213: Jon Bonné

28:07They're talking about Beaujolais the way that people talked about Burgundy in the 80s. Why do we see Morgana everywhere? I feel like I'm like an Instagram. I've been drinking Morgane when I used to drink back in the day. But, man, why? If you want to know the reason that the Jules Chauffet chapter is in the book, that helps to explain it. It's where a number of pioneers in Beaujolais who really, A, created a quality change there, but B, also where some of the progenitors of natural wine came from. So, yeah, it's everywhere. But so it's not even France. Like, you know, you could look at Galicia.

28:42You could look at Verdicchio from the Marquet or Austria. Like you could look at the way that we talk about champagne today in terms of individual vigneron and individual villages and sites. We didn't have these conversations 10 years ago. Even champagne 10 years ago, like you were lucky if people were talking about grower champagne and maybe there was – you knew Cedric Bouchard and you knew that he had a few different parcels. And grower means you just know where – you actually know. It's someone who's growing the grapes and making the wine versus, let's say, Dom Perignon where they're buying a ton of grapes and crafting it.

29:18All right. Well, I mean, not bad product. I love John. This is so great to see your face. Because I'm like, I mean. Which you don't get with the podcast. I'm so out of the game and I'm just like Dom's drinks well and you just like absolutely. You know, Dom is a perfectly decent commercial champagne. Whether you think it is at the level that it is marketed at, I leave. I'm throwing taste as the beholder, you know, in the eye of the beholder. What I love about your writing, like, you will go Lester Banks, and then you will go John Pirelli's. Like, you'll go both ways. I love it so much. You, like, will be, you'll burn shit down, but then you're very kind and even, like John.

29:58Sorry. Music references. You mentioned, you hinted the word natural wine when we talk about Morgane, and I just, Talia and I talked about this. I'll link to this in the show notes. Great conversation with her about it. We could certainly have a long conversation, but why are we so obsessed with this phrase, this terminology of natural wine? I wish I knew to be honest I mean it took a long long time to figure out where natural wine should show up in this book and it shows up all over because I at this point have visited more quote unquote natural producers than most people have never with the intent of I'm going to go write a book about natural wine or whatever and I would get a question every single time like oh your book's going to be about Van Natera.

30:47It's like, well, not entirely. But where I landed was in trying to find an analogy. And I went through many of them. I went through many of them with Talia, trying to find, uh, trying to find where my head was at. And, uh, the, the analogy that's in the book, and I'm truly going to shorthand this, um, because everyone should go read it in the book, clearly. No doubt. Um, no, for real, you should pick up the book. No, like for real, like you hear John talk like this he's an incredible writer not boring it's not not not boring so just to break in which is good they may they they may think it's boring after the analogy I'm about okay great but uh but my analogy was was really to the birth of modern art and the Salon de Refusé in 1863 and this was you know there was the academy and there was the Refusé and the Refusé were not not admitted by the jury to the official Paris Salon so they Napoleon III allowed them to have their own off salon, which everyone thought would sort of, you know, mock and humiliate them.

31:45Kind of in the Bushwick of Paris at the time, like kind of like off the grid. Well, that's what I thought. But as it turned out, they were basically in the same place. Oh, wow. It was like, you know, you could go to like, you know, you could go to the official wing or you go to like, you know. It was like freeze and it was like a pop up at like the off off the corner of freeze, but still. Yeah. So it's I mean, and it's funny because now like so much of the art world has modeled itself in a way after that. Yeah. But the analogy being that this was the establishment trying to cast out something that was different, which, of course, I mean, I asked the question in the book, well, who won?

32:18And you're like, well, if you look at the trajectory of modern art, Manet, Van Gogh, Monet, Picasso on straight through to Richter and everyone else today. You know, it's safe to say that progress won. And William Adolphe Bougereau, who was sort of the great academy painter. Ragonar. You know, with his. Well, yeah, with the nymph orgies and everything else. Like, you know, they they faded away into obscurity because taste evolved. And so I think natural wine is simply a very belated response to people seeing the need to move beyond the traditional. Just going to give you a little applause there because it's as close as it's gotten for me.

33:03So thank you. That was really smart. And it makes sense. And I'm hearing, you know, it's not a movement. It's not a moment. It's just the future that wine is made. In its way, I would say that the elements of natural wine are the future. People now understand so much more about asking questions about viticulture and farming. They know more about asking questions, sometimes the wrong questions, like, you know, why is there sulfur in this wine? Let me tell you. But the fact that people are now asking questions about this in the way that, again, maybe, you know, 20 or 30 years ago, if that, that people were starting to do about food and, you know, farm to table came up, all of this.

33:47But the fact that there is now this sense of expectation to understand all the steps of wine, where it comes from, that is what natural to me has brought. Yeah. Just like transparency and education and asking the right questions. Yeah. So which is, I mean, which is hilarious now when, you know, you go and you see, oh, we have a wine list full of natural wines. I'm like, but do you? Yeah. And not even like, because I'm like, well, that's conventional. That's conventional. But just like, you know, like what what what's the thought process? What you know when and I get it. You know, this is as everything in gastronomy is cursed to do.

34:21Like it goes from a good idea to marketing term about three years. But but it's, you know, even if people have a very fuzzy and often bad understanding, I think that they're what is going to come out of it is this remarkable growth and maturing of the wine industry. Yet the Salad Composé has not taken off, and it is quite the beautiful idea. We'll get to that at the end, but I have a few more wine questions because you're here, and I just want to know in general how can we be better wine drinkers? How can we be – and better meaning drinking better but also just better citizens? Sure. By the way, there were about 1 ,000 people that logged off the moment you said Salad Composé.

35:03I know. Salad Composé and linking to that in the show notes. I know. It's really – the Salad Composé book will come out. We'll get there. We'll get there. My next project. But yeah, the better wine drinking. Being a better wine drinker. I mean, I actually don't think it's hard. You know, there's a million pieces of advice about, you know, take this class, study this book. Great book called The New Wine Rules. Highly recommend. Tells you everything you need to know. Wonderful book. Yeah. Sorry. You can put it in your backpack and not like feel like you're doing like a Stearmaster. Yeah. You know?

35:37Well, versus the new book. Versus, of course, I'm saying versus a new book, which is a bit of a doorstop in the best way. But really what it comes down to is being curious and being a curious consumer. And I suspect that that sounds trite, but it's just it's like, you know, try to understand specifics, interrogate yourself, ask why you drink the things that you have drunk. Maybe you drink right now. Are you like where do your where do your beliefs about wine come from? and poke at them. And it's interesting. I, you know, there's, you were mentioning millennials and I would say it probably goes beyond that as well.

36:16But, you know, one of the things about where we've landed in the media landscape and the social media landscape in particular is, you know, we, everything is now a totem. Everything is meant to have a little moment of fetish around it. And which isn't bad necessarily. like, you know, there's value to that. But at the same time, there really has been a diminishment of curiosity. Yeah. Probably because every one of us now has literally the world of information at our fingertips, some of it correct. It's dulled us for sure. I mean, it's dulled our interest in things when we can have everything at the same time, right?

36:54Yeah, but I think, so, you know, how to be a better wanderer, just, you know, like buy different things, ask lots of questions, ask why you like things, ask why you don't like things. I mean, I, you know, I again had this weird osmotic, you know, sort of education in wine. But all it was when I started to get interested was just asking questions. And everyone's like, oh, well, you're a sommelier. No, I'm not a sommelier. Like, you know, did you take the W set or, you know, study to, you know, get a certification, whatever. I'm like, no, like I just like drinking wine and I'm, you know, and I'm sort of nosy.

37:30Yeah, and you have an inquisitive kind of background in your career, like running the home page MSNBC. I mean, so so it's like I don't want to I don't want to I don't want to sound like reductivist, but it's not more complicated than that. I mean, I think interrogating yourself is like the number one thing I just took away. I mean, I think being curious is great, too. But like thinking like, why do I like that? Why do I like that? You know, Verde. Why do I like or is it a matter? Why do I like the number that's on the screen when I'm checking out? Yeah, because that's another thing you have to keep in mind.

37:58Like some of his wine drinking is like I like value. That's what I like. And it's – you know, I have gone through the full arc of ranting about why industrial wine sucks and I'm like – I mean it's all still there. Like it's – I wouldn't say I've necessarily moved away from any of that. But I'm also just like – when wine people sort of get up in themselves, I tend to like to remind folks that what we should be thinking about is white cloth. because, you know, if you want people to like wine, you're going to have to provide a context because if they just want to drink, like hard seltzer is there for them now.

38:42RTD is there for them now. Like, you know, you can pop open a Mai Tai in a can, you know, have at it. So, you know, none of which, like, you know, again, like none of which is necessarily bad. I'll just jump in to say NA too is there. Yeah, NA. Sure. If you want to love wine, then this is like, you know, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. Like if you want to love wine, then you just have to love wine. And in order to do that in a healthy relationship, you have to ask yourself questions. Love that. You were JetBlue's wine consultant. Absolutely fascinating role. What do we what what like what give us some like information about drinking on a plane?

39:22Like what did you learn when you started working with an airline about behavior, about what people like, what you need to serve? I, you know, I wish that I had – I wish that I had been handed a deep stack of market research, which you would think given the risk-averse places that airlines are, with good reason, that, you know, that we would play it safe. But honestly, my mandate there was to not play it safe. And originally it was to build a program around the new California. And then we expanded it. But, you know, in the end it was basically, look, this was especially for Mint, which is their business class.

40:01Like this is supposed to be a different business class. We want a different wine program. And, you know, there's lots of things about your taste is dulled and, you know, this is that. That's why the food is salty. It's why I like never get on a plane without packets of hot sauce. all kind of true yeah but like but but but really it was just a matter of i want to put really good quality wine on here um our costs were exponentially more than pretty much any other domestic airline because we were often buying direct from producers and so it wasn't like you know can i get it for 250 a bottle it was you know these were bottles that would be 30 to 80 bottles retail and we were we were buying them at wholesale and sometimes at a discount but But, you know, but this program cost JetBlue money.

40:48It was like a lost leader, it sounds like. Yeah, but it was also, you know, we're going to put Turley's Infindel on board. And there's, you know, there's a lot of people who seeing that wine, which they think they can only get in a restaurant, that sends a very specific message. We were the first people to put a rosé on board, which wasn't like wasn't even a huge thing. I was just I would think of literally like sitting around talking to me like, well, what if we like it's spring? It'll be summer. Like, what if we put a rosé on board? And it was like, well, sure. And now, of course, it's funny because everyone has rosé on board.

41:19And they're in cans now. Right. And I mean, you know, so it's actually interesting now because you can drink much better only because, yeah, because cans and RTD have made it much easier. But like, you know, it was just it was literally just looking at what had become very much a bottom line dollars and cents approach to that type of service and saying, what if we did it differently? Yeah. Do you think you'll get back in that game? Never know. Yeah. Phone lines are open. Yeah, exactly. All right, let's talk about Rezi. You're a managing editor there. Rezi, we know, is the app that gets us into restaurants or doesn't get us into restaurants.

41:55It just depends on the day and the mood. But what is your goal as running editorial? I love it. We share a lot of writers. I think the work is excellent. It's very, like, of the moment, obviously rooted in restaurant culture. But tell me a little bit more about how content works on this thing that we think just gives us reservations. Of course. And I should say, to be clear, I do not speak for Resi, capital R, Resi. I speak for myself. Wow, this is like those gambling ads on podcasts. Yeah, and we have a remarkable editorial team including an amazing editorial director. Who's that? Let's give this a shout out.

42:36Paolo Lucchese. Yeah, Paolo, right on. Former colleague at The Chronicle. Chronicle is our great pipeline. It sounds like it. Yeah, a little biased there. And Ben Leventhal has been on the show. He was a founder. I don't think he's with the company anymore, but he's – And Ben, who also founded Eater, is a large part of the reason that editorial is baked into Resi's DNA. Definitely, definitely. So it's funny you mention the app because the app is a part of the Resi experience, but the website is actually a big part of the Resi experience. Same booking capability, but the website is really infused all over the place with editorial, including one of the things that I oversee, which is the monthly hit list, which we have in 19 markets, 20 markets.

43:20And that's, you know, each month, 10 restaurants, some on Resi, some not on Resi. And that's always been that way. I love that. I did not know that, actually. So it's actually very important. And it's, again, like it's, you know, I'm on the ramparts basically every month just being like, you know, and sometimes even to our writers being like, you know, I get it. Like, you know, you know who signs your paycheck. Fair enough. But some of it in terms of really building a robust and a legitimate editorial program there was saying, like, we have to acknowledge that there is a bigger world. And the goal of Resi, you know, ultimately is to connect people with restaurants they love.

44:01Yeah. And so some of that is going to be curation and recommendations. And even when we, you know, like our premium sort of membership tier, which is Global Dining Access, like we do the same thing. You know, sometimes things will be easier to get into than others. But it's also saying this is, you know, we're here to get you to a restaurant you love. Yeah. And this is really important. This isn't about fine dining. It's about great dining. Yeah. I mean, that's what the resi ethic is. if you're a user or power user, you're definitely not only getting, you know, three star or whatever we want to call it, like higher end.

44:39Whatever the fuck you call it. But some of it is literally just like, look, it could be a taco truck. It could be a pop up. It could be, you know, it could be a bakery. But, you know, there's great, great things that you are going to love in all forms. Most of them, honestly, and to the point about Paris and the HLA and versus East Paris, like West versus East Paris. Like, great dining today is not fancy. No. It's just, it's evolved. It could be higher than the number you want to pay. We'll get it. That's all we've talked about a lot. If you are a fan of bro-mikase, the world is your oyster. I love it.

45:17Let's talk about booking, though. And you are speaking for yourself. As a longtime restaurant goer and expert in the field, it feels like it's really, really, really hard to book a table right now. How do we do that? How do we actually make it easier on ourselves? That is. Sure. So there's, I mean, we spend a lot of time asking that question. We have a series called The One Who Keeps the Book, which is literally talking to the person who is managing the book at the front of the house. The 950 in the wait list for some restaurants. Yeah, exactly. Well, and so, you know, some of it is very straightforward.

45:53Or, you know, the notify tool, which is part of Resi, is valuable. And you have to, I swear, you just have to, like, trust in it at some point. It's so fire. I mean, like, let's get real. It's the best thing about Resi is the notify button. It's just truly the best. So don't tell Alison Roman. She doesn't like it. She is a skeptic. See, we did talk about that. And I think you're right that there is definitely a skepticism when you don't hit, like, the four or five times you hit notify. but I think you're going to hit more times than not. Yeah. And so, you know, if I take a step back from that, like my real advice is, you know, restaurants are in a weird place.

46:34We've come out of three years of a pandemic. Labor, you know, the labor shortage is real. The supply chain is real. It's just, you know, we all want to get back out and live the 20s of the 21st century. So, like, it's not hard. You know, you need to be flexible. You need to probably be okay with going early, maybe sitting at the bar. And, like, do you need, like, I'm going to have a table because I'm having a birthday, mom's in town, whatever. Or are you just like, whatever, I really want to go eat at SEMA. So how am I going to make that happen? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And candidly, like, I wish I could say that this was a new thing.

47:15But I think back to when I was in San Francisco in the late aughts and Nopa was my favorite restaurant in the world. And I would have to do the same thing. Like if I wanted a seat, I had to go at 4.48 and get in line to like grab a bar at the – grab a seat at the bar at 5. And like that was my thing. So I'm like, you know, none of this is reinventing the wheel. I remember being in college and Latoile was the restaurant in Madison, Wisconsin. And I remember waiting on the sidewalk to get in for that later that night to get a book, to get in the book. And the one other thing, and this is a, just to bring it back to France, of course.

47:53Sure. This is a lesson that you learn by actually being in Paris for more than kind of a week when you start to get used to the rhythms of life there is the notion of being a regular is the single most valuable thing that you can do in terms of creating a relationship with dining. and I know you know we all have zero attention spans we want to like go out see what's new see like you know see what's grammable that particular second but like creating that relationship and especially now is going to pay endless dividends and I would say you know the thrill of constantly dashing to the new place at some point becomes a little bit less thrilling and you like having a sustained relationship with a great restaurant and it's just a matter of building it and i would say with with a very small number of exceptions like almost every restaurant wants to create that because they want to know when you walk through the door they want to know that you are going to keep supporting them and that you're there and that you, uh, you, you like what they do and you are, you're going to support them.

49:11This is, this is all seems again, like totally redundant. Uh, but it's, it's true. Like the, the rules even now, even in, you know, everyone has to write the, no one can get a reservation story. Like even in 2023, the rules haven't changed. Yeah, it's true. Good point. Can't forget about France. Can't forget about the salad composé. There we go. You're right. Once, what the French call the salad composé, the composed salad, was an essential part of any restaurant or dinner party menu and a foundational pillar in any French chef's oeuvre. Okay, have we lost the plot on the salad composé, Jean Bonnet?

49:44I don't think so. I actually... Yes. You won! Your story has netted results. Exactly, yeah. My taste essay... On 2018, 2019, Yeah, clearly pivoted the entire culinary world to go back to salad. Yeah. But so honestly to, you know, just keep pulling all the, you know, the old ones out of the closet. We are in the salad days, which is to say if you look at where like most new American cooking is, could be red sauce Italian. Like the chopped salad is having a moment and I'm here for it. But it could be, you know, you look at like the, you know, lentils and roast vegetables and, you know, and labneh or even the fact that Middle Eastern is so hot right now.

50:38And like you, the expectation. Sell the team. Yeah. Like laser wolves sell the team. Exactly. Huge. So, I mean, it's really fascinating. And you take that, you take like tin fish. The way I was describing it last night to someone is that now is the true glory days of the Gardemanger. Yeah. To talk about the old French system. This was like the person who had to do the cold station. Cold apps. Yeah. And like it's amazing because, you know, there's so much of cooking right now. Again, labor costs like, you know, post-pandemic. Maybe having a cold kitchen. Maybe like our new regulation where gas is going to be banned in New York City.

51:15Right. So it's I mean, you know, people are eating tons of the stuff in all sorts of forms across across cultural references, across types of cuisine, you know, all of it. And so it's fascinating because what was my point in the essay, which was that, you know, this great sort of cold part of the meal, which was extraordinary and was a very important part of the progression and went away during the kind of, you know, fancified dining of the mid-century, is now back in like a somewhat different context. Although someone I'm sure will bring back, you know, all of his scoffiers great recipes. But but it could be, you know, could be Vietnamese.

51:54It could be Thai. It could be, like I said, you know, Italian chopped salad, whatever it is. You see that it is now back to being an intrinsic part of dining in 2023 to say nothing of which was, again, in the essay to say nothing of sweet green, which I think everyone thought was going to kind of come up and down. And, you know, everyone was sitting at home in their sweatpants and no one's going to eat sweet green. Sweet green is killing itself. Yeah. And so, you know, I I think it's different from like the 90s when salad was a health thing and really a fad. Like I think people have made peace with salad for dinner, salad for dinner.

52:29Like this is this is this is a really fun part of dining. Yeah. And I think like the salad books that have come out in the past couple of years have been really nice, too. And I feel like we're going to maybe revisit that topic. I don't think you can write for taste because of your role at Resi. I would ask you probably write for taste. Okay, well, let's get to part two of that. The question is, do I have time for it? No, I know you don't have time now. I can't let you go without giving us three restaurants we should go to. This is just off the dome, places that you think we – I know you're giving me a face of how the – why are you asking me that?

53:01This is the question I actually needed to prepare. I know, John, and I did not give you this in the prep. But I just – off, like you say, SEMA, that came out of your dome. Give us just three names that are popping around. Let's just focus on New York City. We have a lot of our listeners are visiting the city this spring and summer. So where should they go? Yeah. I mean, Sema slash Damaka. Yeah. Remarkable, like, transformational Indian cooking. Masala Walla and Sons as well, which is in my neighborhood. Yeah. Talk about Rezi. You can't get out of that one. And if anyone thinks that I have, you know, some special magic, let me assure you I am in the fight along with the rest of y 'all.

53:36Great place. But I would put, you know, any of Unapologetics restaurants on that list. I would put Red Hook Tavern, which I— Wow, an oldie. Yeah. Relative oldie. You know, and it's just like I love that they are so focused on exactly what they do. Yeah. Which is make a very good hamburger. Very good hamburger, like favorite shrimp cocktail ever, I think, and remarkable wine list. And it's just like, you know, I love that they've sort of doubled down in the Alaska cocktail, which is a very specific choice. And with that, I'd actually sort of draw a dotted line to Gus's Chop House, which I put in a similar range.

54:20I've not made it out to my old neighborhood. I have not made it to Gus. It's cool. It is fantastically good. This is the folks who have Popina, which is also great. But like doing a quote unquote shop house, which is not a steakhouse, but is I think their view of what like, you know, a meat, a meat forward ish restaurant. Can you give us one in Manhattan? Can you just do it? Well, there was Sema. Oh, yeah. Sema. Yeah, right. Because the one other I was going to mention was St. Jules Verre, which I truly like I love what Alex and team are doing there. A little bit more fish focused. But Manhattan.

54:58I'm like you because I definitely would always say places in my neighborhood. Your name is Spotsamville neighborhood. But it's just how we dine, you know. So this will not be a huge surprise. And I feel like I'm preaching to the choir in suggesting that anyone go to K-Town, which is still a pretty remarkable place. and I truly love the way that Korean food has evolved and come up in New York in the past five, eight years. And so I will give sort of two as not even counterpoints, but like they do similar things in slightly different ways. One is Atta Boy, which JP and Elia are remarkable and they've been transformational and I think getting people to understand the depth of Korean cooking.

55:44and Jua, which similar place, a little bit more focused in its concept, but both, again, sort of pursuing this neo-Korean concept, K-town adjacent. But truly, I think, you know, if you come to New York to see where food is at its best, where the future is, those are restaurants along, like I said, with Sema and the unapologetic posse. Like, I think those so encapsulate the future of American food. I love that. Definitely a thesis in our upcoming book, Korea World, I must say. Yeah. Korean food in New York. I want to hear about your next book. Yeah, no, but let's get to that question. We ask all guests on Taste Podcast, if you could write a cookbook or food culture book without the burden of time, meaning you have no deadline or the burden of budget, meaning you have all the money in the world to travel, to drink wine, to maybe not drink wine, to make salad.

56:39What would that book be, John? Didn't I just do that? The book that never ends? I think it's true. You had a budget, though. My budget was I'm just going to keep spending money and go deeply into debt. It was like a six-figure budget. I mean beyond. I do not recommend it. Let's just say the advance has been spent. Yeah, and you're getting a few more checks at some point and those are the priorities. So it's funny. The dream wine book that I've wanted to do for a long time, which will not happen and I've pitched it, whatever, is the new Australian wine. And mostly because like everything that's interesting in wine is happening there and it's happening in a different context.

57:22It's 8 ,000 miles away from anything else. But there's a deep narrative there that I would love to explore. But, you know, I live in a commercial world and I can accept where sales of Australian wine are now. there's a part of me that would love to immerse myself in Japan. I know I would never come out again. And I'm not sure what book is in that. And so where I kind of land, and I am clearly insane for saying this, is there's a part of me that wants to go back and do for French food what I just did with wine, which is to say everything that I've said about how France is transforming and how France as an anchor of cuisine in the world is crucial.

58:14I really want to explore that. And I got to do some of that for the book, but ultimately you actually have to write about the thing you're supposed to write about. And there's so much there. Like if you read Lauren Collins' New Yorker piece on the French tacos, was like there's there's so much that I I have yet to see someone really like get get their hands into um that said um like probably the only truism that's more true than never get involved in a land war in Asia is never right about France and I know that now John Bonet thank you so much for joining the taste podcast that was really fun

59:01Hi, Matt. Hey, Eliza. What's up? Not much. Just want to talk to you about three things, if that sounds cool. I love when we talk about three things. I actually have more things to talk about you, like seven things, eight things, but we'll stick to three. I'm going to cut you off after three. Okay. It's good for our listeners. Okay. Can I start with my first thing? I mean, I think you should. I've been so excited to tell somebody about this. I went to Achilles heel for dinner on Sunday, which has been a while since I've been there. Gosh, what a blast from the past. I know. I love this restaurant.

59:29To me, this is such a warm weather in New York restaurant, even if I'm dining inside and the fire is going, which was happening on Sunday. But it's so close to the water in Greenpoint. And it just kind of feels to me like a springtime restaurant. And I had a really good dish, which was piquillo peppers stuffed with tuna salad. Whoa. So how big are these peppers? Because I think a piquillo is smaller, but it must be like a larger style piquillo, right? Yeah, definitely like the big boy on the playground in terms of the Kiyo pepper, but not as big as a bell pepper, maybe the size of my palm, but marinated, spicy, tangy and stuffed with this very kind of mayo, but not in a gloppy way tuna salad.

1:00:08It was so good. And it made me think about just wanting to make that as a like a party snack in the summer or maybe even like a picnic moment. I love that. I mean, I feel like a stuffed pepper is something that we actually think is pretty uncool. as like a culture, we being the culture of food critics and people judging recipes by their covers. Yeah, I mean, it's funny because a chili relleno is one of my favorite foods also. I think that I'm very pro-stuffed pepper, but I'd never had a marinated pepper stuffed before. And to me, that was the surprise and delight of it all. Great point there. You're talking about a marinated versus a raw.

1:00:42And I'm going to be clear, I love a stuffed pepper. I love a stuffed bell pepper. So no shade. Just saying it's maybe not the coolest food, but the marinated pepper sounds delicious. It's coming back. That's what I'm saying. Achilles heel. They used to do like Sunday like dance part, like dance things there. They used to like grill chicken on the sidewalk in the summer. They've done a lot of different things. Yeah, it's a cool place. I just happened to go with our friend Pearl, which was really lovely. Cool. Yeah. What's your first thing? Great segue from The Tuna Fish is I have to call out my former colleague Anna Hiesel's book, Tinned to Table.

1:01:15It is wonderful. It is such a good book. What's the like breakdown of the book? So she has written extensively about tinned and canned fish, conservas. I think she started her journey here at Taste when she was a senior editor. And it's a really clearly defined, easy to use, beautiful book. It's not large in format, which I think is perfect for this topic. It actually has a die cut, which means it actually is the cover is a shape of something, which is a can of fish. Cute. It's cool as hell. And, you know, she starts by defining all the different canned fish and seafoods in our culture, mackerel, tuna, salmon.

1:01:53She talks about salmon a lot. And we have an episode coming up on the podcast where she joined me to talk about her love of canned salmon. But then there are hella recipes. They're really good. Like the recipe development is so good in the book. That makes me excited because I feel like the conceit of Tinned Fish in theory is that you don't have to do that much to it, right? that it's already in the can ready to go. But I do think it's such a good ingredient for other things such as these piquillo stuffed peppers. Agree. And I think it's, to be clear, your point is sound. She refers to all the different conserves you can buy just to like put out on a platter and enjoy as we get into, you know, warmer months out on the patio, out on your sidewalk, et cetera, et cetera.

1:02:34But the recipes that she covers are really smart. A couple that come to mind, she had a smoked salmon deviled egg. Whoa. Pretty cool. Great concept. She had a mac and mac, which is cold mac salad with white beans, lemon, and mackerel. I love the sound of that. Dude, mackerel is such an underrated fish. I think we've talked about that before. Buttery. Buttery, salty, but not too fishy enough. Definitely fishier, but good. Like, you know, I love a grilled mackerel, but I love a canned mackerel. She also cracks the code on the combi tuna fish salad that's at restaurant in Los Angeles, combi. Oh, you know, are they no longer doing that sandwich also?

1:03:09They're no longer doing anything. They're not doing any sandwich. So that's a good recipe to have. I agree. They're literally not doing anything. And this kombi tuna fish salad includes light soy sauce, mirin, rice vinegar, yuzu kosho. Yuzu kosho and tuna salad, pretty good on milk bread. Love it. Love it. What's your next thing? My next thing is what I made for dinner last night, which is an Eric Kim recipe, a new one, our fave, for gochujang buttered noodles. Excellent use of gochujang. Yeah, it was, I think part of a package he did reimagining ramen, instant ramen. I did use sun ramen, like the really good fresh ramen.

1:03:48So it was maybe a little fancier than that. But the sauce is so good. You basically saute a lot of garlic and then you add honey. And I believe I use sherry vinegar. I think there's a couple of vinegar options and just kind of cook it down until it's really glossy. And then you just add so much butter and mix it all together. and it was so good. And when does the gochujang come in? Oh, I mean, I missed that part. The gochujang goes with the honey and the vinegar. Okay, cool. All of them together. That's what it seemed like you were going for. I love that. Yeah. You know, honey and gochujang is something that has been cooked for a while.

1:04:21You know, I think it replaces mirin often in the like classic East Asian larder. I think that honey is a great substitute and as a beef marinade or a pork marinade, it can be good. But with Eric, these butter noodles sound dope. So good. Yeah, they're really good. I added some trumpet mushrooms just because I had those on hand. I know. That's one of my favorite mushrooms to cook with because they're so fun and the texture is so good. You have like a mushroom plug, though. You have like an infinite promo code, right? No. I mean, I wish. Smallhold, if you're listening, I would take that. I just got these from the key food by my place, actually.

1:04:56But I do have a lot of Smallhold dried mushrooms on hand, which we can talk about at a later date. I feel like you should be sponsored by Smallhold. I mean, I almost wore their shirt today. I'm going to have them on the podcast, which will be really fun because mushrooms are definitely one of my special interests. So I think that'll be a great one. Yeah. What's your next thing? Well, I want to call another book, Dan Adutes, Undercooked. And he's going to be a guest on the show in a future episode. And I really get into a cool, cool, you know, variety of topics. He's an actor, a comedian. He's on the current season of Cobra Kai.

1:05:27But what I, as I said in my intro to the episode to him, I didn't expect to like this book. I actually thought it would be not good, frankly, because like you get like actor guy like writing about food. And, you know, there's questions that pop in your head. Like, why is this guy actually writing a book? But then you read it and this book is it's funny. It's it's broken into great chapters. And honestly, he worked at the Spotted Pig during a very interesting time. He was actually an intern there. So he like we talk about it on the show, but he writes about it very extensively in the in the book.

1:05:59And it's complicated. Like his relationship with this like kind of cursed restaurant. That's one element of many in this book that is like really engaging. This is a great book. I highly recommend it. Eliza, what is your final item? My final item is, in addition to mushrooms, my other special interest is kombucha. And I feel like I'm always trying new kombuchas. And recently I went back to my roots in the whole food section and I just had the GT's gingerade kombucha, which I think is one of the first kombuchas I've ever had probably. Growing up in L.A., that was like the only kombucha available for a while, which was one of the epicenters of kombucha in the United States.

1:06:35I mean, Erewhon's kombucha aisle really influenced the culture. I can't even talk about that. Like, I truly disassociate in the produce aisle and the refrigerated aisle these days because there's so many options. But I just went back to my classic kombucha, and it was so good. It was so not too sweet, really gingery, really fiery, really made me feel like I was doing something good for my gut, which is always a good feeling. Always a great feeling. Now, GT, iconic brand, iconic labeling and packaging, of course. And they've never changed it also, which I appreciate because I feel like they have reached OG status now.

1:07:06Yeah, they definitely have. Question about kombucha. So when I drink it, I drink it from time to time. I'm actually sipping on a Ruby Sparkling Hibiscus, which is another great drink maybe for a future three things. I get a little – it's not lightheaded. I feel like there's something happening in my brain when I drink kombucha. Do you have that feeling? um uh no but i like that you do i feel like i could probably spin that into something about the microbiome in your body and how everything is interconnected because i do know there have been studies that gut health and mood are really closely linked and also your whole body is kind of interacting together so if i wanted to like maybe lean away from the science and just talk about uh touchy-feely things like that maybe i would say that there is a very small amount of caffeine and kombucha.

1:07:52Yeah. Not not enough really to register. It's not a caffeine feeling. It's like it feels it's not a lightheadedness, but it's a lightness and effervescence. Maybe it's the feeling of being better than everyone. I guess so. That's what it's the feeling of spending nine dollars on a drink. Yeah, that's the real feeling. Yeah, definitely. What's your last one? My last item is just a general topic and kind of a statement. Hold your diners close, meaning the diner that you go to and love, love it back even more because I'm seeing diners close all the time. And I had a recent experience where I went to a diner where it used to be decent and then it just the new ownership took over and it fell the fuck off.

1:08:32And it made me think diners are bad. Usually they can be very bad. So when you like a diner, go there and hold it close. I like that. I think you don't know what you've got till it's gone downhill. I agree. You don't know what you got until you've lost it, right? Until it's gone downhill. And when you go to a bad diner, you just have to reflect on what makes a good diner. And I think about the new Superiority Burger. I wish there was a bell every time we mentioned Superiority Burger on the show. Brooks and I have been continually emailing and he's been continually delaying our interview. It's going to be great though.

1:09:06One day. One day. But, you know, he is a little bit of a diner set up. But New York is full of great diners. Do you have a favorite at all that comes to mind right away of like a diner in your neighborhood or somewhere in New York? You know, where I live in Brooklyn, there aren't that many diners, which is kind of a bummer because I really like going to them. But I was recently talking to Emma Orlo when we were, I think, off mic when she was recording an episode about how I went to the Court Square Diner in Long Island City and had a really great restorative 2 a.m. meal there. So that's what I'll shout out for now.

1:09:37I really like the diner in Goshen near me. It has some sentimental memory from my wife and I, Tamar, but I think the food isn't perfect, but I do like it, and I need to go there more. Pat, do you have a favorite diner at all? So I took my in-laws this weekend. They were in town and took them to the Purity Diner near where I live in Park Slope, and it was good. We had good breakfast, solid pancakes and eggs. That's your order? Yeah, yeah, pancakes totally. You're at a diner. It's either breakfast food or burgers. Past that, I think. Ooh. Do you disagree? Are you the guy ordering lobster at a diner?

1:10:12Definitely not. There was a lobster on the menu at this new diner I went to, which scares the hell out of me. I'm not a burger at the diner guy. I like sandwiches, club sandwiches. Yeah, you could do sandwiches. Clubs, I like a BLT. I like a grilled cheese. I like tuna fish club. Yeah. Keep it simple, though. But burgers are good. I'm not judging. I just, you know, not me. Yeah. Not you. I got it. But yeah, it was a good purity diner or purity two three blocks away. Oh, cool. Do you have a favorite of the two? Purity, because it is closer. And Purity 2, I think, is probably exactly the same. Sometimes comes down to that.

1:10:48Shalia, what do you think about it? Do you have a favorite diner? So, similar to Pat, recently my parents and my godparents were in town. And my partners, like, lived in Astoria forever and forever. And we ended up taking them to Michael's on Broadway in Astoria. And I love that place. It just has this like very old school feel. It's like really it's so much more spacious than you would think. I don't know. And it's just like a nice environment. You don't feel rushed. Like it feels like everyone who's been working there has like been there like since the 70s. Like they also do like a really, really excellent Reuben.

1:11:29And then I think I had I think I might have gotten a Greek omelet. That was fantastic. Perfect order. A Greek omelet. Can't really find that in many places in the country. I feel Astoria is like where you're going to find a Greek omelet. They also do like a like all inclusive like bottomless brunch for like something like$20, which like does not seem cost effective for me. But like me and my mother had a great time. Let's go. I love that. I like that you're talking about the vibe also because to me that's the most important thing when I'm going to a diner. The food can be fine, but I want a big red booth I can be with all of my people in and have a lot of coffee and just not feel rushed.

1:12:09I don't know if I'd call it a diner, but Tom's Restaurant in Prospect Heights. It is kind of a diner. It's just a little small, but that's probably the one I go to the most. That's the guy? Yeah. Hey, thanks for talking three things, Eliza. Anytime. Thanks to Pat and Shalia, too.

1:12:26the taste podcast is hosted by eliza abarbanel and me matt rodbar the show is produced by shalia harris and pat stango and edited by clayton gumber theme music by steve rydell visit taste online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter for updates on all cool things that are happening