Stay ConnectedIf you’re a fan of smart and lively conversations about food, home cooking, and culture, this is the place. We interview the most interesting characters in the world of food, media, and cookbooks and release episodes several times a month. The program is hosted by TASTE editors Aliza Abarbanel and Matt Rodbard, and is sometimes recorded live at Rizzoli Bookstore in New York City. Visit TASTE online: tastecooking.com
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Vitamina Tis 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 Mentality00:12 – Cosme, Corn Husks, and Catching Up with New York03:16 – From Masa to Vida Mexicana: Writing the Sequel Cookbook05:19 – Entering the Taco Canon (and Updating It)08:09 – Shooting Mexico: Tortas in the Airbnb and Tortas in the Street11:24 – The Architecture of a Great Torta (and the Magic of Laminada)13:39 – Reading a Trompo and Talking to Taqueros18:21 – Quesabirria, Birrieria Zaragoza, and Offal Lines in the Sand21:45 – LA Taco Fieldwork and the Ditroit Taqueria Crew23:35 – Running a Restaurant Group and Seeing Your Food Reflected Back24:54 – Where Home Cooks Go Wrong with Mexican Street Food 36:02 – From the Pass to the Floor: Who Really Runs the Room? 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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Samer Saleh and Diane Aboushi Saleh are the married farmers behind Halal Pastures, a 100% organic and halal farm in Rock Tavern, New York. They first started growing food for their family on half an acre of land without any previous farming experience in 2015. Today they’re one of the busiest stands at the Union Square Greenmarket, with specialty produce that lures in chefs from top restaurants and home cooks alike. In this episode, Samer and Diane share how they’ve grown the farm and what they’re looking forward to as the bountiful spring and summer season unfolds.
And it’s the return of Three Things. Aliza and Matt discuss what’s interesting in the food world, including visits to Dean’s, Kabawa, and Bar Ferdinando in New York, Caity Weaver writing colorfully about the best free bread in America, Zab’s x Taco Bell have collaborated on a nationwide menu item (wow), and the results of a competitive chocolate chip cookie competition.
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Kevin Boehm cofounded the Boka Restaurant Group, built some of Chicago’s most celebrated restaurants—Boka, Girl & the Goat, Momotaro, Swift & Sons—earned a James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurateur, and appeared as himself on The Bear. He also slept in his car, battled depression and alcoholism, and spent three decades running from a secret he learned at 18 years old: the man sitting across from him at a Springfield diner wasn’t his biological father. All of that is in his enthralling memoir, The Bottomless Cup: A Memoir of Secrets, Restaurants, and Forgiveness. In this episode, we talk about helping build iconic Chicago restaurants and what it took to sit down and write the story of his life.
Also on the show, we have a great conversation with the Washington, DC, chef Fabio Trabocchi. We talk about cooking around the world and his influence on Italian food in America.
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Amanda Perdomo is a pastry chef raised in Louisiana and based in New York. She’s spent over a decade working in some of the city’s best restaurants and as a freelance baker, and a few months ago, she launched a pop-up showcasing Louisiana cooking: Amanda’s Good Morning Cafe. The weekday breakfast and lunch pop-up inside the restaurant Strange Delight has been a runaway hit, with homemade po’ boys, deep- fried cinnamon buns, and “fancy desserts.” Today on the show, we go deep on Louisiana cooking, the stakes of running a pop-up, and what’s next.
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Chef Beejhy Barhany has a remarkable story to tell. Born in Ethiopia's Tigray region, she fled with her family at age four, crossing Sudan on foot and eventually landing in Israel, then in Harlem, where she opened Tsion Cafe in the former home of Jimmy’s Chicken Shack. Now she’s written Gursha, the first Ethiopian Jewish cookbook from a major American publisher. We talk about Beta Israel cuisine, the unfortunate closing and hopeful reimagining of Tsion Cafe, and building a community through food while fighting to stop anti-Semitism.
And it’s the return of Three Things. Aliza and Matt discuss what’s interesting in the food world, including Grape Juice by Eliza Dumais, fun visits to Lafayette Tavern and Dinamo in Richmond, Virginia. Also: A new weekend staple is Sal & Cookie’s Ultra Fine Diner in Brooklyn, a favorite Caesar dressing, and we love avocados and Primavera Avocados will send you the best ones we’ve ever tasted.
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