432: Molly Baz & Dwight Garner

24:43Raising canes. Oh. Which I only discovered, actually, in the last few years. My manager's obsessed with it. It's a chicken tender spot with like this incredible like special sauce. And it's just the tenderest tender in the world. So that's my question because obviously tenders are like literally everywhere. Every, you know, hotel, restaurant, every airport. Yeah. Literally every fast food chain. But Raising Cane's has lines. Yeah. Why is it so good? I think they're like whatever brine they're doing. Oh, yeah. Is setting them apart. So it is the meat in the inside the tender is so plump and juicy.

25:18Like it's being pumped with brine. It's just a superior tender. It's good. We just opened one in New York. Oh, really? Yeah, down near Astor. Oh, amazing. Yeah, it's pretty great. I haven't been yet. All right. Your favorite cookbook of all time. Yeah, we're going there. Oh, my God. I mean, I don't know. Yeah, sure. This is, I think, a good answer because it's the one that I've referenced the most in my lifetime is the Flavor Bible. Do you know that book? Of course I do. It's a great book. It was like the first book I nerded out on when I started to get into cooking and was like, what flavors can I put together?

25:51Like what goes with endive? And like would just consult it and then mess around. I consult it less now because I feel like I have an innate understanding of flavor now. But it really guided the way for me. Yeah. It's like it's like definitely has like some dated approaches, but mostly it's just like classic pairings that you just don't think about. It's incredible. Like passion fruit and chocolate. Yeah. Oh, my God. I mean, you can search literally any ingredient in it, and like an encyclopedia, it will list out other ingredients that go well with it. Your favorite recent cookbook discovery? Oh, my God.

26:22I looked through so many cookbooks. You know, I've been really inspired by Violet Cakes. You know, Claire Patak's. London. Yeah, her London-based baking book. I have gotten really into baking lately, which probably will show up more in whatever the next book is that I do. I don't know what it is, but something in me has shifted and I've become really drawn to the sort of like precision of like it either works or it doesn't in baking. It's so much patience, though. It is. But like I feel like there's huge payoff and reward because of the patience, like the forcing you to wait and the crossing of your fingers and then the like success at the end of the road is like that's a huge, really valuable feeling.

27:10Was there a baked item that really got you super excited recently? Is it like a project? I just days ago developed a pumpkin bread. And I initially developed my first ever pumpkin bread while working at Bon Appetit. And it like went nuts. And people were like, this is the pumpkin bread of all time. And so like I've been very quiet on the pumpkin bread conversation since then because I'm like, how do I talk? You like had a mic drop pumpkin bread moment back then. I can't do two. That would be weird. And like that one already exists. So why another? But then like it's been four or five years since that recipe came out.

27:46And I was like, it's time for another pumpkin bread. And so I just recently developed one a couple of weeks ago, which will come out soon in my recipe club. And it's basically like an upside down pumpkin bread cake. So it's baked in a loaf pan. And there's like shingles of kabocha squash that get caramelized underneath. So they're kind of like dressed in this like squash caramel. It's a pretty dish. And then you overturn it, whereas like most loaf cakes, you just plop right out. You flip it out and it's like shiny and golden and like flat layers of kabocha adorn the top of it. It's pretty cool.

28:20It sounds cool. This might be my Midwestern upbringing, but I always go to chocolate with pumpkin cake. Is that just like not? I don't like chocolate. Yeah. So not for me. Just like the end with chocolate. Yeah, I just, I can't. Not even chocolate mousse? No, no, no, absolutely not. What? I can't with that stuff. Just because it's like baby food for adults? No, just because it tastes like chocolate and I don't like the way it tastes. You've never liked chocolate, so s'mores never hit for you? No, s'mores don't. I eat them without the chocolate, which is so fucking lame. It's not. It's actually a good choice.

28:47What about one more? I will eat Oreos and I will eat Reese's peanut butter cups. Oh, that was my next one, Reese's. But that's like mostly sugar and peanut butter. But yeah, that's how I get my chocolate. Everyone knows. Yeah, you got your vitamin C. I feel like no chocolate shakes ever. Hell no. All right, I love this. Nightmare. Cookies and cream, yeah. Yeah, def. All right. So New York City restaurant, your favorite one, classic edition, the classic, classic, classic. Oh, um, Balthazar. Tower, Seafood Tower, Stego Prov. What are you doing? Yes. Seafood Tower, Stego Prov, always a green salad and extra crispy fries.

29:23Dope. Favorite L.A. restaurant classic edition? Um, you know, I feel like not that many people know about this place, but the Smokehouse in Burbank is like a really old school steakhouse that I have become obsessed with. There's live music there on stage on Friday and Saturday nights. It's just like a boisterous step back in time. Burbank is driving down downtown Burbank. It's like Leave it to Beaver. Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, it's got like this iconic big sign up above the valet of your car. Like it's the whole experience. Smokehouse. I've never been there. Yeah, you got to check it out. A couple more.

29:57A chef you would like to work under and study under and learn under. Chad Colby from Antico I think is a genius. and I actually have like talked about this in the past. Like should I stodge under him? Like I love everything that comes out of his kitchen. I think he has a beautiful mind. So probably him. Good call. Good call to get folks up there. Where? To the restaurant. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean I feel like it's maybe not like the restaurant everyone goes to. Yeah, but like it's maybe the best. Yeah, good call. A couple more. Your favorite vegetable. Oh my God, this is such a random answer because I've also never developed a recipe ever with this ingredient, a sunchoke.

30:39Wait a sec. Like a Jerusalem artichoke. You've never done a choke? No, because I'm like, they're so inaccessible. Like, you can't find them at most grocery stores and even so it's like a pretty short season, nobody knows what they are. Everybody thinks it's ginger. Like, it's just a nightmare. It's nutty. People will start like roasting ginger accidentally. Like, so I've never, I've never. But like, when I see them, I'm all over it. They're really cool looking. If you serve them raw or half cooked, there's like repercussions. They're bad for you. Yeah. You get a little gassy. Yeah, they're bad for you.

31:07But when you, like, if you blanch them and then roast them or confit them, they're so delicious. This is amazing. So that's like a short season, though, in California, right? Yeah, I don't even know if I've ever seen them, like, in the few years I've been there. It's game on. Yeah. Chokes happening. Last one, favorite sandwich? Ugh, a tuna fish sandwich. A cold tuna sandwich. Cold. Yeah. Bless you. I mean, I love a hoagie, but it's not that I want it every day. And I pretty much every day would eat a cold tuna sandwich. Molly, it's been such fun catching up with you. Thanks a lot for doing this.

31:39Thank you for having me.

31:49Dwight Garner, this is Taste. How are you? Hey, it's great to be here. It's just cool to meet you. I've read you for years and years. And, you know, the Upstairs Delicatest and your new memoir, I'll call it that way. You can reframe it. I inhaled this book. I read it in two sittings. No dessert, just two sittings, maybe a main course and a second main course. Let me ask you just about the title. I think it's a really clever title, and you write there. Is it a Kipling reference? I can't remember. No, it's the critic Seymour Krim. It's from his work. Got it, got it. What does it mean? Well, Seymour Krim was this great wildcat critic who operated in the 50s and 60s in America, and I've always loved his work.

32:29And he has this great phrase in one of his books. He describes his memory as, quote, that profuse upstairs delicatessen of mine. And I just love that because, you know, we all have our own upstairs delicatessens. We all have our memories. And what this book is, it's that when I go through a day eating things, I often think of literature I've read in scenes from novels, scenes where someone's drinking coffee or having an egg or whatever. This book's about my own upstairs delicatessen. Yeah, it's so remarkable in that it shows this vast appetite, not just for culinary history and food, but literature and pop culture and film, but mostly literature.

33:08And that's really your work at The New York Times is as a book critic and a longtime critic, you're kind of you're tackling all sorts of formats. But I wanted to first ask you about the cookbook. I feel you have a special connection to the cookbook. You have 400 of them. You write about it in a locker somewhere. Tell me about that collection. I love that. Well, we have about 200 in our home, but we've moved around a little bit during the COVID years, so a lot of them are in storage. But, you know, I'm just addicted to cookbooks, and I'm sure many of your listeners are. I mean, I can't go a month without buying a new one.

33:39And I got lucky. You know, for a long time, I was an editor at the New York Times Book Review, and we would do big cookbook roundups. And often there were extras, and there'd be giveaways, so the staff could come and go through the piles. And over the years, I just amassed a great, great collection. And, you know, they're kind of how I relax. I have to read all day for my job. And when I'm off duty, I go to my cookbooks. And it makes my wife a little crazy. She's a cookbook writer herself. But I'm always sort of kind of begging her to cook something for me. And I can't look through one without going, oh, my God, we have to have this.

34:09And she just rolls her eyes at me sometimes. But, you know, I think Jan Morris, the travel writer, said that a good cookbook is more intellectually serious or adventuresome than even like the Kama Sutra, she said, I think. Wow. And I kind of get that. I mean, there's a lot about life in every cookbook, you know? Oh, my goodness. I mean, comparing to Coma's history, yes, yes, yes. All of our listeners know our deep connection to cookbooks on the show and my own personal connection. I mean, you talk about the culinary aspects, and your wife is a very good recipe developer and writer. But talk about the more, the other.

34:43What do you like in a cookbook that's more than the recipes? I think you're really tapping into something here. Well, I mean, I love a good head note. I really do. There's an art to writing a good head note. And I praise Amanda Hesser in my books. I think hers and those New York Times cookbooks are just really charming. You know, and I like a good head note. I don't, since we're talking about this, I don't like the current trend towards having cookbooks that are maybe 80 percent text and they're filled sort of with personal essays. And I like that. But I think if you're going to give me personal essays, I'll buy your memoir or I'll buy your book.

35:14If I'm buying a book of recipes, I kind of want more recipes, you know. and so the kind of books, the cookbooks I really love I mean I have many, many, many cookbooks of all kinds but I love the ones that are just packed to the gills with recipes so I can flip through and just be inspired on every page It's like almost like a Pinterest kind of level of just seeing the mood and seeing all these different recipes Let me ask you about your collection a few titles we'll get into a few more specific questions about cookbooks later but I want to what are a few titles that you just wish you had that you know are in that storage locker that might be tucked away and that you might be like looking for later?

35:48Oh, God, that's a good question. There's a great Maine cookbook writer named John Thorne, whom I'm sure you're aware of. His book's called, I think, Serious Pig, an Outlaw Cook. And I think John Thorne's books, or at least a lot of them are in that storage locker. We don't grill anymore. We live in the city now. And my favorite grilling books are from Chris Schlesinger, who owned a great restaurant in Cambridge. He wrote his books with John Willoughby. And there are five or six books they did together. And I revere those books. and most of those are in storage. I don't know. I just, whenever I'm looking for something, it seems like the one goddamn book I want is in storage.

36:22Is there one that's like literally on your counter that you actually go to that you feel like has the real splatter marks on it? Oh God. You know, lately, the one I've been working through is the, you know, Sever Magazine has a cookbook. You know, when I say I love cookbooks that are really packed, if you get the one from the New York Times or from Gourmet Magazine or from Sever, They're really anthologies of recipes that the editors have taken from cooks all over the world. And so there's a lot of different kinds of stuff on every page. And it's not just the editors. It's like it's great chefs that they've taken these from and great restaurants.

36:55So I've been working my way through this Severer cookbook for a while now. It's really thick and it's great. A book that's really filthy in our house is the Fergus Henderson book, the Nose to Tail book. We like cooking that kind of stuff. Yeah. And it's really filthy. You know what I do too? For years I've stuck into my cookbooks, and I'm sure a lot of your listeners do this too, menus from restaurants I've loved or even a supermarket receipt. Maybe we've cooked a big meal and I want to remember it. So I take the receipt and put it in the back of a cookbook. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As well as invitations and all kinds of things.

37:31And I like to open my cookbooks and have these things spill out. I love that. I do the same thing, Dwight. I usually have like a prep list or a shopping list from that meal and I tuck it in as well. I do the same thing. I love it. It's a great idea, and I think we all should do that more. Now, I literally have pages of notes from reading your book, and I think Eater, a really great Bettina, wrote a piece about your book and said you should man a highlighter when you're reading it because it's true. I wrote notes all the time because as a fan of literature and cooking, you are kind of rapid fire with these anecdotes, and it's just a wonderful cadence.

38:05Again, pick this book up. You will read it in two sittings. So I want to like tap into a couple of these like things that stuck out that were in my notes. And the first is you write about your interest in the mac and cheese scene in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, that great Quentin Tarantino film from a few years back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Talk about that. Well, it's funny. There's – everyone probably remembers who's seen the movie. I've seen it a lot. I think it's a very good movie. There's this mac and cheese scene where Brad Pitt is home with his dog and he's feeding the dog from this horrible can of dog food.

38:32But the line that I quote in my book is actually from the novelization. Quentin Tarantino wrote a novel based on his own movie and that, you know, he can really write and it's hilarious. And I forget the way the exact quote goes now. Maybe you have it. But it's something like, you know, Cliff makes the mac and cheese. He doesn't add additional butter or milk because if he could afford to do that, he'd be eating something better in the first place, which is just a great observation. I just – And so that's from the novelization. So to be clear, that's the book that he wrote later on after the film was released.

39:02And I've actually had that in my Amazon bucket. I haven't picked it up yet. Yeah, it's very shrewd and very charming. Tarantino can write. Yeah, no great. And let me ask you a quote, and this is cheese-related as well. I highlighted this and I wrote this down, and it's an observation. Cheese is the fat man's candy. It stuck with me, and I haven't stopped thinking about that. Well, my best friend, Will, who was my freshman roommate in college, whenever we're having cheese, and I love cheese, so I'm always picking at it for an hour before dinner. And he's like, remember, cheese is the fat man's candy.

39:37And I'm like, go to hell. But it's a great phrase. I don't think it's original to him, but it cracks me up. You know, for most of my life, I write about this in my book. I've been 30 to 60 pounds overweight. And looking back at my life, it's probably largely the cheese plate before dinner. The cheese plate before dinner is always one of those challenges because you just you can't stop. The writer Lori Moore has a great line that might be in my book, but she says at a party, No wine. It leads to cheese. Laurie Moore, University of Wisconsin, shouted out. Now, let me ask you, just zooming on a bit, when you're putting together the book, and it traces your life from childhood to modern times through food and through references and literature, how are you organizing your thoughts to make this cohesive, and I say cohesive because it's true, narrative of your life?

40:27Well, you know, I had a book come out a couple of years ago called Garner's Quotations. And in it, I read about the fact that since I was a kid, I've kept what's known as a commonplace book, which means that whenever I read something and there's a great line, I write it down. And I've done this for so many years now. I'm 58. I've done it since I was probably 18, 40 years of doing this. It's a big book now. And because I love food so much and love food descriptions, writing about food is really writing about the entirety of existence. And a lot of the quotes in my collection are about food. And so before I started writing this book, I sort of broke them down into breakfast and lunch and dinner.

41:01And then I started noticing that I might have something here. I might be able to walk through a day in my own mind, the way that I eat, while also thinking about the things that I've read. And I, you know, I sort of took the quotes that I love the most and tried to use them in this book. Yeah, it's really, really special and very unique because you have so much work through your writing over the years to tap into. And really, that book of quotations, it's literally you write it down. It's like a notebook. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean it started as a notebook when I was in my teens. It's now two massive files on my laptop, you know, which I enter stuff into almost every day.

41:38If I read a book, you know, not every book that you read, let's say a work of fiction has a lot of quotable lines in it. And that's not what makes a good work of fiction. But I will say the kind of novels I love the most are the kind of novels in which the writer has a kind of biting sensibility and can condense the world into sharp observations. And so I know a book is good, but I'm underlining a lot and putting things in my commonplace book. You're right. People who grew up with too much taste miss out. Dwight, it sticks to me. What do you mean there? Well, I grew up in a house that didn't have any books in it.

42:07I mean, we weren't poor. I had tennis lessons and orthodontia. We were solidly middle class, even close to upper middle class, but it wasn't a culturally rich house. And I had to find books on my own and find music on my own and find everything on my own in terms of my own cultural life. And I have friends who grew up in New York with really sophisticated parents who were in the arts themselves or were writers. And I feel like because I had to work for my cultural knowledge, it means a little bit more to me than it means to them. Not always, but sometimes. It's really smart. And I think you need to unwind and unpack culture as an observer yourself and not be spoon-fed.

42:41I think if you have culture vulture parents who try to shove, you know, too much down, too many screenings, yeah, you'll miss out. You miss on the discovery. I worry that I did that to my kids. I have two kids both now in their early 20s. And my daughter is in publishing. She followed me right along. But my son, I don't think – he's a really brilliant guy. I don't think he's ever wrote a book in his life just because he just – you know, like, screw it. I'm not doing what dad did. And I respect that. What's he up to, your son? He works in the spirits business. Yeah. Oh, right on. So he's like food adjacent.

43:10Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is he producing spirits or what is he up to? No, right now he's selling them for a good distributor. But he has plans of things to do in the future. Obviously. Yeah. You learn the trade by working the streets. Exactly. It's a great job repping spirits. You learn a lot in New York City and wherever you meet. And you learn. It's funny. You learn the high and the low. I mean, working the streets in New York City is you go into some very exclusive restaurants. At the same time, you see some stuff going on in some of these smaller liquor stores, that kind of thing. Back to the notebook, my own notebook of your work.

43:44You write about LBJ's Fresca Button. Now, I love Fresca. I like to think of Fresca as my top tier, maybe even probably a Rushmore soda for me. Now, what do you mean? Is this real or is this fiction? Well, it's real. I'm not going to fully believe it until Robert Caro gets around to writing about it. I don't think Caro is up that far in his LBJ books. That's so great. Yeah, I actually double-checked it this morning. LBJ had a little button under his desk, and when he pressed it, his aides would bring him a Fresca, which is cool. And are you into Fresca yourself? I love Fresca. Actually, I'm horrible.

44:18My wife doesn't drink diet sodas. Maybe once in a while I'll die in Coke. She's vastly more pure than I am. She's a Neo Alice Waters type, you know, simple things, simply prepared. I keep Diet Coke, Diet Dr. Pepper, sometimes even Diet Mountain Dew, Fresca. Diet Mountain Dew, I'm from West Virginia, so maybe I should have that. But also there's a Lana Del Rey song that talks about it, which kind of made me think, all right, this is acceptable now. My kids will approve. I love Diet Mountain Dew. I grew up in West Michigan, and I believe Diet Mountain Dew was probably the second or third most popular beverage in the state.

44:50Let me ask you about Olipop. Are you down with, like, the better-for-you sodas? Have you tried these? I haven't tried them. I haven't tried them. I never drink—I rarely will drink a non-diet soda just because I'm an idiot. Someone said somewhere that—I think it was Stephen King who said he's never seen a thin person drinking a Diet Coke. That's really, really rough, Stephen. Wow, it's rough, man. That guy. Yeah, Oli Pop is this like better for you soda category or leader in the category. And I think Andrea from Snack Card or Snack Shot paraphrased it as Metamucil for millennials. It's interesting.

45:29We'll have one of the founders of Oli Pop on soon. I'm sorry for the little digression here. Let's talk about Francois Mitterrand, the former president of France. He had a final meal and you write about it. What drew you to this scene? Well, you know, I'm 58. But you get – you pass 50, you become more aware of – I'm really interested now in illness memoirs and late-life memoirs and advice from people who've gone before. And last meals are always interesting to read about, you know, not just prisoners but anyone's. And Mitra kind of did it the right way. He decided that he was quite old and quite infirm.

46:03He decided that he was going to stop eating and he was just going to end his life. But he decided that before that, he was going to have one last blowout. And so he had oysters. He had capons. He had most famously ordolans, little songbirds that you crunch down in one bite. I've never eaten an ordolon. I would like to. They're illegal now. They are. But I hear stories. I hear tales. So Mitterrand had a round of ordolans in his final meal. That's the way to go out. Yeah, the way you do it with a white napkin over your head sort of to indicate the shame that you feel. But I love hearing stories like this.

46:37One of my favorite writers is Jessica Mitford, the British journalist who wrote The American Way of Death. And when she found she had terminal cancer, she decided she would eat nothing but chocolate mousse until she died. And she did, according to her. I mean, that is truly a God-level cuisine right there, food. I mean, chocolate mousse, you cannot go wrong with that one in my book. I love that. Now, end-of-life memoirs, what draws you to it? I'm curious. You bring that up. Is it the matter of just the finality of these words if it is written by somebody who's entering that stage? Well, one of the things I write about in this book is that I'm an enormous reader, I think, for many reasons.

47:13But for one reason, a phrase I use is observation greed. I'm interested in the philosophy, what life means, but I'm also interested really in how to live, like how to do it right. And I'm interested in people who I think are smarter than me, writers who have been there before me and have things to say about every aspect of life. You know, sex, cars, whatever, games, whatever topic there is in the world. And so I love to read a memoir from a writer that I've loved when they're older and talking about the stuff they've learned. And some of the stuff you've learned, of course, is on a deep philosophical level.

47:47Other things you've learned is how you love your eggs. And so I like reading books like that. Yeah, better living through death. I mean, just observations about the end makes many live a better life. I subscribe to that as well. That's interesting. I had to follow up with that. It's a good topic. Let's go back to you and home cooking. You write about a daily green salad. Are you still on a daily green salad? Did I read that right? Are you a daily green salad guy? Well, not every day, but there's a salad that I love, and it's very simple to have in the fridge. It's funny. One of the things that I don't like lettuce in my salads, my wife eats a salad that I think of as greens, like grass with a bit of oil on it.

48:25She's very simple. And, you know, I like a different kind of salad. But I wish someone – there probably is a book. I should find it that would be called Lettuce-less Salads. Because I like – my favorite salad is cucumber, feta cheese, and cherry tomatoes chopped up with some oil and vinegar and salt and pepper. That's all I need. It's crunchy. It's sweet and sour. It's delicious. And so I eat that all the time. Yeah. Like that's like pure – like that's a Mediterranean salad. Yeah, yeah. It's like right from that region. And with feta, let's dig into that. Now, are you just going like Trader Joe's brand?

48:53Are you like a feta snob? You know, I wish I could speak more to this, but Cree is a big shopper. She likes to shop and she's good at it. She brings the feta home and it's always good, but I can't give you a brand. I don't just buy the store brand at Key Foods across the street. No, she goes to Citarella or to Fairway or something and buys it. I ask because there's a key component of this daily salad and you can't be messing around with the choice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what? The secret is, I mean, is that even bad feta is pretty good. I agree. There's a huge margin of error available with feta.

49:26Right, right, right. Whenever you had bad feta, unless it's, like, blue from mold. So true. Okay. You have a fascination with stale cake. In fact, you say cake should not be thrown away. Let's talk about this. I think you're on to something here. I think we've written about it on taste, but let me get your take. I don't want to fetishize it, but a piece of stale cake, other people might turn their noses up. But it's delicious. I mean, the frosting is sort of crystallized, kind of crunchy, you know, and a glass of whole milk. And the whole thing is just – it becomes kind of a cookie, you know, in a way or something.

50:01I mean, it can't be stale, six months stale. But, you know, a week, it's still delicious. But a week and – you know, you're striking me as a texture guy. I feel like texture is important to your palate. Yeah. Not just sweetness and richness. Yeah, crunchy, salty, two of the basic food groups. Yeah. Yeah, and like throwing away cake, though, that's like a heartbreaking scene. Like you can't throw away cake. Yeah, well, I tend to freeze it. My wife is a good baker and she's done it professionally. And, you know, I often freeze slices of it and pull them out of the freezer when I get home from, you know, at two in the morning after having one too many beers and a piece of cake with milk.

50:36Oh, man. Speaking of beers, you write about – you had beers with Anthony Bourdain. And we've talked about Tony a lot on the show. And you don't need to like dive into too much of him. But I think you mentioned that you had this evening with him and it struck you and it was worth writing. Let's go back to that. Well, you know, at the time he wasn't Anthony Bourdain yet. He was just this guy who was cooking and his mother worked at the New York Times where I was then. And I was a young editor. I had just started at the Times and I worked – I was the one who assigned these little books in brief, those little pages of books in brief.

51:08And someone told me that this guy, Tony Bourdain, would be great to have write them. And it was not his mother. It was somebody else. No, somebody else. And he had written something. You know, he wasn't like an – you know, he was a writer of some sort. I forget what he published at that point. But, you know, and he wrote for me and we talked a little bit. We had a drink at Jimmy's Corner, the boxing bar on 44th, I think it is, or 43rd. And, you know, he was just a guy. I mean he was clearly quite handsome. But he, you know, he was just funny and a little shy and we had a drink. He turned me on to – he liked the poetry of Dennis Johnson, who's best known for his short stories, Jesus' Son.

51:44But Johnson's poetry is great. He liked that. But, yeah. He just wanted to meet an editor at the New York Times or a writer at the time you were? Yeah, I probably suggested it. You know, I like to meet my writers. I like to meet writers, too. Me, too. So we would go out a lot. After a beer, it's the best. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I like this story about Tony and really I feel like it's a good way to remember him. Did you read the Unauthorized Biography? I've read – which one is the Unauthorized? It came out last fall. I reviewed one of them. Okay. And I think that was the one you're talking about. Yeah, the one that got a hold of his computer.

52:19Oh, God. Oh, God. You're right. You're right. Yeah. You know, the book, it wasn't a great book. But, and the guy really intruded, although what's a biographer for, I guess. But, yeah, it wasn't particularly well written or subtle. And yet, it tells the story, you know, and I was not uninterested because he had a not uninteresting life. Yeah, well said, Dwayne. I think that book is complicated and the narrator and the reporting should be taken with a grain of salt. But it still sticks with me. It's an interesting history of Bourdain. I think we'll still continue to talk about him for 20 years. Yeah, I think so too.

52:57Let's go into your own sandwich. We'll say vibe or your interests. And you write lovingly about peanut butter and pickles. Tell me about that, Dwight. This is a whole, whole story because, you know, I grew up eating peanut butter and pickle sandwiches because my dad always made them. And he told me they were the sandwiches when he was young and poor that got him through law school at West Virginia University. And so as I got into my 30s, I started really starting to love them. And it occurred to me that I should pitch the Times Food section on a story. And they sort of, you know, kind of winced and raised their eyebrows and they let me do it, you know, whatever, Dwight.

53:36And so I wrote a piece and it became sort of a thing, you know. I mean on Twitter people were grossed out and it made news. I mean like the Daily Mail or the Telegraph. It was everywhere and people were sort of grossed out. Times kind of stuck it to me because they ran this photograph of the sandwich. They made it look really gross. That's the worst. That is like you can't do that to a writer, a food writer. So the photograph they run, you know, it's like squishy white bread and terrible pickles. It looks like it's from the White Trash Cookbook. And I love the White Trash Cookbook, but I was trying to class this sandwich up, you know.

54:08And so I wrote about this, and it still once in a while will come up, and people will still email me. And I feel like it's the most famous thing I've ever written. I will link to that in the show notes. It's definitely one of the most viral stories you've written, at least in For Food. And back to the White Trash Cookbook, I want to put a pin in it because I feel like that book we've talked about a lot. We published that book here years ago at 10 Speed Press. I want to, like, what do you remember and recall about this book? You know, I haven't seen a copy, frankly, for a long time. I should get a copy because I'm doing some writing now about West Virginia and growing up and the kind of food that we ate and people ate.

54:42But no, you know, to be honest with you, I can't think of a favorite recipe from it. Do you have one? So, Dwight, I don't have a favorite recipe, but just the history of the writer. You know, as a queer writer back in like the 1980s, it just is a really rich text to explore. And I know folks have written about him, but I'm glad that you brought it up. I think it should be mentioned. Well, now I'm going to buy a copy today, so thank you. Yeah, you know, it's a cool book. Okay, like I'm just going rapid fire here because literally I had three pages of notes tied to your book. And really, you were late in life to oysters.

55:13And I think a lot of our listeners may relate to that. Now, let me ask you, what finally hit you with oysters? You know, I was really late to them. I mean, growing up in the 70s, not many people ate oysters in their families unless you lived on the coast and it was a thing, you know. But I read in my book, I met my wife Cree in college, and her father was a well-known chef on the West Coast, and he adored oysters. So he would fly in once in a while to visit us in New York City. We'd always go to the oyster bar, you know, in Grand Central. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, we'd get a couple dozen oysters and some glasses of wine.

55:43It was just the thing that we did. And I think the first one, I probably pretended to like it. And by the seventh, you know, I was in. You were in. So it was like repetition. Now, do you like creaminess, brininess? What draws you to a raw oyster? Brine, brine, brine. I like salty oysters, big, very cold, like my martinis. Someone said, oh, gosh, this terrific writer, Lawrence Osborne, traveled in countries where drinking alcohol is illegal. And he describes finding a vodka martini, he describes the taste of it as being like the brine at the bottom of an oyster with a little bit of olive water.

56:19And every time I eat an oyster now, I think of that line. It doesn't quite taste like a vodka martini, but I get it. Yeah, it's definitely a good substitute if you're not in the martini. More questions, more questions. Raw Quaker Oats with brown sugar and whole milk. You are into this. Well, you know, everyone has a thing of Quaker Oats, right, in the back of the cabinet. So I'm always stumbling in at midnight wanting something to eat, you know, something sweet. And sometimes the cereal is gone. And my wife told me one night, you know, you can just take Quaker Oats and dump some into a bowl and put a little sugar or whatever and milk on it.

56:50It's delicious. And, you know, Cree caught me at it once, and she said to me, you know, that's what they feed pigs, to fatten them up. Yeah, and brown sugar is definitely the number one. I think apple is the number two in that variety pack that everyone knows. But raw, it's about texture, Dwight. I'm getting into this texture thing with you. They don't have to be cooked, these oats. They're delicious, just right out of the box. I feel I remember Bill Cunningham, the famous New York Times photographer. That was one of his go-tos, just in that documentary about his life. I kind of wish I didn't know now, though, because I sometimes don't keep cereal in the house, because it has power over me.

57:22I'll finish it, you know? And now that I know that Quaker Oats are sitting there, I'm sort of helpless. You're just like, you know you have to go to the drawer. I might have to ban them. Okay, you are a member of the Organ Meat Society, and anybody who's familiar with New York food writing knows about this society, but fill us in on what that society is and what you, have you been meeting? Do you still meet? Yeah, we had a dinner last week, actually. You know, it's this group that's been around since the late 90s. I've only been a member for the last eight years. I always wanted to be one. You know, me too.

57:52I mean, listen, if I can apply, I'm please let me apply. Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk. You're being very polite. You're like, you got it. You got to do something else. No. And I knew about it. I'd read about it. The guy who kind of is the you know, if it were a basketball team, the writer and editor, Daniel Okrent would be the general manager. And the food critic, Robert Sietzema, would be sort of the starting point guard and the coach because he orders for the table. Seeds Emma does. And eight or ten of us, there were 15 officially, go out and we eat organ meats, usually in the outer boroughs. I mean, cheap stuff, you know, tripe and intestines and Chinese restaurants and flushing and places like that.

58:27But once in a while, we really go for it and have a big blowout somewhere. And it's expensive, you know, but just once in a while. But, you know, I wanted to be a member forever. And then one night at a dinner party, I didn't know Daniel Okert was going to be there. I knew him just a little bit. But there he was. And I thought, here's my chance. And I walk up to him. And I think I impressed him because, A, I clearly knew so much about the Organ Meat Society. B, I knew so much about eating organs because I love to read about them. And I cook from Fergus Henderson's cookbooks all the time. As you mentioned, yeah.

58:56And so I think he just, I think I forced him. You forced him. I forced him to invite me and then they couldn't get rid of me. Who else is in the group? Who can you name? Who's out to dinner with you? Well, I don't want to give too many ways, but the journalists, Bobby and Bapasha Ghosh, he writes for Bloomberg. They are members. They're great. The journalist Robert Boynton. Robert Boynton is a member. You know, Jeanette Seaver, who was a longtime publisher in New York with her husband Richard Seaver. People like that. Love it. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, definitely, Daniel. Maybe he'll come on the podcast and I can ask him on there.

59:26But I feel like you have to be invited. It's not something you apply for. It's very clear. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. You know, it's funny. They keep the numbers kind of limited because, well, the reason, and I always sort of want to invite someone. And Sitsima says, well, we can't get too large because then we can't all fit. I mean, it's hard to get into some of these restaurants. Often it's the kind of places that don't even take reservations. So we gather early and try to – it's hard to get a table for eight in some places in Flushing. You know, there's not ready for that. Now let me ask you about your organ meat eating.

59:54Have you come across any that you were shocked that you loved so much? Oh, God. You know, I like almost everything. I'm really pretty omnivorous. One thing, I can't really face a fisheye. I don't know why I'm not into the fisheye situation. In the last few years, I finally learned to eat chicken feet and to love them. I mean, it's real poverty food. You have to learn how to sort of suck the individual. It's a sucking motion. Yeah, yeah. And I, you know, I will admit for four or five years I wasn't quite, I didn't get it. But I've finally gotten it. And now I love them. But yeah, fish eyes. Keep the fish eyes away from me.

1:00:26Maybe in five years I'll be there. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think the cheeks are great. You can definitely get some cavity meat. But the eyes are tough for me. Have you had gopjang, the Korean intestines? That's where we went. The Organ Meat Society went there last week, last Wednesday. We went there. That place on the second floor. Gopchang Story. Yeah, with the grilled intestines. Yeah, Gopchang Story on 30 Seconds. It's a great place. Oh, God. And, you know, the crowd is really funky, too. It's all these young Korean women, you know. It's like they know how to eat. They're all, like, 24 and eating these intestines.

1:00:52I'm like, wow, this is my kind of—now I get K-pop, you know. Gopchang is, like, truly one of the least understood and most delicious Korean dishes. I love that dish. Yeah, all kinds of intestines. And the tongue there is great. And anyway, yeah, first grade. I want to dig a little bit into food and fiction. And you review books and you read all the time and you're always scouting out. What is a tell or a sign that an author actually knows what they're doing when they're creating a food scene in a restaurant in a home kitchen? Well, you know, it's the little stuff. You know, it's like when someone's cooking for you, it's the little stuff.

1:01:26I mean, you notice that they pay attention. You know, they, I mean, you know, a good meal is often just because the cook took the time to do things right. And fiction is much the same way. You know, the kind of writers I like to read aren't the kind of writers who publish a book every six months. No knock on people who love James Patterson. But, you know, James Patterson is, would not be the equivalent of a careful chef. I mean, he's, you know, slamming down a story. And I get why people like it, but it's not my thing. And if a writer is careful, if a writer says things about food, the consumption of food, about family, about friends, about gathering together, it's just insight and penetration.

1:02:06And I want a writer to tell me – first of all, to tell me things I don't know, but also tell me things that I've often thought but never heard expressed so well. That's the best. It's articulate, Dwight, because I think what you're not saying, what you're saying is not the case, is it's not like a laundry list of esoteric ingredients. Oh, God, no. As a matter of fact, you really can't – if you want to look ridiculous in fiction, you have characters talk too much about the wine. Because inevitably, if you do that, you're setting them up. You're making them look hideous on purpose, even if the characters – unless they really care about wine necessarily.

1:02:36But too much wine talk in a novel renders your characters kind of effete snobs in a way. It's very hard not to make that sound that way. I mean, some writers. You could say about farmer's markets, too. You could say if you're, like, observing, like, produce and being douchey about it. Right, right, right. As well. Yeah, it's hard not to be douchey talking about wine. Not that wine is douchey. It's not. But it's difficult. So it's like an insight into, like, a method or some kind of—and you want to learn something. So it's maybe the way a dish is prepared and the author is expressing the end result in a way that you've never been told about.

1:03:10Something may be very common. Yeah. Yeah. In Ian McEwen's novel Saturday, which came out in the wake of 9-11, a character in London prepares a fish stew that takes all day. And we go with him while he's shopping for it. We go there. We're there when he's sort of playing squash in the afternoon while maybe his stock is simmering. I can't remember the exact scene now. But then his family – and you just get his entire day and it's centered around this dish, which is sort of bubbling in the background. He's thinking about it while many other things are happening. And that's how we live with food. I'm thinking now about when I head out of here, I'm going to pick up this there.

1:03:43And tonight my wife and I are going to cook this with it. And we all just, as we go about our days, have these little seeds planted that we're thinking about. And these seeds will grow later ideally into some nice thing that we get to have. I love that. It's well said. I have to ask you how you read. I think you're a book critic. And you write about it in the book. It's nice to get a sense. But, you know, you're not reading in the same space, which I thought struck me. Well, I like to move around. If you're reading – book critics live like grad students, you know. And if I get too comfortable, I'm taking a nap.

1:04:14And so I move around. I go to coffee shops. And I sometimes – when I'm not in New York, I'll read in my car. I'll go drive to the beach or wherever we are. And sometimes I'll sit outside of a supermarket because it's great people watching. And I'll read my book sitting there with the book on my steering wheel. But in general, the crucial thing is to – I sit upright at a table usually in not a comfortable chair. And I always have a pen. I'm always taking notes. That's how you work. I mean, you have to because you're obviously writing on deadline. You're a deadline reporter more than anything. You have a lot of deadlines, and you have to work through all these books.

1:04:46Yeah, and if you're doing it right, the review is kind of forming in your head while you're reading. And I'm writing at the top of the page, like, this would be a great thing to start with. And maybe there's a great line I'll write down. This is a perfect ending. And so you're kind of preparing it. You're writing the review in your head while you're reading. Let me ask you. I've interviewed a lot of restaurant critics on the show. Bill Addison from the LA Times, Wells has been in a few times. And I think it's very clear that with restaurant reviews, big part of the job is not reviewing. It's actually picking, going to a restaurant and not writing about that meal.

1:05:17Does that happen with books as well? Are you, it's like the middle. Sometimes if it's not great or if it's not bad, you can't write about it. Do you find the similar situation? That's the hardest thing. Most books are in the middle, you know, most books, you know, and I don't know. As a critic, I don't like mushy reviews. I just don't. So often I'll find things that I love about the book and things that I don't love, and I'll sort of tear it up and build it back down instead of just being middle, pouring lukewarm sauce all over. I look for things that I have strong opinions about, which helps.

1:05:49And book reviews are not just entertainment, but they are entertainment. And I think about high level and I want to be lively. I don't want to use the old cliches. I don't want to do the normal thing. So if a book is boring, maybe I'll find a way to attack it that isn't boring. I'll talk about the subject matter of the book in a way that I have maybe something to say about. I don't know. You're always looking for ways not just to be typical. I mean, that's the big endorsement for picking up every Sunday, the book review in the Times, is that you are not just hearing if it's good or bad. You're learning about subject matters that are even, some of them are tangential.

1:06:26They're like just not related to the book, but you just learn. It's such a great, well-edited section. Yeah, well, you know, having an opinion is not such a big deal. I mean, your uncle Fester has an opinion. You know, it's whether you can talk about it. It's whether you can elucidate why you feel this way. And, you know, everyone's got an opinion. So having an opinion is the least important thing to a critic. I mean, it matters a little, but it's what you're saying. To close this section, Dwight, is there another food book or cookbook in your future? I know that you just finished this book, but you probably are working ahead?

1:06:57I don't know. I would like to, because I have a lot of things still to say. I would like to write a book about organ meats, about awful. I think that would be interesting. But right now, I'm working on a book, a sort of memoir about growing up in West Virginia. My grandfather was a coal miner, and about the inner life of that state, you know, sort of its history, its literature, its culture, which is sort of undervalued. And people in America and the world over look at mountain people in a way and culture that I'd like to talk about. Are you going back and traveling throughout the state for the research of this memoir?

1:07:25I went back for a year, but COVID happened. during that year. So we were kind of locked down. But I go back. I have relatives there. Yeah, you go back. Is there a food from West Virginia that maybe we don't know? Well, you know, the most famous food from West Virginia is the pepperoni roll. Yeah. You know, which, you know, I like. I mean, there's such a fetish. You know, if a restaurant has a special, special tonight, pepperoni rolls. We already had, anyway, they're everywhere. They are everywhere. People love them, and I like them. Ramps are a great thing. Wow, a state with a ramp pedigree. I like that.

1:07:56My grandfather that grew up eating them. And he claimed that that's the way you got out of school. You would eat a bunch of ramps before you went to school, and the teacher would send you home immediately. I love it. Dwight, 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? Yes. The best breakfast. Oh, eggs simply made. Simply made in a way over easy scramble. Well, I asked him. I didn't. Okay, here's what I do. I take a bit of olive oil in a pan on medium-high heat, medium-low heat, crack two eggs, and then cover it.

1:08:27And so the yolks get a little bit smoggy. There's not really a name for that, but I have it every morning. It's delicious. And then I let my dog lick the plate afterwards, and she loves it too. Oh, man. So you're olive oil, not butter. That's a big dividing line. I'll use butter sometimes. Olive oil is a little easier. I'm not judging. I'm just, this is good. This is good intel. I like the method. The best dessert. I don't have a sweet tooth. I don't eat dessert very often, but blueberry pie in the summer. Yeah, you made it clear in the book that you don't, And really, there's not a huge dessert section, but blueberry is good.

1:08:57The best bread? I could live on Bialy's, but in New York, She-Wolf Bakery in Brooklyn, whenever I see them, I just can't. I just run and buy whatever they have. Bialy's, not bagels? Bialy's, yeah. I prefer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why? I don't know. They're a little small. They're adorable. They're crispy. I like the onion flavor in the center. They're a little smaller. Actually, sometimes a bagel, it's a little too bready for me. I like the thinner ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so Bialy's are thin. They're crunchy. I just like them. I like them. More texture. More surface area for texture. I agree. Tough question, but I think you can answer it.

1:09:30Your favorite cookbook of all time. Oh, God. You know, I thought about this this morning a little bit about cookbooks, and I thought the joy of cooking. I mean, if I was going to go to a desert island, I think I would grab that. Those people know what they're doing, and I look at mine. You know, I sit there. Okay. Lunchtime, I sometimes read the newspaper while I'm having my lunch, but often I'll just grab a cookbook and sit there and flip through it while I'm having my lunch, and joy of cooking is great to flip through. It's nice. to things you never knew were there that are brilliant. And they keep updating it, and there's a whole team and a family that is still doing the work to keep it modern.

1:10:02A favorite recent cookbook discovery? Well, there's a book from the UK called Goat, and it's about cooking with goat meat by a guy named James Wettler. And I saw it at a friend's house, and I said, what is that? I have to have that. So I got a copy. And we live in Hamilton Heights in Harlem in New York, and the local supermarkets have a lot of goat meat, and it's very good. and we've started to cook with it more and more. Yeah, is there a dish that comes to mind? Well, curry is the famous thing you do with goat. Goat curries are famous. We're trying to branch out a little bit. That's an amazing protein.

1:10:31That book, I think, was nominated for a James Beard Award. I was at the awards, and I remember it's got this, like, crazy cover. Great cover. Amazing cover. It's such a great cover, and it was like, goat, and it was like, shit, I've got to buy this book. Great reminder. Your favorite New York City restaurant classic edition. I love Balthazar. I sometimes ask people at dinner, If you had to eat at one restaurant every lunch and dinner for the rest of your life, what restaurant would it be? And it's a hard question because you don't want to go somewhere too niche. You don't want to have to – I don't know.

1:11:00And I would probably do a brasserie like Balthazar because, you know, fish. You have fish. You have meat. You have fries. You have vegetables. You have oysters. It's the whole fresh seafood. It's the gamut. And there's always something I want to eat there, and I'd probably do that. Great call. I think a really well-thought-through answer. if you're going to eat every day, I'd eat the steak au poivre there every day. You are the guy to probably profile McNally. I feel like you're the guy. I don't know. He scares me, man. He's smart. He's funny, you know? He's great. I mean, great with an asterisk.

1:11:32Listener, don't come after me. Great entertaining figure, and I hope somebody, maybe Jason Diamond, will write that profile. I can't wait to read his memoir, which is coming out next year. I've heard it's in the works. Yeah, maybe he's waiting for that. He's the great get for food writing right now, a McNally profile. Yeah, you know, it's funny. That thing he does on Instagram where he prints his restaurants, his manager's notes from the evening. If there was a service in which New York City restaurants would do that every night, a lot of restaurants that are interesting restaurants, and I could read about how the night went, I would subscribe to that.

1:12:05I would buy a book. It's just a great idea. And I wish more restaurateurs would do something similar. It's a really good call to way. I think that this behind the scenes and, of course, with the bear and we're learning more about back of house to get a sense of like the rhythms of a restaurant. It's fascinating. Endless well. OK. Your favorite New York City restaurant new or newish edition? Well, the Organ Meat Society went to Foul Witch a couple months ago. And really well done food. Some of the best tripe I've ever had in my life. Everything in there I liked. And I haven't been back yet. But Foul Witch is a great name and a great place.

1:12:33Great name. I've not made it there, but I've heard great things. OK. Big question. Your favorite food that is when worked into fiction, meaning your favorite, I'll say, ingredient or dish that has found its way into fiction. Your book, The Upstairs Delicatessen, is loaded with examples, but is there one that comes to mind? Oh, God, that's a hard one. Can I say alcohol? You can. Yeah. No, let's do it. I always love it when characters around the table are in a bar and they become sort of unbuttoned and the conversation gets a little wild and loose. That's always a good moment in a, you know, as we all know, most plays or many plays start off at a dinner table, people drinking.

1:13:07And then the evening goes on. You know, it's sort of, you know, Edward Albee-like and things get crazy. And that's always great. Your favorite fictional restaurant or restaurant scene? Oh, man. You know, an undervalued food novel and a very funny one, a very sarcastic one is Brett Easton Ellis' American Psycho. And, you know, this book was – it really made people mad when it came out. But now it reads like comedy. And his characters, these young yuppie financiers, they eat at this restaurant and they eat – the meals get increasingly hallucinatory. At one stage, they're eating eagle carpaccio, you know, stuff like that, like crazy.

1:13:45The meals just get surreal. And I forget the other meals they have, but it's a great send-up of 80s food cuisine. It's a beautiful scene and scenes. And, of course, Dorsia, one of the restaurants featured in the book, is now literally an app. So some Gen Z-er with some capital created a restaurant reservation app called Dorsia. I didn't know that. Yeah. So that restaurant in Dorsia is really supplanted. And I'm so happy you say that. It's such a good call. Great, great example. A couple more. Your favorite vegetable? Creamed spinach. Now, questions about that. Is it a ratio? Are we talking more cream than spinach?

1:14:25You know, I've never had cream spinach that I didn't like, first of all. It's so good. You know, it's great to get at a steakhouse. But, you know, between you and me, sometimes when maybe my wife's away and I cook a little steak, I'll go buy the bird's eye. It's delicious. I'll heat it up in a pan. It's very good. You know, to be honest with you, my wife, Cree, normally makes it for me when she's cooking. And I'll request it once in a while. She doesn't like it. She's Alice Waters. She's pure. She'll have the spinach, and she'll make a little for me on this. And no shame about bird's eye or any frozen vegetables.

1:14:58Delicious. Especially these leafy NPs. It's better. It's better. You're right. And come Thanksgiving, my pearl onions will be those. Because, you know, I've made them myself for many years now, and I like those ones that are frozen. A pearl onion. Tell me, Dwight, what is this dish? Oh, but you can buy the bird's eye pearl onions with the white sauce. They're creamy. They're delicious. It's literally the onions and sauce from bird's eye. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Again, there must be a book just about onions. And if there is, I should buy one because I'm an onion fanatic. But pearl onions in sauce from Birdseye, I've not picked that one up.

1:15:26It sounds so good right now. Last one, your favorite sandwich. Turkey club. I mean, you know, I think that if I had to pick one lunch to eat every day the rest of my life, it would probably be a turkey club. It's hard to screw up. Delicious. I have more – I have crazier, more occult sandwiches that I love to find, you know. But day in, day out, you can't beat it. You can't beat that. Dwight Garner, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you for joining This Is Taste. Thank you.

1:15:53This 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.