This Is TASTE

Let’s just not dwell on the fact that Flynn McGarry is only 20. He’s young. The end. This is because McGarry, the chef and owner of the ambitious and well-reviewed New York City tasting-menu restaurant Gem, is an incredibly talented dude. Period. This is a really fascinating conversation, one that surprised us in many ways. We go over his time working in Los Angeles restaurant Alma at age 13—while being homeschooled—and his famous pop-ups even earlier in his career. “My formative years were spent in some of the most stressful environments,” McGarry admits. The journey is all documented in a new film, Chef Flynn, and we get into McGarry’s many travels and eventual opening in NYC—the most competitive and ruthlessly cutthroat restaurant city in America. There’s a fearlessness in McGarry that’s extraordinary.

Also on this episode, we get to catch up with Steven Hall, a longtime NYC restaurant publicist and consultant. He tells some old war stories about NYC dining in the 1980s (he almost poisoned Mike Nichols) and details his work with many of the city’s best Japanese restaurants. We also rate the current roster of New York City restaurant critics: Pete Wells, Hannah Goldfield, Adam Platt, Ligaya Mishan.

This episode is sponsored by Joule by ChefSteps.

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If there’s one thing Naomi Pomeroy has noticed in her years of cooking and running restaurants, it’s that people don’t seem to have time to eat anymore. Whether it’s the traffic in Portland, Oregon, where she is a restaurateur, or whether we’ve all just subconsciously sped up over time, it’s getting harder and harder to convince people to settle in for a leisurely several-hour-long dinner.

This hasn’t stopped her from serving a six-course tasting menu at Beast, the restaurant she’s owned for more than 10 years, or from serving leisurely drinks and snacks (like her famous take on James Beard’s raw-onion sandwich) at Expatriate, the restaurant across the street.

But slowing down and enjoying things is important to her, whether it’s the meals she eats with her kitchen staff or the time she spends on floral design at her new plant shop, Colibri. On this episode, we talked about what’s changed in Portland since she opened her first restaurant, what’s changing in restaurant work culture, and what cooking and flowers have in common.

Also on the episode, Matt talks to chef Daniel Holzman as part of their ongoing series, 100 Questions for My Friend the Chef. This week, they’re talking about the virtues of homemade hummus.

This episode is sponsored by Joule by ChefSteps.

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As Max Ng tells it, his start at Momofuku—where he has risen to executive chef at the restaurant group’s New York City flagship, Ssam Bar—began when he showed up, as a young CIA student, with a backpack, knives, and a chef coat. Unannounced. On a busy Saturday afternoon. Asking for a “trail”—restaurant parlance for an unpaid tryout. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down, this is a fucking Saturday and you are demanding a trail,” Max, laughing, recalls a cook telling him. “Come back in a week.” Ng did return, and has never left, and I wanted to talk to him this week about his experience working for David Chang and his time living in the United States far from his home in Singapore. It was so good to get to know this rising star in the chef world.

Also on the show we have the editors of influential coffee blog Sprudge, Zachary Carlsen and Jordan Michelman. During a live taping at the Counter Culture Training Center in New York, they discuss their new book, The New Rules of Coffee.

This episode is sponsored by Joule by ChefSteps.

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London chef and author Yotam Ottolenghi puts out cookbooks that meet at the intersection of cool and practical—with a recipe development process that is part Warhol Factory, part Bon Appétit Test Kitchen, and pure Ottolenghi. After tackling baking with his last book (Sweet), and before that putting Israeli cooking on the international stage (Jerusalem), he most recently tackled the concept of simplicity—and how Simple (the book’s title and mission statement) means something different to all home cooks. You mean a 30-minute simple meal isn’t exactly simple for everybody single person attempting to make it? What a notion!

Also on this episode, we speak with Sarah Gavigan, the talented chef and author of a new cookbook: Ramen Otaku. The book promises to guide readers through the totally worthwhile process of making bowls of ramen at home. The pressure cooker is your friend! It’s a great read.

This episode is sponsored by Joule by ChefSteps.

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You may know her from her New York Times column, On Dessert, or you may know her from trying one of her unbelievably chocolaty, world-famous World Peace Cookies at a party that one time. But before Dorie Greenspan was famous for her cakes and shortbreads, she was an early pioneer of food television and a coconspirator (and coauthor) with Julia Child.

On this episode, Anna catches up with Dorie to talk about her new book, Everyday Dorie, and ask about what she actually does cook every day. We also talk about why gooey, underbaked cookies’ days are numbered but lava cake is here to stay.

Later on the show, Anna chats with Lisa Ludwinski, the owner of Detroit’s Sister Pie bakery and the author of the new cookbook Sister Pie. We talk about the evolving Detroit food scene, malted milk powder, and why making pie crust is easier than people think.

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Let’s get this out of the way first. Jeremiah Stone and Fabian Von Hauske are sweet dudes: extremely hardworking, generous, with lots and lots and lots of friends in the food world—in the United States, France, Mexico, and the darkest corners of the Noma fermentation lab (all spots the pair have worked in their short and ambitious careers). They own a trio of influential restaurants on New York’s Lower East Side: Contra, Wildair, and the newly reopened Una Pizza Napoletana. And they have just released their first cookbook, A Very Serious Cookbook (there’s a wink in there somewhere).

On the show we dive into their story (how they met in a chat room that may or may not be branded America Online) and explore how they organized their very serious cookbook into very unique chapters. Plus, Jeremiah Stone in praise of Maryland blue crabs: “It’s in your blood when you grow up around Washington, D.C.”

Also on the show, we talk with Sohui Kim, the chef behind Brooklyn's Insa and the Good Fork, as well as the author of the new book Korean Home Cooking. We chat about karaoke, kimchi, and why we should all eat more tomatoes for dessert.

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There isn’t a restaurant in New York City that’s having a bigger and brighter fall 2018 than Atomix. It’s supremely ambitious, highly polished, and uncompromisingly Korean. We love it! After it got rock-solid reviews in Eater, The Washington Post, and New York, the New York Times critic Pete Wells last week dropped 3 stars on the restaurant, anointing it as one of the city’s top tasting menus. Period. “The way the Parks put Korean culture in the foreground recalls the early days of the Four Seasons,” writes Wells. The Parks here are Ellia and Junghyun Park, and we got to talk to them about the art of banchan, the distinct aesthetics they maintain in both of their spaces, and what Americans need to know most about Korean cooking in general.

Later on the episode, Matt talks to chef Daniel Holzman in our ongoing series, 100 Questions for My Friend the Chef. This time we're talking about XO Sauce.

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Stay calm and…just act like Eric Ripert. Young cooks, are you listening? Ripert, a celebrated chef and TV personality, is a balancing force in this trash-fire age. And he’s also just a really good interview, as we find out. He joins the podcast to talk about communication. How one at the top of the kitchen chain needn’t yell to get his point across. “I don’t believe the pilots in the plane are having a screaming match,” he observes. True.

We also discuss the Michelin stars at his restaurant, Le Bernardin, and how he finds out if he still has them. (He’s had the maximum three stars since the guide launched in New York City). And we talk about his love of Korean food and culture—from the late-night partying to the vegetarian temple style of cooking that aligns with the Buddhist religion that is so important to the chef. He loves it all, and we remember a trip we took to Seoul a couple years back.

Also on the program, we ask Smitten Kitchen’s Deb Perelman which of her favorite NYC restaurant dishes has she been able to re-create at home.

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Just imagine: It’s the tail end of a dinner party you just cooked for, you’re dangerously full of food, and you realize you made about three times too much food. What are you going to do with that half-eaten plate of lukewarm crab toasts? If Julia Turshen had anything to say about it, you’re going to throw them in the refrigerator until tomorrow night, when you’re going to pulverize them to bits and turn them into buttery crab cakes for dinner.

Turshen’s new book, Now & Again, thinks about leftovers not as inevitable detritus of entertaining, but as ingredients themselves that you can mix up and have fun with. On this episode, we talk about some of these party (and postparty) tricks, getting her start working with Gwyneth Paltrow, and why she decided to start Equity at the Table, a database of food professionals in the POC and LGBTQ community.

Later on the episode, Matt talks to chef Daniel Holzman in their ongoing series, 100 Questions for My Friend the Chef. This time they’re talking about MSG and how to cook with it at home.

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You might know him from the Eat column in The New York Times, for which he went into dozens of restaurants, home kitchens, and church basements to report on some of the untold food stories from New York’s many immigrant communities. Or you might know him as the voice you hear when you tune into The Splendid Table, interviewing everyone from activist Cecile Richards to chef Jacques Pépin. But I was especially excited to talk to Francis Lam about his work as a book editor at Clarkson Potter, collaborating and conspiring with hilarious, colorful personalities like Christina Tosi, Tyler Kord, and Chrissy Teigen.

In this episode, Francis talks about why he thinks it’s important as an editor to let your authors be a little bit weird. We also look back on some of his writing for the Times and talk about why he misses reporting so much more than he misses writing. Oh, and he tells the story of the time he hung out with Chrissy Teigen’s mom and she wouldn’t stop feeding him.

Also on this episode, Matt catches up with Lisa Lillien, the founder of Hungry Girl—a project started in 2004 that has ballooned into a hugely popular magazine, podcast, and series of cookbooks. They look back at the early days of blogging, before cauliflower rice, Instagram, and rainbow everything.

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