Kitchen Tape

Chef and author Ham El-Waylly (@hamegram) joins Rose Wilde and Crystal Slonecker to discuss Hello, Home Cooking - a cookbook shaped by family recipes, cultural identity, and the comfort of cooking at home. Ham shares how his mother’s handwritten recipe notebook inspired him, why he sees blended food traditions as part of American cooking, and what he learned while shifting from fine-dining kitchens to feeding his family. He also talks cookbook collecting, the book’s playful design, and recipes he hopes readers will try, including cinnamon pita crunch, toasted spaghetti with Swiss chard, and beijinho cake. He talks about his restaurant Strange Delights and forthcoming 2nd restaurant, Triangle in Fort Greene. Ham's Book:Hello, Home Cooking by Ham El-Waylly⁠ Mentioned: The Alinea Cookbook — by Grant Achatz Sohla El-Waylly Julia Child’s cookbooks BraveTart by Stella Parks Betty Crocker cookbooks WD-50 Strange Delight Sanwits Joe Beef Follow Ham on: @hamegramTwitch — Your Moment of HamFollow us on instagram: ⁠@kitchentapepod⁠ Follow Rose ⁠@trosewilde⁠ and Crystal ⁠@crystalslonecker⁠ Subscribe on ⁠https://eatmore.substack.com/⁠ ⁠Order Tiny Cakes: A Cookbook with 75 Recipes for Everyday Muffins, Party Cupcakes, andMore by Rose Wilde⁠ Edited by ⁠@mr_z_______⁠

Hosts Rose and Crystal talk with comedian Gus Constantellis (@ConstantlyGus) about his debut book — part memoir, part cookbook — built around his late mother's recipes and her legacy in the Greek-American community. Topics include deciphering her handwritten Greek recipe cards, landing a book deal, blending comedy with grief in the writing, bringing the book on tour through stand-up readings, and his Greek food opinions (no lettuce in Greek salad!).Gus's Book:My Greek Mom's Recipes: She Died. I Wrote This Cookbook Mentioned:David Sedaris Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy Will This Make You Happy? by Tanya Bush — . Listen to the Season 2 Episode with Tanya.Gus's tour dates and info: https://www.constantlygus.com/Follow him on Instagram: @constantlygusFollow us on instagram: ⁠@kitchentapepod⁠ Follow Rose ⁠@trosewilde⁠ and Crystal ⁠@crystalslonecker⁠ Subscribe on ⁠https://eatmore.substack.com/⁠ ⁠Order Tiny Cakes: A Cookbook with 75 Recipes for Everyday Muffins, Party Cupcakes, andMore by Rose Wilde⁠ Edited by ⁠@mr_z_______⁠

Heeeey! Rose Wilde welcomes listeners back to Kitchen Tape and previews a season of conversations about food, memory, craft, and the people behind culinary stories. She shares updates on her books Tiny Cakes and Bread and Roses, then reflects on what she learned from food and farming communities in Maine and California, stories from Denmark, Taiwan, and Lebanon, with themes ranging from family recipes and grief to food traditions under threat, land stewardship, and hopeful ideas for the future. Subscribe and share with your favorite food friend. Mentions:Tiny Cakes — Rose Wilde’s forthcoming book, illustrated by Asami Watsanabe and published by Chronicle.Bread and Roses — Rose’s earlier book about whole grains and cooking with what grows together. NortonInternational Year of the Woman Farmer@cagrownofficial @caprunes @cherrybombe @aussiebeeflamb @maingrainalliance Authors you can look forward to hearing this season and their books:Gus Constantellis — My Greek Mom’s Recipes: She Died. I Wrote This Cookbook. Ham El-Waylly — Hello, Home Cooking Martin Sorge — Great Bakes from the MidwestRobin Ha — Instant Noodles & BeyondErin Jeanne McDowell — Bake Anything Nora Singley — One-Pot PastaSusan Spungen — Cookie QueenZola Gregory - Sheet Cakes! AND The Pasta Box Lucie Franc de Ferrière — Cake From LuciePhyllis Grant — Everything Is Under ControlSarah Trad — A House in the Lebanese MountainsMark Bittman — How to Cook Everything Vegan and the How to Cook Everything seriesAli Francis — The Curious Lives of VegetablesMarie Havnø Frank — More Than SweetAmy Halloran - The New Bread Basket RevisitedNichole Accettola — Scandinavian from ScratchVirginia Shaffer — Oyster SocietyClarissa Wei — Sitting the Month and Made in TaiwanAnna Voloshyna — Ukraïne and Budmo!Laurel Kratochvila — Dobre Dobre: Baking from Poland and Beyond.Rachel Gurjar — East to East Lokelani Alabanza — Ice Cream QueenTara Jensen — Pizza Practice Flour Power Sally Ekus — Cookbook-publishing specialRose Wilde — Tiny CakesNoah Galuten — Grill Time!Farideh Sadeghin — The Hot Dog Cookbook AND Cheesy! And More!Follow us on instagram: @kitchentapepodFollow Rose @trosewilde and Crystal @crystalsloneckerSubscribe on https://eatmore.substack.com/Order Tiny Cakes: A Cookbook with 75 Recipes for Everyday Muffins, Party Cupcakes, and More by Rose WildeEdited by @mr_z_______

This week on Kitchen Tape, Rose and Crystal sit down with Dorie Greenspan, one of the most beloved and trusted voices in baking. We talk about the decades-spanning body of work that has made Dorie such a constant presence in home kitchens, from her collaborations with icons like Pierre Hermé and Julia Child to the warmth, clarity, and curiosity that define her own books. The conversation invites us into her sweet world and moves through intuition, endurance, recipe writing, family, the choice for a fully illustrated book and the quiet discipline of making people feel cared for through food. And at the very end, Dorie receives a reveal that’s been building quietly across the entire season! LEAVE A COMMENT TO WIN A COPY OF HER NEW BOOK! United States shipping addresses only.Mentioned in this episode:• Dorie’s Anytime Cakes: A James Beard Award Winner's Collection of 100+ Simple Illustrated Recipes• Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple• Everyday Dorie: The Way I Cook• Dorie’s Cookies• Baking Chez Moi: Recipes from My Paris Home to Your Home Anywhere• Around My French Table: More than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours• Baking: From My Home to Yours• Baking with Julia: Savor the Joys of Baking with America's Best Bakers• The Settlement Cookbook by Simon Kander• The New York Times Cookbook by Craig Claiborne• Sift by Nicola Lamb• A Book of Mediterranean Food by Elizabeth David• Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat

This week on Kitchen Tape, Rose and Crystal sit down with Helen Goh, internationally acclaimed pastry chef, longtime Ottolenghi collaborator, columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Guardian, and author of Baking and the Meaning of Life and Sweet. Featuring 100 recipes that weave together Helen’s Malaysian and Australian heritage with Western and Middle Eastern influences, Baking and the Meaning of Life asks a larger question beneath the recipes: how do we build meaning in our lives? Through eight essays woven throughout the book, Helen explores baking as a practice of mindfulness, agency, competence, ritual, and connection — not simply as a way to make food, but as one of the many small acts that help us create purpose and community in a chaotic world. The conversation moves through her enviable cookbook collection, existentialism, the meanings of color, psychology, flavor, memory, and the quiet rigor behind recipes that feel both deeply comforting and profoundly intentional.Mentioned in this episode:• Baking and the Meaning of Life: How to Find Joy in 100 Recipes• Sweet by Helen Goh and Yotam Ottolenghi• Cooking: Simply and Well, for One or Many by Jeremy Lee• Kate Spade Green• The Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book• The Flavor Thesaurus by Niki Segnit• Stars Desserts by Emily Luchetti• Flour Hour Baking Podcast hosted by Jeremiah Duarte Bills and Amanda Faber• Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott• Ma Vie en Rose by Rose Levy Beranbaum• The Artful Baker by Cenk Sonmezsoy• Jikoni by Ravinder Bhogal

This week on Kitchen Tape, Rose and Crystal sit down with Ella Quittner, author of Obsessed with the Best, to talk about what happens when curiosity meets obsessive recipe testing. Built around dozens of head-to-head comparisons, Ella’s book asks not just what tastes best, but how we arrive there — through repetition, methodology, instinct, and the strange culture of mass food discourse. We discuss the lineage of deeply practical cookbooks, the rise of personality-driven food media, and how humor, rigor, and experimentation can coexist on the same page. We dig into the epic photography in her cookbook, including, a portrait in bed with dessert. And why the perfect whipped cream matters!Mentioned in this episode:• Obsessed with the Best: 100+ Methodically Perfected Recipes Based on 20+ Head-to-Head Tests• Joy of Cooking• The New Basics Cookbook by Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso• The Food Lab by J. Kenji López-Alt• Sweet Enough by Alison Roman• Food Is a Feeling by Carla Lalli Music• Will This Make You Happy by Tanya Bush• Hello, Home Cooking by Ham El-Waylly

This week on Kitchen Tape, Rose and Crystal sit down with Lisa Donovan, James Beard Award–winning author of Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger, now widely regarded as one of the definitive food memoirs of our time. We talk about hunger as both subject and structure — emotional, creative, intellectual, and literal — and dig into the discipline of memoir, writing food as personal narrative, and claiming authority in a voice shaped by appetite, loss, labor, and desire. The conversation moves through literary lineage, publishing realities, and why food writing endures when it tells the truth plainly, without performance.Mentioned in this episode:• Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger by Lisa Donovan• David Black Literary Agency• Dear Women: Own Your Stories by Lisa Donovan for Food & Wine• M. F. K. Fisher• Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton• When French Women Cook by Madeleine Kamman• Everything Is Under Control by Phyllis Grant• Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison• Heartburn by Nora Ephron• Desserts by Pierre Hermé and Dorie Greenspan• Bernard Clayton Jr. (books)• Artisan Baking by Maggie Glezer• Samin Nosrat

This week on Kitchen Tape, Rose and Crystal sit down with Tanya Bush, author of Will This Make You Happy, to talk about baking as a way of moving through a year — emotionally, creatively, and practically. We discuss what it means to write from inside your own life, how recipes can hold both structure and feeling, and how Tanya expands the cookbook form through narrative, gently pushing against its traditional boundaries. We talk about what it means to break the mold without losing usefulness, and why baking often becomes a way to ask questions rather than answer them. The conversation moves between storytelling, routine, and the quiet search for meaning in everyday acts of making.Mentioned in this episode:Will This Make You Happy: Stories and Recipes from a Year of Baking by Tanya Bush“Party Girl” (1995) TrailerBrooks Headley's Fancy Desserts: The Recipes of Del Posto’s James Beard Award–Winning Pastry Chef by Brooks HeadleyCooking As Though You Might Cook Again by Daniel LichtRuby TandohChloe Rose Crabtree, Bake Street LondonOliver Lee Costello, Toad BakeryHome Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen: A Memoir and Cookbook by Laurie Colwin

This week on Kitchen Tape, Rose and Crystal sit down with Maria Zizka to talk about the art of collaboration in cookbook publishing. We dig into Maria’s own canon alongside the many influential books she’s helped bring into the world as a co-author, ghostwriter, and translator — working closely with some of the industry’s most respected voices. From shaping tone and structure to translating vision across cultures, projects, and personalities, Maria shares what it means to be a steady creative partner, how trust is built behind the scenes, and why some of the most enduring cookbooks are the result of deep, generous collaboration rather than singular authorship.

This week on Kitchen Tape, Rose and Crystal sit down with Carrie Bachman, a renowned publicist and longtime champion of cookbook authors, to talk about advocacy, trust, and the quiet power behind a book’s success. From shaping long-term author careers to navigating launches, festivals, and press cycles, Carrie shares how taste, timing, and deep belief in a project help books find their readers — and why publicity, at its best, is about stewardship as much as strategy.Mentioned in this episode:• Big Bites: Wholesome, Comforting Recipes That Are Big on Flavor, Nourishment, and Fun by Kat Ashmore• Gluten-Free Orange-Ricotta Company Cake (Kat Ashmore)• Dorie Greenspan (including Dorie’s Anytime Cakes)• Ina Garten• Marcella Hazan• Tom Douglas’ Seattle Kitchen• The Betty Crocker Cookbook• William Morrow (now part of HarperCollins)• Barbara Kafka• Julia Child• Jacques Pépin• Emeril Lagasse• Heartland Masala by Jyoti Mukharji• Umma by Sarah Ahn and Nam Soon Ahn• American Library Association Conference• Fancy Food Show• Sisterly Love Collective• The New Making of a Cook by Madeleine Kamman• Nathan Myhrvold• Darlingside