This Is TASTE

For years, Ryan Sutton was the chief restaurant critic at Eater New York, before his position was recently eliminated. Ryan is one of the most respected critics in the game, and we wanted to invite him to the studio to talk about the LO Times, his Substack covering the New York City restaurant scene. We talk about modern pizza by the slice, the economics of sushi, and some of his favorite restaurants in this great restaurant city. We also dig into the state of restaurant criticism, and how social video accounts and changing the way we get our restaurant intel.

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Many of us subscribe to NYT Cooking, the decade-old recipe emporium and offshoot of the venerable New York Times Food desk. This week marks the release of a new cookbook from the New York Times, Easy Weeknight Dinners, and we were thrilled to speak with Ali Slagle and Emily Weinstein, two core members of the NYT Cooking crew. Emily is the editor in chief of New York Times Cooking and Food and the author of the New York Times recipe newsletter Five Weeknight Dishes, which reaches millions of readers every week. Ali Slagle is a cookbook author and a key contributor to NYT Cooking. We spoke with them at a recent live event we hosted at Talea Beer Co. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

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Franco Fubini is the founder and CEO of Natoora, a high-end greengrocer connecting chefs and home cooks with some of the world’s best heritage produce through direct grower relationships. He’s also a professor of sustainability management at Columbia University and the author of the book In Search of the Perfect Peach, detailing Natoora’s quest to find flavor-first food and impact food systems in the process. 

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Sarah Fennel is the self-taught baker and photographer behind the widely popular Broma Bakery, a “mostly” baking blog that she launched in 2010. In this episode, we are introduced to Sarah’s incredible exuberance for baking, sharing, and baking more. We talk about the early days of her writing and how Broma has grown to become one of the most popular food publications online. We also get into her debut cookbook, Sweet Tooth, which was more than a decade in the making and has been one of our favorites of this busy season.

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Today’s interview is so great. Dan Barber is the chef and co-owner of Family Meal at Blue Hill in Manhattan and of the legendary Blue Hill at Stone Barns. He’s also the founder of Row 7 Seed Company, a seed company built by chefs, farmers, and breeders that is pushing the boundaries of modern agriculture. We talk about his Row 7 vegetables, including red Badger Flame beets and the semi-viral produce of the season, Sweet Garleek. We also discuss his day-to-day cooking at Stone Barns and how his aversion to tweezers has led to a philosophy that is both fresh and timeless. I so enjoyed catching up with Dan, and I hope you enjoy this conversation.

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Samantha Irby is a humorist, a TV writer, and the author of an incredible new essay collection, Quietly Hostile. In this episode, we talk about so many things: Chicago pizza, living in Michigan, Bosnian food in Grand Rapids, car wash dudes in Kalamazoo, and what it’s like to write lines for Carrie Bradshaw (as well as give her diarrhea). 

Clare de Boer is the chef-owner of Stissing House, a restaurant located in New York’s Hudson Valley that we like very, very much. Clare is also the chef-owner of two New York City restaurants, King and Jupiter. In this episode, we speak with Clare about her time cooking at the River Café in London and her journey to the United States to open some of the country’s best restaurants. We also talk about her great Subtack, The Best Bit.

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Ina Garten joins us in the studio for a really fun conversation that dips into her excellent new memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens, which is out this week. While the story covers Ina’s whole technicolor life—from a difficult childhood through her time working at the White House, to opening her specialty food store, Barefoot Contessa, to her cookbook and television work—we wanted to focus on Ina as entrepreneur, splitting time between 1970s New York City and the Hamptons. It was a different era, and she even tells a story about being held up at gunpoint. This is a wide-ranging conversation, and I think you will learn a lot about the Ina that came before the Ina we all know. I hope you enjoy it.  

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Casey Lewis is an expert on Gen Z and writes the colorful Substack After School, which covers youth culture and trends. We wanted to have Casey on the show not just to talk about “how the kids are eating and drinking and shopping for food” but to dig into her reporting on today’s rapidly shifting culture. It’s a fascinating talk about CPG, restaurant trends, and how social media is changing the way we all eat and drink.

Also on the show, Matt catches up with the B.O. Boys to talk about their excellent movie box office podcast, how food movies have performed (and not performed) at the box office, some overrated/underrated food movies, and we talk about a series of live events they are doing this fall.  

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Joe Yonan is the food and dining editor of the Washington Post. It’s a big job, covering an outstanding food city, so it’s pretty remarkable that Yonan finds time in the margins to write cookbooks every couple years. Much respect, Joe. In this episode, we talk about his latest cookbook, the ambitious Mastering the Art of Plant-Based Cooking, among other topics. It’s a really great talk, and we dig into the Washington, DC, dining scene, this impossible-to-figure-out Beyond Meat world we live in, and many recipes from his terrific new book. I hope you enjoy our conversation.   

Also on the show, Aliza and Matt talk about three things they are into right now! These include: Arbitrary Stupid Goal by Tamara Shopsin, Il Totano is Harold Dieterle's big NYC return and it rules, 886 in NYC has a great new menu, Romy Gill's India is a great new cookbook, check out Rodeo, an exciting new wine bar in Brooklyn, Channels with Peter Kafka is the return of one of the best podcasters in the game.

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Jessie Sheehan is all about baking. She’s host of the baking podcast She’s My Cherry Pie on Radio Cherry Bombe and the author of four baking cookbooks, including her newest: Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes. This book ventures into all-savory territory, from biscuits and scones to what she calls “toasty handhelds,” kinda like fancy hot pockets, and this episode will have you craving them all. 

Also on the show, it’s time to talk about cool new fall cookbooks. All season Aliza and Matt are previewing some of their favorites, category by category. Next up is books by people we follow and love. These include Good Lookin' Cookin' by Dolly Parton, Soups, Salads, Sandwiches by Matty Matheson, What Goes with What: 100 Recipes, 20 Charts, Endless Possibilities by Julia Turshen, Life's Sweetest Moments by Dominique Ansel, Pass the Plate: 100 Delicious, Highly Shareable, Everyday Recipes by Carolina Gelen, Justine Cooks: A Cookbook: Recipes (Mostly Plants) for Finding Your Way in the Kitchen by Justine Doiron, Sweet Tooth by Sarah Fennel.

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