565: Trust Molly Yeh About the Velveeta Fudge

31 Mar 2025 · 1 h 1 min

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In short

Notes on Podcast Episode: This Is TASTE - Episode 565: Trust Molly Yeh About the Velveeta Fudge

Overview In this episode of *This Is TASTE*, hosts Aliza Abarbanel and Matt Rodbard welcome back Molly Yeh for a lively and humorous discussion about her latest book on Midwest baking, *Sweet Farm*. They explore various food topics including unique recipes, traditions, and current trends in the culinary world.

Key Themes and Discussions

Molly Yeh's New Book

*Sweet Farm*

  • Focus on Midwest Baking: Yeh discusses her latest cookbook which delves into baking from her personal perspective as a Chinese-Jewish author living in Minnesota.
  • Cookie Salad Tradition: The discussion touches on the peculiar yet beloved tradition of cookie salad in Minnesota, highlighting its nostalgic and cultural significance.
  • Furikake Puppy Chow: Yeh introduces her creative twist on the classic puppy chow dessert, incorporating furikake for an unexpected flavor profile.

Life on a Sugar Beet Farm

  • Farming Insights: Yeh shares her experiences living on her husband’s multi-generational sugar beet farm, discussing the challenges and joys of farm life, especially during planting and harvest seasons.
  • Celebrating Ingredients: She emphasizes the importance of understanding the labor behind ingredients like sugar, and how her experiences on the farm influence her cooking and writing.

Culinary Rituals and Personal Preferences

  • Cooking and Baking Philosophy: Yeh expresses her belief in the importance of gigantic cookies over small ones, emphasizing texture and doughy centers.
  • Recipe Development Journey: She reflects on her early days of food writing, her intern experiences, and how they shaped her career.

Three Things Segment

  • Besha Rodell's Memoir: Discussion of Rodell’s memoir *Hunger Like a Thirst*, exploring her journey as a food writer and critic.
  • Coffee Tips: Carolina Gelen shares a unique coffee tip about ordering iced espresso with a "drop of milk" for the perfect balance.
  • Selva Cafe: A recommendation for a cafe that transforms into a wine bar, featuring unique pastries.

Noteworthy Quotes

  • On Cookies: "I don't believe in small cookies. I would much rather have a gigantic cookie that you split in half and only eat half of than just having a small cookie."
  • On Dessert's Role: "You can't have a birthday without a cake. You need to celebrate things."

Personal Insights from Molly Yeh

  • Yeh shares her comedic writing style, attributing some humor to her husband's input during their collaborative "writer's room" sessions.
  • She discusses how her writing has evolved to include recipes that celebrate both joy and the realities of health and wellness.

Conclusion The episode is filled with laughter, engaging food discussions, and insights into Molly Yeh's culinary journey, making it a delightful listen for food enthusiasts. The hosts encourage listeners to explore Yeh's book and share their own culinary experiences.

Call to Action Listeners are encouraged to leave reviews on Apple or rate the podcast on Spotify to support the show and provide feedback.

Additional Resources

  • Visit [TASTE Online](https://tastecooking.com) for more culinary content.
  • Check out Molly Yeh's previous works for deeper insights into her cooking philosophy and recipes.

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Transcript

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0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. I don't believe in small cookies. I would much rather have a gigantic cookie that you split in half and only eat half of than just having a small cookie and eating the whole thing. Because then you can get way more doughy innards. The center is the best part, right? Definitely agree. So just maximize that. This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbard.

0:59It was really fun having Molly Yeh back into the studio for an absolute ride of a conversation. Molly is legitimately one of the funniest writers and guests that we've encountered in a long time and has amazing recipe writing chops to boot. On this episode, we get into all sorts of topics, including her latest book about Midwest baking, Sweet Farm. We talk about Minnesota's deep cookie salad traditions, the genius of furikake puppy chow, and what it's like to live on a sugar beet farm. I love catching up with Molly, and I hope you enjoy this episode.

1:36Molly Yeh, welcome to This is Taste. Welcome back. How are you? Matt, I'm so good. I'm so happy to be here. We had a legendary first conversation like two and a half years ago. Hallmark movies. We talked about Hallmark movies, talked about Little House on the Prairie. We talked about Little House on the Prairie? Yeah. Yes, we did. Yeah, definitely. Talked about Harriet Olsen. You're cheating because you just listened. I know. I didn't do my homework. You did your homework. I did it. But anyways, I'm going to link to that. It's a really great conversation and it sets up your world and a little bit of your history.

2:01But I have many more questions. First off, Sweet Farm, it's your recent book. Love it. Thank you. I'm really into your books. And I said this before, you really consider everything and you're a very funny writer. Thank you for validating that. I steal half of my jokes from my husband. So you have like a little bit of a writer's room. We do have a writer's room. They call that in Hollywood. Post bedtime, doing the dishes. It's our writer's room. You guys riff a little bit, have the one-liners. But no, really, it's an incredible book. And it covers pastry and baking from your worldview, which, you know, is really, really unique and cool.

2:37You lived in the East Coast. You now live in Minnesota. You're from Chicago, Chinese-Jewish. It's all there and wonderful. Thank you so much. It's been one of these books that I've always dreamt about writing. I always knew I wanted to write a sweets book, but I always knew that it could not be my first book because I just couldn't. Do we swear on this show? We can go there. Fuck it up. Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely the baking books are pretty precise. They're very precise. And you just have to do it in order to truly learn how to write a cookbook. And so it wasn't going to be my first one. It wasn't going to be my second one.

3:15And then after Home is Where the Eggs Are, I finally felt like I love this team that I am working with. I feel so supported. I feel like my recipe writing has gotten to a place where I can truly express myself to the level that I want to. And I knew it was time. Yeah, it's true. We'll get into this, but I have a few questions off the jump. Now, I usually ask, you know, folks who lived in New York and come back where you're going. But I peeked on the gram and I saw that you were at S &P. And is it true that you had a tuna melt for the first time? First tuna melt ever. Today. Yesterday. Yesterday.

3:5324 hours ago. What? Why? Why? I'm not a tuna salad person. Never been a tuna salad person. Always grossed me out. I've recently come around to Tin Fish and now I love it. Say it was everybody. Was that a COVID thing? Was it a Fish Wife thing? Was it a... It's an Anna Heasel thing. I'm just plugging my old... Oh my gosh, I love it. My old co-host of the show. Honestly, I don't love a tuna melt either, but what did you think? I was pleasantly surprised that it was more than mush on mush. Yeah, yeah, right. I was with the sister snacking. No way. Yes. And so they explained to me, they are so delightful.

4:32And they explained to me that the reason why the S &P tuna melt is so good and why it should be my first one was because of the shell on the outside. They get just such a great crust. And so it's mush contained by a crispy, crusty, griddled shell. And that was pleasantly surprising. Texture is a very important thing. I'm such a texture's person. I'm a texture's first person. It was great. They deep fry their knishes. Yeah, yeah. So good. I never had a deep fried knish. Yeah. They're usually so dried out and like kind of not great. Sorry. Editorializing here. One man's opinion. Yeah. One Jewish guy's opinion.

5:11Knish is not for me. No, but deep frying, it makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense, but I do think that there is room in the world for a baked one, too. No, we're not. Give me a Yonashinable any day. Oh, Yonashinable's great. All right. I will go back to my original question, though. Where do you like to go, having lived here, having a full history with New York when you're back in town? I love old New York. I mean, S &P fit right into that. I mean, I used to live on the Upper West Side, so Barney Greengrass, Zaybars, all going on to Russ and Daughters. And I just, I love those places.

5:42Yeah. They're the best. And Bread's Bakery. Oh, yeah, Bread's. That doesn't classify as old New York, but I love Bread's. I mean, it's now fabric. I mean, babka. Okay, you make babkas. A really, really good one. Oh, I have a babka for you. I have a black sesame babka for you. Oh, wow. I'll remind you of the way out. Thank you. That's very nice of you. Very kind. Is there a better babka in the world than Bread's? No. Next question. Take me back to living in New York. I look back and you wrote this short stack. And this is probably one of your earlier cookbooks, right? Take me back to your food writing early.

6:18We didn't talk about this last time. Are you in school doing jobs and then blogging at night? Yeah. I started my blog in my second year of college. And that just grew out of my love of keeping a diary and wanting to be in touch with my family back at home. and it wasn't initially supposed to be a food blog, but it quickly became clear that that's all I wanted to write about. So I had, and for a while I called it just a mostly food blog. I had my mostly food blog and then there was one particular summer during college where I decided to go off book or off script and rather than go to a music summer program, I decided to apply for internships in food writing.

7:09I got an internship at Time Up New York in the food section. Oh, wow. And that was fascinating. Was Gabby running it? Was it Jordana? Gabby was. They were both there. And Daniel Gritzer. Yeah. And Chris Schoenberg. Schoenberg, yes. Who's the creator of Hot Ones. Yes. Gentleman created that show. And so it was crazy just being there, being around all of them. Like my first day, I had to take, I got to take a taxi all around New York with a cooler to collect ice cream sandwiches from all of the best ice cream sandwich places in the city. And then I brought them back and then Gabby and I got to taste them.

7:49So cool. It was so magical. But that was one day. A lot of it was fact checking and keeping up the restaurant database. And that was really cool, too. I just took it all in. And it was, I believe it was because of that, that I was able to get my first job out of college, which was at the Juilliard Journal. So I just stayed at Juilliard. And I was their assistant editor for a couple of years. While I was at the Juilliard Journal, my editor there introduced me to Debra First at the Jewish Daily Forward, who gave me my first freelance writing assignments. And that was super fun. I remember writing about schnitzel and going to different food fests and covering it.

8:35And I was just everywhere. I rode my bike everywhere with a little notebook and wrote little blog posts about food. and then I developed my first recipes for the Jewish Daily Forward too. Very cool. And that's where you started developing recipes and then you get into the short stack, the yogurt. Yeah, well, so yogurt came after Molly on the Range. Oh, okay. I was kind of recovering from the burnout of writing Molly on the Range and spending 24 hours a day working on that thing. And then yogurt just felt like it had, like the guardrails that a single subject cookbook gives you. Because, you know, there's so much that you can do with yogurt, but it also has to all contain yogurt.

9:26I really like it in the same way that I love cooking recipes that follow different dietary restrictions, or I love like Passover recipes. I love having the rules and the parameters. And that was a lovely project to work on. I ate so much yogurt. My digestive system was on point. You were clean. I was clean. I want to ask you about Bernie's because when you were here last, you were like literally just opening it. And I was like, is this like the favicon? Is this of the upper Midwest? It's like a destination restaurant. I was kidding at the time, but like I must imagine that Bernie's has a lot of Mali fans coming to say hi.

10:05What's the vibe like at Bernie's? It's totally the opposite of favicon. All right. Can you imagine like going out and hunting and here's your pastrami sandwich. Lots of moss. Lots of foraging mushrooms in the woods of Minnesota. I mean, it's... That would be amazing. Soon. Coming soon. Magnus, if you're listening, please come and visit and teach me your ways. Yes. We do get I am always pleasantly surprised by when I go in there and I'm meeting a customer. And, you know, at this point, I know all of the regular customers in town. And so I recognize so many people who come in. And but I am so pleasantly surprised when people come in and I don't recognize them.

10:54And it's just very clear that they are not from Grand Forks. And they tell me where they're from. And we get people from all over. and it is a lot of pressure. Yeah, I bet. I mean, because you have to do other jobs, including family stuff, and you're not making every pastry. Oh, no, no. I work closely with the kitchen to develop recipes and, you know, they're really good at bringing my recipes to life. And then they also have their own ideas that what I love is that they have come to me with so many ideas where initially I am like, no way. I will never put a chicken fried steak on my menu. And then they put it in front of me and I taste it and it is delicious.

11:42So we put a chicken fried steak on our menu. I think it's doing really well. And it kills, I'm sure. So you have a pastry case, I imagine. And you have like a full restaurant courses. But what's in the case right now? What's in the pastry case? Well, right now we have the limited edition smiley face cookie from Sweet Farm. Oh, I saw those. Did you grow up with smiley face cookies? I did. Or was that a Chicago thing? No, it's a big question. They had those in Kalamazoo? Oh, yeah. Okay. Because nobody in Grand Forks knew what I was talking about, but they're just so iconic. Every bakery? Yeah. Yeah, every bakery has a frosted smiley face.

12:14Meijer. They're the best. Meijer has it. Meijer. Meijer. I love a Meijer. I had to say Meijer that way. Kind of go to Meijer. Yeah, exactly. No, we do a lot of just hearty, sweet, soft, like doughy, delicious things that are big. Everything is gigantic. I don't believe in small cookies. I would much rather have a gigantic cookie that you split in half and only eat half of than just having a small cookie and eating the whole thing. Because then you can get way more doughy innards, chewy bits. Yeah. And so we have our big potato chip chocolate chip cookies are big. We have a monster cookie that I snuck some tahini into.

12:57And we have great cardamom buns. Oh, wow. Beautiful. I mean, in the book, your cookie recipe is like for six. These are big cookies. They're basically mini cookie cakes. I mean, that's the way to go. Because the center is the best part, right? Definitely agree. So just maximize that. Yeah, of course. Why not? I love that you write this book from the point of view of being in a farming family. Your husband runs a multi-generational sugar beet farm. And we talked about in the last episode about what goes into sugar beet farming, which is really intense. And you write about it so colorfully and articulately in the book.

13:35I love it. But it's cool to meet an author who actually makes sugar as well. It's like part of your business. I mean, what was it like writing a pastry book, a baking book where sugar is so foundational and having like, you know, around back, you got like this big farm that's grow, you know, making sugar, basically. It felt like a conflict of interest. OK. Right. Right. But also, I mean, I wasn't going to not write it. And it just truly, it made things more meaningful because one thing that my husband said to me very early on when we started dating, we were talking about the farm. He said, the thing that I love most about farming is that we're making food that people have to eat.

14:22And that concept seems so simple. But at the same time, it's like, yes, like people need food to eat. There's only so many calories that we are set up to produce right now. I mean, it's a lot of calories, but this is necessary in the world. And he grows wheat, too. And so just seeing it from start to finish and seeing what goes into this tiny, tiny granule of sugar and what it means for like what sacrifice it takes for family time and for just what kind of work hours it takes. And all of the muddy, sleepless hours that go into creating this one ingredient makes you appreciate it a lot more. And so I felt like I was able to celebrate his work in the best way that I know how.

15:19You also write about the big sweet elephant in the room, which is really, truly a funny way of putting it, but it's true. It's like literally when you're writing a baking book and every recipe is made with like a cup of sugar, you have to like address it that like, you know, dessert is not for every meal. Or maybe it is, I'm not going to judge. But how do you, it was really, really cool to see that kind of folded into the introduction of the book. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to BS anybody. I mean, it's not like sugar is unhealthy. It is physically unhealthy. And I am super into health and wellness.

16:00And I love reading books about just longevity. And I'm really into that stuff right now. At the same time, it is so important to celebrate. It is so important to have joy in life. You can't have a birthday without a cake. You can't have any sort of celebration without that sweet bite that is like the centerpiece of a celebration. And that to me is as healthy as a salad. That to me, once in a while, when you're having those big celebrations, is as healthy as a bowl of kale. Yeah, well said. I mean, we need sugar in our lives for celebration. Yeah, I mean, I follow that. Maybe everyone listening, some may disagree, but we need to celebrate things.

16:51Listen, I mean, like I personally don't eat a ton of sugar. But when I do eat sugar, it's got to be good. nothing fake, nothing, you know, like low sugar. Like I just want the good stuff. And that's what this book is. I mean, if I'm going to be having something sweet, it's got to be just the best version of a babka or the best version of a layer cake or a funfetti cake or whatnot. I would much rather have like one perfect slice of chocolate cake than like a snack well. Yeah. The snack well. They can take the stray on here. Snackwells can. We're not pro-snackwell. I think they don't exist anymore.

17:33Oh, really? I used to have a lot. That's a lot of snackwells. Oh, yeah. Who didn't grow up with them? I mean, the devil's food ones were always in my house. So chewy. They're not good. So dry. Hi there. It's Matt, co-host of the show. We are currently running a This Is Taste listener survey, and we'd love to hear from you. Do you have a guest request? A restaurant you wish we'd visit to talk about on three things? what about a lesser-known cookbook author who deserves a spot in our studio chair? You can let us know by clicking the link in our show notes to complete the survey. It will only take a couple minutes, I swear, and will help us continue to make the best show possible.

18:12That's the This Is Taste listener survey, link in our show notes. From February 20th to March 7th, dive into Canada's biggest culinary festival, Montreal en Lumière, An exclusive partnership with the McCord Stewart Museum and its exhibition, On the Menu Montreal, a restaurant story. The 2026 festival invites food lovers on a flavorful journey through time. Montreal's top restaurateurs will reimagine 65 years of the city's iconic astronomy, crafting inventive, nostalgia-inspired dishes with a modern twist. Prepare your palate. World-renowned chefs, including several Michelin-starred talents, will team up with over 80 of Montreal's finest local chefs to create unforgettable, one-of-a-kind menus.

18:58The full program is available at MontrealOnLumiere.com, presented by Lotto Quebec in collaboration with National Bank. Bars. You are very pro-bar. It's a big section in the book. There's one section that's much smaller. We'll get to that point of view. Tell me about your sort of weird seven-layer bars and why you love bars. The sort of weird seven-layer bars mean so much to me because they are inspired by one of my favorite restaurants of all time that just closed. A Scandinavian Jewish deli in Fargo, North Dakota. It closed? It closed. Oh, no. Fernbaum's, yeah. You wrote about it so lovingly and it was so vibrant.

19:39It was right after book went to print that it closed. But I once had this seven-layer bar there that was savory and sweet in the weirdest, most intriguing way because they used their everything bagel chips in the crust. And so there was garlic and onion in this sweet bar. It was so good. And something about a seven-layer bar traditionally is it's way too sweet. I mean, I love them, but they're usually way too sweet. And this version was just not sweet. I mean, it was perfectly balanced, I should say. It was not overly sweet. And so it's bagel chips. But buy the plain bagel chips and then add your own everything bagel.

20:21Because if you buy the everything bagel chips and then you're also trying to eyeball your own everything, it's just... And everyone knows those chips, they can be extra coated. Extra coated, extra salty. Like, do the same thing that you would do with butter. Like, get the unseasoned and then control the seasoning that you're adding. Yeah, coconut in there. Unsweetened coconut. You're getting enough sweetness from the chocolate chips, the butterscotch chips. You're adding everything bagel spice? Yes. Just a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like the poppy seeds. Of course. We see it everywhere. It's great.

20:53So that's actually used as seasoning what you're using plain bagel chips. Yes. Love that. I mean, so cool. Uh-huh. Again, sort of weird. I mean, it is, but it's like a little more savory and I get it. And it's definitely, to me, a really smart way that you develop. And it's throughout this book. Well, I just liked that I tasted this bar and it was, you know, from Birnbaum's. And it was a sensation that I had never had before. And it made me think about desserts in a completely different way. You observe that lemon bars are often unceremoniously placed next to chocolate chip cookies on the pastry table at the cookie swap.

21:33And that's unfair to the lemon bar. Poor lemon bars. Lemon bars? That's sad. It's sort of like the taco pizza. Do you have taco pizza? Oh, yeah, definitely. Does taco pizza exist in New York? It's not on like the slice counter, I'll tell you that. No, it's never on the slice counter. But you can't, I mean, when we go out for pizza, there's the barbecue chicken pizza. There's the taco pizza. And taco pizza, when you're having, you know, a great slice of pepperoni, you cannot also put a slice of taco pizza on your plate because they just don't go. Whereas, you know, you could put any other slice of pizza on your plate with the pepperoni and it works.

22:08It's in the same flavor world. And it's the same thing with lemon bars. You know, you can have a bite of a brownie or a blondie or a seven-layer bar or a scotch-a-roo, anything, except a lemon bar is totally going to screw with your taste buds. So it's like you have to pick either you're going to have a lemon bar or any one combination of these other bars. And it's rough. It's rough going for the lemon bar. You, I'd say, remedy this because you have this recipe for a lemon bar that you're like, screw the other stuff, just make the lemon bar, right? What's the way that you do lemon bar? Which is, of course, an iconic Midwestern dessert.

22:46Iconic. It is iconic. But, yeah, you really have to commit to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I have two lemon bar-inspired recipes. One of them is a mandarin orange bar with a toasted sesame crust. And those are really nice. They don't make you pucker as much as a lemon bar. And then there is a rhubarb rose bar that has some coconut oil in it in combination with the butter. And those are just a beautiful celebration of spring. It's about to be rhubarb season. It's happening. I just realized. That's so exciting. So when your husband's planting, and you write about this in the book, it's like March is planting.

23:24What's his life like planting these sugar beets? You know, early mornings, late nights, not as crazy as harvest, but they're full days. And he is on a tractor for a lot of it. I want to sprinkle in a little bit of this farming talk because it's important that we, you know, represent the farmer. It is nothing like what I imagined it was before I actually saw it with my own two eyes. This time of year is a little bit, he's a little bit nervous because there wasn't enough snow. So the fields are dry. Yeah. And we just had some really bad wind, which really kind of messed up some of the dirt for some farmers in our region because there was just dirt flying everywhere.

24:12And soil conservation is such a huge, huge concern for them. Luckily, I think Nick's fields are OK, but I think it is going to make things challenging, the dryness of the soil once he gets in there. All right. So, Molly, tell me about cookie salad and double tell me about blueberry cream cheese and bagel chip salad. You have a whole salad section. Yeah, let's go there. Which I love. And I really I'm I'm thinking when I grew up, I had like pistachio salads, pistachio pudding. That's the best pudding. Isn't it so quirky that there's quirky always pistachio and butterscotch. But like those two flavors you don't see consistently in other sweets.

24:51And we had, of course, like canned fruit in there. Yeah, and Cool Whip. Yeah, exactly. You know what I'm going with. So was there a cookie in there too? So there wasn't a cookie element from my memory, but there was a crunch. What was the crunchy thing? Pretzels maybe? Yum. Yeah, pretty good, right? That sounds good. My grandmother was born in International Falls. No way. That's where she— Okay, so you have it in your DNA. Yeah, definitely. You have cookie salad in your DNA. Tell me about it. Pistachio. What did you call it? Was that a fluff delight? It was something in the delight. Salad. Yeah, salad category.

25:25I have a pistachio delight. Love it. Pistachio delight is so good. I love it so much. Yeah, salads. Salads. So you have the church cookbooks with the chapters on salads with maybe one or two of them having vegetables. Right. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Those are the best. Yeah, those are the best. This was the single most fascinating genre of food for me when I moved to the region. and I was freaked out at first, not going to lie, but it's all in the name, right? If somebody had called this a trifle or if my first salad experience had been with a delight or whatnot, I think I wouldn't have had such a strong reaction.

26:06Yeah. But how charming is it? I mean, I think she called it ambrosia, to be honest. Sure, okay. It's like of that ilk. Of that ilk, yes. I mean, tell me about your cookie salad. Yeah, so cookie salad is... Where I live, I would say it's probably the most common dessert salad. Keebler fudge stripes, Jell-O vanilla instant pudding. Usually made with, you make the pudding with buttermilk. I saw, it was great. Canned mandarins, Kula Whip. Fold it all together. Yo. And then, you know, some people have the tradition, I should say some families have the tradition of putting the whole cookies on top. Some of them break them into little crumbles.

26:48Some of them just do half and stick them in like tombstones. There are many different styles of a classic cookie salad. It is one of our top sellers at Bernie's because we make it from scratch. We do a great vanilla bean, almondy, pastry cream, obviously fresh whipped cream. You cannot beat it. And I like to stabilize it with some cream cheese and add that tanginess. Very nice. Are you doing single serve or are you like scooping it out for each? We do kind of big for the table. Cookie salad for the table. Cookie salad for the table with like a pile of spoons. And it's I mean, it's it's perfect to use up leftover cookies at the end of the day.

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27:31If we have a slow day, cookie salad is to cookies what French toast is to bread. So it's it's a brilliant way of, you know, eliminating food waste. New York bakers out there listening. I know you're out there. I mean, let's see it on these menus in New York. Hell yeah. A cookie salad. What a great idea. Do you think anywhere in New York is making a cookie salad? I don't know. I'm sure somebody will raise their hand in listening, but I have not spotted it. I'd be so happy. Please, please write in if you are doing a cookie salad. I will highlight it on the show. We will follow up. And then there's that blueberry cream cheese and bagel chip salad.

28:03I love that. So you know the pretzel strawberry salad, right? Oh, yeah, of course. That's pretty common with the Jell-O. With the Jell-O. And every time I make it, when I'm doing the cream cheese layer, I was like, well, if we're putting cream cheese on this, where's the bagel? And if we're doing bagels and cream cheese and it's a sweet dessert, where's the blueberries? Yeah, yeah. It all fell into place. It's a terrific recipe. Thank you. Let's settle this now, Molly. What is your official response to Grapegate in the New York Times? I believe this was like 2012 or on there. I mean, I feel like you did this in the book, but I want to get it on pod.

28:39I love it. It's delicious. I think it does represent so much of what Minnesota cuisine is about. And I think the fact that 99 percent of the state had not heard about grape salad is just a testament to how many of these hyper regional salads exist. Remind us what The New York Times wrote about the grape salad. Ah, OK. So there was a big, beautiful article called The United States of Thanksgiving, where there was one recipe for each state. What a crazy concept. Yeah. And it was it was beautifully illustrated. It was actually that's how I found my illustrator for all of my books, Liesl Ashlock. She illustrated all of these different dishes for each of the states.

29:34And I did the lefse recipe, which represented North Dakota. And then the recipe that represented Minnesota was this grape salad, which is a bowl of grapes tossed with sour cream and sugar and cinnamon. I have never seen Midwesterners so mad. Yeah, to be represented by grapes in a bowl. It doesn't seem like you're stretching the culinary history of this beautiful place. It's not, but this recipe does my favorite thing that recipes can do, which is take a few seemingly simple ingredients and make something that is way better than the sum of its parts. I mean, it actually is really good because you have the creaminess.

30:15You have that bright, juicy fruitiness of the grapes. And then the cinnamon is kind of holding it down. It's delightful and it's refreshing. the thing that it represents is the fact that everybody's family has a salad like this yeah yeah um for my husband's family it's my mother-in-law's egg salad that has more ranch and more mayo than you ever thought possible in an egg salad and it's amazing it's like these are the recipes that have the stories and and are scribbled down on the note cards and so it's like okay yes i know that you've never heard of grape salad but look at what it's representing and it sounds amazing by the way delicious like especially with this with the spices yeah yeah well said about everyone having a salad and and ranch in in an egg salad i i have to stop and ask roxanne's excel that is a thing of beauty wow oh i'm dreaming about it now yeah roxanne i i mean i like was that in your in any of your books have you ever written that recipe down oh or is that Just Roxanne's.

31:18I made it on Girl Meets Farm. You made it on the show. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. I love that. I've never tried that combo. Ranch on everything. How did you end up with your carrot cake recipe? Eliza and I talk about carrot cake a lot on the show, and we both love it. And you went through it getting to this recipe. Yeah, and that was for my dad. My dad loves carrot cake, and there's this carrot cake near him where he lives that is really, really tall. and he just went through this phase where he couldn't stop talking about this carrot cake. And that year for his birthday, I think he was turning 60, I wanted to make a carrot cake recipe because I had never done that before.

31:58Carrot cake was never like my first cake. But I went through this really fun process of making every type of carrot cake that I could find that was highly rated or that I could find in books. and uh you know i tried with the canned pineapple and the coconut and i tried them all tried browning the butter and um and i found some really great cakes and the thing that i felt like was um very authentic to me was using hawaiage which is a spice that is pretty nostalgic for me And it's just, it's essentially, it's a very, very cardamom heavy pumpkin spice. And so it has a lot of the same flavors that you would typically put into a carrot cake, plus so much cardamom.

32:49And the cardamom for me is just, that's home. And orange blossom water snuck into the frosting. I think that that was, that was a suggestion from Max, one of our earlier bakers at Bernie's. Yeah. Which I thought was so brilliant and so delicious. And the floral, almost bitter notes truly helped to balance the sweetness of the cake. And between the orange blossom water and the hawaiage, it felt like pistachios and sesame seeds were the correct crunch in the cake. It's amazing that you put hawaij in a carrot cake. I mean, I've never seen that combination. and I'm sure it's been done, but I'm really amazed by that.

33:36It's beautiful. I mean, it's about the cardamom for me and it just, the flavors make sense. Oh, I wish I bring you one. Oh, we could, I'll bake it and I'll tell you about it because I love carrot cake. Now, there's two recipes or two ideas in the book that I wanted to ask you about that you're kind of bringing this information to us that I would say you might feel a little squeamish when thinking about it holistically, but it actually really works and you stand by it. The first is just adding full-fat coconut milk to cake batter and not having a tropical flavor profile. And the other one is Velveeta.

34:21Those bricks of Velveeta work themselves in. So this is kind of like... Yeah, Velveeta. I truly just feel like a messenger of this recipe. Your name is on it, though. I know. I mean, I don't feel a messenger. I get it. Don't shoot the messenger. I had to share this recipe. It is in a handful of books in our region. And I thought it was a joke when I first saw it. But then I started talking about it with people. And I remember the woman who altered my wedding dress was over at her house one night getting my alterations done. And like her husband was making Velveeta fudge. And I thought, wait, I had just read a recipe.

35:03I thought that was a joke. And now you're making it. He said, no, it's really good. And it's really easy. And it does this thing where you're getting these savory notes that are a little bit caramelized, sort of. Yeah. Umami? Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, the texture is sort of— It's a texture idea, right? It's a texture thing. You're taking this, like, industrial cheese and you're putting it into a chocolate fudge. And you're not getting cheese. you're getting this texture of this creaminess that you really want fudge. Yeah. You think there's protein in there? A form of. I don't know which one. I love that recipe.

35:42I really want to try it. And then the other one was just adding coconut milk to cake batter, but not being afraid of it. You have a really great explanation. I mean, it adds such a beautiful richness, such great moisture. It makes it dairy-free. but that was one of the first things that I really tinkered with when I was getting into recipe development. And I was at Juilliard and I was making all my friends' birthday cakes. And I don't know, I must have ran out of whole milk one day. And I added coconut milk to this chocolate cake that I made for my friend that I brought to the bar. And I was just so stunned by how fudgy it was.

36:25It just made for the greatest texture. I also consider coconut to be one of the great underrated all-purpose flavors, right up there with vanilla or lemon. I mean, coconut really ought to be a lot more common than it is. And I do sneak it into almost every single one of my cakes, typically in the form of coconut oil, because I think that the warmth of the coconut oil complements butter and enhances it in a way that just gives it warmth and complexity that is not present at the you know at the forefront it just kind of adds this glow yeah right i follow it it's great it's subtle it's it's not um like that cake that you mentioned it's not a coconut cake no it's not it just has this buttery velvety warmth to it along with that soft texture um that is just really nice love that um i feel like we should be baking more with coconut products coconut in general i love that coconut forever um it's noticeable molly that the pie section is extremely small and near the end of the book and also it's noticeable that you wrote in the introduction that you do not like pies really.

37:41How do you, which is amazing. This is your book. You get to decide what the recipes. Why don't you like pies? Because I'm a cake person. Yeah. You know, I also just love, I love crust. I love crust so much more than the filling. And I feel like I should be embarrassed about that when I'm eating a pie and I'm just scraping some of the filling out so that I can get a better ratio of crust to filling. Pi people seem to be like they are so in touch with how something feels and the seasons. And there is something a little bit otherworldly about a Pi genius that I cannot wrap my head around i love straight lines and perfect 90 degree angles and everything that a rustic pie crust is not um it makes your skin crawl a little bit yeah yeah yeah i'm getting that vibe just looking at you um but i mean there are pies that i can get down with namely ones that are heavy on the crust Yeah, right.

38:55So I've got a slab pie in there. I saw. Which is like two huge thick things of crust with a little bit of filling. And then I love a pudding pie. I'm not as big of a fruit person. Yeah, that's what it seems like. Fruit dessert person. The fruit pie realm is not you and you make that statement. Are you a pie person? Absolutely not. I'm a cake person. Jeez. Jeez. I mean, peach pie is amazing if you get it right. and then cherry pie. Yeah, sure. Like the summer. Yeah, sure. Sure, yeah, okay. All right. Yeah, sure. No, yeah, sure. So we're going to call it Puppy Chow and not call it the other name because you and I, Midwest.

39:34Is that the other name? Yeah, Muddy. You don't even know. Yeah, Muddy Buddies. Is that the name? Yeah, exactly. We don't even know. What's wrong with that name? It's a wonderful name, but Midwestern people call them Puppy Chow. It's always Puppy Chow. It's always. And you do one here that is really cool. You add some elements that I like. Tell me about it. Furukake. Yeah. Oh, something that I had fun with in this book was delivering salt in alternative vehicles. So like potato chips instead of salt on the chocolate chip cookie, or actually I'd end up doing both. Or like miso is such a great salty addition in desserts.

40:13And furikake just adds this special ocean quality that goes well with the furikake or with the puppy chow. I know. If I'm at Meyer in Kalamazoo and I'm saying, would you like to add some ocean elements to your puppy chow from there like December 15th? I'm not sure that would. Don't you want to be transported to Hawaii with your puppy chow? That is the sell. We've just like workshopped the pitch. There's the pitch. Yeah, it's like a little more like... Hawaiian puppy chow. That's it. Oceanic. I'm into it. I love that flavor profile. Maybe not for the Midwest. Puppy chow of the sea. This episode is brought to you by Aura Frames.

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42:14Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Today's episode is brought to you by ButcherBox. As a food writer, I can be a little skeptical about subscription cooking boxes you hear about on podcasts. There's big talk about cooking simplicity, but you're usually left with disappointment after smashing that promo code. Now, Clayton, have you ever tried one of those subscription boxes? Yeah, Matt, my friend gave me a code for that one that has all the chopped vegetables in little baggies. I felt like a drug dealer trying to cook dinner. Yeah, man, I have so been there.

42:45ButcherBox is a true exception. I was sent a box of premium beef and pork and was blown away by the quality and variety. There was 100 % grass-fed pasteurized ribeye, tri-tip, and ground sirloin for my favorite at-home smash burger recipe. George Motes, you better watch your back. For pork, they sent me a beautiful center cut pork loin for slow roasting. I was super impressed. And I haven't even talked about the ribs, which I cooked in my Instant Pot. There was a rub of salt, white pepper, and togarashi. And I pressure cooked with water and apple cider vinegar. It was incredible. These ButcherBox ribs are amazing.

43:24For nearly a decade, ButcherBox has led the industry with meat and seafood that's antibiotic free. As an exclusive offer, our listeners can get free protein in every box for a year plus$20 off your first box when you go to butcherbox.com slash taste. Visit butcherbox.com slash taste to get this limited time offer and free shipping always. That's butcherbox.com slash taste. Don't forget to use our link so they know we sent you. I'd love to see. Molly, this is Taste We Asked Guesser Brother Discerning Taste. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid fire, fast and furious taste check. Are you ready?

44:03Ready. The best fruit. Cotton candy grapes. Into it. Those are great. So good. Yeah. Also wild blueberries. Yeah, wild blueberries. Very limited season. Not if they're frozen. Oh, yeah. We get them frozen. Yeah, you got to get them frozen. That's fine. The worst vegetable. You know what? I've gotten some really buggy Napa cabbages lately. Yeah, yeah. I love Napa cabbage. But when they're buggy. Do you have a typical breakfast? Chia pudding with wild blueberries, blackberries, sometimes raspberries. A mixture of hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds, cacao nibs, coconut, walnuts, maybe half of a Brazil nut if I need some.

44:47Oh, yeah. Selenium. Almond butter. Cinnamon. Love that. Is this like a daily ritual? Every single day. Yeah. Every single night I make chia pudding with chia seeds, almond protein powder, and coconut milk. And then I have it the next day. Have you done that recipe anywhere? That's the recipe. That's the recipe. You just did the recipe on the show. All right. The best dessert? A chewy frosted cookie. How much frosting is too much frosting? Is there an answer for a cookie? I like a ratio of two to three frosting to cookie ratio. Yeah, two to three. is there a restaurant you wish you could bring back from the dead Sammy's Romanian breaking news what it's back no it's back no yeah it's back wait actually yeah it's back for real is there a second one burn bombs yeah burn bombs from back at your home yeah when you're craving fast food what's the move Culver's oh sick I love that one Culver's is so good they're the best I mean I feel like In-N-Out gets all of the attention, but...

45:55Culver's is great. God bless a Culver's. Your favorite city outside America to visit for food? Tel Aviv. Amazing. Do you have a favorite spot? All of them. Very cool. Last one, your favorite sandwich? The Gobbler from the Milburn Deli in Milburn, New Jersey. Have you ever had one? I haven't. It's a Thanksgiving sandwich. Yeah. It's on soft rye, and they cut it into thirds. Oh, wow. It's huge. It's beautiful. It's amazing. I mean, Milburn's got some classic spots. I know that. Oh, see, I haven't tried any of them because if ever I'm in Milburn, I go straight for the gobbler. You just know there's only one place, and it's for the gobbler.

46:38But really, classic spots? Yeah, like pizza. There's some good pizza in Milburn. Oh. Yeah. Anyways, that's on the side. Milburn food tour. I'm going to do that. Malia, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for joining this today. So much, Matt.

46:54What's up, Eliza? How are you? I'm good, Matt. How are you doing? I'm good. We're going to talk about three things here. What's your first thing? My first thing is Beshara O'Dell's new book, Hunger Like a Thirst. You know about this book, obviously. Yeah, it's super exciting. I love Beshara. I've known her for a couple, 15 years. Amazing book. So she's an iconic food writer. She was one of the last like anonymous restaurant critics. And she's kind of spanning her entire career from growing up working in the restaurant industry, being on food stamps, trying to break into the food writing world through like various different avenues and then eventually becoming an on-staff critic at LA Weekly and later on writing for The New York Times as well.

47:36I always love reading kind of like period-specific media books, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I'm reading the Great and Carter memoir right now, which is like exactly that shit or Tina Brown or whatever. But that comes from a very unique part of food media following Jonathan Gold as the critic at L.A. Weekly. Right. And like fitting into the L.A. food scene and with great change with Eater and other publications kind of surpassing print media. I mean, I'm sure there's some of that in there. Where I'm at in the book right now, she's kind of breaking into the mainstream a bit more. She is stepping into the food critic role for creative loafing at Atlanta.

48:13Oh, Atlanta. That's right. Yeah. And that's her first time being like an on-staff critic, eating four nights out a week, booking in disguise, kind of talking about the way that contemporary restaurant criticism has been established in this country and changed over time. And it's really enjoying to read. I like it. I forgot about her Atlanta era. I think her and Bill Addison have a little bit of parallel track going to Atlanta and L.A. Yeah, yeah. And where I just read her meeting Bill Addison and striking up this kind of lifelong friendship and professional interest in each other's work. I mean, Besh is just one of the, I would say, sharpest writers voice-wise and just a tenacious reporter.

48:52I always thought that her reviews were like Wells in many ways, just so well-reported and thoughtful and not like about the hot take, which I really respect with criticism. And I just love Besh. I can't wait to read this book. Yeah. So what's your first thing? My first thing is I was hanging out with Carolina Gellin, a terrific cookbook author here at Clarkson Potter. She has a great book, Pass the Plate. But I'm not going to talk about her cookbook. I'm going to talk about her morning coffee choice because she's absolutely changed the way I'm thinking about a coffee order, which is pretty remarkable.

49:29Okay, I'm very interested to hear more. There are times for the pour over, right? Or there's times for the drip in the morning. But there are other times when you want a little bit of milk with your coffee. You want like a flat white. You want a cortado. You want a little bit of richness with that espresso. But with that, when there's too much dairy, it can be really a rough hang. Like, for example, when the iced latte, and I'm going to talk about an iced drink here, is all milk in just one shot. No one wants to drink that much milk. We want an iced drink with a little bit of milk but more espresso.

50:05So how about this order? She ordered it. I'm like, this is like when you order double espresso over ice. And this is the key part. You tell them drop of milk. You don't say with milk. You don't say you say drop of milk or a whisper of milk. Whisper of milk is quite the thing to say to your barista. I would be into it. And I just think it's for that time. If you just or you can do your own drop if you want. I never really thought about iced espresso with a little bit of milk to replicate the cortado without all that dairy. Yeah. So it's basically like an iced cortado, iced macchiato kind of situation.

50:40It's an iced macchiato, but with even less milk. Interesting. This reminds me of my lifelong quest to order a bagel with just a little bit of cream cheese. That's the phrasing that I've developed because if you say light cream cheese, then they give you the half fat stuff. But I want just a light smear of cream cheese. So every time I order my bagel, I'm tweaking my language so I can try to get my preferred ratio. So my coffee order has been a splash of milk, but that sometimes throws people off. Well, is it like a belly flop splash or is it a dive splash? Yeah, a tidal wave splash. No, sometimes I never I never quite get it.

51:18What's your next thing? My next thing is that I went to a new coffee shop to me that I really liked over the weekend. It's called Selva. It's a day to night kind of coffee shop that turns into a wine bar at night. And it's operated by the folks who do The Bunker, which maybe you've heard about is like a long running party series here in New York. So they have really great music, really great speakers, DJ decks set up in the back at night when it's more of the wine bar set up, cocktails. They have like DJs playing. But I just went in the afternoon on Sunday for a coffee. I felt like it would be a really good place to sit and work.

51:50They have a lot of seating. And I especially like the pastries that they're doing. They're doing South American pastries and specifically their specialty. this guy told me is the pandabono, which is a cassava cheese kind of circular bread that's popular in Colombia. I love pandabono. It's so squishy and savory inside. My friend said that it reminded them of like Smart Pop white cheddar in terms of that flavor. It's a little like dusty on the outside also, but mostly it's about the squish and the chew, almost like a mochi consistency. I really like this and I find it hard to find outside of like Jackson Heights or other places in Queens.

52:29So Pande Bono at Selva and Bushwick. Selva and Bushwick. Really, really cool rec. My next thing is a book. And I've been waiting to have this author on and we haven't recorded the session yet. We're going to be doing it soon. It's Syme's Letter Writer by Rachel Syme. and I really, really love this book. When I first got it, I was like, okay, what's up with the book about letter writing? But then if you know Rachel's work, she writes a lot for The New Yorker and other publications. It's just full of voice, it's full point of view and of course, deep reporting. This book is all about the letter and about the different ways we write letters, the different formats and in a very conversational way, she talks about writing a fan letter, sending recipes via letter.

53:15She talks about typewriters And she has a great homage to her Nakajima AE710 and the whole, you know, the typewriter collecting milieu that we see around our country. That's just a few of the moments in this really richly reported book that really jumped out to me. Again, Rachel is going to be on the show at some point and we'll get to talk about it more. But I really just love this book. I really want to read it. And typewriters makes me think about I just watched Sing Sing over the weekend. Oh, yeah. Because it's now streaming and there's a great typewriter kind of through line in that book.

53:49I want to see that. Was it good? It was so good, Matt. I was so moved by Coleman Domingo, the way that it's shot, the story itself, which is based in this true story about this theater program at Sing Sing and other prisons around the country. It's not one of my three things, I guess, but I would recommend it to everyone. And it's now on HBO. I can't wait to watch it. I remember when it came out, I was like, this really speaks to me and somehow passed by. But yeah, I think like it didn't necessarily get the Academy Awards attention that it deserved. Like Coleman was nominated. I think that was very well deserving.

54:22But the entire cast is so talented and they all are people who themselves went through this theater program in prison. And they just, I don't know, I can keep my eyes off of anybody. It was so good. I'm going to check it out. What's your last thing? My last thing is another kind of like cafe moment. I was at dinner party over the weekend in Fort Greene, which, you know, started at one kind of smaller space and moved to this bigger space on Hall Street. They do a set menu for dinner every night of the week. And it was kind of based out of this idea of wanting it to feel like you're going to a dinner party at like a friend of a friend's house.

54:55On the weekend, they do open cafe hours. You can come by for a coffee and pastries, focaccia sandwich, good things like that. I had a really good rhubarb coffee cake, which, you know, I'm on my rhubarb hunt right now. So it was really kind of what I was looking for. Almost like a fluffy, squishier cake, still warm with that rhubarb mixed into the crumble on top. And there was a really cute flower arranging workshop that was happening when I was there that the florist at dinner party was doing with flowers that were donated from Ground Cycle, which is a cool like upcycling, recycling initiative in New York.

55:30They partner with like wedding florists or like the Botanical Garden Orchid Show, all of these different places that have extra flowers and then kind of repurpose them into secondary homes. I saw some of my friends live in the neighborhood that were there to do this flower arranging workshop. I walked in and I was like, is this a normal amount of flowers for the restaurant or was it extra? It's fun. But it was really cute. And I was there having coffee with my friends, Zander and Gala, who do a zine called Third Place Zine, which is about like the built environment and spaces and third places and how we interact.

56:03And it felt like a very kind of fitting setting for us to be talking about magazines. Does Dinner Party have a chef? They do. They have a couple of chefs. My friend Julie Saha is one of the chefs there. I think there's maybe a couple of people in that kitchen, depending on whether it's like the weekend or the kind of dinner experience. experience, but they always do really kind of seasonal cool things. I've wanted to go. I read a little press about them and it sounds really progressive and cool way to do a restaurant concept, having different formats during the weekend and weekend. And I mean, flower arranging, just walking in.

56:34That sounds cool. Yeah, it was really cool. And I took a little rose and brought it home with me as well as one of their kind of like pistachio chocolate chip cookies, which is really melty and delicious. Love a pistachio. All good things. What's your last thing? Well, speaking of baked goods, I'll close with kind of a different one. We know Wonder Bread, right? You know Wonder Bread. Yes, yes. Wonder Bread. It's actually in our logo, which is cool. You know, it's not because I love Wonder Bread so much. It's more that I thought it was iconic American and iconic food item. That's why it's in the logo.

57:08We're actually updating our logo. It'll be up in a couple weeks. But Wonder Bread has some news, and I was really interested in it. they launched their first new product in 100 years. What is it? Which is kind of amazing. It's actually more than one product. It's a line of products. So they're pivoting from bread, or not pivoting, but expanding, into, they're going into big snack cake. And they've launched a really, really interesting range of products from glazed honey buns. They're doing powdered and frosted mini donuts. They're doing pecan cinnamon twists. But the kicker to me is really a cream-filled cupcake in chocolate and confetti flavors, which has a striking resemblance to the Hostess cupcake.

57:57And I think that the snack cake wars have begun. Wonder versus Hostess. Let's bring it on. But I actually really, they sent me all the products. This is like totally transparently they sent me the products. and I've never had this many snack cakes in my house. And fuck, they were good. I really, really liked them. When you get a cake sent to you from the factory, it like hits different. Yeah. I'm looking at them right now. You know, when you started saying that they were creating a new product, I thought maybe they would be going into the like healthier bread kind of route. Because I don't know.

58:34Like I think, you know, Wonder Bread is known for being like very processed. And I think that there's been a lot of kind of interest and whole grains and things like that. But I like that they are instead doubling down on the processed bread angle because they know what they're in for. They know what people want and they maybe want an alternative to Hostess because Hostess is maybe not the mostest. It's definitely not my favorite. And I felt like this quality of the Wonder Bread snack, cupcake with cream and confetti really, really spoke to me. Was that your favorite out of everything you tried?

59:09Yeah, by far. I mean, I think like the buns, like I don't really have glazed honey buns too often, like the bodega style, like the Entenmann style. That was really good. I've never really gotten the box of the I've never really gotten the bag of donuts. Have you ever done that? Like the Entenmann's box of donuts? Yeah, like the powdered mini ones. Yeah. You know, I don't know if I've specifically purchased it, but I think if you go through life, like they're just around. They're around. Yeah. And I eat them. At your friend's house for Sunday breakfast. Yes. Like they're just there. Very good. Like, I've never really had a lot of these products, but I did think that the cupcake was really...

59:46If you're going to, like, a classic donut shop, what's your order? Oh, easy. I always get a long john, as we call them in the Midwest. Like the long maple ones? Yeah, but I don't do maple. I do chocolate and cream. See, you like a chocolate cream. That's why you're going for this mini donut. Yes. Very good follow-up question you got into my psychology. What is your order? I feel like a donut psychologist. It depends on the place. I do like an apple fritter a lot at Peter Pan Donut Shop in Greenpoint. I like the coconut ones that they do. I like them to be like a little nutty. I do like a maple donut.

1:00:22My favorite donut growing up was Stan's Donuts, which is a long running L.A. institution, which in recent years franchised only one location in Chicago in Wicker Park randomly. Oh, yeah, right. And it was right across the street. The L.A. one from my orthodontist. So whenever I would go get my braces tightened, my dad would take me to get donuts after. Oh, that's a nice memory. Which I don't think really is what dentists are here for. But it was worth it to me. And they do something called a peanut butter pocket. That's like a stuffed donut that has peanut butter and banana inside. So that is my, like, God-tier donut.

1:00:53My choice is always peanut butter and jelly at Donut Plant. When they opened on the Lori's side and now they expanded to Brooklyn. to me donut plant that's like that's like the number one we should do something else with donuts honestly they're so good they're so good and in la there are so many like 24-hour donut places that i grew up going to that i have a real kind of soft spot for them is it winchell's winchell's is one there are a lot of like cambodian immigrant owned donut shops in la dk's donuts is the one on the west side that i would go to i think that they have kind of a chain of that.

1:01:26They're just kind of, I don't know, every good strip mall has a donut place, I would say. Absolutely. And of course, the big chains are there too. Let's do a donut week. I think we've settled it here. Yeah. Thanks for sharing your three things. You too.

1:01:42This is Taste is hosted and produced by Eliza Barbanal and me, Matt Rodbar. The show is edited by lead producer Clayton Gumbert and supervised by Pat Stango, director of media production and development at Penguin Random House. Thanks to Shalia Harris and the production team at Penguin Random House. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Logo and guest illustrations by Ellie Skrzat. Visit Taste Online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep updated on all cool things in the world of taste.

From the publisher

It was really fun having Molly Yeh back in the studio for an absolute riot of a conversation. Molly is legitimately one of the funniest writers (and guests) that we’ve encountered in a long time, and has amazing recipe writing chops to boot. We get into all sorts of topics on the show including her latest book about Midwest baking, Sweet Farm. We talk about Minnesota's deep cookie salad traditions, the genius of Furikake puppy chow, and what it’s like to live on a sugar beet farm.
Also on the show it’s the return of Three Things where Aliza and Matt discuss what is exciting in the world of restaurants, cookbooks, and the food world as a whole. On this episode: Besha Rodell’s memoir Hunger Like a Thirst, Carolina Gelen with a hot (cold) coffee tip, Selva is an all-day cafe/wine bar doing special things. Also: Syme's Letter Writer will make you appreciate letter writing in a special way, Sing Sing didn’t get the attention it deserved, Brooklyn’s Dinner Party is a restaurant serving what we are looking for right now, Wonder Bread has its first product launch in a hundred years.      
Do you enjoy This Is TASTE? Drop us a review on Apple, or star us on Spotify. We’d love to hear from you. 
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This Is TASTE 153: Molly Yeh [TASTE]

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