698: Best Cookbooks of the Year with Now Serving and Kitchen Arts & Letters

It was really great to have Jessica Koslow in for a conversation. Jessica is the chef and founder of Sqirl in Los Angeles, a pioneering breakfast and lunch counter that serves inventive rice bowls and jams on toast and that inspired a whole generation of all-day cafés. In this episode, we talk a bit about Jessica’s early career before going into her exceptional jam business and hearing some big news about changes at the restaurant. And before that, we have a fun conversation with Tigist Reda, chef and owner of the popular Chicago Ethiopian restaurant Demera. Tigist completes the Resy Questionnaire, and we find out about her favorite food book, her ideal last meal on earth, and, most important, her favorite Chicago pizza.  Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What better way to talk about the year in cookbook publishing than by speaking directly with the source: the booksellers. Today on the show we are joined by Matt Sartwell of New York’s Kitchen Arts & Letters and Ken Concepcion of LA’s Now Serving. Matt and Ken tell us about what is selling in their stores and name some of their personal favorite titles from this busy year. Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Book editor Michael Szczerban joins us in the studio to talk about The Talisman of Happiness, a book he worked over a decade to have translated from Italian into English. As we find out, it’s an iconic (and quite unwieldy—1,680 recipes!) text that its author, Ada Boni, originally published in 1929. The book’s influence cannot be overstated, and for first-time readers, it gives insight into the foundational Italian cooking that we still see today. Michael shares how he was introduced to the book by Samin Nosrat while editing Salt Fat Acid Heat, which sent him down many dead-end roads toward acquiring it for publication in English. This is a wonderful conversation for Italian food nerds like us. Read: The Book That Taught Nonna to Cook Is Coming to America [NYT] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rich Torrisi is the prolific New York City chef and empire builder behind some of the most buzzed-about restaurants in the United States, including Parm, Sadelle’s, the Pool, Carbone, and his most personal venture,Torrisi. Matt was a fan of Rich’s breakout restaurant, Torrisi Italian Specialties, when it opened at 250 Mulberry Street in 2009. What a restaurant. That mozzarella! In this episode, Rich takes the Resy Questionnaire, and we find out so much about his unique point of view on restaurants, innovation, and hospitality as a whole. This is such a great conversation. The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers – not Resy - and do not constitute professional advice.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vaughn Vreeland is a cookbook author, NYT Cooking writer, and longtime video personality—or, as he writes, “that guy from that thing I saw once.” His first book, Cookies: The Best Recipes for the Perfect Anytime Treat, was published in collaboration with NYT Cooking and includes 100 amazing cookie recipes from Vaughn along with a deep bench of recipe developers from the New York Times orbit. We had such a fun time talking with Vaughn about how to win your office holiday cookie competition and some of the creative recipes he’s included in this great book. Also, it's cookie week at the New York Times. Check it out. Also on the show we have more cookie talk. Marissa Rothkopf is the author of a great new book, The Secret Life of Chocolate Chip Cookies. We talk about writing a book dedicated to what might be the favorite (or possibly best) cookie, and go over some really helpful baking tips.    Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. In today’s episode, we talk with Chris Crowley. Chris is a senior writer at New York magazine covering food and culture around the five boroughs. We’ve long admired Chris’s work and wanted to have him in the studio to talk about some of his recent reporting.    Featured on the episode: Why the New York Bodega Is Here to Stay⁠ [NYT] "⁠He’s Taking Advantage of Your Dream⁠" [NY Mag] ⁠You Want to Imagine What This Tastes Like? Fuck You, Says AI⁠ [Vittles] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is no food writer we would rather talk to about Italy—and maybe about food in general—than Katie Parla. Katie is the author of several books, and her latest is a return to her hometown of Rome. Rome: A Culinary History, Cookbook, and Field Guide to the Flavors that Built a City captures the history and modern culinary spirit of one of the world’s greatest cities. In this episode, we speak with Katie about her independent book publishing business, the current tourist vibes of Italy, and what makes Rome such a special place. And, at the top of the show, it’s the return of Three Things, where Aliza and Matt talk about what is exciting them in the world of restaurants, cookbooks, and the food world as a whole. On this episode: A Korean restaurant and brewery, NY Makgeolli, is serving amazing freshwater eel in the Hudson Valley, Maxi’s Noodle has a new location in Manhattan, Raf’s is a great spot for weekday breakfast in Manhattan. Also: Toasted Pepita Pumpkin Spice from Burlap and Barrel may change your opinion about pumpkin spice, Ken Burns’ The American Revolution has some surprises, and the new Frankenstein by Guillermo del Toro  is beautiful.  Also, we’re doing a mailbag episode to end the year. Send your questions to: [email protected] with Mailbag in the subject. We'll answer questions about cooking, favorite restaurants, past guests, cookbooks we may have missed, cities we should visit. If you have a question, Aliza and Matt will answer it.  Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hannah Taylor is the fast-growing culinary creator known on TikTok and Instagram as LilyLouTay. She is the author of the New York Times Best Seller Measure with Your Heart, and she joins us in the studio with a really fun conversation about her Southern cooking roots and her journey from being a working mother of three to a social media megastar.   Also on the show, Mina Park and Kwang Uh of Baroo in Los Angeles take the Resy Questionnaire. It’s impossible to overstate the devotion fans have to this restaurant, whether the strip-mall original, the pop-up, and even for the two long years Baroo didn’t exist. This latest iteration is a rebirth of Kwang and Mina’s vision of fermentation-driven Korean cuisine. But first, the questions.  The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers – not of Resy—and do not constitute professional advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Samin Nosrat is a chef, teacher, and author of the bestselling, James Beard Award–winning cookbook Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, and the star of the very popular titular documentary series on Netflix. Now, she’s back with a truly excellent new cookbook: Good Things. Today on the show, we go deep on the journey that led her to Good Things, why recipes are like rituals, and the dishes she makes at home on repeat. And, at the top of the show, it’s the return of Three Things, where Aliza and Matt talk about what is exciting them in the world of restaurants, cookbooks, and the food world as a whole. On this episode: Aliza visits Wild Cherry and Matt visits the new Babbo. Also, we hung out with Shy Burgers, Bad Food from Vittles looks great, and we are cooking with Uncles Big Green Curry and Cumin Club. Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Anna Ansari is a former New York international trade and customs attorney and now lives in East London. She's written a fascinating debut cookbook, Silk Roads: A Flavor Odyssey with Recipes from Baku to Beijing. It covers Anna's life growing up in an Iranian American family in Michigan and traveling throughout Asia from a young age on what she describes as the many silk roads. And, at the top of the show, it’s the return of Three Things, where Aliza and Matt talk about what is exciting them in the world of restaurants, cookbooks, and the food world as a whole. On this episode: Matt visits the great Guamanian restaurant Family Friend in Seattle, and makes stops for Korean coffee at Park at Kims and there’s a new pita shop in town at Shifka in New York. Aliza celebrates her birthday at World Spa, Si n'shpi, and dinner at Strange Delight. And we shout out Zola Gregory’s latest column and a recipe for a Nutella pie worth celebrating. Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices