Adeena Sussman has published three solo cookbooks, with the latest, Zariz, landing as the culmination of a possible trilogy, arriving after Sababa and Shabbat. Adeena is a Tel Aviv–based, Palo Alto–raised food writer who joins me in the studio for a great conversation. I absolutely love an Adeena Sussman cookbook, which includes her own work as well as collaborations with Chrissy Teigen and others. Adeena’s books are creative, thoroughly tested, and show how Jewish food identity is represented in multitudes around the world. In this episode, we talk about her life in Israel and how this new book was written with ease in mind.

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Brian Rudolph cofounded Banza in a Detroit kitchen in 2014 with a wine bottle, some chickpea flour, and a gluten sensitivity. Twelve years later, Banza is the country’s number-one better-for-you pasta brand—and recently, it launched its first-ever pasta with wheat. In this episode, Brian returns to the studio to catch us up on all things Banza, including the brand’s continued growth and how launching a non-gluten-free pasta required the company to dig deep and listen to its fans. I love catching up with food founders, and Brian is one of my favorites in the game.

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George Howell has been working in coffee longer than most roasters have been alive. In 1975, he opened the Coffee Connection in Boston’s Harvard Square, with a strong conviction that great drip coffee—single-origin, lightly roasted, treated like wine—could change the way Americans drank their morning brew. It did. George also helped popularize the Frappuccino, sold his company to Starbucks, cofounded the influential Cup of Excellence, pioneered the freezing of green coffee, and opened a new café inside a Harvard Square bookstore—at age 80. In this episode, we speak with the godfather of specialty coffee about all of it.

And it’s the return of Three Things, where Aliza and Matt discuss what’s interesting in the food world, including a reminder that Hearth is one of New York’s finest restaurants. Potluck Club is cooking exciting things in Manhattan’s Chinatown, and Echo Lake is a celebration of rum in Brooklyn from a serious drinks world duo. Also: Tart’s black malt vinegar is inspiring some kitchen explorations, a scene report from the Kiln x Comal pop-up in New York, and high praise for the Barker Cafeteria roasted sweet potato sandwich.

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Gabrielle Davenport is the cofounder of BEM, a bookstore and community space for Black food literature in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. It’s been a wonderfully busy season of cookbook events and releases, and this week BEM is reaching a whole new level by hosting the Edna Lewis Festival. It’s a week of all-star events honoring the 50th anniversary reissue of Edna Lewis’s seminal cookbook The Taste of Country Cooking. Today on the show, Gabrielle shares updates from the always-busy world of BEM and goes deep into Edna Lewis’s legacy and how it’s living on today. 

And it’s the return of Three Things where Aliza and Matt discuss what’s interesting in the food world including recent dessert explorations at Superiority Burger, Uncle’s Thai Food x Apollo Bagels, Hots Pizza is a new favorite NYC slice. Also: Chef Shuai Wang's Sichuan Hot Chicken Spice is terrific. Also, Oatly gets creative with NYC bar Schmuck and New York has a new cookbook store! Wild Sorrel Cookbooks is a gem.  

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Vitamina T is the new cookbook from Fermín Núñez (chef of Suerte, Este, and Bar Toti in Austin) and Jorge Gaviria of masa company Masienda. This amazing book does exactly what it says, offering a deep dive into Mexico’s legendary “T” foods: tacos, tortas, tamales, and so much more. In this episode, we talk about heirloom corn, street food as serious cuisine, and how the pair wrote one of the year’s most exciting Mexican cookbooks.

Also on the show, we have a great conversation with Tommy Hunt about restaurant operations and the brand-new spot that is the buzz of New York City: Dean’s.

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00:00 – Burning It On Purpose: A New Mexican Home-Cooking Mentality

39:15 – Hawksmoor, New York, and Learning the City Before You Open

43:48 – Why Should New York Care About Your London Hit?

48:24 – The New British Wave: Dishoom, Gymkhana, Ambassadors… and Risk

55:02 – Fixing Jupiter’s P&L Without Killing Its Soul

58:59 – Labor, Tipping, and Why No One Wants to Be a Manager

63:47 – What a British Pub Means in the West Village

67:50 – Pints, Pork Scratchings, and Triple-Cooked Chips: The Dean’s Menu

73:39 – Why Pubs Are Having a Moment in America

76:35 – Taste Check, Operations Edition

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Rachel Khong is the former executive editor of Lucky Peach and the author of Goodbye, Vitamin and the New York Times Best Seller Real Americans. Her new short story collection, My Dear You, is her strangest and most daring work yet: ten surreal, funny, and deeply felt stories about identity, love, memory, and what happens after you die. In this episode, we talk about the legacy of Lucky Peach, Rachel’s research process for writing fiction, and why the short story can hold what the novel can’t.

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Alicia Kennedy is a food and culture writer from New York based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She is the author of the essential weekly newsletter From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy, the book No Meat Required, and a lush new memoir, On Eating: The Making and Unmaking of My Appetites. It’s so special to have Alicia in the studio on her publication day to talk about making this book, her new magazine project, Tomato Tomato, and much more. 

Also on the show, Matt catches up with Elizabeth Dunn to talk about her recent New York magazine story about how a caffeine-laced strawberry-açai drink at Starbucks became the allowance-draining status symbol of New York’s teen elite.

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Molly Irani cofounded Chai Pani with her husband Meherwan Irani in Asheville in 2009—at the peak of the recession, with no restaurant experience and serious doubts. Sixteen years later, Chai Pani is a James Beard Outstanding Restaurant winner, and Molly has written Service Ready, a memoir about what it really takes to build a culture people want to work in. We talk about building a restaurant with hope and a binder of family recipes, and what “mindblasting” service actually means in practice.

Also on the show we have a great conversation with Rashad Frazier, author of the terrific new cookbook Cook Out.

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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.

Luke Fortney went from covering New York's restaurant scene at Eater — where he won a New York Press Club Award for a piece on flour tortillas — to contributing weekly to the terrific New York Times food newsletter, Where to Eat. On this episode we talk about pizza, schedules, and why some of the best food writing right now lives inside a 600-word newsletter. We also talk about some recent food writing that we enjoyed.

Discussed on the episode: 

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Cake Zine ⁠is an independent literary food magazine cofounded by pastry chef Tanya Bush and TASTE contributing editor Aliza Abarbanel. The new special issue, Steak Zine, examines the cultural impact of red meat in many forms. Today on the show, Aliza invites Tanya into the studio to talk about the editorial process behind this trip into carnivorous territory and the fantasies sold in each cut of steak.

And it’s the return of Three Things. Aliza and Matt discuss what’s interesting in the food world, including a trip to Colorado for an exceptional gesha at Denver’s Queen City Collective Coffee⁠, and a visit to Paradise Bakery in Aspen. Also: Stopping by Salt Bread Ko., Bar Chucho, and Lady Wong at Urban Hawker in New York. Plus, a deep dive into Mexico’s iconic “T foods” in with cookbook Vitamina T.

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