331: Dan Frommer

23:17That's the way some of these companies may frame their products in marketing materials if we do have a mass culture embrace of Ozempic. I mean, this is the one splurge. There's going to be more of that kind of dialogue about this is the premium. It's like the premiumization of groceries is going to be more important. I think so, yeah. Anecdotally, you live in LA. No judgment. Do you know people on Ozempic? Do you know people who are taking it? What is your on-the-streets view? I do know people who are taking it, but But every, like here, San Francisco as well, like, you know, it's - What do they think?

23:50Are they very pleased with the results? Look, some of them are taking it because they really should be taking it and they are pleased with the results and they kind of know they're gonna be on it forever. And some people are taking it because they wanna look better. You know, weight is a huge thing in America. More people in our survey say they would rather feel 25 % healthier than make 25 % more money. And in America, weight is health through a lot of people. So we'll see. Some of it is driven by vanity and attractiveness. Some of it is legitimately like weight is perhaps the biggest health problem in this country.

24:23So this can change and save lives, and that is a great thing, but it may also have an impact on frozen french fry purchases. Yeah, right. Exactly. It's complicated. I'm glad you tackled it. And then we won't talk about TikTok shop at length, but it seems you're thinking about TikTok plus retail. It's definitely changing the way we buy things. Super fascinating because the other social networks have kind of flicked at e-commerce, but it hasn't worked super well. But TikTok has this massive audience. A lot of Gen Z is on there and they have added shopping as kind of a native feature to TikTok. We've looked into it.

24:59We've watched 200 videos of TikTok shop products. We've worked with financial data firms to get kind of a sense of what people are buying and how much they're spending. It has already become very big. One firm estimated that in October, which was its second month of being kind of like publicly launched, it did basically a quarter billion dollars in GMV, gross merchandise volume, which is a lot. Three billion dollar run rate, pretty big. I think that's like almost half the size of Home Shopping Network or something like that. So people are buying a lot of cheap stuff. It's not super high quality goods on there.

25:31Some real like especially in the beauty industry, Estee Lauder is on there. You know, Rare Beauty is on there. Elf is on there. The real makeup brands are on there. But a lot of stuff, like one of the best things so far about TikTok shop, you can actually see how many people have purchased each item. There's a hairbrush that almost 700 ,000 people. Wow. Which is fascinating. And it's kind of become the subject of viral videos, including backlash videos and all kinds. That's an Alibaba like moment though, right? That like net, like consumers, right? Alibaba did that for years, right? I actually never shopped there.

26:05So I don't know. I never shopped there? Maybe that makes sense. They have a running number. A lot of the mechanics of TikTok shop, because TikTok originated from China, are kind of the East Asian shopping mechanics. A lot of like coupons flying in your face, a lot of noise, not a very elegant shopping experience. But I have to say pretty, pretty impressive what they've done so far. I would say, you know, if your product does well on TikTok, you should seriously consider being on TikTok shop. I don't know what the super downside is other than being next to a lot of crap for sale. I don't expect Apple, for example, to sell on TikTok shop anytime soon, but Anchor's already on there.

26:43You know, real brands are already on there. Any food brands that you've noticed? Magic Spoon is on there. I think they've sold 400 cases of cereal. I think I saw it this morning. I may have made that number up, which is, you know, it's not 670 ,000, but - But still, it's a start. And if you're a first mover there, you're going to win in some ways. Perhaps, yeah. So we'll see, but I think it's super interesting. And TikTok is where, in our prior research, where Gen Z says more than any other place is where they discover food brands. So perhaps it is a place where food brands should be playing as well.

27:15That's such an interesting point you make, Dan, because sure as fuck, I haven't found any products myself and I'm on the platform. I'm just not being served it. So it's going to be interesting to see how that evolves. I have to ask you, just point blank, is there a CPG brand that won the year? I've been thinking about this. I would say it's been a tough year for CPG brands. There are a lot of things that have kind of been a weight. Funding is one of them. Growth. Growth is more expensive. Advertising is more expensive. There is a push toward physical retail, which requires working with these distributors, which are generally regarded as not the greatest people to work with.

27:52There's a lot of stuff that's made this a very - Costs of goods. Everything, yeah. Yeah, it's challenging to be emerging. Finally, supply chains are kind of working. But anyway, so it's been a tough year for food brands. I would say that there's a few ways to look at this. If you're looking at like financial growth this year, you're probably looking at like a brand like Prime or Celsius, like those energy drinks. I don't drink those, but a lot of people do. Or Feastables, the Mr. B snack brand, which has become a very big thing, especially driven by Walmart. If you're looking at like scanner data, probably the winner of the year is like the Kroger private label.

28:28Yeah. A lot of people are trading down in grocery right now. And so it's also another reason that it's tough to be a young CPG brand. Brands that I feel are executing at a high level just based on their ability to get carriage in more stores. I think Fly by Jing is doing a great job. We've talked previously about Graza. I think Graza is probably the food brand of last year. So I don't think they were the – Yeah, they're more of a 22 for sure. Yeah. But they – and we'll see what the long – is that the thing you keep rebuying? or, and I filled mine up with other olive oil. Yeah, the squeeze bottle is too good to throw away.

29:04Yeah, I agree. I mean, I love the product. You know, it's like, just to repeat, it's like Spanish olive oil. It's not blended. A lot of those other brands that you're buying is blended. This is great olive oil. It's really nice stuff. Big exit for Rayos, the pasta, you know, like huge, huge success financial there. Wow, 300 plus million. Truff is crushing it apparently. Other kind of maybe under the radar brands. You know, I'm really impressed with the rollout of Van Leeuwen stores. I think they've done, you know, Van Leeuwen started here as a ice cream truck in Brooklyn. And now they have their opening stores like almost every week, it feels like, mostly in big cities, but super impressive.

29:40It seems like they figured out a model that works. Their Times Square location is amazing. It's really, really nice. Yeah. I'll check it out. Yeah. But, you know, and playing the game, like they work with Walmart on stunt flavors because you kind of have to do that. But really impressive rollout for that. but I wouldn't say there's like one brand that I'm just like oh man. You've given us a medley and I think the Celsius like the energy drink locale model may be better for you because it has some like you know vitamins on the label. People love that stuff. People love it. Yeah and people need it.

30:13I mean it's part of their like it's like their coffee. Well and if you think about that market it's been so heavy with like Red Bull and very bro-y like Monster and Bang and I guess Prime is kind of bro-y too. Prime is like a better version of bang, it feels in some ways. I don't know. Whereas Celsius is a lot more kind of palatable for other people. There's a startup called Gorgi that is very women focused. And so there's a lot of interesting things happening in that category. It continues to grow. Another one I would say, I think Olipop's done a nice job rolling out. I don't know what their current financials look like, but they've rolled out multi-packs.

30:49They're getting distributed places. They're launching new flavors. I think it's, I think it looks good. It looks good. I had been on the show and I asked him point blank. I mean, this refrigeration thing is like the biggest puzzler for me because, you know, you got to keep it cold. So like, how do you scale up if you, I mean, it's very limited space in these cooler, in these cases, right? Yeah. What'd he say? Well, he said he's not going to reformulate to make a shelf stable. I know that for sure. At least now. It's a good episode. I'll link to the show notes. I feel like you have to reformulate if you're going to grow.

31:18I think at some point they have to. I mean, you have to. It's a great product. I'm a huge fan of it. Is there anybody in the world of CPG that maybe stumbled a bit in 2023? Or is there a category that's maybe dipped a bit? Here's where I'm a little concerned. We had a lot of these very, very, very niche, cute brands launch online, build a really big following that ultimately is actually not that big in the scope of the world of food and CPG, try to expand into retail. And maybe that first product didn't really work in retail. So I'm not sure these companies, you know, that it's hard to raise money right now.

31:50You really have to be scrappy right now. And a lot of them are, are pivoting hard. I don't know. I don't want to say they're treading water, but it's going to be, there was a lot of cuteness that got funding and got popular during the years 2018 through 2021 that's, that are going to have, you know, hit a hard point. And so we'll see, you know, I wouldn't say they've, they've crashed, like we'll see what happens, but it's, it's going to be hard to watch some of that. I think. I watched the Fancy Food Show in New York in July, and I felt like there was a lot of shelf-stable sauces, like stirring sauces.

32:24And to me, and, you know, with the Rao's exit or sale, it seems like it's probably people are still thinking about sauce, maybe pasta sauce as a growth opportunity. But I felt like there was, like, an oversaturation of that category, and a lot of it was very cute. I was obviously not sampling all of it, but, man, I don't think we need, like, you know, 50 new SKUs of stirring sauces. Yeah. I have another answer, which is obviously now, duh, plant-based meat. Like it really - Oh yeah, totally. We can definitely talk shit about plant-based meat. It really hit a ceiling. And what's interesting is that in our research, a lot of people, especially young consumers, want to eat more plant-based.

32:59But when you ask them what they want to eat, they just want to eat more vegetables. They just want really well-done vegetables. And people want to trade up to better vegetables. This kind of fake meat that is designed to simulate real meat was a novelty for a while. and people actually still are interested in trying new formats of it, especially if they can save money in our research, which they can't so far because it's more expensive or similar. So there's room, I think, for some more innovation there still. We'll see. Meaty is a company that there's a huge question mark next to. They raised a lot of money to make this kind of meat that is based on a mushroom root that is supposedly even more like real meat.

33:38I haven't tried the steak one yet. I'm not, I don't like this stuff. For me, I'd rather have less meat but better meat. And I think people who want to eat more plant-based want to eat more vegetables. I got pitched five different times from four different agencies for Prime Roots. Oh, yeah. And I was like, I don't love Prime Roots. I hate picking on brands, but they put themselves out there. It just isn't working for me. Like, this is a plant-based lunch and meat company. Now they always have an opportunity to reformulate and certainly get in touch if you want to talk to me. But just not a fan.

34:08It's tricky. Some of the stuff's pretty good. I actually tried a plant-based cheese at Expo called Climax Foods. Interesting name, all right, sure. I'll buy it. But it was a brie, but the blue cheese was the one that I was just like, okay, this could just be blue cheese. Oh, rad. Because the same bacteria, just a different base. Yeah. That was delicious. And then there's a new one that's not launched yet called Nobel, which is making melty plant-based cheese. Oh. And as a brand, they've done some very fascinating stuff. They made a very cool zine about pizza. Yep, I saw that. Yeah, so we'll see.

34:45I haven't tried it yet. They're not letting people try it yet. Funny. We'll see. They're good with the zine, but they can't sample out to the expert. Too early, but maybe next year. We'll see. I have to mention, too, when I mentioned Stern sauces being maybe in a dip, what I did like, I think my favorite pivot this year was Omsum pivoting to saucy noodles because those are fucking great. Are they? I can't eat them, so I don't know. You can't eat them. I love their sauce. Their sauces are great. I love the Stern sauces. And I just I love the way those noodles are presented. It's a really great project.

35:13It's terrific. Oh, nice. Speaking of retail, Dan, I've asked Andrea Hernandez from Snackshot, Emily Sundberg, Ellie Truesdale and many others. This question, I want to get a sense. Is there an indie food or food adjacent retail that a channel that excites you? It doesn't have to be an indie grocery store. It could be a general store. But anybody selling food that isn't exciting you? I have to say, I still love Cookbook, which is our kind of East LA small grocery store. They just opened a new one in Marchmont with a cafe. We went last weekend. The food was great. It's a great little store. Celeb sighting, like all you'd want in an LA moment.

35:51The produce is still as good as it gets. Farmer's market quality produce, tiny stores, really great meat. They don't have everything, but they actually have more stuff in a tiny space than you would expect. So still love my cookbook other than that hard to say a lot i think a lot of the shops that opened in the last four or five years are struggling you see that from a lot of them publicly uh it's a tough market you know food perishable uh very low margin tricky stuff and retail i'm still uh it's still really hard and on the flip side a lot of the brands aren't able to pay slotting fees to get in there because their VC money is drying up or the money is expensive now.

36:32So like maybe products aren't getting in to the channels as readily. It's a lot. I mean, you know, I think maybe last time we talked about Foxtrot. I love Foxtrot and I want to see Foxtrot win, but Foxtrot is merging with another Chicago grocery store in a deal that does not look like it was anyone's favorite deal. No, Dan, you wrote about that. It was a great piece and it really did kind of fairly and accurately say, what is the motivation here? It's a Chicago restaurant group that acquired Foxtrot. It's a grocery group that has two stores and they've merged and ideas that maybe together, they're stronger than they were apart.

37:07But this is kind of an indication of the kind of capital markets we're in right now, where it is hard to get anywhere close. I mean, the deals that people were getting two years ago are just not happening right now. Right. What about big box? You know, are you observing anything in terms of big box grocers, doing anything interesting, any kind of like, you know, stores within stores or just marketing initiatives? Well, the Whole Foods advertising TV rollout is going to be really cool innovation. You know, I guess they're getting like 50 TV ad units per store or something like that. That's what someone was saying recently.

37:38Is that consumer media? They're selling consumer media. Is that like? Oh, yeah, yeah. And it's a huge business. It can even be targeted based on who's in the store and their Amazon purchasing behavior or something like that. It's amazing. It's wild what you can do now. I am super uninspired by Big Box lately for the most part. Whole Foods, I spent some time walking the aisles in the Pasadena store the other day. The prepared food section feels like it's from 1994. There's been almost no innovation there. I got to say, I think Erwan's doing really well there and the numbers prove it. Their prepared food in their restaurant is a huge part of their business.

38:14They are not hyper-growing right now. They're opening a couple stores a year. They also pumped the brakes in the New York expansion, which was great. Or that might have been just like fake news. I think that was fake news. Okay. That was fake from the source. I think they did a little pop-up. But, you know, maybe they'll open here one day. Well, there's money here. Anywhere there's money, there can be an Air One. It is a very L.A. kind of thing. But they just opened a new store in Pasadena, too. By the way, if I had to eat dinner at Whole Foods or at Air One in L.A., 100 times out of 100, I would not be eating dinner at Whole Foods.

38:43So I wouldn't call Erwin big box, but I would say they have done a good job in their expansion and it seems to be working. Yeah, it's funny. We didn't mention Erwin until this point in the conversation. I have to say pre-Amazon acquisition, Whole Foods, I used to joke with my wife that it was like my favorite restaurant. It used to be like the one on Bowery, the one on Houston. That was so good, man. I could have a great meal for like$10 there. It was so good. Yeah, the upstairs food court was fascinating when it launched. Right? I guess it didn't really work super well. It didn't work quite well.

39:13It was really good, and I went there for meals. It was great. I used to eat dinner at Whole Foods all the time, and not anymore. So, Dan, on This Is Taste, we ask guests about the discerning taste. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid-fire, fast-and-furious taste check. Are you ready? Boom. Always ready. The best breakfast food. Oh, I love a breakfast salad. Is that weird? Yes, it's weird. Let's go there. I make a salad for breakfast most mornings. Fruit salad? No, just a little arugula, maybe with no dressing or just a little olive oil salt. The best breakfast salad is at Squirrel.

39:42Actually, the best breakfast is at Squirrel, I think, still. I still go there all the time. Give me a sorrel rice, half rice, half kale, or a crispy rice, or the new Locky Tot. It's all so good. The sorrel rice will always be my number one in that place. But for me, it's give me a couple eggs and some salad or some sauteed greens, and maybe some bacon if I'm feeling good. Japan and Israel, always there's some breakfast salad on the table. So good. I love that. The best dessert? Ice cream. All the time. Any brand that jumps out at you Favorites are McConnell's Van Leeuwen And local soft serve Actually Japan soft serve Because it's not so sweet It's like very creamy and savory Hokkaido milk, gotta go there Favorite Los Angeles restaurant right now Right now?

40:32You know, I have a toddler So we're mostly eating at like Home state tacos I go there in Highland Park I go there all the time I gotta say it's better than the breakfast tacos I've had in Austin Somewhere in Austin there are better breakfast tacos But Home State is really good You go Home State then Cookbook and you're good Queen Street is new and is nice In Eagle Rock Or Highland Park Whatever you want to call that area Recently went to kind of a classic place for the first time Called JAR which was really nice In West Hollywood The other night we went to Horses And I was surprised by actually the food was delicious Oh let's go there Okay, what's the report from Horses?

41:12Lots of chatter. Scene report. It was packed. It was packed full of good-looking people. Feels like a New York restaurant, but it was great. It wasn't going to go away because of those bumps in the road. Not in L.A. No one gives a shit in L.A. Have you been to any of the funky restaurants recently? It's hard for me to—I can't eat most of this food. So what's the big one that feels like you're in Vegas? Mother Wolf. Yeah, it was cool. It was fun. Great place. But yeah, I can't eat the pizza. We had the Bonza founder on, and by the time this airs, I think the episode will be out. But Bonza is like 20 % of my carb intake is Bonza food.

41:43Right. I love it. It's I love it, too. I really am. And that interview, I think it really shines. I'm much. You know what else? Capello's has just launched frozen gluten free biscuits. Wow. They're really good. I you know, I'm I'm I'm lucky I don't have a gluten free, but I would miss biscuits. That would be one I would miss. You must feel great. They're not the same. I used to eat gluten. They're not the same. Croissants will never be the same. Oh, my God. These are good for a freezer biscuit. Oh my God. You know, freezer biscuit. No carb. I love that shit. It's good. A couple more. Your favorite cookbook of all time.

42:16Of all time. It's funny. I love reading cookbooks for the content and not just, you know, and the recipes. I would say the cookbook that has, that I've cooked from the most is actually the Burma Superstar cookbook from San Francisco. Food that's hard, it was always hard to get in New York. Yeah. Hard to get in LA. so I make a beef curry from there that's delicious and some other stuff I think like the first Momofuku cookbook was very influential on me. Well the only one really. Yeah, it's hard for me to eat Asian food in restaurants so I make it a lot at home so Japanese Home Cooking by Sunoko Sakai is another one that I love.

42:51Huge huge fan of Alice in Roman cookbooks, Molly Ba's cookbooks are solid too and also Canel and Vinny I think is a series my wife has that we do gluten-free baking from that's really excellent too yeah um and then uh the um otolenghi books every time i have chris black over who doesn't eat meat i have to pop open an otolenghi book oh my god chris black and cook something for him from there um fermented tea leaves oh yeah such a great product that i think that find that burmese uh superstar book i need to figure out how to find those in la they used to sell them burmese superstar they do you could If you go to Byrite in SF, which is probably my favorite kind of midsize, small neighborhood grocery in America, you can buy Burma Superstar tea leaf salad kits, but they're not yet in the LA market.

43:42They're not in LA. As far as I know. Byrite ice cream though. Wow. Also excellent. And the, don't sleep on their soft serve too. Also excellent. We can go all day in this. That's actually one of, definitely a top five ice cream. I love this. It's a Byrite. Let's go, let's do ice cream next summer. Let's come back, please. We'll talk about this. We'll do a tasting. We'll do a, we'll get a crew. We'll do a taste. I love it. Last one, your favorite sandwich. So, oh man, this is a hard one because my favorite sandwich used to be, there were two or three. There was a place called Spoon on 20th Street, which had a killer steak sandwich.

44:15They're no longer around. And then also an amazing sandwich with like salami, chopped artichoke hearts, and fresh mozzarella. And it was just, and arugula. This is at Spoon as well? Yeah. We used to go there for lunch all the time in like 2008 or something like that. And then obviously witchcraft. I miss witchcraft too. So my favorite sandwiches are sandwiches I can't eat anymore. Witchcraft is. Gluten-free sandwiches are tough. The one I make the most at home is actually a grilled broccoli, fresh mozzarella sandwich with some spicy mayo that I make with cookbook chili jam and an acid league yuzu mayo.

44:53What's your bread though? Whatever focaccia I can get my hands on. Yeah, you're good. Or, you know, when you're gluten-free, you don't have a lot of choice. I was going to wonder if there was a brand. Whatever's around. Whatever. Okay, actually, the best gluten-free bread in the world, in my opinion, well, especially now that Bread Block closed in LA, is a place called Chamballon, which is mostly in Paris. I believe they're also in Belgium. But so we were just in Paris. I brought home a six-month supply of Chamballon bread. You know, you kind of have a couple slices a week. But it's really, really good.

45:24And it's not sandwich bread, but it's breakfast. Amazing. And you freeze it and you just bring it out. Freeze it, get the good butter out, toast up a couple pieces. What a treat. It's the best. I would love to have you just write a little story about your practice, your food for bread practice. I'll do that for you. Let's do it, Dan. We're going to do it off mic. Dan Frommer, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. My pleasure.

45:54Hey, what's up, Eliza? How are you doing? I'm good, Matt. How are you? Well, we're just about at the new year. I mean, I think this is going to run maybe near the end of December. I think so. Well, December is over before it starts for me. So I think that sounds right. Yeah. So we're in the mood of cooking resolutions. I feel Anna and I wrote a piece, I think in like 2018 about our cooking resolutions. And the idea is that these are the things that we you want to achieve in the kitchen in the coming 12 months. And I like it. It's like goal setting, right? It's a little goal setting. It's aspirational.

46:31Do you think about this yourself? I like to make a more and less list at the end of every year, which is like things that I want more of less and less of in the coming year, which I find to be less restrictive than just one resolution. But I definitely have a couple of cooking resolutions. More or less. Let's tap into that for a second. Have you started thinking more or less for next year? You know, I do it twice because I do it for Rosh Hashanah and then I do it again for the like Gregorian New Year. So I did it in September and I have not thought about it since. So I think probably like when it's actually New Year's Day is when I'll make the list.

47:00Is when you actually actually think about it. Okay, well, let's talk about cooking resolutions. What's your first one? My first one, I think, is probably not one that most people would say, which is that I want to use more appliances in the new year. Do tell. I just have never lived in a New York City apartment where I've had any counter space or cabinet space to have appliances. And now I actually do. And, you know, I don't have a rice cooker. I don't have an instant pot. I don't have a waffle iron. I really have two pots and two pans and a mini food processor and a blender and that's it. So I think that it'd be really fun to get like one or two appliances to play around with and just kind of expand what I'm doing in the kitchen because I actually have empty cabinet space.

47:41I love it. So you don't have a waffle iron? No, which like most people probably don't. But every winter, I think it's gonna be my winter of waffles because I am fully convinced that I would be happier if I had homemade waffles. And I have space for that. So I think that might be the first thing I get. I think a waffle iron is amazing. What about, so the Instapot, what do you think about that? I've been debating because the other thing is like, I like things to take a long time. I like to hang out and like simmer beans for a couple hours. So an Instapot, I think I would probably use the pressure cooking and the slow cooking a lot.

48:10But I think probably my top two things I'm going to get are a waffle iron and a rice cooker. And so let's talk about what I think is probably my favorite kitchen appliance. It's the blender. Yeah, I do have a Vitamix. So I was going to ask you. Oh. I recently got one refurbished that I've been using a lot and I think is really great. You got a refurb. Yeah. I mean, why not? It works just as well and it's cheaper. You bought it like online refurb? Yeah. Vitamix sells like accredited refurbished Vitamix is on their website. So that's what I did. And it like showed up like super normal, like super clean.

48:44I think so. It seems completely normal and fine. And I made like a lot of smoothies over the summer with it. I just made a really good kind of green sauce last week. But I think winter, I'm probably not going to use it as much. And that's why I need to up my waffle intake. What a sweet idea. Yeah. So that's my first resolution. What's yours? My first resolution, the caveat is this. I've been living a lie. We publish incredible books about bread baking. We have conversations at length with bread bakers and cookbook authors who focus on bread. And my lie is this, I don't bake bread. I like literally have made bread like twice in my life.

49:22Are you telling people that you do? No, I guess you're right. I'm not like overtly lying, but by like, like when I'm like, hey, so let's talk about your starter. When I get in these conversations, it's like almost like we're in the same club. Like, you know, we're alongside each other. Like when I had like, you know, Ken Forkish on, and we're like rapping like about bread for a minute 45. And it's like, I'm living this false truth. Yeah. I literally don't bake bread. So my first resolution is to take a page from Mauricio Leo's The Perfect Loaf and actually make some of his recipes because I love Mauricio.

49:52He's an incredibly smart educator and I want to get to know his recipe development more. So I'm gonna make some Mauricio recipes. Okay, well, my second resolution was to make bread. Oh, let's - Or to restart making bread because I had an eight-month sourdough phase in late 2019 through early 2020 that was really productive and I really enjoyed it. And then I just kind of fell off the wagon and I'd like to get back into baking bread, especially in the winter. I think it's a really nice time to just be slowing down and doing those things. So you do sourdough. Is there a recipe that you reach for when you bake bread?

50:26I actually did use a combination of Maurizio's like basic loaf recipe and then Claire Saffitz did a really good like how to make sourdough bread guide for the New York Times a couple of years ago. So that was kind of my jumping off point. And then I would kind of play around a little bit with mixing in flavoring, but I kind of just did that. So maybe we can go have these on a starter. I would love that. Let's like definitely split a starter. Let's go there and like, let's swap notes. Like come March, let's definitely have some proof that we, pun intended, that we actually did some bread. Yeah, actually I have a specific starter in mind that I want to get some of my starter from so I can bring some to you as well.

51:02Oh, you're so cool. I appreciate that. This is something that I've been thinking about for a while. I want to act upon it. I want to work a couple shifts in pizzerias. And I have this opportunity to do it. And I want to make dough. And I want to turn. I want to like do the thing. Like which is basically I want to like take the dough. And I want to stretch the dough. And I want to make some pizzas. I just want to fucking do it. I want to watch you like throw the dough up in the air and catch it. so I guess talking to Dan Holtzman in LA and I won't be working at one of his places that is like a little bit that like fucks up the pizza a little bit when you do that show offy stuff if you watch like real Pizziolos it kind of feels like it's a little like less movement is more so I'm thinking if my sister-in-law is listening to this episode Maya at Franny's in Highland, New Jersey I want to do it I want to maybe like ask a friend locally maybe in Brooklyn I just want to, I mean it's like straight staging I just want to do a couple shifts I like that.

52:01I think that's a great idea. It's like it's definitely like a resolution to like learn it a little bit more. And we're working on our pizza week. And I've mentioned this in the past. We're going to have this pizza week in January. It's going to be really fun. So yeah, it'll be related to that. Yeah. What's your last one? My last one is kind of boring, which is that I want to be doing more meal prep in the new year. I know. Everyone says it. My version of meal prep is making like one or two big batches of things that I can just kind of use as a base throughout the week. So like roasting vegetables or making a pot of beans, which I do quite often, or roasting a chicken.

52:33And I think that I just forget that I have to cook from scratch sometimes or I'll have a lot of like quesadillas for lunch. But I think that if I had a couple of two staples around, I would just be like a happier and healthier person. So great, great, great goal. I think soup is one thing that we really like to make a lot of around our house. And we we typically it lasts like five to seven days and it gets better with time and you can always gussy it up. Do you have any go to soups? Oh, I basically exclusively make soups in the winter, I would say. I feel like I rarely use a recipe. I kind of just look at what I have in my fridge or think about a flavor profile.

53:08For sure. I'm craving. I made a really good curry last night, which is not quite a soup, but, you know, brothy, hearty kind of situation. Something I also am interested about with soups is Natasha Pickowitz kind of turned me on to the idea of a soup mother. Do you know about this? No, I love that idea. I mean, I love the theory of somebody who's motherly and who's helping you make soup better. Is that what it is? No, but I like that interpretation. Like a storybook? Like a soup mother? It's like a starter almost. It's like keeping some of your soup from, like you make soup, you keep some of it i think she just keeps it on the stove and when you're making soup the next day you kind of augment it so instead of starting from zero with flavor you have this like flavorful soup that you made previously that you're then like augmenting to make a new soup oh my god it's like the salura method perpetual soup perpetual soup yes can we like write that article in taste i feel like the perpetual soup is so good yeah i mean i think it's kind of been written in different capacities because there's like this person in bushwick that's been doing a perpetual stew that is ongoing where people everyone in the community comes and brings like their ingredients and then the soup is kind of being made in that way but i do think more people should know about it i feel like this is such a cool thing yeah perpetual soup that is maybe my fourth bonus resolution yeah it's like an extra resolution but like meal prep is cool and it definitely saves some cash too it's good all of the above so it's it's good for you just good good for your body meal prep okay i have one more what's your one more yeah i i have i have had two my two just to recall were make more bread and work at a pizzeria.

54:33So this is yet another kind of project-based idea. And it is to smoke something. Now, again, we talk about these ideas a lot on the show. Smoking, it goes hand in hand with grilling in the warmer months. And I don't do enough of it. And I have a little more space where I live in the Hudson Valley. So I have no excuse to avoid smoking. And I think I might buy a smoke gun. What is a smoke gun? Smoke gun looks kind of like a vaporizer. It's basically how you inject smoke into certain things like vegetables or grains or pieces of meat. You could cold smoke with it if you want to do seafood. And I just haven't done it.

55:18I haven't like embraced smoking. I know we have a really cool smoking book. I think 10 Speed did it. It's called Thank You for Smoking, which is really fun to have a cookbook that way with that title. but I just want to embrace it more. I feel like, or embrace it at all. I've never really tried it. I like that idea. I had a really good smoked beet a while ago that I've been thinking about a lot since. That's a great idea, a smoked beet. It's like beets are cool, borscht, whatever. But when you smoke a beet, it's a totally different category. Yeah, I just think beets soak up flavor really well.

55:47That's why they're so good to marinate. But I think that doing like a smoked marinated beet, now we're really talking. Now we're talking, now we're cooking with gas or we're smoking with gas or no, that's not gonna work. Now we're smoking with smoke. Now we're smoking with smoke, that's right. Hey, Eliza, thank you for sharing your resolutions for the year. I hope we can hit a couple of them. What do you think? Yeah, me too. Let's circle back in 2024. Okay, let's do it.

56:12This is Taste is hosted by Eliza Abarbanel and me, Matt Rodbar. The show is produced by Shalia Harris and Pat Stango and edited by Clayton Gumbert. 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.