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Podcast Episode Summary: This Is TASTE - Episode 335: Rie McClenny
Overview In this episode of *This Is TASTE*, hosts Aliza Abarbanel and Matt Rodbard discuss culinary journeys and insights with guest Rie McClenny, a notable video host, cookbook author, and former BuzzFeed star. The episode also features a chat with 13-year-old Evan Wittenberg, exploring the culinary landscape of Philadelphia and his experiences as a young food enthusiast.
Key Themes
- Rie McClenny's Journey
- Background: Rie shares her evolution from Japan to culinary schools and professional kitchens in Los Angeles, eventually finding fame on YouTube through BuzzFeed.
- Career at BuzzFeed: Discusses her transition from behind-the-scenes recipe developer to on-camera personality, highlighting her series “Make It Fancy” and the importance of accessibility in cooking.
- Make It Japanese: Simple Recipes for Everyone
- Rie's debut cookbook is discussed, particularly its intent to simplify Japanese cooking for broader audiences.
- Key Concepts:
- Homemade Dashi: Rie emphasizes the importance of dashi as a foundational element in Japanese cooking.
- Ingredient Substitutions: She advocates for using accessible ingredients in Japanese recipes to make them feasible for home cooks.
- Misconceptions: Rie addresses common misconceptions about Japanese cuisine being overly complicated, encouraging a more attainable approach to the dishes.
- Evan Wittenberg's Perspective
- Culinary Interests: Evan shares his love for breakfast foods and his experiences with school lunches, showing how young people view food and cooking.
- Philadelphia Food Scene: Discusses favorite local spots including Wawa, Mancuso’s, and Moonlight Ramen, showing how food culture resonates with younger audiences.
Notable Quotes
- Rie McClenny on her cooking style: “The best cure for homesickness is cooking your own country's food.”
- On dashi: “It’s a primer... you don't see dashi in the dish, but it's there and it's kind of like a very important part of your dish.”
- Evan Wittenberg on school lunches: “I think it’s more so the people that work at school cafeterias are usually really nice and I think kind of underappreciated.”
Discussion Highlights
- Rie's Transition to Cooking Content Creation:
- How her background and experiences shape her cooking style and presentation.
- The importance of storytelling in her cooking videos, allowing audiences to connect emotionally with Japanese cuisine.
- Young Food Enthusiasts:
- Evan's insights on food media, including his favorites like the Great British Bake Off and his cooking habits at home.
- The role of young people in shaping food trends and their unique perspectives on food enjoyment and preparation.
Conclusion This episode provides a rich exploration of culinary identities, the accessibility of cooking, and the nuances of food culture, particularly from the perspectives of both an established chef like Rie McClenny and a young food enthusiast like Evan Wittenberg. The conversations highlight the significance of food as an experiential and cultural connector across different generations.
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Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. Resi is a digital platform that connects restaurants to restaurant lovers by elevating dining experiences, providing original industry content, and helping to fill some of the country's most exciting dining rooms. Because restaurants have always been more than just places to eat. The amazing world of restaurants is just a few taps away in the Resi app and at resi.com.
0:32I'm an introvert, but when you are making YouTube video, you are just like talking to, like now, like talking to my friend who is operating camera. He's asking me questions. So it was kind of perfect. I feel like there are so many YouTubers, super introvert, but, you know. This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbarg.
0:59Rie McClenney is a video host and cookbook author who rose to acclaim in the Test Kitchen at BuzzFeed, where she hosted video series including Make It Fancy. On this episode, we find out about her journey from Japan to professional kitchens in Los Angeles to YouTube stardom. We also talk about her terrific debut cookbook, Make It Japanese, Simple Recipes for Everyone. I hope you enjoy this conversation.
1:32Rhea McClendon, welcome to This Is Taste. So cool to meet you. Thank you so much for having me. I love what you do. I'm a huge fan. Since the BuzzFeed days, I remember watching your videos and being like, wow, you have such a skill. You're so good at explaining technique, Japanese technique or just any technique to all audiences. Oh, thank you so much. It's kind of interesting to hear because, you know, like English is not my first language. So it's very interesting people say that. But I fortunately heard that often. I think I think like since, you know, like I don't speak English as a native tongue, I feel like I have very straightforward way of explaining.
2:17Maybe that's why. Yeah, it's a great point. And also, you're very skilled at cooking. You've worked professionally. You've worked at Rustic Canyon with Susan Goin. You've gone to culinary school. So I think there's a combination of thinking about simplicity and also just having dope chops. Yeah, so when I started working for Tasty, that was one of the struggles because at the restaurant, as a chef, you want to use the best ingredients and, you know, like kind of expensive ingredients sometimes. But for Tasty, our majority of audience are, you know, beginner cooks and who doesn't have a lot of access to super expensive ingredients.
3:00so we tried to make it simpler and more accessible and I feel like that trained me and I think it was a great training yeah let's talk about New York you've been in town for a few days where have you been going? what's it like? you live in LA talk about some of your history where you cooked, where you worked but what's New York been like? okay so I just arrived two days ago first night my former boss I used to work for Corin. It's a knife shop. I shouldn't say knife shop. It's a tableware, Japanese. Oh, we know Corin. Corin is amazing. And you're going to talk about your boss who I've had a meal with who's amazing.
3:43Yeah. So Corin is a very special place. Whenever I talk to somebody who is into food, they immediately know where it is and what it is. But when I talk to like my normal friends, non-food friends, they were like, where is that? That's a great story. So you went out with your old boss? Yeah. So she's very proud of what I've done. What's her name? Let's remind everyone. Saori. Yeah, Saori. Right. She's great. Yeah. So she took me to 53. Yeah. It's a Singaporean restaurant. Have you heard? I haven't been yet. It's very bougie. Yeah, right. It was delicious. She also, like, ordered a Dompernion. Oh, wow.
4:28Popping bottles. Rie's book's out this week, so pop some Dom. I like that. Yeah, we partied. Love that. Yeah. Yeah, she's very nice. And Corin really is a place if you're in New York City and you want to buy a great knife or any Japanese product that you're, like, a donabe or ceramics or table setting. It's such a good store. You worked there. That's why you know her. Yes, I was there from 2010 to 2014. Wow. Yeah. So you got to know a lot of chefs, I'm sure. Yes, like I, yeah, like I've seen so many famous chefs. They are, you know, casually walking and hanging around. And I think one of the reasons I went to culinary school is meeting cooks and chefs in Korean because they are so passionate what they do.
5:18I also get to visit their restaurant and it was so intense but exciting. So, yeah. And one of my friends was visiting, calling, his name is Max Sussman. Yeah, of course. Yeah. I know Max. Yeah. And I was telling him I'm going to culinary school and I want to be a food stylist. And he said, oh, I'm shooting my cookbook. You have to come and hang out. And I did. I went and hung out with food stylist and he told me, you know, a few secrets. Yeah. And that kind of like made me, well, like this is a job I want to pursue. That's so cool. Max, Max Sussman. What a nice move. Yeah. It's super sweet. You went to culinary school.
6:02You ended up in L.A. And I'd like to hear a little bit about working in restaurants. You worked at Rustic Canyon. You worked with Suzanne Gowan. But talk about your time working in L.A. restaurants. My first restaurant was Rustic Canyon. My friend was already working there. So he said, oh, you should come over and like, you know, hang out and see if you like. And it was so fun. And that was my first stop after culinary school. So everything I've seen, I've done was like super exciting, like California ingredients. It's wonderful. And like dehydrated beets pulp. Yeah. I was working for Chef Jeremy Fox, and he is so innovative, and his flavor is so complex, and also at the same time, it's very simple.
6:57So I was just like, I had so much fun working on the ham. I love that you bring up Jeremy Fox. I love to have him on the show. Just such a fan of his cooking. I've been to Rustic Canyon a couple times. Really wonderful place. We'll get to your book, and I've got a bunch of questions about making Japanese, but I want to get to your eventual home at BuzzFeed, which is how many of us listeners and just in general know you. But let's get into, like, how you got that job. So you're living in L.A., you're working at Rustic Canyon, and how do you end up on Tasty, on, like, the number one platform back then?
7:33And really, what was that job interview like? Yeah. So after Rustic Canyon, I started working for Chef Suzanne Gawain. And I was there about a year and I had a burnout, you know, as a lot of cooks, you know, sometimes. That night I started looking for a job and I didn't know where to start because I didn't know any person who was doing food styling for a living. So I went to LinkedIn and went to see where French culinary institute graduates are working for. I went to French culinary institute and then it's become International Culinary Center. Now it's kind of merged, sorry, merged together. But so I went to LinkedIn and started looking for where the graduates are working for.
8:27And a lot of people are working for BuzzFeed Food. So I went to BuzzFeed website and, you know, they have like corporate site and like there's a job. Yeah. Jobs tab. Yeah. Right. Find it. Yep. We've all done it. You know, you got that job you don't love and you're on LinkedIn looking for the work. Yeah. So I went to a job like I click the job tab and, you know, like filter the Los Angeles. And there was job posting. They were looking for somebody Japanese or who can speak Japanese fluently and who also speak English and who has cooking experience and graduated culinary school. I wonder who that person might be.
9:10Right. So like I said, oh, my God, like they are looking for me. And I applied and I eventually got the job. So the job interview was also interesting. there were five people and I think like most of them are producers and they just like asked me you know like normal question and one of them one of the question was is there any food you don't want to eat or cook and I said bugs you just said out of your head you're just like bugs I'm just no bugs. No bugs, please. And they were like, fair enough. And yeah, and then I got the job. Later on, I asked one of my friends who was interviewing me, like, how many people applied?
9:57Because I saw there was only me. And she said, actually, there are two people, including you, applied. And that person wasn't even Japanese or like doesn't speak Japanese. So basically. They didn't really follow the assignment. it's amazing that you answer this this ad but then you end up on the platform and you're doing your own style of cooking and and let's get into that a little bit what is um your style or what's what's it like uh articulate that a little bit um so that job was um for tasty japan they were launching Tasty Japan, and they actually didn't have a, like, five days a week job, so they only gave me three days a week, and I couldn't, you know, afford myself just working three days.
10:49So I kept my AOC kitchen job. So I went to Tasty's kitchen doing recipe developing. That position was recipe developer. Oh, okay. So it was more like just figuring out recipes and kind of not on camera. Exactly. So I went to BuzzFeed Test Kitchen from 9 and 9 to 2. Hopped on the Uber because I wasn't, I couldn't drive that time. I didn't have to drive myself. In LA, wow. And then I changed to chef's clothes and hopped on my bicycle and went to AOC and cooking until midnight. And I did that for three months. But I thought it was a perfect job because recipe developing is something I was very interested in, also food styling.
11:42And then they asked me, are you interested in doing production side, like filming and editing? Like if we teach you, are you interested? And I was like, yes. So they taught me like very basic stuff, like how to film, how to edit on Premiere. I never touched DSLR. So I also didn't want to feel, you know, behind. And this is my dream job. So like I have to grab it. You enjoyed film. Yeah. Yeah. So I also took online course like on a Saturday, like weekend and try to learn as quickly as possible. At that time, we are doing top. We call top down video. It's like pots and pans. Hands and pans. Yeah, the hands and pans videos.
12:31Iconic invented at BuzzFeed. Exactly. Yeah. So I thought it was perfect because I always have this self-consciousness about my English. I have thick accents. my English is not perfect. So, oh, this is perfect. Just me cooking my hands. So I was hands and pans producer for like most of the time in BuzzFeed. And then they started filming YouTube style video. And, you know, like how BuzzFeed does, like they just ask a co-worker, hey, like we are filming this one. Can you, you know, hop on the camera? Which is kind of their vibe and BA kind of followed it too. It's like, let's get a crew together.
13:15These are like the BuzzFeed Tasty crew. And Rie, you became an iconic star of BuzzFeed food. You were there. You were on camera a lot. Yeah. So first I didn't want to do it because you read the comments and there's hundreds of nice comments. But when you see one negative comment, that's like sting you. So there was like somebody making fun of my accent. I was like, I'm not like, you know, I'm not beautiful. Like I don't have a thick scheme. But I think like I might kind of like breakthrough. Do you? I don't know. I don't want to say breakthrough. Yeah, breakthrough. I think I know what you're going for.
13:55Breakthrough. Yeah. So there is a very popular series called Worth It. So there is three producers, Stephen, Andrew, and Adam. They go out restaurant. they try same dish but different price point so like cheapest french fry and a medium you know price french fry and the most expensive french fry and they kind of eat them all and like compare if it's worth it and um they did a japan episode and i you know tag along with them as a translator But I was on camera And after that episode was aired People started recognizing me on the street And it was a very strange feeling It must have been But then the general population was like We want more Rie We want these videos Yeah, so people as a producer Want me to be on camera Against my will But I'm an introvert but when you are making YouTube video, you are just like talking to, like now, like talking to my friend who is operating camera.
15:08He's asking me questions. So it was kind of perfect. I feel like there are so many YouTubers, super introvert, but you know. Yeah, there's a way I think that, you know, you get out of your shell a little bit when the camera turns on or if it's in a very intimate space, it's just two of you or you're self-taping. Yeah, it makes sense that some introverts actually excel. Yeah. So, yeah, I've done a bunch of like, I produced a bunch of series. And but my favorite one was talking about Japanese food throughout, like, you know, they're the same like throughout the seasons or how I eat throughout the day kind of theme video.
15:51And I was kind of just talking about this, what's kind of Japanese food we eat at home. Like we don't actually eat sushi every day at home. I feel like that people really like that kind of like storytelling. Absolutely. So let's talk about the title. I mean, it says, I think, so much. And I believe you're going for something here as like a mission. It's make it Japanese. It doesn't necessarily mean make it traditional Japanese. It means something else. Rie, tell me what you're going for here. Yeah. So as for the title, I have this YouTube series called Make It Japanese. No, sorry. I have this YouTube series called Make It Fancy.
16:39And my editor, Jen, said when we are brainstorming about our title, we had like several titles, ideas. And she kind of jokingly said, how about Make It Japanese? Your Make It Fancy YouTube series is doing so well. And like it can be Make It Japanese can be next. And I saw, oh, it's actually a great title for my book because people probably know me from Make It Fancy. So shout out to Jen Sit right there. Yeah, but the theme of the book is kind of how I cook in my kitchen. Because, you know, like the best cure for homesickness is cooking your own country's food. But Japanese ingredients, it's not always available in American grocery store.
17:35Like I don't see any thinly sliced beef or thinly sliced pork that we use a lot in Japanese cooking. so I've you know like I don't want to say compromise I started experimenting like okay so I don't have Cindy sliced pork but I want to make this pork um ginger but we have pork chop so why not yeah you know before we start focusing a little bit more on the recipes I just wanted to ask you, when you're writing this book, were there any myths or like fake news or false information about Japanese home cooking that you wanted to debunk? I feel like a lot of non-Japanese people think Japanese cooking is complicated or a little bit difficult to do.
18:28And also like some people might think it's too simple. I feel like it's very simple, but our seasoning is so flavorful and complicated. So, you know, like we don't use lots of salt, but we use soy sauce and it's so complex and it's aged so many times. So it takes a long time, but when you are cooking at home, it can be a shortcut. and a lot of people thinks like Japanese cooking is super complicated because a lot of Japanese restaurants are very expensive but we don't usually eat tempura or sushi all the time at home. We don't do hibachi. Right. I mean, you're talking about a lot of amazing restaurant dishes, ramen as well.
19:21You could even say soba. A lot of these are common Japanese dishes but they're served at restaurants. Instead, and your book is filled with so many cool recipes, you know, you base recipes in the donabe, which I think we're entering donabe season, right? It's like the clay earthenware pot that you can cook basically anything through steam or through boiling. And, like, let's get into a few of the donabe recipes that I just love. Yeah. Donabe is clay pot, and we mainly use for hot pot, but you can actually use for anything. Like you can cook rice, you can like, you know, braids because it retains heat a long time.
20:04So, yeah, it's a very fast style cooking vessel. Right. And also it's beautiful. So you cook on the stove top and you can just bring to the table as a presentation as well. It's really true. Having a denabe is a beautiful centerpiece. And, you know, you can braise fish in soy sauce mirin. You can definitely, you know, do a slow-cooked squash with rice. There's a lot of cool ways to cook with it. There's another dish, the salmon and vegetable namazuki. And I love the technique there. And you're frying fish and then you're marinating it. It's a two-step process. And I feel that is an unlock for me.
20:44That is amazing. I love that. I think this is heavily inspired by Spanish escabeche. Exactly. Yeah. So I think we have a lot of Spanish-Portugal-influenced dish in Japan because a long time ago, the missionary people came to Japan for the first time. And nanba means South Barbarian. Wow. So, yeah, zuke means like marinated. So I think like they are saying like South Barbarian is Spanish. Yeah, the Spanish, the people who came, the barbarians from the south, they did this whole thing with marinated fish. But you're pan frying fish, you're marinating it for a few days and you're serving with vegetables.
21:35Yeah, so my mom used to make it and she used anchovies. And it's tiny fish and she, you know, fry whole and marinated with vinegar. And you want to kind of marinate overnight at least and vinegar disintegrate the little bones. So you can actually eat like bones as well. But, you know, like I don't see a lot of anchovies here and I don't think anchovy is for home cooking. So I've decided to swap the ingredients. Salmon is, you know, a lot of people are comfortable cooking salmon. So, yeah. And also I used, she didn't use red onion, just like white onion, but I like the colorful, like, you know, festivities.
22:29So I kind of add my twist. You have a twist in photography. We'll talk about Jenny and her. We'll talk about Jenny Afuso and her photography later. But I want to keep going along the recipes because dashi is a thread that runs throughout this entire book. And I just want to get a sense for our listeners. How do you think about dashi? You have several dashi recipes. But I love it is definitely truly making it Japanese is cooking with the root of dashi. How do you make a pot of dashi and have it in your fridge for the week and then, you know, use it throughout the week? Is that how that works? I usually make small batch of dashi.
23:10I introduced how to make dashi from scratch. But there is like alternative as well. My favorite one is like already like coming almost like like a teabag. Yeah, those I love the cloth, the cheesecloth packet. Yeah, so you can make as little as six cups of dashi. So if you want, you can make big batch. But dashi is very important and fundamental of Japanese cuisine. And I feel like I was explaining to somebody, I feel like it's a primer. Like when you paint, you use primer. and if you don't use primer, it's not smooth, right? So it's not like showing on a dish. You don't see dashi in the dish, but it's there and it's kind of like very important part of your dish.
24:11Absolutely. You walk into any solid to even average Japanese restaurant and you're going to have that wave hit you and it's usually going to be dashi. Right. And that's a really distinct flavor and scent and vibe for a Japanese restaurant. Yeah. And if you don't have time to make, you know, even like, you know, package dashi, we have instant dashi. It's like granulated, like powder. Dashida. Yeah. And I think like it's, you know, instant and you kind of feel like you're kind of cheating. But if it helps you cook, like why not? Oh, of course. Yeah. That's great. So the corn rice, it just jumped off the page.
24:55I just love the way you think about corn rice. And we eat plenty of corn in the States. So let's get into what your corn rice is. Yeah. So it's actually a popular dish in Japan. You know, our main diet is rice. So we have various kind of rice dishes. And it's very seasonal. My favorite one is chestnut rice in autumn. Like this is now it's the season. but it's very labor intensive. But corn is summer staple. So corn rice is a kind of staple dish during the summertime. And corn, butter, and soy sauce combination, it's gold. Like, have you tried popcorn with soy sauce and butter? You know what? I haven't, but I've had like, you know, hurricane popcorn in Hawaii.
25:47What's hurricane popcorn? Like with bonito and with kim, you know, like seaweed. But I've never had it with soy sauce. It's just like simple. If you go to Japanese grocery store, you would see like a lot of different flavor. There is like soy sauce and potato chips, like soy sauce butter. So like next time if you go to like movie theater, just sneak in like packet of soy sauce and like... Oh, man, Ria, look like you're unlocking it. Speaking of snack. Ooh. I have some snacks for you. Are we doing our own BuzzFeed video right now? You brought snacks to the studio. Okay, so you do. You bring in some snacks out.
26:33I have two. Oh, my goodness. Here we go. What do we have here? Oh, my gosh. This is my icebreaker. This is how I make friends. Like, have you done? Like, when I was little, when I was, you know, kids, It's like I usually make friends giving snacks. Like, I'll give you this, and we become friends. You're my kind of friend. I appreciate you brought snacks along. So the first one is I talk about this in my cookbook as well. This is my favorite snack. I actually gave it to Jen said, too. Oh, yeah, Jen, your editor. Okay. This is the best. Okay, so I'm opening this up. The texture will blow your mind.
27:15All right, so. Do you want to explain how they look like? Well, yeah. So these are, they look like small cheese puffs, but they're not. These are rice puff snacks. And it has a kinako flavor. And I'm going to go in right now. Yeah. What do you think about that? Mmm. Toasted rice. This is toasted rice. It's a toasted soybean. Mmm. Toasted soybean. Mmm. Amazing. It's like I was I feel like it's if Cotton candy And rice cracker had a baby That's gonna be that It's like the airy Melt in your mouth You know I've written a lot of books I've written two Korean books with Dookie Hong And I've been to Korea like seven, eight times I've been to Japan a few times And snack foods in both countries Are at a different level Yeah Like absolutely the engineering the ingenuity in both Japan and Korea with snack foods.
28:16Why is that? I recognized our snacks are also seasonal. We have some staple snacks, but we have seasonal flavors. I feel like Japan has such an amazing, distinctive season difference. So we are obsessed with seasonal fruits, seasonal ingredients. That is kind of like brought into snacks as well, I feel like. so well said because even though it has like a colorful you know it looks like it's industrial and it may be industrial if you go to like Hokkaido there's like a great seasonal snack that comes in like a Colby bag but it's like made in Hokkaido and it's only there it's such a good point Hokkaido melon I love Hokkaidate I've spent some time there so the second snack I'm going to try that you graciously brought in is umami seaweed This snack is my favorite since when I was high school.
29:13Seaweed and like crunchy potato. And if you add hot water, it becomes potato salad. Interesting. So you can rehydrate these with water. Yeah. But who want to eat potato salad as a snack? I mean me. Add a little bit of cookie for it and we're in town. I like the way that MSG, I mean, invented in Japan an incredible ingredient for cooking. it hits hard on this one this is a nice MSG do you taste? yeah completely with this one that's why maybe I like it yeah it's like the sixth ingredient seventh ingredient glutamates naturally occurring or not are just like an unlock and the term umami is a Japanese term the fifth flavor it's naturally occurring parmesan and tomatoes etc etc seaweed but it's also MSG.
30:06And what's your take on MSG? I have nothing against with it. I've read a lot of articles. So now we know it's not bad for your health. It's something like we had it, like I had my mom had a little jar next to, you know, like salt and sugar. Yeah, next to the salt. So yeah, I don't have anything against with it. I think the first time I start seeing like no MSG sign was in Australia when I was exchange student. So, yeah. Speaking of that, you were living in Osaka and you end up in West Virginia. And you write in your book that you ended up in West Virginia because you assumed it was close to New York City.
30:50On the map, very close enough. Maps are interesting objects. So, Rie, let me ask you, honestly, how was your time in West Virginia? I was an exchange student and my first time in the U.S. I wonder why people like a lot of other American students kind of like made fun of me when I said I'm going to West Virginia. But it was a beautiful place. It is. It's beautiful. And I grew up in the suburb. So there was some familiarity and like similarity. Like there is beautiful, especially in fall. But I was living in Osaka. It was such an urban metropolitan city. So it was very different. Did you make a lot of friends when you were living in West Virginia?
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31:47Did you find it easy? You're a very friendly person, so maybe I would assume it was probably easy. I made lots of friends. And I was living in a dorm, but moved to a big house and lived with a bunch of international students. And we sometimes cooked together. There was a Spanish couple making meatballs and she was adding sugar into tomato sauce. She was saying like American tomato is a little like high in acidity. Yeah, more acidity. Yeah, so she wanted to balance it out. and I met, there was a Mexican international student. He made mole. I never had mole before. But I didn't like it. At the first time, I love mole now.
32:32But at the time, my mind, he said, oh, I'm using chocolate on my sauce, in my sauce. And I saw, like, in my head, it's going to be sweet. And it was not. No. So my brain was so confused. and I wasn't into it. But now I love mole. Well, you live in Southern California. That's true. Great versions of it. Yeah. Holbash has some great moles there. Now, let me ask you, when you were doing these group dinners, was there a time when you cooked? And what was that? What were you cooking for the group? I have to think about it. So you mean in West Virginia? Yeah, in West Virginia, when you were living in this international student house and your roommate made you mole and the woman added sugar to tomato sauce.
33:21What was the Japanese version of that meal? So I wasn't interested in cooking that much. I wanted to be fly attendant. Yeah. So like I didn't think myself as, you know, pursuing food industry career. What did I make? I maybe like made some like rice balls and nikujaga for sure. So nikujaga is like very, I would say it's my comfort food. It's stewed, potato, onion and carrot and meat. And usually it's thinly sliced beef. But I couldn't, you know, find thinly sliced beef in West Virginia. No H-marts there. No H-marts. So I use ground beef as a compromise. And actually, it works pretty well. So now I put it in my cookbook.
34:21I like that. I noticed in the book that you talk about the swapping in ground for thinly sliced, but it has the richness of flavor. And really, when you're thinking about these dishes, when it's like long braises, it's fine that you're getting that beefy flavor in there. You're not getting the full cup, but it doesn't quite matter. Mm-hmm. Doesn't. Very smart. So let me ask you about collaborating with Sanae. She's been a guest on This Is Taste and is a novelist. And I would say a really great food writer, but also writer of fiction. How did you link up with this unique collaborator? So I was looking for a co-author.
34:55And Jen, my editor, she recommended Sanae. She said, you're going to be great. Like, you guys are going to be great together. but if you'd like to interview more people I can give you some list and I wanted to work with Japanese person or Asian person or like somebody who is very familiar with Japanese cooking and um but Sanaya and I hit it off immediately like I I interviewed her and first I thought she it's too cool for me she wrote a novel and she's like per Japanese per French she speaks like three languages and but I my book agent suggested you are going to talk to your co-author every week so you have to choose somebody you will like to meet every week so and it was Sanae so I you know, picked her as a co-author.
35:59And we become best friends. Like she is amazing. And I was so looking forward to talking to her every week. And I almost jokingly said, I don't want to finish writing this book so I can talk to you every week. No, there's actually, it's real. Like I've had collaborations where I've like been bummed that it's been over. Like it's, you spend so much time and emotion writing this book with a collaborator. You form that bond. Yeah. I also like hard, you know, opposite kind of the story. Some people had that like fall apart because, you know, kind of they have misunderstanding or like, you know. But we are like, I'm so fortunate.
36:40Like I'm like one of the, you know, I don't know, like the best thing happened to me through this book. It's like meeting her. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit more about the book itself. And you shot a prop link in L.A. We're getting a little bit in the weeds, but I have to mention it because we shot a book there as well, Lasagna, Anna and I did. And you worked with Jenny and you worked with a great team. And you also worked with with Jihee Kim, who I just met. It runs this great restaurant in L.A., Perilla. You brought together all these amazing women to come together on set. And I'm not trying to make it this a gender conversation, but I just looked at the photo.
37:19I'm like, wow, you've got a cool crew here. Thank you. Yeah, so Jenny and I met through Jihee. Jihee, as you mentioned, she owned this really cool Korean banchan place in L.A. She and I used to work for Rustic Canyon, and she's the toughest woman I've ever met. She had a baby and opened a restaurant the same year. and she introduced me to Jenny and immediately I cannot think anybody except her because she's also part Japanese and part Vietnamese and she knows Japanese culture so much and she collects Japanese you know little like chopstick folders or like little plates and she let me barrel like for the shoe as well and she's just such a like laid back and like positive and i just met so many um amazing women through this cookbook as well it's great that you say that about jenny incredible talent and i love to work with her she she shot a lasagna with us and has worked on taste projects in the past on this is taste we asked guests about their discerning taste so to close this interview.
38:35Here's a little rapid fire fast and furious taste check. Are you ready? I am not. You're so ready. I know you are. I don't like rapid fire. I'm so slow. We'll make it medium fire. The best American breakfast food? Pancakes. The best Japanese breakfast food? Japanese breakfast set. Like fish, rice, natto, miso soup. Why is there a band named Japanese Breakfast? Is it really that good? I think so. You should ask her. I know I want to meet her. What's she here? Michelle. Yeah. I've never met her, but she publishes here. Yeah. Okay. But it is true. Like it is a great name because it is a great thing.
39:10The set. You're talking about the set. Set. What about like Japanese pancakes in Tokyo? I've had like flippers. I went there. I don't like it. It's too eggy. Yeah. Right? I don't know if I agree, but when you say right, I know what you're saying. I'm not a huge hater of pancakes, but it is eggy. Yeah. I don't like souffle pancake. It's like it's became such a like great but personally I don't think it is that I'll take french toast over it to be honest But maybe that's also too eggy I love french toast too No, no, I like french toast But I when I make french toast I only use egg yolk Yeah, totally gotta agree You can't like mess around with the white All right, the best dessert Best dessert This one is the hardest I cannot choose Oh, best dessert Maybe seasonal fresh fruits That's so boring but it's I'm only kidding.
40:03Okay, fine. Nothing can be like peach in the peak summer though. I agree. And especially at the end of a meal, you know, with all like umami rich foods, you crave something to like reset and end. And sometimes it's like a really fresh peach. And that's what you need. Or just like chocolate ice cream or whatever. But it's why you, after a great meal, like omakase or even a couple rolls, you're craving something to finish. Yeah. It's just like fruits is a gift from the artist. I love that. Okay, a few more. Your favorite American fast food chain? Jollibee counts? Is it Filipino? It's Filipino, but I think it's enough here that that does count.
40:42Okay, Jollibee. Jollibee, okay. Your favorite cookbook of all time? I have so many cookbooks, so I cannot choose one, but the one I use the most is 420 Blackbird's Pie Book. Oh my gosh, of course. I call it Pie Bowl, my pie bowl. That's so great. I used to live in Carroll Garden, and they opened Gowanus location, like, you know, the first location. Is it still there? It is still there. I used to live in Carroll Gardens myself. Oh, my God. Yeah, I was on first place. How about you? I was on, oh, I was on Douglas Street. Cool. So, yeah, 420 is still open. What a book. Yeah. So, I used to go there every single weekend after they opened, and I had a pie and, like, tea.
41:27My friend eventually became a pie maker there, and she gifted me that book. Your favorite recent cookbook discovery? Chili Clisp by James. Yeah, James Park, Jamesy. I love him. He's my buddy. He's my buddy, too. And honestly, his story about being exchanged from Korea and ending up in Alabama. Yep. So we were internet friends for a long time. and we met first time in LA when he was touring and we kind of bonded together about like, there are so many Asian Americans here, but we are immigrants. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so we kind of bonded how like difficulty of like, you know, visa, green card situation.
42:14Yeah, the visa, the immigration status and the process is, James is great. Such a good call. Yes. Your favorite vegetable.
42:23Favorite vegetables. I love all the vegetables. Oh, when I see eggplant in the menu, I definitely order. So I must say eggplant. It's one of those vegetables, obviously, it's throughout the world. But in Japan, amazing. Yeah. Because you add mirin soy sauce, sugar. Sometimes miso. And sometimes miso. And wow, it's a new thing. New day. Last one, your favorite sandwich. Any kind of sandwich. Do you think hamburger is sandwich? Like hot dog is sandwich? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Those are not sandwiches, but that's okay. I love fruit sando. Yes. Japanese, like shokupan, like white bread, whipped cream, and fruits.
43:11That is, there's nothing like a fruit sando. Yeah. Are you going to get at like 7-Eleven or are you going to get at a nice bakery? Mm-hmm. There's a range. Oh, yeah. I went to Kyoto, I think, and I kind of stumbled upon this coffee shop. They have like seasonal fruit sando. So they had hoshigaki and a pear. It was so good. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I am now seeking a fruit sando. Rhea McClaney, thank you so much for joining This Is Taste. Thank you so much for having me.
43:52Evan Wittenberg, welcome to This is Taste. What's going on? Not a ton. It's, yeah. It's great to see you, buddy. I've known you for a minute. You're a good friend of mine, as is your folks, John and Aaron. You've also been in the pages of Taste, and I wanted to invite you in. You're 13. um how's that how's that being a 13 year old these days it's all right it's fine yeah i don't have that strong that many strong opinions on it but i mean yeah it's it's it's it's what it is yeah this is pretty cool but other than that i don't know yeah well i wanted you've been in on in the pages of taste you interviewed phil rosenthal yeah i was like oh boy six six years Yeah, yeah.
44:36And I loved that interview because you asked such great questions. So I wanted to have you back. And let's like just check in about some things in the in the world of a 13 year old. First, you know, what's your are you still a Phil fan? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I saw him, like, a couple years back. I think it was Michael Salmanov interviewing him in Philly. Oh, right. That was pretty cool. I haven't seen, like, whatever the latest season is. Yeah. But I saw, like, the last few since I interviewed him. I mean, they've still been good. There's no reason why I haven't stopped watching them. I just haven't found the time.
45:12It's all good. You got stuff going on. And Somebody Feed Phil, you know, it's on always. You can always catch up on episodes. Oh, yeah. Since that interview you did with Phil, you kind of asked him to come to Philadelphia, and he did eventually. What's your assessment of him visiting your hometown? I thought that was a great episode. I thought it was really good. There were a few restaurants I think he should have gone to. Sure. And I might bring them up in the question about places in Philly. But I thought it was a pretty great episode, especially the guy he talked to in his garden. Yeah. I forget what he was called, but he was really cool.
45:50I liked his backyard setup. Oh, my gosh. I love that scene. He was making this incredible brunch on his grill. I was like, this guy? I want to know this guy. And the shot of him running up the staircase at the art museum, that was pretty fun. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, Phil Rosenthal. We're all fans. I'm glad to hear that you've moved on from Phil because I love Phil Rosenthal. All right. A big reason I wanted to have you on, a 13-year-old, on the show is I wanted to get a sense of what folks, you know, in your age range, are you like into food at that age? Like you and your peers? I don't know about my peers.
46:26I really like to cook personally, but other than that, I don't know. I mean, I like food a lot. I have a few friends that make cakes a lot. Oh, really? That's like they're more bakers than cooking dinner. That's cool. I mean, yeah. What about like food media, like YouTube? I would imagine Twitch perhaps, live stream, you know, TikTok. Are there any, like, what's, are you and your friends talking about food stuff at all? Not really that much. But in terms of food media, I do love Phil and Babish, that guy. I think you talked to him once. That was pretty cool. I like him and the other, the little series they have besides that, Anime with Alvin.
47:05Those are both really cool. Oh, definitely. And that's a good show. Yeah, but other than that, I don't really watch. Oh, I love Great British Bake Off. Let's go there. I like that. So that's on Netflix, right? You're watching that show? Yeah. Why do you like it? Mostly just for background noise, although sometimes the ones where they bring comedians on are cool. The one with James Acaster, I really liked that whole run of episodes when he was on. I haven't watched the show, personally. I'm no judge. I'm not trying to be snarky. It's a good show, but it's cool that you're into that. What about cooking?
47:39Like you mentioned your friends make cakes. Are you guys, like, are you talking about recipes at all? Are you reading any cookbooks? I mean, you guys read a lot of different things. Oh, no, I'm more of a breakfast guy. I'm fine at lunch and dinner. I'm, like, competent with those, but I prefer, like, breakfast stuff. Yeah, making breakfast. So what's on your list of breakfast foods that you're making? I'd say French toast I'm pretty solid at, and apparently scrambled eggs, because I make that for dinner a lot for my parents. but mostly breakfast, although I think you can't do breakfast for dinner.
48:14I disagree hard. I'm going to say, buddy, I actually like breakfast for dinner, but I like you're in your lane. Oh, no, I love breakfast for dinner. Oh, sorry. Okay, we agree. Okay, good. So let's talk about making eggs, scrambled eggs. What's your technique? Let's go there. Mostly just mixed eggs. I'm not aware of another technique there. I've seen people who had either milk or water. Yes. And I know some person who adds milk. And I tried it once and it's too runny. It makes it really, really runny. It's true. It's the same with omelets. I know. Too much milk and then if you're doing a folded omelet, it's too much.
48:50I like adding milk to scrambled eggs, personally. Huh. I prefer really cooked scrambled eggs and omelets. Because I'm not that much of an egg person. Because I don't really like egg yolk as a texture. Like at all. Yeah. The type, like sunny side up eggs, I can't do. or like yeah devil eggs not really either but that's less because of the texture i just don't really like the taste of like egg yolk besides the texture fair yeah evan what's another go-to recipe could be breakfast it could be anything else that you that you like to make mostly just french toast yeah french besides that um bacon i'm all right with yeah i'm fine with bacon do Do you do the oven method or do you write in the pan?
49:34Pan usually. I've never used an oven for it, but other than that, I've only been taught to use the pan because I've only made it like five times. Word. I've just worked with other people. I see people using the sheet pan in the oven, but I don't subscribe to that either. I'm with you. Yeah. I feel like that would be used mostly for Canadian bacon, right? Yeah, thicker bacon, yeah, thicker cut, sure. Okay, we're going to talk about Philly now. It's your hometown, Philadelphia. Great food city. Absolutely. A little underrated, actually. let's go over some of your favorite places to go out in Philadelphia, where you live, or just like in general.
50:08Wawa. First of all, definitely Wawa. Okay. You're talking about, this is great. So what is Wawa for our non, you know, mid-Atlantic listeners? Well, it's a culinary institution. Certainly, probably best restaurant of all time, I'd have to say. Fair enough. Wait, it rivals Sheetz? We always have our Sheetz Wawa. Oh, yeah. Are you kidding me? It's better than Cheats. Absolutely. Okay. Oh, my God. Why, so far. This hurts. I'm sorry. I'm alienating probably a lot of your audience. But, like, I mean, I like a Cheats. Yeah. It's like second place to Wawa, which feels really mean. All right. So, what do you order in at Wawa?
50:48Let's go there. All right. Meatball hoagie. Yeah. Just meatball hoagie. No cheese. Just meatballs. Probably Pringles, usually. Yeah. I don't know. I don't usually get much more than that. That's fair. It's a good order. They have pizza. I've heard. Not a glowing review. No, I've heard many different opinions on it. Okay. I haven't had their burger yet. I assume it's incredible because it's Wawa. Very cool. Same with their chicken sandwich. No, I have had the chicken sandwich. The chicken sandwich was really good. But other than that, I don't really know anything besides the meatball hoagie. For our listeners, by the way, a hoagie is a sandwich.
51:27I'm just like translating. Some of our listeners are from like maybe Oregon or Canada or London. They're like, what is a hoagie? Uh-huh. It's what people call subs. Submarine sandwiches, yeah. It's like a Subway, but we call them hoagies in the mid-Atlantic East Coast. Some people call them grinders. That just seems terrible. Definitely grinders. I grew up in Michigan. And we had a grinder place called Mancino's. We're team grinder. That's insane. I'm sorry. No, no. No, the English language is fascinating. Endless well. Okay, so we started with Wawa at number one in Philadelphia fair. Okay, let's talk some more restaurants.
52:10Great restaurant city. For like other hoagies that isn't Wawa, Mancuso's is really good. I'm a little biased because most of the ones I thought of were like really close to me. But Mancuso's is really good. They have a really good turkey hoagie and you can just add on whatever you want. Definitely. That place is pretty great. There's a bagel place called Need that I've been going to with my dad. Need's cool. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Every Saturday since, like, 2014. Need's a cool place. I love that. It's outside. Yeah. Yeah, they had a ninth anniversary thing, and they had a, it sounds really weird.
52:44It was, like, a birthday cake bagel. Oh, fun. Except it didn't taste bad like birthday cake ice cream. I mean it had like they had a cream cheese frosting with like bits of the like birthday cake crumble in it and then they had a bagel that they had like some sort of Nutella stuff in the batter and some sort of crumbly stuff that they put in. That was really good but I mean they only had that for one day but they have mostly a really good selection. For bagels there's another place called Vanilia that's really good they have a really good cheddar bagel You heard here bagels are not only a New York City thing.
53:19Philly's doing an okay job. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. What about restaurants? Like, you know, dine-in establishments. Do you have any favorites? Let's see. There's a great Mexican place called Los Caballitos that I'm pretty close to. Los Caballitos Cantina. But besides that, there's a ton of other places. Wernick I've been to. Oh, nice. That place is really cool. I went there, I think, once. I have not been to Wernick. It's been on my list for forever. It's really good. They give you, like, cheese bread, which automatically makes it really good. That's a good call. Comp Gratis Cheese Bread to start.
53:58It's more of like a Hot Pocket, but without anything inside of it. Sort of like a hollow Hot Pocket. Nice. Industry folks listening, you're going to win a 13-year-old with a Hot Pocket for free. Gratis. Oh, yeah, definitely. You mentioned Mike Solomano. He had moderated the conversation with Phil Rosenthal. Yeah. But I'd like to get your sense about Mike in the city of Philly. He's got some great restaurants. What does Mike Solomanov mean to Philly for you? I think he's definitely really important to food in Philly because he started bringing attention to it. I really like, obviously, Federal Donuts is great.
54:32I haven't been to Zahav. Yeah. But I did go to Laser Wolf once on my mom's birthday. Man. That place is really cool. mostly because it's like just a ton of small things and then a ton of pita. Such a great concept. Solid team. He's got those salads. He's got pita. He's got a little soft serve. Yeah. Yeah, that place was great. I'm more familiar with Federal than anything else. Any of his other projects. But yeah, he had a like restaurant that was right near me and he would just stand outside all the time. I think it was, he was still like running Zahoff but he just was like near there. He's a good guy.
55:06Yeah, he's a really nice guy. He's been on the show. He's a really cool guy to hang out with. And he's been on Phil too. Yes, yeah, yeah, he's definitely. Okay, let's talk about school lunch because right now I have this vision of what school lunch is, which is like the opposite of mine growing up, which was a while ago. I think of mine, I had like square pizza and really bad salads with salad dressing from a bottle. What are you eating these days? School lunch where I go is pretty nice. Although, yeah, I think it's more so the people that work at school cafeterias, usually the ones in my school are really nice and I think kind of underappreciated.
55:45Yeah. But yeah, I think there's a pretty solid burger at my school. Although at my last school, there was some sketchy pizza too. Yeah. I don't know from where. I don't think anyone knew from where. It did make someone throw up. Was it like Gordon Food Service or something? It actually might have been. There's a solid chance that it wasn't. Yeah. It was really bad. It tasted like plastic. I've never eaten plastic, but I assume it would taste like the pizza. You envision it. Back to your point about the lunch crew, agree fully, underappreciated, really, really important. They're feeding, you know, kids who are growing and learning, and they're, like, doing a hard job.
56:24Anyone who's worked a restaurant job is hard, but can you imagine doing it with a bunch of kids? Oh, yeah. We're way more judgmental. You're way more judgmental, of course. And you can't yelp them either, right? Or maybe you do. No, there's like rate your teacher, but I can't assume they have lunch staff. Rate your lunch? Oh, man. That could be rough. By your assessment, how could they improve school lunches? What should they do? If there was like a governmental, if there was like a presidential order to revise and change school lunches, what would you do? More tater tots. And I, hold on, I'm more of a tater tot person than a french fry person.
57:04Yeah. mostly because tater tots are better not better but they're still good when they're cold i would argue yeah but french fries cold just get really cardboard like they lose their luster for sure oh my gosh well said evan the tater tot edict is is made the order the more tater tots on menu oh yeah definitely yeah um do you have any machines in your school no yeah they ban those like they used to have these they used to have like fruitopia machines in my school and like they got rid of those it's like they got smart i'll say mostly because those were terrible for you i had i remember in preschool they would give the us the little uh hug barrel things oh yeah those are incredible but they have like a hundred thousand grams of sugar they're so bad for you yeah you know they're like the the do you see the whole thing with the panera lemonade oh yeah it has like sure enough caffeine to like sedate an elephant yeah i want to have one the enough caffeine for like six coffees.
58:04Those are so terrible. There's a Panera around the corner if you want to go get a drink after this interview. I would love to try it. No, it's a little bit crazy that that's actually a product, but they're leaning into it. They have not banned it yet, which is interesting. Which is insane. I agree. That's already such a health code violation. Yeah, yeah. It seems like it should be. All right, Evan, on This Is Taste, we ask guests about their discerning taste. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid fire, fast and furious taste check. Are you ready? absolutely okay the best breakfast food hash browns well said mcdonald's version or your own homemade i have another opinion about mcdonald's but sure let's go there um homemade hash browns are fine usually diner hash browns because the amount of butter diners use is so surprising surprising and they don't use enough or no no they use so much yeah there's so much butter in diner food i know it's true and that's probably why it's the best agree very nice point The best dessert?
59:02I think frozen yogurt. Okay, let's go there. Are we going like pink berry, like tart? Are we going like chocolate? Oh, absolutely not tart. Okay. You're going 16-handle style. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't prefer a particular place, but I would say it's superior to ice cream because it's like every flavor of ice cream, but as soft serve, which is already ideal. I love ice cream Because I'm a human But like It's Has a better texture Than like hand scooped ice cream And I love hand scooped ice cream I love both Right But I feel like It's the best part of soft serve Combined with the best Part of like ice cream flavors Fair Really big observation here Evan I'm into it So like soft serve Your feeling is like Not doing the full flavor thing It needs to be fro-yo To get like the real flavors Right Exactly Yeah There's another place called like Brewers in Maryland and it has 24 flavors of soft serve and they have like a coffee soft serve that's like some of my favorite ice cream but i think that along with being able to make it yourself is kind of a bonus plus it just looks really nice looks cool i don't usually go for like how stuff looks but like frozen yogurt just looks really nice do you have a gram instagram no i don't that's cool are you gonna get one are you post instagram no yeah probably not probably not you're like i don't care i don't have tiktok either fair yeah it's it's not it's not for you you moved on oh yeah i'm like a grandpa no i like your style like keep it keep it in the analog world in the real world no seriously i i am i learned what smh means like a week ago okay it took me a little while for that one too i was always like what yeah that's good all right i respect it all right a few more of these your favorite american fast food chain shake check uh love the call um why they have the best fast food burger i think the fries could definitely be improved on it's a global note i yeah i feel like five guys has the best fries generally yeah i think i mean because of the bags there and they make them they like make the very fresh is that why yeah those that's a bonus but i feel like the like weird triangle cut i don't like it i don't know the crinkle cut yeah crinkle cut yeah i don't like that i don't understand and there's always the bits of tiny like just potato shreds they may they turn into like crinkle cut fries and they're like the at the bottom of the box to quote you because we're human they're not good that's what i'm gonna say oh yeah definitely not good um your favorite restaurant in the world huh um oh there's a really good place uh that i'm near that i forgot to mention in the philly thing um called moon night ramen it's really good it opened up like this summer and it has really good stuff that place is great i don't know if it's necessarily my favorite in the world but it's really good and i also forgot to bring it up in the philly food section it has like pho and ramen oh cool and they make like pastry there pastries there too and it's open pretty late nice pick i like it Moonlight Ramen, liking it.
1:02:10No, Moon Knight. Moon Knight, sorry, Moon Knight Ramen, liking it. Okay, a couple more. Your favorite cookbook of all time? Koreatown and Food IQ, now available to all major retailers. My man, my man, those are great calls. I'm sorry, I had a different pick, that's not true. Thank you for being honest. Also, there's Of Tide and Time, it's the official cookbook for the Junior League of Annapolis. My grandma used to make a ton of stuff from there There's like a honey mustard chicken That's really good What a good call The Annapolis It's a little obscure It's a little bit obscure It's a deep cut But I like the call They do a community cookbook Those are really fun Yeah I've only seen it in the wild once And that's like in my grandfather's pantry I don't know if it's in print anymore I have no idea You could probably find it at local Goodwill In the Annapolis area Oh absolutely yeah Alright last one Your favorite sandwich Burger and it's really easy to do wrong.
1:03:09But I agree with the burger guy you had on here that said you don't need that many toppings. I mean, I was going to say that the hamburger is not a sandwich, but... Exactly. Oh, so you're saying you're going to say it is a sandwich. Are we disagreeing on that point? Yes. I feel like if it's bread and some sort of topping and sauce or multiple toppings, then what is it? Then what is a burger? It's a burger, but I'm not going to debate this. You've got the last word, my man. I love it. And Wittenberg, this has been so fun. Thank you so much for joining us, This is Taste. Yeah, thanks. That was super fun to do.
1:03:50This 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 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.
From the publisher
Rie McClenny is a video host and cookbook author who rose to acclaim in the test kitchen at BuzzFeed, where she hosted video series including Make It Fancy. On this episode, we find out about her journey from Japan to professional kitchens in Los Angeles to YouTube stardom. We also talk about her terrific debut cookbook, Make It Japanese: Simple Recipes for Everyone. We hope you enjoy this conversation.
Also on the show, Matt catches up with his old friend Evan Wittenberg. Evan is passionate about the Philadelphia food scene, the Netflix works of Phil Rosenthal, Cormac McCarthy novels, and playing the drums. He is also 13. It’s fun catching up with one of our younger listeners to find out what is good.
Do you enjoy This Is TASTE? Drop us a review on Apple, or star us on Spotify. We’d love to hear from you.
MORE FROM RIE MCCLENNY:
A Japanese Homestyle Meatball Clinches the Comfort Food Crown [TASTE]
Let’s Make Gyoza [TikTok]
Phil Rosenthal vs. a 7-Year-Old [TASTE]
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