This Is TASTE

We had to break in on a Saturday with this very cool conversation with Melissa Clark. Melissa is a prolific cookbook author who wears several hats at the New York Times, where she’s currently a food reporter, recipe columnist, and the interim restaurant critic, serving alongside Priya Krishna. We’ve really enjoyed Melissa’s recent string of reviews, most of all her latest report from New York City...

Yemi Amu is the founder and director of Oko Farms, a beloved community-based aquaponics farm cultivating fish alongside produce in New York City. After a decade of growing food in several locations across Brooklyn, including three years in Williamsburg, Oko Farms unexpectedly had their lease terminated this November. They’re forced to pack up the farm and find a new location, and today on the show...

Jon Bonné is an erudite observer of food and culture trends and the author of many books, including the monumental, two-volume The New French Wine. In this episode, we talk about what Jon’s been eating, drinking, and writing about in the world of restaurants, wine, and food culture. We discuss the many perceptions of the “wine bar,” and we dive into some of Jon’s restaurant reporting at Resy, wher...

Vaughn Vreeland is a supervising video producer overseeing the test kitchen studio team for NYT Cooking. He’s also a passionate baker and home cook, and he develops recipes for the Times. Today we had Vaughn in the studio to talk about what happens behind the scenes and about bringing the annual cookie package to life. Also on the show, Aliza and Matt talk through their go-to holiday baking recipe...

All fall, Aliza and Matt have been talking about many of the season’s new cookbooks, from the biggest “influencer” books to baking, memoir, biography, and the return of restaurant books to the mix. Here is a recap of some of their favorites from the busy fall—and a solid reminder that cookbooks make amazing gifts! If you like one of the titles mentioned, pick up a copy at one of our favorites stor...

David Gelb is the the creator of Chef’s Table, the long-running Netflix documentary series that takes viewers inside the world of restaurants and chefs. David is also the director of Jiro Dreams of Sushi, the acclaimed documentary capturing the idiosyncratic world of master sushi chef Jiro Ono. In this episode, we talk about the creation of Chef’s Table and how the show invented a new vocabulary f...

Gary He wrote the coolest book! Gary is an accomplished journalist and photographer who has contributed memorable stories to Eater for years. But his book about McDonald’s, McAtlas: A Global Guide to the Golden Arches, is truly groundbreaking in its scope, telling the story of the multinational chain from Mexico and Denmark to India and Japan. In this episode, we talk about Gary’s travels to McDon...

It’s our 500th episode! Thank you to everyone who has been following along since 2018 and to those who are brand-new to our universe. We had to mark this big episode with one of our absolute favorites in the world of baking, business, and cookbook writing. Christina Tosi is the founder of the singular Milk Bar bakery and the author of many must-own cookbooks. Her latest is her best one yet: Bake C...

Every year we await the release of The Best American Food Writing. It’s a sharp collection of works from around the world of food media, and it always brings surprises. This year was no different, and the collection’s new editor, Jaya Saxena, tells us about her selection process. We also dig into her own journalism career. She’s one of our favorite writers at Eater, and we talk about some memorabl...

What a fun conversation with the one and only Bobby Flay. Bobby joins us in the studio to talk about his New York City restaurant career, including highly memorable restaurants Mesa Grill, Bolo, Gato, and Bar Americain. We dig into why Mesa Grill was such a groundbreaking idea in the early 1990s and how his cooking there brought Southwest flavors into the mainstream. We also discuss how beating Bo...

We’ve long been fans of cookbook author and creative thinker Molly Baz, and many of you have too. With a signature voice and absolutely wild recipe development skills (as well as years of professional cooking under her belt), Molly has won over millions of fans worldwide. Her cookbooks Cook This Book and More Is More are both New York Times Best Sellers, and she returns to the show to give us some...

As we approach our 500th episode, we are bringing back two memorable episodes from 2018, our first year of the podcast. Samin Nosrat is a chef and the author of the legendary cookbook Salt Fat Acid Heat. This episode was our very first, and it was recorded at Books Are Magic in Brooklyn on July 12, 2018. We talked to Samin about “too-mami” (cooking with too much umami), angry letters, and the diff...

Nicola Lamb is a pastry chef and recipe developer based in London. After training in some of London and New York’s top bakeries, like Dominique Ansel, Ottolenghi, and Happy Endings, she launched the pop-up bakery lark! and the popular newsletter Kitchen Projects—and now she’s written a wonderful debut cookbook, Sift, that’s truly the most comprehensive baking book I’ve read in years. It’s so fun t...

Lisa Kyung Gross is the founder and CEO of the League of Kitchens, an immigrant-led, home-based cooking school that launched in New York City in 2014. Its instructors are 14 mothers and grandmothers from Indonesia, Mexico, Lebanon, Burkina Faso, and beyond, and now their culinary wisdom is being preserved in a new book: The League of Kitchens Cookbook. It’s truly so special having Lisa on the show...

Tom Colicchio joined us in the studio for a really amazing conversation. Tom is a longtime chef and behind the restaurants Craft, Gramercy Tavern, and dozens more. He’s also the longtime head judge on the show Top Chef. Tom just released his memoir (with recipes), Why I Cook, and we get into how he’s long been at the heart of culinary innovation and policy. We talk about his early days cooking in...

Angelo Sosa is one of the most talented chefs we’ve gotten to know, and he’s currently the chef at the new restaurants Tía Carmen and Carmocha at the Grand Hyatt Indian Wells Resort & Villas near Palm Springs, California. Angelo was also the runner up on Top Chef and has worked with some of the biggest names in the game, including Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Alain Ducasse, Stephen Starr, and Masaha...

James Beard Award–winning pastry chef Dominique Ansel has shaken up the pastry world with innovation and creativity at the heart of his work. As chef-owner of eponymous bakeries around the world, Ansel has been responsible for creating some of today’s most popular pastries, including the Cronut, the Cookie Shot, the Frozen S’more, and the Blossoming Hot Chocolate. But where did Dominique Ansel com...

Amadou Ly is the baker-owner of ALF Bakery, a destination for delights like mushroom danishes and laminated baguettes in New York City’s Chelsea Market. After 18 years of jobs in restaurants, from dishwasher to pastry chef to chocolatier, he apprenticed under Roger Gural at the iconic Arcade Bakery. Arcade closed, and now he’s making some of the most exciting bread and pastries in the city at ALF....

Julia Turshen is the author of four cookbooks, including the new release What Goes With What: 100 Recipes, 20 Charts, Endless Possibilities. It’s a comprehensive guide to building cooking intuition and transforming odds and ends into a meal, and we had a great conversation live at Rizzoli bookstore all about making the book come to life, plus things like body acceptance and what constitutes queer...

Wow, we love David Tamarkin so much, and this is such a great interview. We’re old friends and have been reading David since he worked at Time Out Chicago and Epicurious—and he’s now the editorial director at King Arthur Baking Company. He returns to our studio to discuss the company’s terrific new book, a real doorstop called The Big Book of Bread. As the title suggests, this is the cooperative f...

Nicolas Jammet is a cofounder of the megapopular salad and protein plate seller Sweetgreen and the company’s chief concept officer. We’ve been reporting on Sweetgreen since its early days, witnessing its evolution from a humble Washington, DC, storefront to a publicly traded company. How has Nic negotiated this incredible trajectory? We find out about his journey, his deep connection to the restau...

We really, really love what Rob Martinez is doing on YouTube and TikTok. Rob is behind the voice and visuals of Eating With Robert, a delightful series of dispatches from restaurants around the world. As we find out in this interview, Rob has a film background and started his own feed as a way of highlighting his favorite New York City pizzerias, diners, Egyptian fish grills, and Turkish kebab sel...

Ben Mims is a cookbook author, food writer, and recipe developer based in Los Angeles. He’s worked at major media outlets like the Los Angeles Times, Food & Wine, Saveur, and Lucky Peach, and he’s the author of the great new baking book Crumbs: Cookies and Sweets from Around the World. Crumbs is something of a cookie encyclopedia, sharing the old-world history and contemporary adaptations of globa...

Betül Tunç is one of the true breakout food stars of the past couple of years. But do you really know Betül Tunç? We’re thrilled to have Betül on the show for her first podcast interview to talk about how she brought her iconic recipes to life via social videos that transport viewers to destinations both near and far. We talk about her life growing up in Turkey and her move to the United States, f...

Justine Doiron is on the show today, and we have a great conversation about all areas of her very cool career. Justine is the founder, recipe developer, and food stylist behind the viral social media accounts @Justine_Snacks. In this episode, we of course talk about her terrific new book, Justine Cooks, as well as what gets her up and cooking each day.  Also on the show Aliza and Matt talk about f...