The Sporkful

Starting this week we're pulling one classic Sporkful from the deep freezer every other Friday and sharing it with you! We're calling these episodes "Reheats." If you have one you want to hear, email us at [email protected]! This week to kick things off: We discuss the beauty and tyranny of tradition, as well as the Wheel Of Infinite Thanksgiving Anxiety, with legendary food writer Mimi Sheraton, Milk Street Kitchen's Christopher Kimball, and cookbook author Kian Lam Kho. And yes, we're serious. (Here's Kian's recipe for leftover pumpkin pancakes.)

This episode originally aired on November 13, 2017, and was produced by Dan Pashman, Anne Saini, and Margaret Kelley. The Sporkful team now includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Nora Ritchie, Jared O'Connell, and Julia Russo.

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Tiffanie Barriere is an award-winning bartender and cocktail educator who goes by the title “The Drinking Coach.” As the holidays approach, Tiffanie joins us to share some cocktail inspiration, talking with Dan about drinks for every season. She’s also created a cocktail perfect for this season — find it on Dan’s Instagram and in our newsletter! Tiffanie reflects on going from bartending at Applebee’s to being the beverage director at a place known as one of the best airport bars in the world, and discusses her collaboration with the esteemed food journalist Toni Tipton-Martin on Toni’s new book, Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs, and Juice: Cocktails from Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks. 

Get your Sporkful collection pastas, a signed copy of Dan's cookbook, and limited edition cascatelli posters in time for the holidays!

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.

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How did the U.S. military create a pizza that soldiers could eat on the battlefield? Our friends at the podcast Proof from America’s Test Kitchen follow the five-year journey to create the world's most shelf-stable pizza. In the process, they learn about ration bars made with ultrasonic technology, and how to keep cheese the right color in extreme conditions.

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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.