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: McNally Family Values [Caper] Where Did the Italians of Carroll Gardens Go? [Curbed] How Eater Lost Its Bite [Caper] ⁠There Is a Misconception that The Grill Is Absurdly Expensive⁠ [Feed Me]  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Subscribe: ⁠⁠Apple, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Subscribe: ⁠⁠Apple, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Subscribe: ⁠⁠Apple⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Subscribe: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.  Subscribe: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.  Subscribe: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Subscribe: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Subscribe: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Subscribe: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Marion Nestle is a renowned nutritionist who has been shaping food policy for over half a century. She co-founded NYU’s groundbreaking Food Studies program in the ‘90s and has published over sixteen books, including her newest, Sugar Coated: Unboxing the Hidden Forces Shaping America's Favorite Breakfast Food. Today on the show, she weighs in on many buzzy topics in the food world (think: highly processed foods, fiber-and-protein-maxxing), the dramatic evolution of food culture, and how her cereal box collection inspired this new book. Subscribe: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Irene Yoo’s groundbreaking book Soju Party just won a James Beard Award for teaching Americans to drink like Koreans—the rounds, the rules, the anju, all of it. It’s a big topic to cover, and we get into the soju tornado, the convenience-store hangover industrial complex, and how a pop-up turned into Orion Bar, the Bushwick bar she co-owns with her husband and cocktail collaborator, Nick Dodge. Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joe Beddia opened Pizzeria Beddia in 2013 as a six-seat, cash-only Philadelphia shop with no phone and no logo. Two years later, Bon Appétit called it the best pizza in America, and the line never really stopped. Now Beddia runs a 140-seat restaurant with a Michelin Bib Gourmand distinction and a private “Hoagie Room,” and he’s just opened his first restaurant outside the country: Bar Etna, in London. We talk about the myth of the original shop, why the initial dough recipe hasn’t changed much, and how Beddia honed his skill in Madison, Wisconsin, of all places. Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gecile Fojas and Anthony Virey are the team behind HOSE New York, a creative R&D studio observing systems that shape culture, ecology, and consumption. Their projects include the honey brand Deadass Beekeeping, the beverages pop-up Palate Service, and the Listening Apiary and Hive Theory, an installation and live radio show streaming the sounds of their beehives at Wave Farm art park. Gecile and Anthony stopped by the studio to talk about the ethos and systems driving their many creative processes. Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Daniel Kessler is a guitarist and founding member of Interpol, one of New York’s defining bands. He also helped build Bergen Hill—a beloved Carroll Gardens crudo bar he conceived from scratch with Ravi DeRossi—and quietly became a fixture of the city’s cocktail and natural wine scene. On the eve of Interpol’s eighth album, This Mirror Weighs a Ton, Kessler joins us to talk about what turned a late-night bar regular into a serious eater, eating between Barcelona and the East Village, and remembering the early 2000s NYC food scene. Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Zeena Lattouf Joy is the founder and head baker of Zeena Bakery, a Palestinian American bakery based in NYC. Their ma’amoul, focaccia, and other treats are beloved mainstays of the artisan side of the Fort Greene farmers’ market—and a regular part of Aliza’s weekend routine. Today on the show, Zeena talks about building a bakery that supports farmers in NYC and the Levant, the realities of operating a bakery stand at the market, and her plans for the future.  Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Carla Lalli built her name in the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen before going independent and publishing two best-selling cookbooks. Yet there was much more going on in her life. Her marriage ended after 24 years, and her sparkling new book, Food Is a Feeling, tells the story through 65 recipes and 30 essays that treat cooking not as a lifestyle brand extension but as the thing that got her through it all. In this episode, Carla and Matt talk Substack life, savvy recipe shortcuts, and getting it all down in a voice that feels true to real life, not online life.  Read Carla’s Substack: Food Processing Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Zach Griff spent nearly seven years as The Points Guy’s most recognizable reporter, filing dispatches from first-class cabins and airport lounges around the world—before walking away in 2025 to launch his own venture, From the Tray Table. Today he joins Matt to talk about what actually makes airline food good, the science of why food tastes different at 30,000 feet, the credit-card-fueled arms race over airport lounges, and how one might achieve the coveted Delta 360 status. And it’s the return of Three Things, where Aliza and Matt discuss what’s interesting in the food world and beyond including amazing juice at Olabisi Sips, stops at Morning Sunshine Market in Ellenville, NY, Eataly Caffè in Manhattan, and Win Son in Brooklyn. Also: Maya Kaimal’s new Indo-Chinese sauce line, and watching Moonlighting for the first time is highly recommended. Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sally Ekus has been inside the cookbook business since before she could walk—literally stuffing press kits for her mother’s culinary PR firm as a kid. Now a senior literary agent at Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency leading the Ekus Group, she’s brokered hundreds of book deals and become one of publishing’s most transparent voices on how cookbooks actually get made. She’s behind the terrific Substack Not So Secret Agent, and Matt speaks with her about what agents really do for authors day to day, why a book deal is rarely a retirement plan, and some favorite books from years past. Also on the show we have a great conversation about Rebecca Eisenberg, author of the terrific new book Small-Batch Breads. Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Patrick Miller is the founder and distiller of Faccia Brutto, an Italian-style spirits brand based in Brooklyn, New York. He worked as a chef for 19 years in some of LA and New York’s brightest restaurants, and he began making amari as holiday gifts for loved ones while working as the chef-partner at Rucola in Brooklyn. Today Faccia Bruttio is busy using old-world techniques to create singular and special amari and aperitivi, and on the show, we go deep into their process and vision. 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 Golden Hof in Manhattan and The Dale in the Catskills, and he previews Morgan Eckroth’s debut coffee book, Coffee, for Here. Aliza visits a Creole pop-up from Chasing Chaz, enjoys Ha’s Snack Bar a great deal, and tries Julia Sherman’s new salad dressing. Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices