This Is TASTE

It’s the return of Food Writers Talking About Food Writing. Every couple of weeks, Matt invites a journalist to talk about some favorite recent food writing as well as their thoughts on the industry as a whole. Dana Brown was a fixture of Vanity Fair’s Oscar-party machine and Graydon Carter’s inner circle for more than two decades before writing it all down in his memoir, Dilettante. He returns to the studio with a new job: editor in chief of Caper, the scoop-driven media start-up applying a Puck-style power-and-money lens to restaurants, chefs, and the food business. In this episode, we talk about economics at The Grill, the Keith McNally legacy, and what’s good in the world of Caper.

Featured on this episode:

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Ruth Reichl reviewed restaurants for the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, ran the country’s most legendary food magazine, and wrote five memoirs about all the meals enjoyed and life lived. Today she’s doing it again on her wonderful Substack, La Briffe, unfiltered and endlessly curious. Recorded live at the Traverse City Food & Wine festival, Matt talks with Ruth about her University of Michigan years, her passion for memoir, and her take on where food criticism stands today.

Also on the show, I have a great conversation with Martin Sorge, author of the terrific new book Great Bakes.

Read Ruth’s savage New York Times review of the Box Tree restaurant from 1998.

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Meherwan Irani has been sharing wisdom about Indian street food since first appearing on this show in 2019. That would be vada pav’s genius, naan’s overratedness, and his mom’s three-lentil dhansak. Now it’s all in his debut cookbook, No. 1 Best Indian Cookbook in the World, alongside the two decades’ journey of building Chai Pani, Botiwalla, and Spicewalla. In this episode, Matt catches up with his old friend (and recent India travel companion) about auntie holdbacks, striking a balance between tradition and invention, and what he means about his strong stance on naan.

And it’s the return of Three Things, where Aliza and Matt discuss what’s interesting them in the world of food including food in the movie “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” is really fun. Plus: check out the movie box office podcast, B.O. Boys, from our producer Clayton. Also: Matt returns to Traverse City, Michigan and visits Farm Club. He also drops by Penny in NYC for another amazing meal. Aliza has great rice rolls at Sun Hing Lung in Manhattan’s Chinatown (and check out the Chinatown Records live streams), and visits Conwell Coffee Hall in the Financial District. And speaking of coffee, Matt checks out Heist Coffee and its ¼ caffeinated glory.

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Ali Francis is an Australian writer and pastry chef living in Salt Lake City, Utah. She’s the author of the new book The Curious Lives of Vegetables: An Artful Exploration of the Wonderful World of Edible Plants, Their History, and Their Crucial Role in Our Future. It’s a must-read for produce lovers everywhere, with in-depth reporting and beautiful botanical illustrations that ensure you’ll never look at the grocery aisle or farmers’ market the same way again. Today on the show, Ali and I nerd out on all things vegetables.

And it’s the return of Three Things, where Aliza and Matt discuss what’s interesting them in the world of food including Matt’s recent trip to Chicago where he visited Mi Tocaya Antojería, Feld, and Mindy’s Bakery. He was blown away by all three. Aliza checks out Elbow Bread’s hot dog pop-up, Chambers for terrific late-summer cooking, and coffee at The Mandarin in New York City.

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Zola Gregory is a writer, recipe developer, and food stylist based in Seattle. Her biweekly recipe column for TASTE, Extra Good, has yielded countless hits, and now she has a debut cookbook to enjoy: Sheet Cakes! In this long-overdue episode, Zola stops into the studio to talk about her distinct cooking point of viewpoint of view, going down the chocolate cake rabbit hole, and much more.

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Pim Techamuanvivit left a career in Silicon Valley to become one of the most important Thai chefs working today. She’s self-taught and runs Michelin-starred kitchens on two continents at San Francisco’s Kin Khao and Nari and Bangkok’s Nahm. Her new book, Cooking Thai, is the result of writing down everything she had to figure out on her own. It’s a remarkable book, and you should pick it up. Pim joins the show to talk about her amazing journey from working in tech to opening her first restaurant—her first restaurant job—and translating her iconic restaurant dishes for the home cook.

Also on the show, I have a great conversation with Gidon Coll of the Hudson Valley Apple Project. If you love apples as much as I do, you will want to listen to this conversation. We talk about Gidon’s work growing heirloom and obscure varieties of apple, and we discuss his truly amazing farm visits. You should book tickets while they are still available. 

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Maria Geyman is the founder of Masha Tea, a board-certified naturopathic doctor, and the author of With Tea: Culture, Accoutrements, and Rituals. It’s a great new book all about the wide world of tea, paired with recipes for brewing tea and desserts to serve with it. Today on the show, we go deep on all things tea.

And it’s the return of Three Things, where Aliza and Matt discuss what’s interesting them in the Los Angeles food scene including visits to Jasmine Market & Deli, Quat, Chikaramochi, Bar 109, Kura Revolving Sushi, Odd One Out, and Hermon’s. 

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Tanya Sichynsky isn’t a vegetarian—but as the editor behind NYT Cooking’s newsletter The Veggie, she’s spent years making the case that vegetables belong at the center of the plate. Her new book, Veg Everything, curates 100 recipes from NYT Cooking’s deep bench of recipe developers, including Melissa Clark, Eric Kim, Hetty Lui McKinnon, and many more, for weeknights, parties, and everything in between. Matt talks to Tanya about her unlikely path from sports media (go Dawgs) to food editing, the challenge of curating from an archive of 24,000 recipes, and why she thinks vegetables open a “multiverse” instead of a life of side dishes.

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Polina Chesnakova’s latest cookbook, Chesnok, opens with a hard question: What do you call the food of a diaspora that has outlived the country that made it? Polina—born in Ukraine to a Russian mother and Armenian father and raised in a Rhode Island community of Soviet refugees—joins us to talk about food in the context of “post-Soviet,” the Book of Tasty and Healthy Food, her family’s uncompromising Olivier salad, and her prolific cookbook career.

And it’s the return of Three Things, where Aliza and Matt discuss what’s interesting in the food world and beyond, including Matt’s visit to the Bay Area and Wine Country, with meals at Lazy Bear, Garden Creamery, Sohn, and Valley Bar + Bottle. Aliza shares about an upcoming Cake Zine reading series taking place September 4 to 6 in New York City, a visit to Chrissy’s Pizza, and thoughts on the new Erewhon café at LACMA in Los Angeles.  

Read: It’s Difficult to Talk About Soviet Food

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Charlie Mitchell grew up in his grandmothers’ Detroit kitchens, walked away from culinary school, and talked his way into a line cook job while working as a valet. Years later, after stints at Benu, Eleven Madison Park, and Per Se, he won the prestigious Best Chef: New York State James Beard Award for his restaurant Clover Hill—and then lost his mentor, James Kent, and inherited Saga’s kitchen 63 floors above Manhattan. We talk about growing up in Detroit, his interest in Japan, and how he views the evolution of the tasting menu.

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