was a line around the block.

Erin Hayes and Kelsey Ramage are the co-founders of Black Lagoon, now in its sixth year, a Halloween-themed immersive cocktail pop-up experience running across 34 locations in North America every October. Erin came from the Chicago cocktail scene, where she led the programs at J. Parker, Three Dots and a Dash, and Lost Lake as the city became the cocktail destination it is today. Kelsey came from Vancouver and London, where she became a sommelier, helped build the award-winning bar program at Dandelion on London's South Bank, and launched Trash Collective, a sustainability-focused pop-up concept that was doing pop-ups before anyone else was doing pop-ups.

They became best friends through shared circles, shared aesthetics, shared music taste, and a shared obsession with Halloween. When Kelsey pulled the ripcord in 2021 and said "I rented a venue, we're doing this," they had no idea what they were building. Six years later, Black Lagoon is a handpicked network of 34 award-winning bars across North America, with custom glassware designed by Chicago artist Kisira Hill, a strong non-alcoholic menu that has been there from the beginning, and a community of cocktail enthusiasts, goth kids, fashion kids, and spooky community members who come back year after year.

In this special Halloween-themed episode of The Perfect Bite, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Erin and Kelsey for one of the most joyful and genuinely fun conversations of the season. From growing up in households without wine to bartending at Disney World, to building the Chicago and London cocktail scenes in their formative years. From a cease and desist from Dolly Parton's lawyers on Kelsey's COVID delivery service Dolly Trolley, to The Dungeon bar in New Orleans where they threw their first party together at Tales of the Cocktail and knew they were going to work together forever. From the year they hand-picked their first bar operators to a portfolio of events that now runs year-round including Krampus Cove, Goth Girl Summer, Sad Girl Swim Club, and Y2K Splash Zone.

The chaos is the fun. That is their new motto. And after hearing this episode you will understand exactly why.

In this episode, we cover:

• Erin growing up without a food or drink family and discovering hospitality at age 14 working at a cafe called Grumpy's
• Kelsey's mom getting into canning and food preserving while Kelsey discovered food and drink after leaving home
• Erin doing the Disney College Program at Disney World, learning to bartend, and never leaving the industry since age 19
• Kelsey starting at a nightclub in Toronto that was also a supper club, becoming a sommelier in Vancouver, and moving to London to work at Dandelion on the South Bank
• The difference between Canadian drinking culture and London hotel bar culture where they would leave cocktails in hotel rooms on check-in
• Erin building the cocktail programs at Perennial Verant with chef Paul Verant and Matty Eggleston, then Three Dots and a Dash and Lost Lake with Paul McGee
• The girl mafia of Chicago bartenders coming up together: Liz Pearce, Mia Leach, Julia Momose, Jossie Erde de Oliveira, and the legacy of The Violet Hour
• Kelsey's Trash Tiki and Trash Collective: a sustainability-focused pop-up concept that was doing pop-ups before everyone else
• Kelsey opening Supernova Ballroom in Toronto, a massive sparkly disco bar, five months before COVID shut everything down
• The Dolly Trolley: Kelsey's COVID delivery cocktail service that sold mixed drinks to-go before it was legal and received a cease and desist from Dolly Parton's team
• Erin's role as a global advocacy lead for a whiskey company during COVID and keeping her nine brand ambassadors employed
• How they met through Trash Tiki pop-ups and shared circles, throwing a party together at The Dungeon in New Orleans during Tales of the Cocktail
• The first Black Lagoon in 2021 at a cursed venue in Toronto with a leak and a fire alarm and a line around the block by the end of the first week
• Handpicking bar operators who are as excited about decorating and the cocktail menu as Erin and Kelsey are: Rob Roy, Nickel City, Yacht Club among the first
• How Black Lagoon works: a lookbook that venues use as inspiration, a cobweb wall feature, a little graveyard, and custom glassware with Halloween colors
• Custom glassware designed by Kisira Hill out of Chicago: an octopus witch, a bone temple, a new coupe this year, all made with Tiki Farm
• Fall and tropical flavor inspiration: pumpkin, pear, baking spice, plus a nod to lagoon with tropical cocktails, in the Halloween color palette of orange, green, purple, and red
• Now in 34 locations across North America with many repeat venues in their fourth and fifth years
• The Columbus Ohio location at Citizens Trust
• The non-alcoholic menu that has been strong since day one and the Gen Z concept of zebra striping: alternating alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks
• Why Black Lagoon resonates beyond cocktail enthusiasts: goth kids, fashion kids, the spooky community, people in suits stopping by after work
• Their portfolio beyond Black Lagoon: Krampus Cove (dark Christmas pop-up), Goth Girl Summer, Sad Girl Swim Club, and Y2K Splash Zone pool parties in Los Angeles
• Planning for next year's Black Lagoon starts before the current year is over: sourcing glassware, scouting venues, logistics
• Filling their own cups: Kelsey's therapy and gym and pole classes, Erin's obsession with live music and drag shows and her new dog
• "I'm not a perfectionist. I'm a get it donerist." — Kelsey's philosophy on building
• Built entirely without outside investment, from the ground up

Find Erin, Kelsey, and Black Lagoon:

• Black Lagoon locations + timing: blacklagoonpopup.com and @blacklagoonpopup on Instagram
• Bad Witch Events (pool parties): @badwitchevents on Instagram
• Krampus Cove: @krampuscovepopup on Instagram

Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube!

You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and sign up for our newsletter!

She named her brand after her geriatric dog. She started her Instagram account while in chemotherapy and called it Cooking with Cancer. She photographed her own cookbook in her parents' basement with the help of her mom's mahjong friend Karen, a hobby photographer in her 70s who ended up with photos on the back cover of the finished book. And she has never once paywalled a recipe because she learned to bake from bloggers who were generous enough to share everything for free.

Alex George is the founder of Lily P Crumbs and the author of In the Mood to Bake, a cookbook that comes out September 29, 2026 and is as warm, whimsical, and genuinely joyful as everything else Alex has ever made. The brand is named after her beloved dog Lily P, who lived to 21 years old. The cookbook is a love letter to nostalgia, creativity, and the belief that knowing the rules is just the beginning of knowing how to break them.

In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Alex to chat growing up in the 90s Googling baking recipes on the one family desktop, majoring in public policy and interning on Capitol Hill, becoming a TV news reporter in Tennessee who filmed herself, to being diagnosed with a rare cancer at 22. From starting a baking Instagram account in the hospital to slowly and methodically building Lily P Crumbs over nearly a decade, through multiple jobs and a graduate degree and a COVID lockdown she had just emerged from a year of chemotherapy to experience. To a cookbook deal she almost did not pursue until her best friend Sam told her she would regret it forever.

This is a conversation about baking as a love language, about building something slowly and with your whole heart, and about what it means to decide that if you are lucky enough to get more life, you are going to do everything you were too scared to do before.

In this episode, we cover:

• Growing up in the ‘90s and early 2000s and the dawn of baking bloggers like Sally's Baking Blog and Cupcakes and Cashmere
• The one family desktop, waiting for her brother to finish playing Backyard Baseball, and Googling how to make a cupcake
• A middle school layered brownie cake for her best friend's brother's graduation that she genuinely thought she invented
• Majoring in public policy at college, interning on Capitol Hill, and gravitating toward storytelling and journalism
• Becoming a TV news reporter who filmed herself, set up her own satellite, and walked in front of the camera all at once
• Being diagnosed with a rare cancer at 22 while working in Tennessee and choosing to come back to Philadelphia for treatment at Penn
• Baking for her doctors and nurses during chemotherapy and starting an Instagram account called Cooking with Cancer
• Changing the name to Lily P Crumbs after her 21-year-old geriatric dog and getting her ServSafe certification
• The bag of cookies someone thought were dog treats because of the illustration of Lily licking a cupcake
• Stamping the back of every bag with "Not for canine consumption, humans only"
• Doing wholesale through a sandwich shop in Philadelphia and New Jersey
• Coming back to news as a freelancer, then moving to PR, then grad school, then finally committing to Lily P Crumbs full-time
• The moment she started posting real thoughts about cookies and people started following along
• The public spreadsheet ranking cookies by texture, effort level, and her personal analysis
• Being too afraid to show her face on camera for the first five videos and the moment that changed
• Getting approached by a publisher and the imposter syndrome that almost made her say no
• Her best friend Sam telling her she would regret it forever and the decision that followed
• Sam being on the cover of the cookbook (her thumb) after being called away from the nail salon as an emergency hand model
• Photographing the entire cookbook herself in her parents' basement after learning from her mom's mahjong friend Karen in her 70s
• What makes recipe development for a cookbook completely different from developing recipes for the internet
• The riffs sections: mix-and-match guides that help readers find their own baking voice
• The through line of In the Mood to Bake: whimsy, nostalgia, and knowing enough about the rules to break them
• Standout recipes: pumpkin ginger ice cream sandwiches, apple cider blondies that taste like apple cider donuts, Pop-Tarts in hot fudge sundae and brown sugar cinnamon, and recreated Philadelphia Cream Cheese Cheesecake Bars
• The discontinued snack section and a Ben and Jerry's flavors series
• Why she has never paywalled a recipe and the philosophy behind keeping everything free
• Revenue streams: food blog with monetized ads, brand partnerships, and the cookbook
• Book tour: New Jersey, Connecticut, Washington DC, Arkansas, San Francisco, and virtual events including a Milk Street Boston cooking class
• The Frenchtown New Jersey cookbook club where everyone makes a recipe and brings it potluck-style
• The cookie swap in New York where followers finally became real people
• Advice for founders and creators: trying is not cringey, it is cool, and the only person you have to answer to is yourself

Find Alex and Lily P Crumbs:

• Website: lilypcrumbs.com
• Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook: @lilypcrumbs
• Cookbook: In the Mood to Bake, available September 29, 2026 wherever books are sold

Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube!



You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and sign up for our newsletter!

He was sixteen years old, court-ordered to an alternative school in Rhode Island, looking for a way to pass the time. A retired Johnson & Wales chef named Andy ran a vocational culinary program there. Kevin signed up. Chef Andy saw something in him. And that was the beginning of everything.

Chef Kevin O'Donnell is a multi-time James Beard Award nominee and the owner of Giusto and Mother Pizzeria in Newport, Rhode Island. Giusto is his flagship restaurant at Hammett's Hotel on the Newport waterfront, serving what Kevin calls freestyle Italian cuisine: not Roman, not Tuscan, not southern Italian, but Italian cuisine seen through a Rhode Island lens, cooked with the seasons, and built around the relationships with local farmers, fisheries, and artisans that Kevin has spent a lifetime cultivating. Mother Pizzeria is his sister concept built around a 100% sourdough pizza program using stone-ground heirloom wheat from a local mill and mozzarella from the only mozzarella producer in Rhode Island.

In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Kevin for a conversation that covers one of the most genuinely moving arcs The Perfect Bite has ever told. From a North Kingstown childhood where food was about gathering rather than cooking, to turbulent high school years where his parents split and he moved out at sixteen and made choices he has spent twenty-five years building something beautiful beyond. From Ocean Tides to Junction Pizzeria to Johnson & Wales to a walk through an Italian farmers market that changed how he understood food forever. From Del Posto to Paris to a Boston restaurant nominated for Best New Restaurant by the James Beard Foundation the year it opened, to the moment he and his wife found out they were having a baby and he knew it was time to come home to Rhode Island.

This is a conversation about what cooking can do for a person. And what a person can do with cooking when they decide to give everything back.

In this episode, we cover:

• Growing up in North Kingstown, Rhode Island in an Irish-Italian-Swedish household where food was about gathering rather than cooking
• A huge childhood appetite that eventually pointed him toward the kitchen
• His parents splitting when he was going into high school and moving out at sixteen to live with a friend
• Poor decisions, difficult choices, and a court-ordered stint at Ocean Tides, an alternative school in Rhode Island
• Chef Andy, a retired Johnson & Wales instructor who ran the vocational culinary program at Ocean Tides and saw something in Kevin immediately
• Basketball and cooking as the two things that gave him structure and routine when he needed it most
• Graduating Ocean Tides, reflecting on what the rehabilitative model gave him versus what incarceration would have taken
• Junction Pizzeria in North Kingstown and chef Walter Slater, a Johnson & Wales graduate who taught him the soft skills of becoming an adult
• Walter Slater hiring only athletes because people who play team sports already know how to work together
• Going to Johnson and Wales at twenty-one through a weekend continuing education program while working two full-time jobs and paying his own way without debt
• His Johnson & Wales internship in Orvieto, Umbria at Ristorante Zeppelin under Chef Lorenzo Pellegrini: four months that turned into almost three years
• Walking through the Orvieto farmers market every morning on the way to work and understanding seasonality for the first time in his life
• Lorenzo as a well-traveled, creative chef and a traditionalist Sicilian chef in the same kitchen: learning both sides of Italian cooking simultaneously
• The quality of Italian ingredients as the single most important lesson from his time there: starting with the best makes everything else simple
• Castle Hill Inn in Rhode Island, then Del Posto in New York under Mark Ladner and a two Michelin star approach to a tomato sauce that changed how he thinks about simplicity
• An unexpected job offer to be chef at a restaurant in Paris that he could not turn down despite never studying French
• Coming back home, moving to Boston, and opening SRV (Serene Republic of Venice) in the South End in 2016 with a partner he had worked with in Italy, New York, and Paris
• SRV nominated for Best New Restaurant by the James Beard Foundation in the year they opened, building their own grain mill and milling 100% of their flour in-house
• Finding out he and his wife were expecting a baby and the decision to leave SRV and come home to Rhode Island
• Choosing Newport over Providence and why: the water, the family connection, the access to seafood, and the predictability of the seasonal tourist market
• Giusto: the name means right or just in Italian, and the whole story of how it came to be is that everything about the location, the landlords, and the opportunity felt right
• What freestyle Italian cuisine means: not tied to any region, inspired by all of Italian cooking, filtered through Rhode Island ingredients and seasons
• The Scotch meatball: a cult classic on the menu since day one, a Scotch egg wrapped in meatball batter with a tomato sauce that cooks fast and hot rather than all day long
• The fried calamari in squid ink tempura: a Rhode Island tradition elevated, with squid as one of the state's biggest fisheries
• Mother Pizzeria: opened three years after Giusto with partners Kyle Stamps and Lauren Schaefer, built around a 100% sourdough pizza program using stone-ground heirloom wheat from a Massachusetts mill
• Mother as the name of the sourdough starter culture, and why it was an obvious choice the moment Lauren suggested it
• Narragansett Creamery as the only mozzarella producer in Rhode Island and a core ingredient at Mother
• Mother's pizza philosophy: crispy outside, soft and chewy inside, less is more with toppings, and a Calabrian Luau that has become one of their most beloved and controversial pies
• Teaching at Ocean Tides, the Rhode Island Hospitality Education Foundation, Future Chefs in Boston, and the Jacques Pépin culinary arts program at Boston University
• Why being a chef is being a teacher, and why teaching forces him to keep learning
• What he is most proud of: creating a place where people want to work and seeing his team take ownership and pride in what they have built together
• Advice for founders: think everything all the way through, stress test your assumptions, and be prepared for problems before they arrive because they will

Find Kevin, Giusto, and Mother Pizzeria:

• Giusto: 4 Commercial Wharf, Hammett's Hotel, Newport Rhode Island. Instagram: @giustonewport
• Mother Pizzeria: 49 Long Wharf Mall, Newport Rhode Island. Instagram: @motherpizzeria

Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube!

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About six weeks after winning the James Beard Jonathan Gold Local Voice Award, Ashok Selvam was laid off from Eater Chicago. He had been there for over a decade. He was the only full-time staff member. His fingerprints were on every single story, every headline, every post. And then his supervisor sent a message asking him to check his email.

What happened next is one of the most genuinely exciting food media stories of the past year.

Ashok Selvam is a co-founder of Ravenous, a worker-owned independent food and culture publication that launched May 1st, 2026, built by five journalists who collectively decided that the future of food media did not have to look like what they had just left. Alongside co-founders Jaya Saxena, Amy McCarthy, Courtney Smith, and Francis Dumlao, Ashok has spent the past year building something that sounds deceptively simple: a publication where the writers own the work, get paid fairly, write what they actually care about, and push each other toward better stories without a publisher filtering the results.

In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Ashok for one of the most wide-ranging and honest conversations about food media, journalism, and what it actually means to build something from scratch after a career-defining moment of change. From a South Indian household on the northwest side of Chicago where his physician parents cooked in creative and improvisational ways, to newspaper journalism at Syracuse in the era of paste-up and Xacto knives. From covering happy hour legislation and building chicken wing maps at Eater, to the morning of August 6th, 2025, when he went to the gym, logged in to check assignments, and got the message asking him to check his email.



This is a conversation about identity, independence, what happens when your greatest asset is your flexibility and that flexibility is taken for granted, and how five journalists decided that the price of great journalism is a lot cheaper than going without it.

In this episode, we cover:

• Growing up on the northwest side of Chicago with South Indian physician parents who cooked creatively and improvisationally
• A dad who made his version of fried rice with basmati rice and ground beef
• A mom who made a mystery chicken marinated in yogurt and paprika that may have had Goan Portuguese origins
• The comfort food outside the immigrant household: Carson's Ribs and his son who now calls it "the rib store"
• Deciding on newspaper journalism at Syracuse much to his parents' chagrin, including paste-up duties and Xacto knives
• The slow burn romance with food writing as a vehicle for covering Chicago and bringing people together
• Being a six foot two left-handed Brown guy in Chicago food media and how standing out became an asset
• Starting as a freelancer at Eater Chicago, staying part-time just under the benefits threshold, and eventually becoming deputy city editor
• Being the only full-time staff member at Eater Chicago while his fingerprints were on every single story
• The happy hour legislation story that opened his career and his relationship with sources like Bill Jacobs at Piece
• The mandatory advertorial problem 
• The James Beard Jonathan Gold Local Voice Award win and the Malort shot he took backstage in front of Padma Lakshmi
• The warning signs before August 6th: Big layoffs in 2024, being asked to cover Detroit and the Twin Cities, being told to feed the app, not write stories
• The morning of August 6th 2025: the gym, the log-in, the email, the Slack, the goodbyes
• Why his son's reaction to the news was the thing he was least prepared for
• Colleagues already plotting with a code name: Chomp Chicago, named after the fictional Eater stand-in from The Bear
• The Zoom meeting where Amy and Jaya expected Ashok to be the local journalism purist and were relieved when he was not
• The five who committed: Ashok, Jaya, Amy, Courtney, and Frances
• Ravenous launching May 1st with a story in Defector about women-owned sports bars and a headline Ashok is particularly proud of
• What Ravenous is not: no maps, no roundups, no Substack, no Eater 2.0
• What Ravenous is: essayists, reporters, food culture writers who push each other toward better and deeper stories
• Frances's marketing and social media expertise and why that skill is as important as any editorial voice
• Blue Sky as a surprisingly strong platform for their audience
• The subscriber and sponsorship model, what funds actually go toward, and why libel insurance is on the list
• The Vatican restaurant story: two Chicago restaurant owners working with Pope Leo to open outside Vatican City
• The bagels and private equity story, the cheese enchilada ode, the Japanese baseball sushi push pop
• The difference between wearing the editorial hat and the sales hat and knowing when to switch
• Erick Williams of Virtue reminding Ashok he needs to be better at promoting himself
• The one-year fundraising campaign and what it means to ask for support without apology
• Advice for founders: you cannot compartmentalize when you are building something, and you always have to be a salesperson no matter what
• The Ravenous shirts his son wore to the Obama Center and why that moment meant everything

Find Ashok and Ravenous:

• Website: weareravenous.com (subscribe free or paid, Sunday and Wednesday newsletters, stories Tuesdays and Thursdays)
• Instagram: @feedravenous
• LinkedIn: Ravenous
• Ashok on Instagram: @shokdiesel
• Email: [email protected]

Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube!

You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and sign up for our newsletter!

Their grandfather worked at his Polish deli until he was 87. Their uncle is 75 and still running it. Nobody in the family told them the business was a good idea. And that didn’t stop Vanessa and Casey White from building one of the most beloved Polish American food brands in the country.

Vanessa and Casey White are the co-founders of Jaju Pierogi, a Polish American frozen pierogi brand they started in 2016 from their grandfather's handwritten deli recipes, scaled through New England farmers markets and brewery pop-ups on $70 Amazon griddles, grew through a COVID meal kit delivery service that hit 2,000 orders in six weeks, and have now brought to Whole Foods nationwide, Fresh Market, and upcoming Target locations in the Midwest. For those who didn’t grow up having these delish bites, pierogi are Polish dumplings. Jaju is their grandfather's name in Polish. His legacy lives on in every bag.

In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Vanessa and Casey for one of the most honest, funny, and genuinely moving CPG founder conversations The Perfect Bite has ever had. From growing up on a boarding school campus in Western Massachusetts eating endless buffets while their mom's kielbasa was the most requested dish at every gathering, to scaling a frozen food business without a single dollar of outside funding, to walking away from Shark Tank rather than take a deal that did not work for them. From the pineapple and cheese pierogi that their grandfather's deli loved but the market did not, to the gluten-free pierogi and the skillet meal coming next, this is a conversation about legacy, grit, community, and what it actually looks like to build something real over ten years.

In this episode, we cover:

• Growing up Polish-Irish American on a boarding school campus in Western Massachusetts where their parents were not particularly great cooks
• A mom whose kielbasa was the most requested dish at every summer gathering on the Cape
• A grandfather who worked at his Polish deli until he was 87 and whose handwritten recipes launched an entire company
• Going to their grandfather's store to get those recipes and discovering that a handful of salt means something very different when the hand belongs to your grandfather
• Working in the deli from middle school on Saturdays where Vanessa got blamed for every mistake
• Casey at Bentley studying business while Vanessa studied Italian and French 
• The gap in the Boston pierogi market that kicked everything off
• Starting on a kitchen table scaling 500-pierogi recipe trial and errors down to 40 and handing them to friends in Ziploc bags
• The deli in Beverly, Massachusetts that let them rent the space on Sundays as a kitchen
• Selling out 40 boxes of pierogi in an hour at their first farmers market and writing down everyone's name and address to hand deliver the rest
• Building the brand at New England breweries on two four-foot tables and $70 Amazon griddles
• COVID: a Google Form for pierogi meal kit delivery that went from seven expected orders to 275 by Tuesday morning and 2,000 deliveries over six weeks
• Purchase orders quadrupling overnight as people stocked their freezers during lockdown
• Going national at Whole Foods and building out regional distribution before ever touching outside funding
• Appearing on Shark Tank: the application process, the boot camp prep, pitching at 5:30 PM after being there since 11 AM, and walking away without a deal
• Mr. Wonderful saying potstickers and pierogi are the same and why that upset everyone
• The ongoing challenge of educating a national audience about pierogi while competing with the surge in Asian frozen food options
• Unit economics, the reality of retailer fees and slotting costs, and why sustainable beats unicorn
• The Mrs. T's comparison: $60 million in annual sales and 70 years in business is a completely valid version of success
• The skillet meal coming next: pierogi, kielbasa rounds, and sauteed onions in one bag
• Gluten-free pierogi now available
• Launching in 298 Target locations in the Midwest
• Vanessa turning 40 and planning a pierogi party trip to Berlin with friends from their community
• Casey's pride: hearing "Jaju" used as shorthand, knowing his grandfather's legacy lives on
• Advice for founders: test the concept while keeping your day job, and understand you will mop the floors

Find Vanessa, Casey, and Jaju Pierogi:

• Website: jajupierogi.com
• Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook: @jajupierogi
• Available at Whole Foods nationwide, Fresh Market, Big Y, New Seasons, PCC, Yokes, New Leaf, Lazy Acres, Harmons, and many more co-ops and regional stores
• Coming soon: 298 Target locations in the Midwest
• Merch available on the website

Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube!

You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and sign up for our newsletter!