378: Jean-Georges Vongerichten

23:22How does that ideation work for you? So we have a couple, three people working, you know, we have a culinary director, Miss Tara. We have Greg Brennan, who is one of our culinary directors, with me for like 30 years. Daniel Del Vecchio Daniel Del Vecchio is with me for 28 years we collect all this recipe let's say today we're working on sweetbread we're going to do like five different recipes one with licorice one with you know grilled bread you will go in and observe the test kitchen and taste these five yeah I'm going after today half an hour I'm going there we're trying 10 dishes today and And then once you give it the okay, does it end up on the menu pretty quickly?

24:11I mean, first we have to develop the recipe with grimage. You know, you have to be very precise. I mean, every vinaigrette we have, every sauce, every recipe, spice mix, you have to buy the gram and then we retest it again and then it goes. It's amazing how that works because you can then flip them into the menu with an assortment of new recipes. Pretty frequently you change your menu at the flagship, right? Every week, every two weeks, every month. I mean, especially from now in the spring, things are changing every week. We have ramps on the market next week. We have the morels, white asparagus, then green asparagus.

24:46Then it doesn't stop until next November. I got to say, you probably have white asparagus on your menu all the time. Do you fly it in? No, we really respect the season. That's the most important for me. Yeah. I mean, they came from Provence and from Germany, Holland. but they're only here for a month and a half, two months, then we move on. I want to ask you about ABCV, my favorite John George restaurant, the one, the flagship that you just reopened. There was a dish on there that I'm just getting granular and this is me nerding out. There was a scrambled eggs with broccoli, Rupert cheese and dill.

25:18Truly the greatest combination for breakfast. Where did this recipe come from? This recipe came from, we had some eggs actually in Shanghai, back to Shanghai, and we had some, they do an egg dish there with steamed eggs with greens, some kind of, not a bok choy, but a gai lang kind of Chinese broccoli with eggs and we bought it back. Had some dill, we had some cheese, make in New York. Absolutely so fascinating that you linked that back to Shanghai, you had a different style broccoli you're having with American style broccoli. Cheese from Consider Bardwell, Angela Miller's made book agent, so I had to shout her out.

25:54Fantastic, no? Yes. Great cheese. No, but if you think about it, eggs are kind of rich and creamy, and then you have the sharp broccoli, you know, that green flavor with the dill. We had a little chili in there. It's magic. It's really a phenomenal dish. Is it back on the menu at the new ABCV? Yes, it is. I love to hear that. And we're actually reopening breakfast at ABCV in a couple of weeks. I will be there early on. So that dish has always been a style. I mean, when you were building these three restaurants together, how do you think about that? Because it really is a progressive idea to have these three very unique restaurants.

26:31I mean, they came in 14 years, if you think about it. Yeah. ABCV started in 2010. We took over the restaurant, I think it was called Colina. And when they approached me at ABC, they wanted to change the concept. I said, you know, everybody knows ABC home, Carpeton home. I said, why don't we call it ABC? They want to call it love. They wanted to call it love. Love. Love the restaurant. Yeah, I said, no, let's go back to ABC of cooking. We're half a block away from Union Square Market. Everything's going to be based on the market. So they love the idea, the farm to table idea, on the Alice Water meets River Cafe in London meets New York.

27:13So that was 14 years ago. Dan Kluger. Chef Dan Kluger, amazing. Incredible chef. Yes, absolutely. And then we always had a lot of vegetables on the menu, but then people are next door. Remember the Spanish person? Yeah, Pipom. Pipa. No, it was P-I-P-A. Yeah, Pipa. It was a Spanish restaurant on Politico at the time from ABC. She said, oh, you have to change this restaurant. They're using spam on some bad oil on some whatever it is. I said, okay, let's change it to another ABC. We call it ABC Cucina. Yeah. She wanted more like a tapas restaurant. I said, let's do Spain as a base, but Spain who travels to South America.

27:55Yeah. So that's what we did, our tacos, our scampoio, and, you know, inspired from the South. And all well-reviewed, relatively. You know, certain restaurants have their days, but well-reviewed. Amazingly reviewed. At the time, we had Chef Kogan. Chef Kogan was kind of a Latino chef. Yeah. That's why we started the Pig Guacamole, remember? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember that. Two-part, there was a big... You remember that? It was a big controversy. Well, I think Melissa Clark wrote about it. Everybody, yeah. Even the President Obama at the time chimed in and said, give peace a chance. Okay, so let's pause for a second.

28:34Listener, let's lean back. You might have a computer and a phone in front of you. You can Google P. Guacamole and you're going to see this story. Yes, the internet did explode, John George. And yes, our sitting President of the United States weighed in on it. Yeah. Do you still think it's a good idea? Do you stand behind P. Guacamole? Totally. I mean, it works so well together. and it was two-thirds avocado, one-third peas, mashed together. The seasoning is just perfect. We still have it on the menu. We just put it all back on for the spring. It's still on the menu today. Oh, yeah. Every spring when the peas start, we put them on the menu.

29:08I love to hear this. And for the mere mortal, guacamole made with peas, I don't think is good. But you figured it out because you do grimage, right? Grimage. Yeah, you measure it. Green on green works together. No, totally. So you really, you can taste peas in your mind. Avocado, creamy, and it just... You brought this up, remember? I'm not picking on you. No, no, it's okay. You brought it up. No, I... You can chime in with the internet. It's okay. I think, I think... People of the P-Wall. It will probably get its own documentary at some point. No, but then the last one was ABCV. Oh, we didn't actually...

29:43Yeah, so 14 years of ABC Kitchen, 10 years Kucina on 7 years ABCV with Neil Harden, who's really the best, vegetable chef you can meet. He's so inspired by everything. Everything comes out, a root, a vegetable and herbs. He blends it so well. We do so much tasting. We work so well together. Neil's a fantastic chef. And really that Rupert eggs was definitely a go-to for me, but you have doses on the menu, incredible shakes, an aesthetic that I'd say is comforting and also clean. I mean, how do you think about your design for ABCV? I mean, all the three design were like, I mean, it's a 100-year-old building.

30:27So ABC Kitchen was the old wood beams, 110 years. So we make it look like a barn. ABC V was more, we want to keep something really fresh, clean. You know, it was not, the design is, we saved actually a village in Thailand. We bought, that little village in the north of Thailand was doing porcelain. I mean, the little plates on the shutdown. And we actually, Paulette was buying those plates for ABC Home and she couldn't buy it anymore because the business was not there on the shutdown. I think it was 2008, a couple of years, four years before we opened. And then we, we set up the factory again and we actually, we saved probably 200 jobs over there and the factory went back and all the plates at ABCV are from this village in Thailand.

31:14It's phenomenal. It's good to, you know, to help. and that's what the ethos of ABC is. It's all about, you know. Sourcing from the source. Sourcing from the source. And if you look at the silverware of ABC, we don't have any, nobody eats with the same fork and knife. Oh, really? I didn't even know. Yeah, we buy everything on eBay. Don't tell anybody. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's all silverware. Oh, ABC Kitchen. All three. Oh, oh, oh, right. All three is our ethos to really don't buy anything new. It's not bad for the margin when you're doing eBay. I mean, you have to fight with somebody else who's on eBay.

31:45Yeah, it's true, actually. So you have to, it's all about bidding, you know. Yeah. Somebody selling five knives, four forks, three spoons. Yeah. Three coffee spoons you have to buy. But it's cool. I mean, it makes the experience unique. And I'm sure for the people working there, it's like cool to have different objects. It's not like cookie cutter. Exactly, exactly. So the tin building, when you're approached with this address, what's going through your mind when they're like, John Church, do you want to like open here? Because the seaport certainly had its challenges when you started that project.

32:17For sure, for sure. But, you know, it started, I was not involved. I was involved as a consultant in the beginning. I see. So about 12 years ago, they approached me. They said, Howard's food court from London is going to come. We hired them. Howard Hughes hired them to create this food court in the old fish market. It was all about saving the market. The Fulton Fish Market, the tin building was sitting on a 400 wooden pile. on half of them were not even touching the bottom of the river. So on the building on top was a landmark. So they had to dismantle the building, cut the platform. We saved about 96 cast iron columns.

32:54We sent divers underwater to cut the columns who are still attached to the floor. Mud line. How deep is it there in the East River? I'm not sure. I think it's like probably 50 feet. Yeah. I know, right there. And they had to because they had to lift the building and push it back 50 feet to be above floodline. So push the building back 50 feet, plant it toward a new concrete pile, pylon, new platform, old building on top. So that took about five years. And a few dollars. Only a few dollars, of course. But they save the market. They save the total. Building was completely collapsing, burning, and the whole thing.

33:32So burn down, et cetera, et cetera. So Harrods was the client who was supposed to bring that food court. I was a consultant just to bring small vendor, Union Square Market, small fishermen, butcher. Six months before Brexit, they say, we're not coming anymore. They broke the contract. They call me in a board meeting and say, it's yours now. Take care of it. I say, I don't want this. This is too big. It's 55 ,000 square feet. Yeah. I say, give me a day. I think about it. What did you do that day? What did you do? I went back. I called my team. They want me to do the thing now. But, you know, we've never done anything like it.

34:09But you know what? let's bring New York to under the roof. Not just, because not too many people show up here. You know, how many times you cook at home? Not every day. People go out. For sure. And like downtown New York, you know, absolutely a renaissance of the downtown scene and people need a place to go for a quick meal. You have several seated restaurants there. So it was 55 ,000 square foot of a store, a food store, with a couple bars and stools like they have in London. I say we have to do the opposite. So I told the board, I said, listen, it has to be 20 % market, 80 % restaurants. Why, why, why?

34:45Because I said, after 7 o 'clock, nobody buys food anymore. 7.30, nobody buys food. If you want this business to go until 11 o 'clock at night, you have to do a kind of a restaurant center. You got to have alcohol. You got to have a party. You need to have restaurants. So then we decided to, we changed the architect. We hired a Roman William. Yeah. Fantastic. Mostly known for smaller spaces, I would imagine. 55 ,000 feet isn't a Roman Williams project, typically. But you know, they did La Mercerie, which is a half store, half restaurant. Not 55 ,000 square. No, no, no. On Le Cuckoo, et cetera.

35:16I mean, these are beautiful spaces, but certainly these are restaurants, not 55 ,000 square feet. No, so we worked with them. It was a pandemic. We had nothing else to do than working online. So we created that crazy space with six counters, six sit-down restaurants, so 12 different outlets, middle of a market, but keeping the essence of what team building was, you know. So we kept kind of the offices above. We used all the columns, everything, and it turned out to be a pretty amazing project. I love it. I've been a few times. I've had some great food there. But let me ask you, is it doing financially?

35:52Did it pan out to be what you expected? Yeah, I mean, the wintertime is a little harder. For sure. To go down there, it's kind of windy on everything. But when you have a beautiful day like yesterday, it's 7 ,000 people will go to the building. Wow. So it's, you know, the first year was a little harder because we couldn't find any staff to work two years ago. Last year was great. And this year, I think we're going to meet budget. You'll be back into your budget. You'll meet budget. Because John George doesn't do a restaurant that's off budget, I got to believe. You don't keep failing restaurants open.

36:20Absolutely. And we try. You know, you're learning as well. We were learning a lot there. But the restaurant phenomenal, the House of the Red Pearl, the Brasserie. It's a cool place, the House of the Red Pearl. I mean, it's amazing. A place is doing phenomenal. So there is great. Now, let me ask you, is there a favorite that you have there? Like one that you love the most? Probably the one I love the most is probably the... We put the ABCV as well in there. So ABCV is phenomenal. Oh, yeah. You're opening a second location. That's right. Yeah. And then I like the Frenchman's though. We talked about it a little bit.

36:51Let me ask you this. Is there a restaurant that you most regret closing? Probably 66. 66. On Spice, of course. Spice was more like a sales. Yeah. It was off-road that he... You didn't know if it was going to close. You didn't say it was going to close because you sold it. We sold it, yeah. But 66 is the one. 66, we changed the match again, but it was hard to change. And we don't have any good reviews. We had one bad review, I think, and Manitifere from, I think we refused somebody who wanted to smoke, and we said, no, you can smoke in a restaurant. Was it Adrian Gill, maybe? No, no, no. If you look, you can say it.

37:26I'll look it up. You're not going to say the person's name. Okay. But it was mostly a location. But we put so much effort in there on bringing that master from Hong Kong. I saw it was a very special place. It's still, I mean, you brought it up and I asked you again. It's in your mind still 66. Absolutely. Everything, you know, Ukraine is with your dreams and hearts and labor. And in the end, nobody likes to close anything, you know. I really appreciate you being honest about that. I'd love to see 66 back. I never got a chance to dine there. So, John George, on This Is Taste, we ask guests about their discerning taste.

38:03So to close this interview, here's a little rapid fire, fast and furious taste check. Are you ready? Yes. I mean, I'm... All right. I don't read them, so... I know you didn't. This is good, though. Yeah. The best fruit? Mango. Hands down. Is there a variety that you look for? The one you find here from South America, the champagne mango, fantastic. But in Thailand, you have so many varieties of mangoes and they're just all spectacular. I like the floral flavor, the texture, the color. It's just the best food. The worst vegetable? I think I like pretty much every vegetable. The one I had a hard time to deal with was probably burdock.

38:39You know, kind of woody. Yeah, I mean, if you're not putting it in like a marinade or any kind of... Yeah, you have to make it so... I like it probably raw better, but in a salad, marinated, some sesame oil and some vinegar. It's a hard term. It's challenging. Challenging. the best dessert? For me, probably cheesecake. My mother said cheesecake, which is more like a cheese tart. A tart, yeah. It's like a fromage blanc tart from Alsace. When you moved to the United States, what did you think of the American style cheesecake? I thought it was good. Yeah, it was nice. It was nice. We had something similar in Alsace as well, but I just like my mom's tart fromage blanc.

39:15Beautiful. Your favorite American fast food chain? Probably Wendy's. I like the spicy chicken sandwich at Wendy's. You ever had it? I haven't stepped foot into Wendy's. I've been to the drive-thru for the Frosty. I love this call. No, it's delicious. I mean, crispy. And you've not taken a dollar from Wendy's. All right. I mean, I like my Shake Shack as well. Of course. But that was almost really surprising. I respect that, Janger. It was a good call. I haven't had a Wendy's chicken sandwich in a while. Spicy chicken sandwich. Oh, spicy. Let's be very precise. Your favorite New York City restaurant right now that you do not own?

39:50Probably Torisi. I went three times already. and I really think Rich is doing a fabulous job there. Yeah. And the ambiance is great and the whole, you know, details. It reminds me like of a spice market. I actually believe I was dining there with a friend and I was like, this reminds me of early 2000s, downtown New York. Reminds me, I said it. It's funny that you mentioned that. I get why you like it. It's just, you know, wakes you up. Yeah, it does wake you up. Your favorite cookbook of all time. Probably there's, nobody knows about it. It's called Alibab, Practical Cooking. You know it? Textbook?

40:20No, I don't know this. Oh my God. A-L-I, separate, B-A-B, Alibab. Amazing. I mean, just spectacular, you know, recipes in there. You can see tomato water in there from the 1800s. Amazing. So it's like a historical text. Yeah, totally. Your favorite recent cookbook discovery? I haven't bought anything recently, but nothing on top of my head. It's all right. What's yours? I have a book coming out in April called Career World, so I have to say my book. Your book? career world so my co-author Du Kyi Hong worked at John George for a year extern from CIA he was one of the younger he was I think he was like 19 when he worked with you amazing yeah formative years for this guy yeah I'll be at the nine things to say about us a couple more a cuisine you would like to learn more about probably Indian there's so the country's so big it's so diverse and so so many things to learn and spices and my favorite region is Goa but I want to go explore more you haven't traveled as much as you would not as much as I wanted yeah I did Udaipu Cochin Goa but not Mumbai but there's so much to so much Kerala you want to see I want to see everything yeah last one your favorite sandwich I have to be a turkey what's the bread rye rye turkey lots of mayonnaise with lots of mustard condiments king maybe pickled jalapeno in there oh nice Always spicy.

41:50Always spicy. Always spicy. You need spices. I mean, that's Thailand. Your time there, I respect it. I know. I've never had Turkish sandwich in any places in New York City. I love it. Yeah, it's a good New York classic. John George, what a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me.

42:13Thank you so much for having me. What's up, Eliza? Let's talk about three things we're each interested in. Feeling, loving, all of the above. What is your first thing? My first thing? Well, I have a couple products to talk about today. I'm in the product zone too. We never listen. We never tell each other anything. We don't have a shared Google Doc. We don't have an outline. We never share. This is spontaneous. I also have products. So let's go. Now I'm nervous we have the same things, but maybe not. I don't think so. Okay. My first thing is a Sri Lankan milk tea from the brand Cola Goodies. Have you tried this brand before?

42:44No, but that name is awesome. What a great name. Yeah, Cola, K-O-L-A. This comes in packets. It has loose leaf Ceylon tea and powdered milk. And then when you just mix it with water, it gets so unbelievably creamy and delicious. And then you just kind of let it sit for maybe three minutes and strain it. I've been doing a lot of moving, unpacking recently, and I've needed extra caffeine. And every afternoon, I will go and make myself a milk tea and it's so good. And I'm really excited to make cold drinks with it this summer. So are you going to blend with it a little bit this summer, you think?

43:18I think it needs to have the hot water to emulsify. So I think what I might do is just like make a batch of it and then put it in the fridge for later. But I do think if I wanted to make a smoothie that had like banana in it, maybe some kale for hashtag health, that would be a good addition. But really right now it's still cold here and I've just been enjoying like a cozy, warm Sri Lankan milk tea in the afternoon. Amazing. And I will just say that I'm kind of dairy sensitive and something about the powdered milk doesn't really give me that problem. So shout out to that. What's your first thing?

43:51My first thing, I'm going to shout out West Home Australian Wagyu and not because they hosted this incredible press event, which I'm taking the bait. It was a great party. It was at Thai Diner and they had all these great dishes and they had like roti with Australian Wagyu. But I'm going to like shout them out for this. I like the way that they're reaching out to the chef community and not the standard chefs. They're like creative with the way they're trying to bring in Australian Wagyu into the lexicon. And Lucasin has a cool video with them. And I just think for a brand that's doing at home and restaurant food service Wagyu, it's a pretty competitive market out there.

44:29Westholm, you got my heart because you invited me to a cool party. I'm being super honest. But I can't wait to cook with you guys. Love it. I love that. I love Thai diners. So I feel like that's always going to be a win. Totally. And I got to catch up with Matt from Tideiner and he's amazing. And he cooked the taste launch party back in 2017 with their team at Uncle Boone's when he was running that. Matt's a really cool dude and his wife is great too. So it's a cool, cool combination there. What's your second one? My second one, and this is one I'm worried you might have, is have you tried the Korean pantry brand potluck?

45:02I have and I love it, but I'll let you, this is not one of mine today, but please. Well, I recently tried it for the first time. I was very lucky to receive a bottle of their gochujang. And it just is really delicious and flavorful. And the kind of shtick is that they're doing these kind of classic pantry ingredients, but maybe with less stabilizers or something similar. And I made a recipe from your cookbook, actually, from Korea World, the like roast takboki with that gochujang. And it was just really delicious. And I'm excited to make more things with it. Oh, thanks for cooking from the book.

45:36I appreciate that. Yeah, Rose Duck Boki is one of my favorites in the book. I love it. I mean, I really think rice cakes are my staple starch at this point. I just love a chewy, squishy, spicy thing. And it is all of those things. So it was awesome. Thank you. And I like Palak. And I think disrupting like big gojujan is really a tall task. Because like CJ and like the major conglomerates in Korea have quite the corner of the market. But I love seeing small brands doing the thing and being original with Tenjan or Ganjan or Gojujan. Yeah, definitely. What's your next thing? My next thing is Passover is around the corner.

46:11And I don't know if you caught this, but yesterday Manischewitz just dropped a rebrand. Whoa. I don't know how I feel about this. I know. I was a little bit torn when I saw the habit, but I clicked on it. I'm like, this is pretty cool art. I'm Googling this right now. So I'm going to read a quote. It was from an Adweek story. The fresh look is a result of interviews with consumers and experts who, through on-site visits to Manischewitz headquarters Jealous, delved into the historical roots of the company. This exploration highlighted the profound connection between Jewish culture, cuisine, and the importance of family and food while addressing the societal challenges of defining Jewish food in a contemporary context.

46:47All right, it's cool that they think about like refreshing the brand. My vibe with this is like they love burnt orange. Like they're leaning into burnt orange and you're looking at it for the first time. I see a smile on your face. I'm not sure if this is a smile or you're puzzled. What do you think about the rebrand? I just don't get why it's so orange, I guess. Pretty orange. Like, I think if I didn't know what matzo was and I saw this box, I would be disappointed when I opened it and it wasn't orange. However, I think it's hard because when you grow up, you know, I'm also Jewish. I grew up with Manischewitz on my Passover table.

47:22Like, you really expect it to look one way. And to me, it's like, why would you, why do you need to be hip and cool? You're never going to be hip and cool. You're Manischewitz. You have something else. You have tradition. I know. It's a good point. And, you know, they're well known for their mozzarella mix and egg noodles and gefilte fish in a jar. Have you ever had their jarred gefilte fish? Of course I've had their jarred gefilte fish. I don't really like gefilte fish that much in general. Dude, same. Hard same. And like, I think it's truly one of the most challenging dishes in the Jewish canon.

47:54And some people say they like it. I'm fair. I know that Gefilte Ria used to do a cool one. Yeah. Remember that place? That was cool. But I'm not talking about those guys. I mean, okay, my girlfriend Shirley really likes gefilte fish. And I think it's because for her, it's like a fishball-like consistency. She actually has like Jewish grandpa flavor preferences sometimes. Oh, I love it. Her favorite bagel is like an egg bagel with white fish, which is to me the ultimate grandpa order. But some people do like gefilte fish. I'm sure they will respond to us when they hear this segment. And for Manischewitz, I don't mean to say they shouldn't rebrand because clearly I'm already going to buy it.

48:25So if they're trying to reach somebody new, maybe this would work. Yeah, you didn't know. For me, I'm going to stick to my old boxes because they're probably going to taste the same. Yeah, because they're going to be from like 1995 and taste the same. Well, my family, every year growing up, we would do the matzah taste test where we would bring out matzah from the previous year, blindfolded with the new box and try to see if anyone could tell the difference. That's really fun. I love that. Yeah, and most people can't. That's really fun. I think that's really great. And I feel like this idea of cooking through the matzah after Passover, that feels like it's always challenging.

48:57I don't like to do that I just like to do the meal one time and then pitch the boxes save it for next year it'll be your new activity exactly and this is like great for waste I love that do you ever do like matzo brai yeah yeah like chilaquila style chilaquila style bring it what's your last one my last one speaking of kind of older person flavor preferences is that I had raisinets recently at the movie theater with popcorn and I just feel like more people should be eating raisinets so I just want to say that I I love my Raisinets experience and I'm excited to have another one. I love Raisinets.

49:31It's up there. Snowcaps, hell no, no chance. I definitely think Reese's Pieces is my choice. I like sometimes when they do the mini Twixes in like a little box. Those are cool. Well, but I always lean to chocolate. I think Raisinets are great. Well, I think Raisinets are great because I have never seen them sold outside of a movie theater. I know. It's kind of like the situational time and place to have them. So I feel like why not lean in? Why not lean in? And we just had a great piece that Kathy wrote about dried fruit in this moment that we're having. And I think maybe like a premium Raisinette from one of these brands would be pretty cool.

50:03I mean, sure. Or Raisinettes could just rebrand the boxes and everyone's going to think it's premium. There we go. Looking at the Manischewitz is like the Raisinettes needs to rebrand too. No, I like them just how they are. Okay. What's your last thing, Matt? My last thing is this. We're kicking off the like shameless plugs for my book, Korea World. And it's going to happen. Sorry, listener. but I hope you can pick up the book. We worked on it for over three years and Duki and I are proud of it. We're doing a launch party in New York City on April 24th at Soul Salon. We have some really cool guests.

50:34We're gonna have a fun party there. We're also speaking with Eric Kim in New York at the Rizzoli store on April 23rd. And we have an event in Los Angeles on May 3rd in West Hollywood with some guest chefs, Jihee from Perilla, the folks from Soul Sausage and more to be named. So I'm really excited about it. Those are three of many more events. And I'm just plugging. I'm going to be plugging away. As you should, Matt. This is your baby. Thanks. We're all excited. Congratulations. Thanks, Eliza. I didn't know you cooked from the book. And I really appreciate that. And I hope you enjoy more recipes from the Korea world.

51:10Yeah, the gochujang caramel corn. Oh, yeah. That's the next one. You know, that's great. Thanks a lot for sharing. Mm-hmm.

51:20This 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.