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. In this episode, we talk about the craftsmanship, technique, and passion that guides his...

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 food. We hope you’ll enjoy it.  Take our listener survey! We'd love to to hear who we should...

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 flour company’s bread magnum opus, and we talk about all of it with David. Also on the show, it’s...

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 restaurant industry, and what gets him excited to show up to work each day. We also learn about some of...

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 sellers. Rob is doing the work, scouting and shooting the types of places journalists like Jonathan...

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 global cookie traditions like Italian Waffle Cookies and Okinawan Brown Sugar Shortbread. In this...

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, first to Wisconsin and later Virginia. Finally, we cover her terrific debut cookbook, Turkuaz...

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 fall cookbooks they are enjoying, all from restaurants! These include: Mangal II, Café Cecilia,...

Sue S. Chan is an expert marketer, brand builder, and all-around busy bee on the global food scene. She was Momofuku’s first brand director, and in this episode we go back to her time helping to build the David Chang empire (and figuring out how to tell DC what to do). She later founded her own agency, Care of Chan, which has become a go-to for major fashion and retail brands looking to engage with the food world. Also on the show is PJ Vogt, a recognizable figure in the world of public...

Today on the show, we speak with two authors of terrific new cookbooks. First up is Nok Suntaranon, the chef and owner of Kalaya, a celebrated Thai restaurant in Philadelphia. A former flight attendant, Nok reinvented herself at age fifty to become a James Beard Award–winning chef, and we talk about her journey as well as her excellent new cookbook, Kalaya's Southern Thai Kitchen. Also in this episode, we have a great talk with Caroline Choe. She is a recipe developer and the author of...

In a terrific new book, Taste in Music, musician Alex Bleeker (of Real Estate) and food and travel journalist Luke Pyenson (former drummer of Frankie Cosmos) cover the world of music through the foods bands eat while touring the world. In this episode, we speak with Alex and Luke about a book that brings a lot of heart and empathy to a subject that has been covered since the advent of food blogging. Any working band worth its salt cod enjoys food as much of the rest of us, filling their...

For years, Ryan Sutton was the chief restaurant critic at Eater New York, before his position was recently eliminated. Ryan is one of the most respected critics in the game, and we wanted to invite him to the studio to talk about the LO Times, his Substack covering the New York City restaurant scene. We talk about modern pizza by the slice, the economics of sushi, and some of his favorite restaurants in this great restaurant city. We also dig into the state of restaurant criticism, and how...

Many of us subscribe to NYT Cooking, the decade-old recipe emporium and offshoot of the venerable New York Times Food desk. This week marks the release of a new cookbook from the New York Times, Easy Weeknight Dinners, and we were thrilled to speak with Ali Slagle and Emily Weinstein, two core members of the NYT Cooking crew. Emily is the editor in chief of New York Times Cooking and Food and the author of the New York Times recipe newsletter Five Weeknight Dishes, which reaches millions of...

Franco Fubini is the founder and CEO of Natoora, a high-end greengrocer connecting chefs and home cooks with some of the world’s best heritage produce through direct grower relationships. He’s also a professor of sustainability management at Columbia University and the author of the book In Search of the Perfect Peach, detailing Natoora’s quest to find flavor-first food and impact food systems in the process.  Do you enjoy This Is TASTE? Drop us a review on Apple, or star us on Spotify. We’d...

Sarah Fennel is the self-taught baker and photographer behind the widely popular Broma Bakery, a “mostly” baking blog that she launched in 2010. In this episode, we are introduced to Sarah’s incredible exuberance for baking, sharing, and baking more. We talk about the early days of her writing and how Broma has grown to become one of the most popular food publications online. We also get into her debut cookbook, Sweet Tooth, which was more than a decade in the making and has been one of our...

Today’s interview is so great. Dan Barber is the chef and co-owner of Family Meal at Blue Hill in Manhattan and of the legendary Blue Hill at Stone Barns. He’s also the founder of Row 7 Seed Company, a seed company built by chefs, farmers, and breeders that is pushing the boundaries of modern agriculture. We talk about his Row 7 vegetables, including red Badger Flame beets and the semi-viral produce of the season, Sweet Garleek. We also discuss his day-to-day cooking at Stone Barns and how...

Samantha Irby is a humorist, a TV writer, and the author of an incredible new essay collection, Quietly Hostile. In this episode, we talk about so many things: Chicago pizza, living in Michigan, Bosnian food in Grand Rapids, car wash dudes in Kalamazoo, and what it’s like to write lines for Carrie Bradshaw (as well as give her diarrhea).  Clare de Boer is the chef-owner of Stissing House, a restaurant located in New York’s Hudson Valley that we like very, very much. Clare is also the...

Ina Garten joins us in the studio for a really fun conversation that dips into her excellent new memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens, which is out this week. While the story covers Ina’s whole technicolor life—from a difficult childhood through her time working at the White House, to opening her specialty food store, Barefoot Contessa, to her cookbook and television work—we wanted to focus on Ina as entrepreneur, splitting time between 1970s New York City and the Hamptons. It was a...

Casey Lewis is an expert on Gen Z and writes the colorful Substack After School, which covers youth culture and trends. We wanted to have Casey on the show not just to talk about “how the kids are eating and drinking and shopping for food” but to dig into her reporting on today’s rapidly shifting culture. It’s a fascinating talk about CPG, restaurant trends, and how social media is changing the way we all eat and drink. Also on the show, Matt catches up with the B.O. Boys to talk about their...

Joe Yonan is the food and dining editor of the Washington Post. It’s a big job, covering an outstanding food city, so it’s pretty remarkable that Yonan finds time in the margins to write cookbooks every couple years. Much respect, Joe. In this episode, we talk about his latest cookbook, the ambitious Mastering the Art of Plant-Based Cooking, among other topics. It’s a really great talk, and we dig into the Washington, DC, dining scene, this impossible-to-figure-out Beyond Meat world we live...

Jessie Sheehan is all about baking. She’s host of the baking podcast She’s My Cherry Pie on Radio Cherry Bombe and the author of four baking cookbooks, including her newest: Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes. This book ventures into all-savory territory, from biscuits and scones to what she calls “toasty handhelds,” kinda like fancy hot pockets, and this episode will have you craving them all.  Also on the show, it’s time to talk about cool new fall cookbooks. All season Aliza and...

Paola Velez is an award-winning chef, activist, and author based in Washington, DC. She’s the cofounder of the viral grassroots bake sale Bakers Against Racism and the author of a great debut cookbook, Bodega Bakes. We brought Paola into the studio to talk about her impressive career, including acting as a culinary diplomat for the State Department, and the unforgettable recipes in her book, like pecan-plantain sticky buns. Also on the show, Aliza and Matt talk about some of the things they...

Cookbook author and online personality Carolina Gelen is on a mission to share her love of food, which comes into focus in a great new cookbook, Pass the Plate: 100 Delicious, Highly Shareable, Everyday Recipes. Carolina’s journey began in Transylvania, Romania, where she was born and raised. In 2021, she immigrated to the United States to pursue her passion for food full time. She is a recipe developer and food content creator with work featured in the New York Times and on the Food Network...

Zoë François is a professional pastry chef, recipe consultant, cookbook author, food photographer, and baking instructor and the host of Zoë Bakes on Magnolia Network. We recently spoke with her live at Rizzoli Bookstore in New York City to talk about the subject of her latest book: cookies. Her new book is Zoë Bakes Cookies, and it’s one of our favorite cookie books of all time. We get into so many great tips for baking the perfect chocolate chip cookie, snickerdoodle, peanut butter cookie,...