Special Sauce with Ed Levine

This week on Special Sauce we hear more about the joy of vegetables and the importance of family with “Tenderheart” author Hetty McKinnon. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On this week's Special Sauce I talk to food writer Hetty Liu McKinnon. With her five vegetarian cookbooks, her popular Substack newsletter, and her ingenious vegetarian recipes for the New York Times, food writer Hetty has been called the vegetable whisperer, and rightfully so. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Last week, we got an inside look at the father son relationship at the heart of the YouTube series, Hunger Pangs . This time we pick up our conversation with Kevin Pak, the Editorial director of Digital at America's Test Kitchen and his dad, Jeffrey, and learn about how they transformed their success online into a new book, A Very Chinese Cookbook: 100 Recipes from China & Not China (But Still...

On this episode of Special Sauce I talk to food writer Kevin Pang and his dad Jeffrey about how they bridged their substantial generation gap through their shared love of food and cooking. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On this episode of Special Sauce the great "pie-stress" Chrissy Kinsman is back with pie tips for amateur baking. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On this episode of Special Sauce the great pie baker Chrissy Kinsman of Pie Chicks on Martha's Vineyard tells us about the trials and tribulations of trying to make a living selling pies year round on a sparsely populated island. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On this episode of Special Sauce we revisit my nifty 2016 conversation with the legendary baker and cookbook author Dorie Greenspan, which became one of our most popular episodes of all time. Fast-forward to the fall of 2023, when many a serious eater's thoughts normally turn to baking. When I listened to Dorie's old episode I was struck by how relevant our nearly ten year-old conversation still w...

On this episode of Special Sauce Ann Kim talks about the evolution of her relationship with her Korean parents. You won't believe what happened when Ann invited her parents to her about to open first restaurant Pizzeria Lola. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On this episode of Special Sauce I talk to the James Beard award winning chef Ann Kim. Ann opened her first restaurant, Pizzeria Lola, in Minneapolis in 2010 without ever having cooked professionally. In fact, she was a working actor before she realized that it was cooking that made her happy. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On this episode of Special we dig still deeper into America's regional hot dog styles with food writer JJ Goode, who just wrote an entertaining and informative guide to American regional hot dog styles for the NYT. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On this episode of Special Sauce we go deep into dogs, hot dogs that is, with JJ Goode, who wrote a guide to regional hot dogs styles for the NY Times. We also checked in with a few hot dog devotees and got their hot take on one of the world's most popular foods. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On this episode of Special Sauce Kenji is back with some tips for grilling vegetables. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On this episode of Special Sauce Kenji is back with some surefire (pun intended) tips for grilling chicken and fish. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On this episode of Special Sauce, we talk about the joys of grilling pizza with Kenji. J. Kenji Lopez Alt is a New York Times cooking columnist and the host of Kenji's Cooking Show on YouTube . He’s also the best selling author of The Wok, The Food Lab, and the children's book Every Night is Pizza Night. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This week on Special Sauce we talk to pastry chef extraordinaire Natasha Pickowicz. Natasha is as the title of her new book More Than Cake implies, much more than a baker. Natasha is an original thinker, a fine writer, and a thoughtful soul. Her path to making delicious pastries is anything but typical. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This week on Special Sauce Part 2 of my conversation with chef Hamissi Mamba, who runs the amazing East African spot Baobab Fare in Detroit with his wife Nadia Nijimbere. With the restaurant, their African market called Soko, and their street food pop-up Waka, Mamba and Nadia are building a cultural bridge between Detroit and their native Burundi. They fled their home country as refugees, determin...

This week I'm talking with Hamissi Mamba about the long road to success from his native Burundi to the vibrant food scene in Detroit. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On the second Special Sauce episode Kenji and I did live from the Bell House in Brooklyn, NY last March we talked about his latest book ‘The Wok’, Kenji and I successfully cooked eggs and tomatoes in a wok onstage and I didn’t get fired as his sous-chef for inadequately chopping the scallions.  Kenji also answered questions from the audience ranging from the best oil to cook with in a wok to how t...

Last March we did our first ever live to tape episode of Special Sauce with our great friend J. Kenji Lopez Alt. It was taped before a wildly appreciative audience at the Bell House in Brooklyn. We were celebrating the publication of Kenji's book ‘The Wok’. With Kenji's mother and my wife in the house it was a family affair with lots of laughter and love emanating from the stage. This past May ‘Th...

This week on Special Sauce pitmaster, chef, and whole hog barbecue evangelist Rodney Scott gives serious eaters great tips for our July 4th backyard barbecues. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This week on Special Sauce I talk to NYT Cooking contributor Ali Slagle about her path to becoming a recipe developer. Slagle just published her first cookbook ‘I Dream of Dinner (so you don't have to)’. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This week on Special Sauce, we have a chef who suggests you DON’T try his recipes at home. It’s part 2 of my conversation with Rick Easton, owner of Bread and Salt, the casual spot in NJ that draws rave reviews for its Italian breads, pizza & sandwiches. We also take a deep dive into ‘Bread and How to Eat It’, the book Rick wrote with his partner Melissa McCart. Learn about your ad choices: do...

This week's guest on Special Sauce is the extraordinary bread baker, chef and pizzaiolo Rick Easton, who owns the terrific weekends- only Bread and Salt Bakery in Jersey City. Rick and his partner Melissa McCart have co-authored the provocative new book ‘Bread and How To Eat It’. In his review of Bread & Salt's Roman style pizza, sandwiches and bread, NYTimes food critic Pete Wells declared: "...

This week on Special Sauce, we’ll revisit my conversation with one of our greatest food writers, Jessica Harris, who introduced many of us to the food of the African Diaspora. Jessica was awarded the James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020. The hit Netflix series ‘High on the Hog’, hosted by Stephen Satterfield, was based on Jessica’s book of the same name. The show is returning for its sec...

On this episode of Special Sauce we're talking about the film ‘Fresh’, which Amy Nicholson in the New York Times described as a wickedly funny cannibal romance. The movie stars Daisy Edgar-Jones, Sebastian Stan and Jonica T. Gibbs Helping me savor the best cuts of the film are two terrific food writers and film enthusiasts, J. Kenji Lopez Alt and the Smitten Kitchen's Deb Perelman. Learn about you...