Sohla El-Waylly — chef, recipe developer, YouTube star — just released her first cookbook, Start Here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook. She sees the book as an antidote to the pitfalls of culinary school (which she calls “a scam”), and she wrote it to help home cooks learn in their own kitchens. Sohla tells Dan why she always knew that she wanted to cook for a living, how she fell in love with her husband over a pile of butchered chickens, and why she still makes sprinkles individually, by hand. 

If you want to win a copy of Sohla's cookbook, sign up for our newsletter by November 19. If you’re already subscribed, then you’re already entered to win. Open to US/Canada addresses only.

The Sporkful production team includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Nora Ritchie, Jared O'Connell, and Julia Russo, with production this week by Grace Rubin.

Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Major announcement! Dan’s first cookbook, Anything’s Pastable, is available for preorder wherever books are sold starting today! This collection of non-traditional pasta sauces is not your nonna’s cookbook. It has kimchi carbonara, cacio e pepe with chili crisp, roasted artichoke with preserved lemon, and a dish called spaghetti all’assassina, or assassin’s spaghetti, which is pan fried until the pasta turns charred and crispy crunchy. Plus much more. Preorder Anything’s Pastable: 81 Inventive Pasta Recipes for Saucy People right now -- there’s also an option to preorder a signed copy as part of a holiday pasta gift box from Sfoglini!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Back in 2018, we talked with chef and recipe developer Yewande Komolafe about her experience as an undocumented immigrant. She grew up in Nigeria, but after immigrating legally to the U.S. a clerical error led to her losing her immigration status. For years she felt she had to hide parts of herself, for fear of being outed as undocumented. And because of her status, she couldn’t go back to Nigeria. This week we’re replaying that episode, followed by a new conversation with Yewande in which she updates her story, and talks about the release of her first cookbook, My Everyday Lagos.

If you want to win a copy of Yewande's cookbook, sign up for our newsletter by November 12. If you’re already subscribed, then you’re already eligible to win.

The Sporkful production team includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Nora Ritchie, Jared O'Connell, and Julia Russo. The team that originally produced parts of this episode was Anne Saini, Aviva DeKornfeld, Rob McGinley Myers, and John DeLore.

Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We are back with the Salad Spinner! This is our rapid fire roundtable discussion of the latest food news, from significant to silly, surprising to strange. And in the Spinner this week are Amanda Mull, a staff writer at The Atlantic, and Doug Mack, who writes the newsletter Snack Stack. They discuss the genius of Bass Pro Shops, the truth behind Van Halen’s brown M&Ms story, and the weirdness of brand collaborations, like Van Leeuwen’s Hidden Valley Ranch Ice Cream.

The Sporkful production team includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Nora Ritchie, Jared O'Connell, and Julia Russo.

Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Curtis Chin was practically raised at Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine, his family’s restaurant in Detroit. It was a restaurant that served everybody, from the mayor (who was a regular) to sex workers to business executives. Within the walls of the restaurant, the Chin family saw the rise of Detroit as a multicultural, industrial city, and its decline in the wake of white flight and the crack epidemic. Chung’s was also the place where Curtis started to figure out his own identity and sexuality — while also learning how to make the Detroit Chinese-American specialty, almond boneless chicken.

Curtis’s memoir is Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant. If you want to win a copy of the book, sign up for our newsletter by October 23. If you’re already subscribed, then you’re already eligible to win.

The Sporkful production team includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Nora Ritchie, Jared O'Connell, and Julia Russo.

Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

School is back in session. And for kids, lunch period is the closest you get to being on your own at school. So what do kids actually talk about at lunch? Dan goes to one elementary school to find out. Then we hear from parents dealing with the high-stakes daily routine that is packing a lunch. Food writer J. Kenji López-Alt joins Dan to talk about his tips and tricks for using a bento box to pack lunch for his kids every day. And we hear your stories about school lunch triumphs and tragedies.

The Sporkful production team includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Nora Ritchie, Jared O'Connell, and Julia Russo.

Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Husband-and-wife comedians and podcast hosts Natasha Leggero and Moshe Kasher often perform standup together. In their Netflix special they offer couples relationship advice, and the occasional roast. This week on The Sporkful, Natasha and Moshe help Dan and his wife Janie resolve their long-simmering marital conflicts involving hand soap and hosting dinner parties. Can Dan and Janie figure out how to work together before a big party?

This episode originally aired on September 2, 2019, and was produced by Dan Pashman, Anne Saini, Ngofeen Mputubwele, with editing by Peter Clowney. 

The Sporkful production team now includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Nora Ritchie, and Jared O'Connell.

Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Back in 2017, a far-right politician in France angered his supporters and caused a small scandal. The faux pas? Enjoying a plate of couscous. Couscous is one of the most popular dishes in France, and it’s also a symbol of North African immigration. So how does the food of a former colony become “French” — and how much credit should France get for its culinary influence on former colonies? Reporter Samia Basille tells the story of two dishes that have crossed borders as a result of French colonialism: couscous and banh mi. Samia is an Algerian-French woman whose mother grew up in a French colony, so for her, these stories are personal.

The Sporkful production team includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Nora Ritchie, and Jared O'Connell, with production this week by Samia Basille and voiceover by Isabelle Duriez.

Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On today’s show, we’re featuring two new cookbooks that we’re excited about, and the stories of the authors behind them. James Park’s new cookbook Chili Crisp: 50+ Recipes To Satisfy Your Spicy, Crunchy, Garlicky Cravings is a testament to how he’s never really followed the rules — and why that’s his secret weapon. Then we talk with Adeena Sussman, whose new book is Shabbat: Recipes and Rituals From My Table To Yours. Adeena spent years helping to write recipes for other peoples’ best-selling cookbooks, including Chrissy Teigen’s. Only recently did she start putting her own name on the cover — we talk about why.

Sign up for our newsletter by September 29 for a chance to win one of these cookbooks! If you’re already subscribed, you’re automatically entered to win.

The Sporkful production team includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Nora Ritchie, and Jared O'Connell.

Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Breeders at Washington State University spent 20 years developing a completely new variety of apple: Cosmic Crisp. What exactly does it take to create a new kind of apple? And how do they come up with a name for it? We team up with Helen Zaltzman of The Allusionist podcast to learn about this apple innovation — and to heap a deserving amount of scorn on the ubiquitous, flavorless Red Delicious. Then we ask, four years after the apple’s launch, was it a success?

This episode originally aired on September 30, 2019, and was produced by Dan Pashman, Anne Saini, Ngofeen Mputubwele, Harry Huggins, John DeLore, and Jared O’Connell. The Sporkful production team now includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Nora Ritchie, and Jared O'Connell.

Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.