Podcast
This Is TASTE
Hosted by Aliza Abarbanel & Matt Rodbard · EN
If you're a fan of smart and lively conversations about food, home cooking, and culture, this is the place. We interview the most interesting characters in the world of food, media, and cookbooks and release episodes several times a month. The program is hosted by TASTE editors Aliza Abarbanel and Matt Rodbard, and is sometimes recorded live at Rizzoli Bookstore in New York City.
Visit TASTE online: tastecooking.com
71episodes
Episodes
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795: Toshi Kizaki's Retirement Project Won Him a Michelin Star
Yesterday00:32:50Tap to summarizeToshi and Yasu Kizaki opened Sushi Den on Christmas Eve in 1984 on South Pearl Street in Denver. Little did they know how the opening would impact Japanese food in America. Over the next four decades, they built a supply chain that flies fish from a market in Kyushu to Denver in under 24 hours, took over a corner of Platt Park with a cluster of Japanese restaurants, and earned a Michelin star — at 69, the oldest sushi chef in the U.S. to receive his first. This is the story of Sushi Den's expansion, including the Michelin-starred Kizaki, and a rare sit-down with the founding brothers. Also on the show we have a great conversation with Mawa McQueen, the chef-owner of Mawa’s Kitchen in Aspen. This Michelin Guide–recommended restaurant is the flagship eatery of owner and executive chef Mawa McQueen, a 2022 James Beard Award semifinalist and recipient of the 2022 Colorado Governor's Minority Business Award. The menu at Mawa's Kitchen is hyper-seasonal and reflects Mawa's international heritage, serving Afro-Mediterranean cuisine with a French-American flair. We talk about building her mini empire, and what it’s like to cook for the private jet crowd. Thank you to Visit Colorado for supporting this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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794: She Wolf Bakes Thousands of Sourdough Loaves Each Week. Kim Vallejo Keeps It All on Track.
4d ago01:08:09Tap to summarizeKim Vallejo is the business director at She Wolf Bakery in Brooklyn, NY. She Wolf produces exceptional sourdough and sweet treats made from regional heritage grains that are sold at 12 greenmarkets across NYC, plus their cafe in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and over 70 restaurant wholesale clients. Today on the show, Kim goes deep on the serious logistics that makes all this possible, working with regional grains, and more. And it’s the return of Three Things, where Aliza and Matt discuss what’s interesting in the food world, including visits to Oyatte, Via Carota, Sunfish Seafood, and Lefty’s Burger Shack. Also: Island Way Sorbet has taken over our freezer, How to Rule the World is the One L for journalism, and the legend of the green bag with Taiwanese Guai Guai. Subscribe to This Is TASTE: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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793: Best Cookbooks of the Year So Far. Plus, a Very Early Fall Preview with Maggie Hoffman.
6d ago01:05:36Tap to summarizeMaggie Hoffman is the writer and host behind The Dinner Plan, a podcast and Substack where she talks to a cookbook author every week about weeknight cooking realities, kitchen burnout, and what people actually cook at home. She joins Matt for a look back at the standout cookbooks of spring 2026. Here are the spring books mentioned, and listen at the end for our early fall favorites. And it’s the return of Three Things, where Aliza and Matt discuss what’s interesting in the food world, including Aliza’s swing through the Pacific Northwest for strawberry picking and visits to The Paper Bridge and a Portland Pickles game. Matt tries push-pop sushi at Suka Sushi, pays tribute to the mujaddara at Kalustyan's, and he checks out the new infused oils from Primis Imports. MAGGIE’S FAVORITE SPRING COOKBOOKS Özlem Warren’s Istanbul Natasha Pickowicz’s Everyone Hot Pot Georgina Hayden’s MEDesque Hillary Sterling’s AMMAZZA! Joe Woodhouse’s Weeknight Vegetarian MATT’S FAVORITE SPRING COOKBOOKS Ham El-Waylly’s Hello, Home Cooking Ella Quittner’s Obsessed With the Best Jena Derman and Jack Schramm’s Solid Wiggles Adeena Sussman’s Zariz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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792: Vibe Coding Your Restaurant Recs Map Is the Worst with Eater's Nadia Chaudhury
1w ago00:53:56Tap to summarizeIt’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. Nadia Chaudhury is the deputy editor of Eater New York and Eater Northeast, a born-and-raised New Yorker who spent a decade running Eater Austin before coming home. Her family is behind Kalustyan’s, the legendary NYC specialty food store that has been feeding chefs, cooks, and curious eaters since 1944. On this episode, Nadia and Matt discuss the state of food media, the stories she’s chasing at Eater, and what it’s like to grow up with one of New York City’s most essential food institutions in the family. Featured on the episode: The Carbone Team Will Open an American Tavern in the Tribeca Grill Space [Eater] The Whimsy Killer in Your Pocket [Best Food Blog] New East Village Restaurant Threads Korean and Italian Culinary Lines [Eater] Faux Is a Real McNally Restaurant [NY Mag] Subscribe to This Is TASTE: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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791: Solid Wiggles Doesn't Call It a Jell-O Shot
1w ago01:10:19Tap to summarizeJena Derman and Jack Schramm are the Brooklyn-based cofounders of Solid Wiggles, the cocktail jelly company that turned the Jell-O shot into a legitimate art form—and a legitimate cocktail. Their debut book is a full system for making layered, clarified, beautifully decorated cocktail jellies at home, from quick party animal shots to three-day party pro cakes with injected flowers and glitter. Jena comes from Momofuku Milk Bar; Jack from Booker and Dax and Existing Conditions. Together they’re making the case for the solid cocktail—and that parties matter. Also on the show I spend some time with Carolyne Lane, director of coffee at Noma Projects. We stop by her cafe in Copenhagen to hear about how she thinks deeply about coffee sourcing, with an emphasis on Mexico. I really enjoyed getting to know her a bit and hope you enjoy this episode. Subscribe to This Is TASTE: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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790: Brendan Chareoncharutkun Built Uncle’s Thai Food. Curry Fans Are Following.
2w ago01:35:25Tap to summarizeBrendan Chareoncharutkun is the founder of Uncle’s Thai Food, a freeze-dried curry brick brand based in New York. He got his start in food by working on farms around the world, learned to cook by working in restaurants in Bangkok, then came to New York to work in marketing, all while doing food pop-ups on the side. That experience and wisdom is combined in Uncle’s, and today on the show, we go deep on everything it took to bring this brand to life—plus Brendan’s new products in the works. Also on the show, Matt has a great conversation with Chef Nelson German, author of the terrific new book Caribbean Cocktails. Subscribe to This Is TASTE: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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789: Mythical Kitchen's Josh Scherer Is Food Media's Unlikely Intellectual Empath
2w ago01:04:05Tap to summarizeJosh Scherer didn’t set out to make an expansive and deeply heartfelt show about mortality. He set out to make a funny YouTube video about a carne asada burrito. A hundred episodes of Last Meals later—with Tom Hanks, Jason Kelce, and Elijah Wood having sat in the chair—he’s built the best food talk show online. The executive director of culinary content at Mythical Entertainment and NYT best-selling author joins Matt to talk food, grief, celebrity, and the last thing you’d ever want to eat. Subscribe to This Is TASTE: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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788: Everybody Has an Opinion About Dean's with Jess Shadbolt
2w ago01:15:15Tap to summarizeJess Shadbolt cofounded King in SoHo in 2016 with almost no money and no restaurant experience—and built it into one of the best restaurants in New York City. Now she and partner Annie Shi have opened Dean’s, a British seafood pub that features stargazy pie and pork scratchings on the menu as well as a Guinness challenge where 500 pints earn you an engraved tankard. We talk about why British food still has to fight for its reputation in New York and the dayboat fisherman in Suffolk the restaurant is named for. Also on the show, we have an entertaining (and entertaining-focused) conversation with Amber Mayfield Hewett, author of Your Turn to Host: A Guide to Great Parties and Gatherings. Subscribe to This Is TASTE: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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787: The Food Writer to Romance Novel Pipeline with Eliza Dumais & Julia Turshen
3w ago01:22:39Tap to summarizeToday we’re doing something a little different—a special episode all about writing romantic fiction, featuring two food people: Eliza Dumais and Julia Turshen. Eliza is a wine writer based in New York, and Julia is a cookbook author and part-time farmer in the Hudson Valley, and they’re both authors of new romance books from 831 Stories: Grape Juice, set amid a sweaty summer wine harvest in France, and Down to Earth, a queer love story with a highly crushable vegetable farmer in upstate New York. On the show, Aliza speaks with Eliza and Julia about the parallels between writing about food and romance and much more. Subscribe to This Is TASTE: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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786: TASTE Travels: Colorado
3w ago01:13:27Tap to summarizeToday’s episode is really special: a deep eating, drinking, and food culture tour of Colorado, a state that has been quietly (and then not so quietly) building one of the most exciting culinary scenes in America. From Denver’s Michelin-starred restaurant boom to the peach orchards and wine country of the Grand Valley, we went to find out why Colorado is a serious food destination—and came back convinced. First up, we sit down with Johnny Curiel, the Guadalajara-born, Denver-raised chef and 2025 James Beard Award finalist behind the Michelin-starred Alma Fonda Fina and the newly opened Milpero. Johnny’s story—from learning to cook in his father’s kitchen in Jalisco to redefining modern Mexican cuisine in the Rockies—is one we’re excited to tell. Next we hit Five Points and RiNo with Laura Young, Denver food writer and founder of New Denizen. Laura takes us on an epic crawl of the spots defining the new Denver dining moment: Cuban pastry, specialty coffee, and an amazing Japanese-inspired all-day café. We then head west to the Grand Valley for a conversation with chef Matthew Chasseur of Pêche in Palisade—a restaurant built on the region’s extraordinary agricultural bounty, from Palisade peaches to Colorado lamb, proving that world-class dining doesn’t require an urban zip code. Throughout the episode, we share highlights from our wider Colorado eating adventures—the restaurants, markets, and producers that made this trip one for the books. Check out a Google Map to see all of the places we visit, and save for your own visit. Thank you to Visit Colorado for supporting this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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