570: Building a Culinary Bookstore with BEM’s Danielle & Gabrielle Davenport

25:32And it's never quite right. It's always a little, you know, a little to the side of whatever would have been perfect. But that is a very frequent request that we get is more plant-based, more plant-based books. And I love that we're in a moment where there are so many cookbooks that, you know, sort of address so many different dietary realities because we have plant-based as distinct from vegetarian, as distinct from vegan. And when someone says they're on the paleo diet, we can say like, OK, well, you know, maybe check out this title or I'm pescatarian. And I'm like, OK, Supper with Love, Michelle Braxton.

26:05There are all sorts of books that are sort of addressing very specific dietary sort of orientations, but also in a way that feels expansive. It's hard to think of one of our books that is like dogmatic, like this is the thing it must be and you shouldn't have any of that. It feels like we're in a space now where so much of what's coming out is like, look, we all eat a lot of things. We're all a part of families where people are eating a lot of things. And so what are the ways that we take care of our health and sort of prioritize what we want on our plate while we're still in community around the different ways that food can move and work, you know?

26:40So it's exciting to have to have so much of that. I really like that framing. And I'm curious what kinds of festivals you guys are going to over the summer. A little bit of a lot of things. We always will show up at the Brooklyn Book Festival, which we love. We also are on the nonfiction committee, so we do a couple of their food panels with Evan Hansor of Little Egg, which is super fun. So Brooklyn Book Festival is in September, but in my head it's like kind of... It's still nice out. Yeah, it's the end of the summer festival season. This year, for the first time, we are going to be at a music festival called Biscuits and Banjos in Durham, North Carolina.

27:24So that should be really fun. We've done a couple of other music festivals, one here in Brooklyn called Celebrate Brooklyn in Prospect Park. So we did a pop up there a couple of years ago. And then we do other sort of like street fairs and other, you know, smaller sort of community oriented gatherings, all of which like bring their own thing and are delightful. Another big one that we do is the Black-owned Brooklyn Juneteenth Food Festival, which happens at Weeksville Heritage Center every year. And it's a blast. And we have so many Juneteenth-specific books, and it's really exciting to be able to tell people about all of them at once.

28:06So those are a few of them, but each summer is a little bit different. And we do tend to get some of the same requests, no matter where we are. So that's always fun to see. It's interesting your question earlier about sort of what's moving most. I remember the summer that we were selling at the Bandshell in Prospect Park for Celebrate Brooklyn. There was a little paperback edition of Maya Angelou's poetry that included, just give me a cool drink of water before I die. And it was like pocket size because people would be so surprised to discover like a little book pop up at the Bandshell while they were, you know, ready to watch, see, hear music.

28:40And so like, yes, our cookbooks and our kids books and things of larger format would sell. but the number of people who were like picking up this poetry and able to like slot it into their pocket while they waited for the show to begin was really fun. Yeah I feel like there is such a tradition of like book selling on the streets of New York like you walk around and you see the guys with their blanket out and everything on it and I think for me as a New Yorker the way that I read is kind of I mean I'm always reading but I'm carrying a book with me the most in the summer because I'm going to the park or I'm waiting for my friends somewhere and it just kind of like fits into that rhythm to always have it in your bag.

29:14So that's why I was asking that question. So I was just trying to picture like the way that this was kind of fitting into these larger rhythms of life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All of that. We're glad to be a part of that for folks. I wanted to ask, I was like doing my research and I think you both have such an impressive background of like working in the performing arts and as like an actor and a writer, Danielle and Gabrielle as like a curator across music and performance and dance. And I'm curious if you feel like the interdisciplinary kind of creative brain impacts the way that you approach thinking about BEM as a project in any ways?

29:47Big question. Sorry. No, no. Great question. And I think absolutely, like even as we were thinking about what BEM would be, this was very much coming from a creative place of wanting to engage with ideas and expression. And so, yeah, I think that our creative backgrounds definitely have a lot to do with what we bring to BEM. And I think that our experience with, you know, me as a performer, Gabrielle as a producer, there are so many ways that it shows up in sort of what we do, how we do, how we do, what we do, in fact. But just in terms of like, you know, for an author who might be, you know, releasing their debut cookbook into the world and thinking about what it is to, you know, develop something through all the stages and the readings and the workshops and you finally get to opening night and like what that energy is and what the, some of the dynamics around that and really wanting to sort of take care of people and to do the absolute most that we can to make sure that they have a beautiful experience of finally, after all of this sort of internal process or with their team, introducing something to the world.

30:52I think there's a way that we both relate to that through our various production experiences. And even when it comes to events and just sort of the questions we think about and different aspects of the experience that we want to be sure to be to be taken care of, as well as just the sort of passion for for words and how that can be a way into everything. Yeah. One of my former bosses, Rachel Chanoff, who's a brilliant producer, used to describe producing as like creative problem solving. And I don't know what small business ownership is, if not creative problem solving every single day on every scale, you know.

31:28So it's been really exciting to sort of apply, again, sort of our various training and past experiences to this entity. It, yeah, it feels like the most deeply like generative and creative thing I've done with also the most strictures. So that's an interesting adventure to be on. And it is exciting to think about sort of the seeds we're sowing now that will like, you know, sort of will reap the benefits of hopefully decades from now, right? And for many decades to come. So it's a very long form project, a very long term project. But even in the in the short term on the day to day or even month to month, it's like super rewarding even so far.

32:13So that's been exciting. Yeah, I really kind of relate to that in terms of doing cake scene as like a small business. There's like all of the fun parts and then all of the not fun parts and you have to balance them together. But I'm really excited to see BEM as a physical space because I would imagine that in terms of thinking about like, what does it feel like when I step into this room or what music am I listening to? Like all of those kind of things. Yeah. Getting a deep nod from both of you. Yes. We can't wait. Truly. And one of the things we're so excited about too is whether it's, you know, partnering with other organizations or what we'll be able to do in our own space.

32:48But like, let's have the screening that then connects to the dinner, that then connects to the talk. Or, you know, is there a moment of live performance of music or reading of a play. Like, how can we be really expansive thinking about sort of food and books as a window into the breadth of Black cultures? I'm so excited for that. OK, before I get into my rapid fire at the end, I wanted to get book recommendations from you both. Maybe one cookbook and then one non-cookbook that you think as we get into like the spring and summer, like warmer season of potential and like reading in parks, et cetera, or like cooking with the produce that you would recommend to people.

33:25Does that make sense? It does. It definitely does. I will say one cookbook that I was just looking at earlier that we did an event for a couple of weeks ago was Gone Into the World by Eric Adjepong. So that's one that I'm excited to dig into more. And then on the non-cookbook side, I was about to say nonfiction, but it's actually a fiction book, there's one coming out later this year called The Wilderness. That's actually not until September, but that I am really excited about. And I will say that Chibamanda Aengossi Adichie's Dream Count is in my bag right now. Wow. Okay. I like all of these racks.

34:07One cookbook that came out this fall that I've been cooking from a lot recently is Belly Full by Leslie Enston. It is dedicated, it's organized around 11 sort of key ingredients found across the Caribbean. And so it's, you know, coconut and beans and calabaza and plantains. Anyway, I'm not going to name all 11 of them, but you should check it out. There was a time when I could name all 11 of them. I think you could do it. Anyway, it's a beautiful cookbook. It's really wonderful. It's really oriented toward the home cook. And as with so many of the cookbooks that we carry, it's like, yes, there's wonderful recipes, but there's like a lot of history and good writing and just like you can really sink your teeth into it as a book.

34:55So that's when I've been really enjoying cooking from. It's very delicious. I highly recommend it. There's another there's actually a kid's book that comes out today. So it's top of mind. City Summer, Country Summer by Kesey Lehman. Kesey Lehman is one of my favorite, favorite, favorite writers. his memoir heavy which I read in college I think for the first time the way that he talks about food and his body as a way of thinking about memoir and his life was again sort of an early entry for me and like what is food literature you know and like that that one always comes to mind all of this is to say the book looks delightful and I'm very excited to gift it to some young people in my life and I imagine it'll be a really popular one this summer.

35:42So that's one I'm also looking forward to. I love those. And I also love thinking about like the books that we give to children. Yeah. Some of my friends have been having babies and I've been buying books for them. And it's such an agonizing decision because of what you were saying earlier about like the lesson, like what lesson do I need to impart to my friend's kid the most? Yes. Also, I realized that I don't know like ages for children very well because all the books that I've been buying for like probably four to six at least. And the baby was just born. Yeah, the baby wants like a soft thing to hold, you know?

36:13I'm like, this is the book about the two gay geese at the Central Park Zoo. Yeah. Oh, they're penguins. The two penguins. I love it. I love it. Yeah, it's absolutely a thing. The other thing we can't keep on our shelves are board books, like the hard cardboard books for like newborns. We just can't not keep them. People buy them in droves, which is great. But yeah, you really it's a big decision helping build a small child's library. I should have been buying the board books, actually. I'll come to you next time. There you go. But I do think that even like, yes, there's that toddler phase where the cardboard is helpful.

36:51But I think that even from infants, like you think about, you know, reading in utero, but really like or whether it's just sort of for story time at bedtime once they're, you know, hopefully sitting a little more still. But I feel like the really beautiful sort of picture books and stories like Straight Through Childhood and on can really imprint so beautifully. Yeah. And to like your staff meetings as adults these days. Yes, exactly. Also lifelong. And as you were talking earlier about sort of heading into summer and what you're reading, I feel like we have this group of books that sort of focus on urban gardening in particular.

37:24There's like Uncle John's City Garden or Saturdays at Harlem Grown, I want to say. But there are a handful of books that we have that are really about sort of introducing kids to growing things in all kinds of environments, which are really fun, especially as we get into this season. Oh, I love that. It's such a fun activity even to go and pick out a gardening book and then decide what you're going to do. Exactly. Yeah. 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.

38:02the 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. The full program is available at montrealonlumiere.com, presented by Lotto Quebec in collaboration with National Bank. 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.

38:46There'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. ButcherBox 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.

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40:01Visit 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. Okay, are you ready to play some favorites? Probably not. Yeah, honestly, I'm going to be like, well, this, this, that, and the third. Yeah, OK. That'll be OK. I'm just going to throw some questions at you guys. OK. We'll just run through. OK. Your favorite place to read a book in New York? I would say Von King Park in Bed-Stuy or on the train. I miss being on the train and having enough time to read. Now that my commute is shorter, which is lovely, but I miss the reading time.

40:41I was going to say there's something about having like the whole city doing what it does around you in the very contained environment of the train. So I would say either home or on the train. I like that. One of your favorite bookstores in New York? There are so many, right? I would say the one that has probably been, you know, most in my regular rotation for the longest is Greenlight in Fort Greene. Yeah, also the McNally Jackson in downtown Brooklyn. I'm just like enchanted by the fact that they have an upstairs in there. They have an upstairs? Yes, it's really lovely. It feels like a much older bookstore than I know it to be because City Point is just not that old, you know.

41:21And so they've really created like a lovely, cozy energy in there. And it feels like you can get lost and not be in downtown Brooklyn when you go up the stairs. So that is one I've enjoyed wandering through. I can't believe I didn't even know there was an upstairs. I need to go do that now. Great. I recommend it. Your favorite bakery in New York? oh good question you look you look stunned i know you thought it was gonna be a book question i know i did i did um i don't know do you have a favorite bakery i i'm not supposed to eat gluten oh so it's challenging and there's some fantastic gluten-free bakeries in new york i would say the one that i frequent the most um is actually a cafe stone fruit which is also in bedside i do occasionally leave the neighborhood that I live in, but it's fine.

42:12Yeah, Stone Fruit has some really delicious gluten-free pastries that I love. But I have yet to find, there's like gluten-free bakeries that do great like baguettes, breads, and things like that. And then there are some that do baked goods, but I don't really have one that I love that does both. And I would say that I love to bake myself and as like an exercise in moderation, sometimes the name of the game is like, okay, you want a cookie, bake it. And if you don't have time, there you go. You are your favorite bakery. Exactly. But I will throw out my favorite pastry chef in the city right now would definitely be Kamari Mick, who just does such genius, delicious, like inspired things at every turn.

42:51The Kamari Mick fan club runs deep. I mean, absolutely. Her stuff is so good. So good. And just so thoughtful. Like there have been a couple of like dinners and things that she's been a part of where it's sort of curious. I mean, obviously everything that she does is But there's just some, you know, there's something really beautiful about the way she approaches what she does and then the flavor. Because sometimes you can have, like, the idea is really great. And then it's like, OK, this is interesting. But it's like, no, no, this is just exquisite all around. Yeah, it's also good. I'll link to her Taste podcast episode in the show notes.

43:20Yeah, it's wonderful. If I don't know if it's listening, it's a good one. Awesome. OK, well, you said one favorite Bed-Stuy place. But if you want to shout out, like, one of your favorite businesses in Bed-Stuy.

43:31Shipwrecked Seafood is really awesome. And Joey, who owns it, is a delight and has been super supportive and offering advice and so forth to us. And he always has great fish and great stories. So that's one I love. Yeah. And two places that popped to mind for me. One is Brooklyn Blend, which is like right around the corner from my house. And I was so excited when they opened. And their Fulton Street smoothie, which is like a blueberry, peanut butter, banana with like a touch of cinnamon. Like, just very, very good. And then also Bedvine. They have Bedvine Brew, which is where we did our very first pop-up.

44:06That was just such an important part of us realizing, like, oh, this works out in the world. After we've been sort of, you know, hiding behind our computers and, like, trying to do the thing for real. And between the wine shop and their bars and so forth, they've been just such wonderful partners along the journey. And what they've built with their businesses is really inspiring. Yeah, absolutely. Your favorite, like, late-night bodega snack? jalapeno potato chips. But only the ones that are properly spicy. Sometimes they're too sweet. It's like, this is not what I came here for. Maybe chips as well.

44:40Yeah, I think if I'm doing a late night bodega run, probably chips. What flavor? It doesn't vary. I'm partial to the kettle salt and pepper ones. Very good. I like barbecue chips. Okay, nice. But I would take all of these. Okay, my final question, which is when I ask all of my guests, but you guys are the people I'm most excited to hear the answer to is fictional food scene, like from a book or a movie that you wish you could eat in real life. Amazing. So I was thinking about you gave us a little you foreshadowed this question I was grateful for. And what my mind jumped to is this book called Masquerade by O.

45:16O. Sangoyomi. It came out, I want to say last year, maybe the year before. And it is it's set in the 15th century in West Africa, sort of present day Nigeria. and there is a particular feast scene where it's less like, you know, I want to sit at the table and more like I want to be a fly on the wall because it describes, like, all of this gorgeous food and then there's the pounded yam and there's, like, a cowpea in the yam that is then symbolic and has to do with how the young woman who's, like, from the blacksmith's guild and then has been, like, brought to, you know, marry the king and then, like, the weather and there's, like, a storm and, like, it's just the highest drama you could possibly have.

45:55and for like a feast scene in a book, that one stands out. So would love to witness that, even if I'm not at the table among the deep drama. It's epic. It's so epic. It's so epic. The thing that came to mind, there were two things actually that came to mind. One, there's a movie called Soul Food that came out in the 90s, mid 90s, late 90s. I was very young when it first came out, but it looms large in our family. Our mom's good friend's mom actually cooked all the food for the production. No way. And so I want to have been there. I don't know. It just seems like it would have been fun. And obviously the food and the Sunday meals are such an enormous part of the story.

46:38So that's one. The other one is from a poem by Nikki Giovanni called Knoxville, Tennessee. see. And the way I read the poem is that it's really about, yeah, summers with her family and what was growing in her father's garden and what she could eat. And it's a really short poem, but it's so transportive and beautiful. And it lived on my fridge for many years. So that is a place I'd like to go. Even if I was preparing the food, I would like to be there. I would like to be there with both of you. And I'm so excited to read all of these recommendations and to come to BEM when it's open in real life.

47:15We can't wait to have you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you so much. This was really fun.

47:25Eliza, what is up? How are you? I'm good, Matt. How are you? I'm great. Let's talk about three things. Yeah. Do you want to go first? You go first. Okay. My first thing is I wanted to tell you a little bit about the pop-up that Cake Scene did with our friends See You Soon at Rodora recently. Love to hear that. We've talked about See You Soon on the show before. Yes. They were cooking in New York last spring, and I got to go to one of their pop-ups at Gem Wine. I guess the backstory is that this is a culinary collective. They're based in Toronto, but they cook all around the world. And when Cake Scene was doing an event for our fourth issue, which was our cookie issue in London at Orange Wine Bar, I guess December 2023, which feels forever ago, they were doing a residency at this wine bar.

48:08So we got to try their food and it was just so good that we kind of struck up this friendship and been wanting to do an event together and then finally got to do this dinner at Rodora for two nights. It was so much fun. I got to like not be on the line, but stand very close to the line, which is kind of maybe my comfort zone. When you're close to the line and you're seeing service and you're hosting, what are you learning? What are you seeing? Well, I got to watch my friend Diane, who is a producer for Cakezine and just works as a producer in general, do Expo for the two nights, which was really fun, which was not something she had done before either.

48:42But she did work as a server at Momofuku Co. back in the day. And we just kind of needed someone to be doing that role. So I love standing, you know, across from her and hearing her do like three filet of fish all day. Like, those are the tickets coming in. And I was running plates with the staff and just kind of chatting with people and hosting. Do you have a service background? I know you worked at coffee. You've worked in coffee, right? Yeah, I worked as a barista at a cafe. So that did involve, you know, taking orders, making food, bringing it out to people, busing, like kind of full service.

49:14But I've never worked at like a fine dining, more of like a formal restaurant. but you know we were in such good hands Redora hosts pop-ups all the time and our friends Mikey and Kevin who were doing the savory and then Tanya also who's doing dessert like they all have restaurant experience so for them it was no big deal and I just got to eat a lot of really delicious things now Redora has been the home of so many pop-ups I feel like a year of Redora would be an amazing story just to go through all I mean what's up with Redora I don't know the owners I don't know anything about it So I think it's the Oberon Restaurant Group.

49:50They have June in Cobble Hill, the wine bar, and some other projects as well. And Rodora is interesting because outdoor dining is about to start again in New York. So I think actually April 1st, which is today that we're talking, is when all of the parklets are going to start again. And Rodora literally doubles their outdoor space when they do that. So they were kind of staffing up in preparation for that. But typically their food menu is pretty pared down. So to do like, you know, 10 dishes, 12 dishes a night is kind of more of the pop-up arena. But I wanted to say maybe like two of my favorite things that I had.

50:23Everything was so good. I think on the savory side, the filet exo fish, which is a fried fish sandwich with exo sauce on top, is kind of one of the signatures that CU Soon does. I had it the first time I ever tried their food. And we did it again for this pop-up because it was a bread-themed pop-up tied to our issue. They made the XO sauce themselves in Canada, flew it over the border with them, which I didn't even know you could do. You probably can, actually, but that's OK. Yeah. I mean, if anyone's listening to this, maybe don't come for us on that point. It was in the checked luggage. And it was super just as good as I remembered.

50:55We did snow pea tips with dandan noodle sauce and puffed buckwheat. That was really seasonal and fun. The sweet bread sandwich that's in the issue. And then savory, Tanya did this crazy dessert that's a she called it caramelized toast. It's basically a big raft of brioche that she kind of butter fries in the oven and then served with coconut creme anglaise, raspberry jam, a little bit of basil. Very much like French toast, but like make it dessert. So that's my first thing was the pop up. It was so exciting. I checked on the gram. It looked like it was a smashing success. Congratulations. Thank you.

51:28My first thing is I'm sticking in Brooklyn. I got to head down to Breadivore. Have you heard of it before? It's a new bakery. It's a bread bakery. Yes, I've been wanting to go, but I haven't been. My friend Neil hit me to it. We walked down from his apartment and I was like, man, this is really exciting. The owner is Sisu Gao and Sisu worked at Per Se and the now Shutter Bouchon Bakery. And I walk in and you see so many bowls of sourdough and it's a real like it has two personalities. They do the bonisserie, laminated croissants, etc. I'll talk about those. And then they have all these breads and the sourdough comes in many different styles.

52:06You know, some with filled with seeds is a gruyere. There's a fig and walnut. And, you know, I like the space a lot. It's it's really doesn't feel like bakery, like high volume bakery. There's like a really nice front area you can sit in and you can sit in the window. There's plants there, but it is like a really high volume. They're doing great business. And I think the Vendicerie is like really, really top tier. They're doing flan, parmesan, these pull-apart brioche that I'm like didn't get to taste everything because that would be insane. But I'm just like looking at the case and it's a beautiful case.

52:39I think the big thing they have there are these egg cups, which is like a laminated dough with like an oozing egg, like custard flowing out of it with cheese. It's a savory cup. That was a big one. And they have this chive and cheese roll as well. I really like this place. I want to go back. Yeah, it's been on my list. I think any new bakery is something that is of great interest to me. And I'm glad you had a good visit. It was great. What's your next thing? My next thing, I guess I'll say in the baked goods realm, is that it's Girl Scout cookie season. Yes, it is. I've been seeing the Girl Scouts all around New York.

53:12And this past weekend, it was really gorgeous out and everybody was in the park. And I happened to buy some Girl Scout cookies on my way to the park. And I just think that Girl Scout cookies are a really good thing to bring to a picnic because everybody likes them. I don't think everybody feels the need to buy them, but I was a Girl Scout. So whenever I see the Girl Scouts, I feel this urge to go and support. And I also think that Tagalongs are the most perfect Girl Scout cookie. And I'm curious what your favorite is. I mean, I still ride with Thin Mints because it's iconic. I really like mint.

53:43I'm a York guy. I just love a good York. I got to give it to a friend of mine who grew up in Cuba and had never had Girl Scout cookies before. and watching his face as he ate like a kind of melty chocolate peanut butter tag along in the park was such a fun moment. Such a great picnic. You're right. A box is always going to make people happy. Yes. And also like thin mints, I think a lot of people like to freeze them. So maybe that's not as good. You're giving a face. Do you not do that? I don't. And I know the instinct to freeze them, but it dulls the chocolate. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not I'm not really riding the thin mint train.

54:20So that's a lot of interest to me. But I think that Tagalong is a cookie that is improved by sitting out in the sun for a bit. Samoas. Let's talk about those. Oh, yeah. Those are the caramel coconut ones. Coconut caramel. Really, really nice texture. It's like a very unique texture because it has that hard like sugar crust on it. Yes. And then you bite in. And of course, I mean, why am I explaining Samoas? I think people have had them pretty much. I think honestly, Girl Scout Cookie Sandwich, two Samoas with a kind of melty Tagalong in the middle. Yeah. I like your style. Three for one. I will say I also encouraged a friend of mine to wrap a tagalong in prosciutto at the picnic, which she insisted was good.

54:58I did not. I kind of was jokingly suggesting it and then she ate it and said it was good, but I didn't like actually try it myself. The P &P sandwich sounds like it'd be something like in a cool deli, like prosciutto and peanut butter. I don't know about it as a cookie. Look, if you're listening and you want to let me know how it goes for you, I'm very interested. Funny enough, you mentioned Girl Scouts. Is this okay with you? I arrive at our office and we've got like, you know, 10 floors for Penguin Random House here. And I'd seen somebody very smartly had laminated a card with a QR code for their child's Girl Scout cookies.

55:35So it was like, you know, support the Girl Scouts. Click this QR. And I assume this person went to like literally every kitchen area in the building. Yeah. Is that like cheating? Because I know there's like definitely pride if you're in your troop. You want to be the one who sells the most. Can you do like the QR code in your large office? Is that fair? Oh, yeah. The Girl Scouts are like super online these days. I feel like I see all kinds of links floating around that's like support this troop that, you know, has a certain life experience or they're going through something. That I like. The gay Girl Scouts, like all of that.

56:08I feel like people are just trying to get those orders however they can. And I like to just stumble across them because I think they're very smart in terms of it's nice out. They'll be by the park. They'll be by the library. But I think whoever you can get the cookies, you get the cookies. No, it's a great organization. I'm so down with it. What's your next thing? My next thing is I want to give my thoughts on the Grading Carter memoir, When the Going Was Good, an editor's adventure during the last golden age of magazines. What a great title. I'll get your thoughts on Condé Nast because you worked there.

56:37Your face is amazing. I did not work at Condé during the Graden Carter era. Great lead-in. Great lead-in because it's very true and anyone who observes media knows that the magazine industry as it was known in the 80s and 90s is no longer there. And certainly the budgets weren't there. And that's an economic issue with advertising and these pages of these magazines were filled with ads. And what I like about this memoir is many things. and I've read the Carter memoir and the Keith McNally back to back. They're both good. This one I would say is unquestionably better because of the way the story unfolds.

57:17There's less, it's very tight. It's a very, like the VF Diaries that Tina Brown wrote, it has a really good pace and it felt like it was obviously written by an editor because it was edited really well. You know, Gradyen's stories is interesting. He grew a very humble background in Canada. He worked on the railroad. There's a great section about his early life, you know, digging ditches. He started a publication or worked at a publication and brought it to great regard called The Canadian Review. And it became, you know, one of Canada's bestselling publications. And it was very literary and very of the moment.

57:50It goes on to work at Time magazine during a very flush era, you know, an era when you have assistants and you can fly anywhere in the world on assignment. And great, like, you know, pictures and portraits of the Time magazine era. Then he, of course, launches Spy, which I think for the spy heads out there, this will be really great material to read because it talks about really how small that magazine was and how really it wasn't like a crazy party like a lot of people thought. It was actually very buttoned up. And I don't want to spoil too much of this book. I'm just going over some highlights for me.

58:25But I think it really, really gets good when he goes to the New York Observer for a few years, really makes that publication what it is or what it was in the 90s. And then lands at Vanity Fair in 1992, where he served as editor until 2017. This is like the heart of the book. This is like the journalism stories. He talks about the staff lovingly when they when they need love. And of course, he has some staff members who he did not love and who ended up writing about him. ha, Toby Young, remember that name, very funny. But ultimately we hear about a journalist who is extremely dedicated to a magazine and this style of magazine, high production values, floors of staff, I would think he probably had a full floor at that point, the way the art team and the editorial team worked together and were very, very, very staffed.

59:15A cool part that I did not expect was this book serves as a small portrait of Cy Newhouse, who was the legendary family member who ran Condé Nast and was the one who called all the shots and was a media figure in his own right at the era and learning about Psy in this way and kind of Psy's quirky behavior, but really Graydon is beloved to this gentleman and as he should be. Psy let him create, I would say, the generation's greatest magazine in many ways. Debatable, I'm sure, But my father was a religious Vanity Fair reader for decades and just, you know, loved the publication for its mix of city life, culture, gossip, politics, all the columnists, Wolcott, Hitchens, like all the people that we know.

1:00:09Of course, Dominic Dunn became very famous in the pages of Vanity Fair. And then he talks about the downfall, which, you know, is not full of too much gossip. He does not like Anna Wintour. That is obvious. And you can read specifically his relationship with Anna Wintour, who still runs Condé Nast today as a creative director. And then he, you know, he fades off into the sunset and he talks about Air Mail, which is a really nice read right now. I subscribe and I really like it. So my takeaway is that this is a really good journalism story. It's a story about New York in the 70s and 80s. It's a story about going out to dinner.

1:00:45It's a story about a guy who ended up creating restaurants and still today runs Waverly Inn and still does the seating chart to this day every day, meaning he looks at the reservation book and gives everyone the right seats, which I think is great. There's a lot of food in the book. He's not a home cook. He's not doing elaborate meals. But he goes to De Silvano, like that famous West Village overpriced. I went a couple of times. Did not understand it. Very expensive. but he would go there three times a week. So just like hearing about somebody who goes to a restaurant with his family, he's got multiple, many kids, three times a week, that kind of regular is wild to me.

1:01:25It's wild. Yeah, you know, I think I would be disappointed if Graydon Carter was a home cook. I think the point of his job is to go out and see and be seen and have a pulse on New York. And I think especially in that era of the three martini lunch and the big expense account and schmoozing all of your writers, like you don't really have time to be. cooking dinner at home for people. That's kind of like not what the Vanity Fair editor job was about. No, he's very adamant. And I think some critics have said that maybe this is a little embellished that he was home for dinner with his family and had a balanced life.

1:01:55But I don't imagine how you could have a balanced life with all the travel and with all the parties and all the social engagements. I believe him, though. You know, why would he why would he embellish that? That's my question. For you, Eliza, you know, working at Condé Nast, did you get a sense and You obviously answer as you see fit, but did you feel any of this legacy while you were there, this Grading Carter era of Vanity Fair? Yeah, absolutely. I started there in 2017, so I think it was right around when he was leaving, and it was before Radhika Jones stepped in as the new editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair.

1:02:27So I remember her appointment and that being kind of a big day in the Tower and people talking about that. And I think that Condé, like many media brands, many companies, is about the legacy of what they've built, and that's how they are. such a name brand, no name. I think the other thing about Cy Newhouse and Condé that I think about is, you know, obviously we talk about the money that was there with advertisers, but it also was the kind of length of rope that the Newhouse family gave Graydon and all the other editor-in-chiefs to build their own publications. I don't remember where I read this, but someone once, I think, compared it to different like fiefdoms or like nation states in ancient Rome, almost like the fact that all of these publications were kind of given money and then he would let them do whatever they want with it.

1:03:10They would maybe be fighting for resources or for big name writers, but he very much like gave them a lot of leeway to build what they wanted and to kind of invest in these brands. And I think that as somebody who's in media today, I think a lot of us feel maybe like jealous that we like didn't get to be existing in that era of money and power and the magazine editor at that status. But I think what maybe you can learn from that is the fact that these media companies were being run by people who loved media and who trusted editors to make those decisions. Love that sentiment, Eliza. I fully agree.

1:03:42And I think the journalist and the writer is at the heart of this story. And I think Graydon takes great lengths to pay tribute to his writers and his staff. And he's, you know, gives extreme praise to many names by name, talks about specific stories and talks about how, you know, it really does start with the reporter and the writer and granted yeah there is some jealousy i mean to be able to go and report a story for literally a year and like having dozens of writers on contract and that's when we talk about contract we're talking about in you know 1998 like 125 150 000 to write one to two articles and that's like you know double that now uh think about that it's like your job is to write two articles a year plus an expense account that allows you to live in cities i mean tells great stories of writers staying in Cuba or Eastern Europe or, you know, in Afghanistan for a month, for two months.

1:04:38And he's like casually. And I believe all this. You know, some memoirs I don't believe because embellishing is only hurting your legacy and it'll be obviously a fact check. But I think there's no reason to lie. You literally could send somebody and like, oh, yeah, stay an extra couple months to work on the story. But it comes back to the journalism. Like all the stories that were broken in Vanity Fair goes over a lot of major scoops of the magazine had. And it's a testament to the guy was sitting at his kitchen counter in his office editing every morning, arrived at the office between 6 and 6.30 a.m.

1:05:10every single day before the meeting started. And he was deep in manuscripts, deep in copy, working on pages. And I think that's what a good magazine editor does. You have to work like extraordinarily hard to make the magazine good. Yeah, absolutely. I'm really excited to read this book. I'm glad that you're giving your review. I think you'll like it. I really do. I mean, there's like jealousy moments, but it really, Condé is a complex place. It's a special place, though. And it's American history. The publications that come out of the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue, I can name them all. They're all important in different levels to this day.

1:05:45And it was nice to hear this kind of really personal story. Definitely. What's your last thing? My last thing is not as like weighty as important as that. But I had a really good long lunch at Wu's Wonton King in Chinatown. Nice. On Sunday. This is important. It is important. I have some thoughts. Okay, let's go. So we were sending off our visiting chef friends who were in town and what way to do that than a 14 person table at Wu's Wonton King, which I didn't even realize they could fit that many people at one of those tables. But really the service there is like they are so unflappable. Like you want to add more people to the table?

1:06:25No problem. And we just had a great long lunch feast. Some of my favorites that I hadn't had before that I really enjoyed on this round. They do a fried salt and pepper anchovy, almost like little French fries that you can just snack on and pop the fish in your mouth. Super fun. I think about Mediterranean, like Greek style, Italian style like that. Exactly that. They call it like silverfish or anchovy. I think like either one would get you there. The razor clams I really enjoyed. Also this like saucy salt and pepper duck grilled. I don't normally eat duck in that kind of way, but I thought it was so good.

1:07:02And then, of course, all the other, you know, dim sum situation, Har Gao, Shaolong Bao, etc. I just think it's such a perfect group restaurant. And everyone else that was there was eating with their family or with their friends, having a nice time. Also, I got to witness like the most incredible form of lunch theater, which was the server piling all of our bowls into one bowl and then carrying that one bowl away with one hand. Like, I don't know how this was possible, the way that he kind of stacked these plates in like overlapping circles spiraling in. But the whole table stopped to watch and then applauded as he left because it was just such an incredible example of somebody who's so good at their job.

1:07:41I love that image of this gentleman walking away with like palming bowls. I have a video I can show you. And I was dining with mostly restaurant industry people and everybody was just rapt attentive watching this happen. My initial thought, I'm so happy the food is as good as it used to be. And I've been going there for many years. And it's, you know, it's become a cultural fixture of like that Dime Square area, right? Of Chinatown Dime Square. Yeah, yeah, it definitely has been. I think partially because they allow big groups in that kind of way. Also, BYO wine, which I think a lot of people who want to bring in like fun bottles, that's a nice way to do it.

1:08:19No quirkage? You can just bring it? No quirkage fee. You just bring it. They have beer there. That's the drinking situation. But also the food is just so good. Food is great. And that's what's bottom line. And I'm really, really like to go back there. I haven't been there in many years. So this is a great report. Well, we've been talking about doing like a Manhattan Chinatown crawl. So maybe that's where we ended if we have room. I was truly so full after this meal that it was my only meal of the day. We're going to have to strategize and we're going to have to bring a bunch of people. That's what's going to be key about this episode that we're going to work on.

1:08:50We have to bring a crew with us, maybe popping in here and there and do a full day and visit. Many of the spots you've brought up, you're there much more than myself, but I've always loved that neighborhood. We're going to do it. We've said it twice on the show already. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. And my last thing is brief. The studio. Have you seen it yet? The show on HBO? The one that we're currently sitting in? Oh, yeah. The studio that we're in. Have you been there or are you on your body now? The studio, I saw a trailer for, is it a movie that's coming out? No, it's a TV show.

1:09:20I'm glad you don't know much about it. It's really good. It stars Seth Rogen as a studio executive who's thrust into this role. It's a comedy. Star-studded. Yeah, there's a lot of cameos. And I like the tone of it. I think I'm not like the biggest Seth Rogen actor fan, but I really like the tone of the show. Catherine Han plays an incredible head of marketing of a studio. And you can only imagine what a head of a marketing of a major studio is in caricature format. And she's one of our best actors around. Greta Lee, Sarah Pauly, Martin Scorsese, star or guest star in one of the episodes. I'm just giving it a major plug because I'm not sure if it's getting watched.

1:09:59It's only two episodes in as of this recording. I just love the vibe and kind of this dynamic of major corporations owning studios, a studio executive who is fired, who has a great legacy. And then this new upstart played by Seth Rogen and how, you know, the pressures is very Birdman. Right. It's very Safdie Brothers in terms of tension and filmmaking for the show. but it's like a movie within a TV show within a movie on sets and a lot of actors and behind the scenes. Really cool. Like the show a lot. I'm excited. I saw a trailer for it and I didn't realize it was already out. I'm about to finish White Lotus.

1:10:39I'm waiting for The Last of Us to come back. Boo to what? White Lotus season is terrible. Oh, I just disagree. Wow. Okay. We can leave it at that. I mean, I'm just not loving the season. We'll circle back after the finale. We should. Yeah, that's true. There are so many things that I think are fun about this season. It's fun. It's great. It's great. But man, the first two were so good. It's a high bar and it hasn't quite reached that. We'll circle back on this because I think I have kind of like short term memory. Like I don't even really remember how much I liked the first season compared to this one.

1:11:09But I do think there are so many fun dynamics and like karmic moments that are happening in this season. And I'm just ready to see it through. Well, thanks for sharing your three things, Eliza. You too.

1:11:24This is Taste is hosted and produced by Matt Rodbard and me, Eliza Abarbanel. 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.