This Is TASTE

Today’s episode is really special: a deep eating and drinking tour of Kingston, New York, the Hudson Valley town located under two hours’ drive from New York City that has quietly built one of the most interesting food scenes in the state. Matt has lived nearby for the past five years after two decades in Brooklyn, and Kingston has become his go-to for dining out. His guide for the day: Jenn Sit, editorial director of food and drink at Clarkson Potter, Kingston born -and -raised, and part of a longtime Kingston restaurant family. Consider this your summer-into-fall Hudson Valley trip-planning assignment.

Check out all the places mentioned on Google Maps.

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Jenn Saesue didn’t want to open another Thai restaurant that served the same watered-down menu as everyone else’s—so she didn’t. Nearly a decade later, she’s the cofounder of 55 Hospitality, the group behind Fish Cheeks, the Michelin-listed Bangkok Supper Club, and Bub’s Bakery, New York’s first completely allergen-free bakery. Matt talks with Jenn about refusing pad Thai, managing an impossible reservation list, and how a birthday cake for her husband turned into a two-and-a-half-year research and development project.

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Matt Johnson directed the films BlackBerry and the DIY comedy Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie—now he’s taking on Anthony Bourdain. His new film Tony, out in August from A24, skips the traditional biopic format entirely, compressing three formative Provincetown summers described in Kitchen Confidential into one transformative season for a 19-year-old, pre-fame Bourdain. Johnson joins us to talk about adapting a book everyone already loves, directing Dominic Sessa away from doing an impression, and his love for the Canadian rock band Sloan. 

And before that, Matt shares some recent restaurant visits, including stops at Thai Diner, Keens, and Goosefeather. 

Check out Matt on the podcast Put It In My Mouth.

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Pierce Abernathy is a recipe developer and content creator based in Brooklyn. You may know him from his popular online videos showcasing his seasonal approach to plant-forward cooking—and now, he’s releasing a debut cookbook: Every Leaf, Every Stem: Craveable, Creative Vegetables All Year Round. Today on the show, we go deep on Pierce’s inspiration and book-making process, including getting the book’s introduction written by the one and only Alice Waters, and his upcoming book tour.

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In 2005, Matt sat across from Anthony Bourdain at a magazine photo shoot. His first TV show, No Reservations, was only a few months old, and they dug into the contents of his travel bags, which he had brought to the set from his apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. Two hours turned into a highly personal conversation, recorded on a cassette that sat untouched for twenty years. This week, that tape gets its first public airing, and we discuss Tony’s preferred sucker-punch etiquette, his loyalty to cigarettes and the Chateau Marmont, ayahuasca in Peru, and the talk show he dreamed up with Christopher Walken in mind. The Bourdain biopic, Tony, is out on August 7.

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Renata Ameni is chef partner of Birdee, a bakery and all-day café on the Williamsburg waterfront. The Brazilian-born chef is a fine-dining veteran who worked at Eleven Madison Park and opened Crown Shy before hopping over to more casual territory. Today on the show, we talk about bridging the gap between different styles of restaurants, making singular pastries, and more.

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Noah Galuten—chef, James Beard Award–winning cookbook author, and YouTube food guy—joins the show to talk about his new book, Grill Time!. The conversation covers his unconventional path from UCLA theater student to LA pitmaster, the case for treating your gas grill as a weekday kitchen appliance, and a deep dive into his research trip to Hermosillo, Mexico, where he discovered that everything he thought he knew about carne asada was wrong.

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Omi Hopper is a Puerto Rican chef, social media influencer, and food entrepreneur. You might know her as a semifinalist on season two of Next Level Chef, or from her popular cooking videos across social media, where she shares her takes on Puerto Rican classics. Today on the show, we talk about making her debut cookbook, Cooking con Omi: A Love Letter to Puerto Rican Home Cooking.

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Claire Saffitz joins us for a summer-minded conversation about cooking outside the dessert lane. The best-selling author of Dessert Person and What’s for Dessert talks pizza-oven construction, YouTube behind-the-scenes, garden life in the Hudson Valley, and—for the first time—details about her upcoming third cookbook, which is a bit of a departure from her previous work.

And it’s the return of Three Things, where Aliza and Matt discuss what’s interesting in the food world, including Matt’s visits to Lola’s, Bar Chimera, AOOA Farm, and Superiority Burger. Aliza checks out Dolores, Un Posto Italiano, and shares how she is having a real potato salad summer. 

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We're thrilled to have chef Norman Van Aken on the show. Norman is the founding father of “new world cuisine” and the man who introduced the word “fusion” into the culinary lexicon—at a 1989 symposium in Santa Fe, decades before it became widely used and sometimes critiqued. A former carnival worker and tar roofer who never went to culinary school, Van Aken built his vision in Key West and Miami, gave Charlie Trotter his first kitchen job, and has spent 40-plus years arguing that Florida deserves a cuisine of its own. His restaurant Norman’s is now in its third Orlando incarnation. We get into all of it in this memorable episode. And check out Norman’s Substack too. It’s a great read.

Also on the show we have a live recording from the recent The Great Nosh Jewish food festival. It’s an entertaining conversation featuring Niki Russ Federman of Russ & Daughters, Mike Solomonov of Kfar Brooklyn, and Itamar Srulovich of Honey & Co in London.

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