683: 500 Cakes, 500 Stories with Dorie Greenspan

27:20And so, you know, now as we look back and we think about these chefs, you could almost make a family tree. Yeah. Maybe we should. And see who trained with them and where we are now. Because I think their influences, I mean, well, Jean-Georges and Danielle are still working like mad. Yeah. But I think their influences are really felt. What was it like profiling all these boys being a woman in that late 80s? Did you have to kind of earn your keep a little bit? So I was very lucky because, yes, yeah, of course. I mean, the first time I went to ask for a job, I had great – so this was 82. I had great recommendations.

28:03and I went to the chef, as I was told to, and told him exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to work for free. I just wanted the experience. And he said, I'm looking for a boy. There really weren't women in the kitchen then. But I could speak French. And I knew stuff about being in the kitchen. My French wasn't beautiful, But it was enough that these guys could speak to me in French and I could – I think of it as translating their recipes so that – Yeah, and then they saw your work and they were like, wow, this woman can really distill all this crazy back-of-house information into an actual publishable article.

28:50It was a very exciting time and the best training I could have gotten. Yeah, and like, you know, Dory, you go from writing magazine articles to writing cookbooks. You write a cookbook with Julia Child. I did. Hermé and Danielle. You write these books. And I want to just go back and talk about this collaboration process before we have all these tools. Because I think about this a lot, writing my own books. Like we lean into like Google Docs a lot. We lean into Wikipedia. Now AI is in the mix. And back before all of that, before online, you are doing way more work to write these. You know, it's funny.

29:32I never thought about it like that. And of course, I didn't then because who could have imagined that, you know, we would be on Google all the time or we would have it in our pockets. You know, I got I checked the other day to see when I got email. I had email early because my husband was a software guy. But I know we used email. I remember being on the phone endlessly. But I was also there, there in a way that I think a lot of people don't get the opportunity to be anymore because it's so easy to be sending images back and forth, to be making Google Docs and sharing things. Yeah, I mean, the collaboration, being there, having a notepad, writing it down, if that's the way you were trained, that's the way you know.

30:25I'm a pencil and paper girl. You're a pencil and paper girl. Still to this day. And if that's the way you know, that's the way you know. But it's just so much easier to have a shared drive with your collaborators and group editing and comments. And you can be in two different places. Look what I missed. What's it like with Julia, you know, collaborating with her, you know, later in her life? What's that project like? That was a dream project. So I went to – we worked together with Jeff Drummond, who is the producer, to think about – so it was a television show. It was a PBS show. It was 26 bread bakers and pastry chefs.

31:01We worked together to decide who the chefs would be. I made an outline of what I thought the chef should be teaching. I wanted the book to be a teaching book. And Julia was a teacher. She was a brilliant teacher. And so we worked on that ahead of time. I was there for the filming. We didn't tape. We filmed, right? This is 94, 95. Yeah, Jeffrey's a real legend and his work is still to this day, you know, incredible. And set the stage for, yeah, so much more. And then I kissed Julia goodbye at the wrap party, and I said, I'll start sending you things next week. She said, oh, no. I'm looking at your face.

31:54You look so surprised. I was shocked. I had always thought that we would really work together on this. And she said, oh, no. Go home and write your book. which was both thrilling and just talking about it, now my heart is pumping. I was so nervous. I was so anxious. I was so tense. But I ended up writing the book. She read it in galley. Yeah. Wow. Talk about trust. That's trust. Talk about trust. She was amazing. And then we talked to one another every morning for the rest of her life. She was so smart. She was so funny. She was just curious about everything in the world. And she loved, loved, loved food and cooking.

32:44Yeah, it's obvious. And honestly, it seems like the trust was formed on set when you're meeting her. And clearly you have an aptitude that she clearly linked up with right away. Thank you. And maybe, but boy, was I nervous. Yeah. I mean, what's it like then, you know, your cookbook career? It starts within this kind of collaboration mode before going out on your own. Like, give me a sense of the collaborations with the French guys. Like, what's it like? Are you in their kitchens every day seeing them bake? So the two would have been – I'm laughing because they were so different – Daniel Boulud and Pierre Hermé.

33:26So with Danielle, he was breaking down the Danielle to make it Café Blue. And we were writing the Café Blue cookbook. And this was, wow, what a fact. I'm seeing it all now. He said, we have two weeks to do all of the recipes. And I said, we don't even have a list of recipes. Oh, my gosh. And he said, we'll do it. And he called back. It was August. and the kitchen was intact, but the restaurant was undergoing total renovation. He said, I'll get my team back and we'll make these recipes. And so we were 18 people, including Danielle, in the kitchen. I wasn't cooking. He made nine teams of two and he said, okay, today you do a tagine.

34:17You do a stuffed lamb neck. You're going to do liver. and everybody cooked and I went racing around. Between each station, taking notes furiously. Right, to get the recipes. We all tasted together. It was fabulous and it had such a good feel because these were chefs who were always on the line, working hard, had customers out there, clients had Danielle saying, and this was a true collaboration and an opportunity to really cook with Danielle. Wow. Pierre, we did it long distance. We spent about three weeks together talking about recipes. And then I went back to America and made them. It's a great model to do it both ways.

35:02You're making me think like this spontaneous pop-up book project model. That sounds really cool. You know, we never used the word pop-up back then, but yeah, that explains it. Yeah, bring all the chefs in. It was really exciting. Wow. Well, let's talk about cakes a little bit more. I want to hear your, like, broad take on when you're going through the recipe list before you start writing the book. I mean, cakes, Dori. It's a very big topic. Okay, so I'm laughing because I, for one book, I think for Baking from My Home to Yours, I had a recipe list. No one, no one should write cookbooks or develop recipes the way I do.

35:48It is so haphazard. I kind of don't know that I have a book until it's a little bit before deadline and I look and think, oh, baked a book. But sure, I had some ideas. What I knew was that I wanted the cakes to be as simple as possible. And, you know, I wrote a book that was just cookies. And after I got the contract, I thought, you know, what have I gotten myself into? Can I really make so many cookies? And I found that the constraints of working on a single subject actually made it easier to have a trillion ideas. And it was like that with cakes. Once I said I wanted the cakes to be simple, I wanted not to depend on frostings and fillings and, you know, frou-frou to make the cake good.

36:39I wanted it to be the ingredients, the texture, the form, the shape. Then I started working. And as I said to you, as I started working, I was so surprised by the memories of cake that came back that that's what really, you know, piqued my interest and said, bake this cake. What's the day like in your test kitchen? My test kitchen. In Paris or in Connecticut or New York, like when you're writing these recipes. Are you – I mean because I love talking to, you know, pastry cookbook authors because, you know, on the savory side, we can, you know, knock out eight recipes a day. It's a little different when you're – I don't think I've ever done two in a day.

37:24So that's the situation here. I'm sure of it. I've never done two recipes in a day. That could be me and I'm slow, but no, no. The best day in my kitchen when I'm developing is when I know what I'm going to do. Yeah. It's when, like the night before, I get all set up and I can do a mise en place, which I really believe in. I came to it late, but you can't bake without one. So all the ingredients are out and ready. I've cleared my counter. I have my notebook. I use little, you know, graph notebooks. And I'm ready to work. And I wake up in the morning and I'm thinking about it all night. And I wake up in the morning and I work on it.

38:12And if it's good, that's the perfect day. But often, so my desk is in my kitchen. I do all of my development really in Connecticut. And if I do some stuff in Paris, then, of course, it comes back to America to be tested. But my desk is in my kitchen. And sometimes I'll be working and I'll think, oh, got an idea. Oh. And I can just jump up. And that's kind of the joy of working at home in your kitchen. Yeah, yeah. And it feels like you're obviously writing for the home kitchen, so you're not writing in a stainless steel test kitchen. And that's really good. I mean, there's so many recipes to cover in the book.

38:51I love the way that you break it up by form. You know, bunt, you've got minis, you've got loaves. I mean, it's a smart way to do it. I mean, are you – how are you thinking about distributing evenly as you're writing this? So I didn't want that to be the organization. I wanted something cute and clever. Yeah. And I thought, well, maybe it would be all chocolate or maybe it would be occasional. And in the end, shape really was the best way. And you know what? The chapters aren't even. Okay. Yeah. I thought about it. I tried. I put the names down on – I tried to cheat to even something out. But, nope, they're not even.

39:34No, I mean, and that's cool. And it didn't feel imbalanced to me. Good. But, like, the organization makes perfect sense to me too. Thank you because I couldn't think of anything else. The cutest I got was cake with corners. Yeah, I love that. That's a good way to put that. Cake with corners was good. A few recipes to go over. I mean, there's so many to talk about. So the apple custard cake, you know, intriguing. This custard texture that you can, that you write about is something that I think we all as home bakers kind of covet. It's such a good cake. So that cake, around my French table, 2010, my friend Marie-Hélène, Parisian friend, made an apple cake that she served at the end of dinner that I fell madly in love with.

40:25And when I asked her for the recipe, she looked at me like, recipe? You know, we don't have – you know, made it opif and she pointed to her nose. And she made it with apples that were windfall from her country house in Normandy. So romantic. But no recipe. I finally got the cake and was amazed by it. She had told me that it was more apple than it was batter. And that cake just holds together. And it's been a favorite cake forever. And I was thinking about that cake and thinking, could I make it in a loaf? And so the apple custard cake is a loaf cake. I had Mary Ellen's apple cake in my brain when I made it.

41:12And I just think it is such a beautiful cake. It's just when you cut it, you get like striations. You get like the very, very thinly sliced apples and then that custard and the top of it is dark brown. And I made it and I was thrilled and I sent it off to be tested and it tested, you know, it was great. And then I discovered that I had rediscovered an invisible cake. There's actually a group of cakes called invisible cakes because the ingredients kind of blend into the batter. Makes sense. And so I made an Apple invisible cake. That's amazing. Well, you mentioned the tester. You worked with the same tester on many of your projects.

41:53I mean, how does that play that back and forth? I think you write in the book and your acknowledgments how, you know, your tester, you guys think like each other now at this point. Yes. Yes. I mean, we've been together. We started to work together in 2011. So how long is that? A while. Yeah. And we use Google Docs. There you go. Without the Google Docs, you'd be on the phone going over changes, and that's different. Well, we're on the phone a lot. We're emailing back and forth, but yeah. I love that. Another cake I want to talk about, this yogurt and berry cake. You mentioned how you have to test it over and over and over again.

42:33What was the complexity there? It wasn't so much the testing. So this cake is based on an old recipe, old to me but older to French people. When I moved to Paris, which is now like 20 years ago, people started like they would make cakes and they would all be the same. They would be the yogurt cake. And this is – French people in general are not like project bakers the way we Americans are. We have so many great shops. So many great shops. Why would you do it at home? And there's also a feeling that, well, if people are coming, you buy something fancy. So the yogurt cake is really a family cake.

43:14Yeah. And I used to make it with almond flour. Okay. And then I thought, simple, simple, simple, we'll make it with all purpose. And I always made it plain. Sometimes instead I would use olive oil. Sometimes I would put something in it. And making it with berries was, it wasn't hard. It was what would it be like? You know how berries, if you use red berries, they leave a little ring. Yeah, it's like they bleed a little bit. They bleed a little bit. And I tried to make a cake that didn't bleed. And then I decided it's okay. Yeah. It's okay. But so there are recipes in the book that have little hearts next to them.

43:56And they're called a treasured favorite. And the berry yogurt is one of them. And so they're cakes that I've – some of them are new, but they're either cakes that have a longer backstory than others or more deeper memories or they're cakes that I've made for years that I tweaked. Yeah. And, you know, kind of played around with perfection. Another cake is the semolina chocolate cake with yogurt. I think semolina is a product that we know but maybe don't bake enough with. But you make a really great case for baking with semolina. So I had rarely baked with it. I think I used it in some biscotti because the texture that you get from semolina is so nice.

44:41And you get that little bit of, can we use the word coarseness and have it be positive? Right. Yeah. But, you know, there's a certain, like, there's a little roughness, a sandiness that I find so interesting. Yeah. And I made that cake after I'd come back from Italy. So I had that kind of flower in my head. But with chocolate, you don't – you can't really – you wouldn't know that there's semolina in there even if semolina were your best friend. But you get the texture. I love, Dory, how when reading the book, I'm learning about your life and learning about your tastes in restaurants and your friend circle.

45:23You know, there's the cake that you can make when you see your guests arriving down the road. I love that story. And then there's a cake that is a tribute to a favorite restaurant of yours in Paris. It's a Brazilian restaurant. I love that. So this is a – it was a cafe. I had never seen a cake like this before. Walked in, saw the cake on a cake stand, very plain, had it, and couldn't put my finger on anything about it. and spoke to the owner and she said, oh, this is a cake that's so common in Brazil. She sent me the recipe, which was amazingly kind of her, and it made no sense. You just like put a bunch of things including corn in the food process.

46:13Like canned corn. Canned corn, right. Yeah. Yeah, canned corn. Canned corn. And sweetened condensed milk, I think, right? And you press the – it was in a blender. You press the button and cake. And well, for a while, I pressed the button and got cake. And then I couldn't get it to work again. And so this was kind of a slight redo of it. But it's a fascinating cake. And then my friend Jaini, who comes from Brazil, gave me a carrot cake recipe. And you know what? You put all the ingredients in the blender and you press the button and you get cake. Yeah. Amazing to have that. But you know what's so exciting?

46:56I've been doing this for a long time. But there's always something new. There's always a new recipe, a new way of making something, a new way of thinking about something. I think that's what makes this so exciting. Yeah, and just like having a really curious mind when you're dining out and spotting that plain-looking cake on a pastry case. And having the nerve to ask people. Well, yeah. I mean, you do it in a polite way, I'm sure. Are you combing the streets of Paris for new ideas all the time? I mean, how could you not? It's less combing than being like knocked out by them. Yeah. I'm so lucky to live there.

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48:51As 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 love that you have a Greek portokalapita, and it's a cake that I got to see demoed in a culinary school in Athens when we were there on taste travels. I didn't get the exact recipe, so oh, thank you for having that. It uses, you know, phyllo dough that's been dried out, and it's kind of a syrup cake.

49:34It's kind of remarkable. Yes, yes. So I knew nothing about this cake. I was in Greece for the first time. We were staying in a little guest house in Sifnos, and as we were leaving, someone said, you have to taste this cake. And I loved it, didn't have a clue about it. and a friend of mine who spends a fair amount of time in Greece said, you know, you're writing a cake book. I have a recipe I think you might be interested in and it was this cake. And I had never made a cake where there's no flour in the cake. The phyllo dough makes the glue for the cake and you fold it like a fan. That's how I did it at least.

50:20And dry it in the oven and then crunch it and scrunch it. But it's – I go back to how exciting it is to be making food because – no, we learn all the time. Oh, no. I mean it's – and oranges is really the – And the oranges are boiled. It's the base of it. You boil the oranges in that Mediterranean style and make an orange syrup and you pour a very healthy amount over it. More than you think the cake can hold. and those oranges that you boil, you use all of them. Everything gets put into the cake. Yeah, it's an amazing cake and then it takes a while to set. It's like a long set, right? Like overnight perhaps.

51:04Baking is a game of patience. It really is. That's why I'm so bad at it. I mean, let's go there, Dory. You brought it up. I mean, I look at like, you know, I look at Nicola Lamb's book, which I love too. I love that book. I'm an amazing author and I look at David Leibowitz's books and, you know, there's – I can name many. You know, I look at – I'm just looking around the studio. I mean we've got Paula Velez's book. Yeah. You know, I look at these great baking books and I'm like, I can't do that. Well, you can. I can't do that. I just don't – You can. Really? You know, it's – well, I believe that baking is easier – home baking is easier than home cooking because – what?

51:43Because if you have a good baking recipe, all you have to do is follow it. I think cooking, I mean, there are judgment calls in baking, of course, but not many. In cooking, you're always, you know, tasting, cooking a little bit more. There's so much. I mean, time is what's savory. Like stove time, you have to get your timing right. And baking is a little easier with the timing because if you have a preset oven with the right temperature, your timing is a little bit more consistent. Matt, you can bake. You can bake. You can bake. I'm going to take that, Dory, and just channel it into my home kitchen.

52:22I think with baking, you have to want to bake. Yeah, you do. You know, baking is an extra. Baking is an extra. Even I admit that. Yeah, baking is an extra, you know. But can we survive without baked goods? No. I don't think so. Would we want to? Would we want to? No. Of course not. We wouldn't want to. Another recipe, and this is like, speaks to me in such a way, is your tribute to the York peppermint patty. my wife's favorite sweet thing in the world. Do you keep them in the freezer? We have in the past. You know, it can be a little bit of a problem. But when we lived in Brooklyn, we'd go to the bodega and just buy the big ones.

53:00You know, that was always a nice treat. But you decided to make a brownie using York. You know, I've always, I've never been able to bake with candy. Yeah. I just, I had it in my head. I wanted to make a Rocky Road cake. could never get those marshmallows. I just gave up. But I have a friend who adores peppermint patties. My whole family does actually. And so I had them in the freezer and I thought, let me give it a try. And it was so much fun. The brownie is great. But the pieces of peppermint patty, I chopped them up and I put them in the batter. And then I sat by the oven window and watched and they burble and they just come up to the top and they kind of break and they're wild.

53:49The whole thing seethes and moves. It is so much fun. And then it's delicious. It's chocolate and peppermint. Yeah, it's that icy, like kind of synthetic in the best possible way mint. It's perfect. I see. So I ended up calling them very cool brownies. They are very cool brownies. I have to do a follow-up and in tribute to our friend Anna Heasel, who did the last interview back way in the day. Have you ever baked with Reese's peanut butter cups, Reese's novelties, anything in the Reese's family, which extends? So I love peanut butter. I love Reese's peanut butter cups. I never have. I probably have, like, stuck one on top of a cupcake or something.

54:31I was just – I couldn't get the whole candy bake thing. Yeah. These brownies are good. The brownies are – maybe the code has been cracked, but would you take it on, a Reese's recipe? I could take that on. You'd take it on. Okay, what comes to mind right away? That way you – Well, so I'm thinking I might go to a cookie or I might stay with the cupcake. No, no. I have to think about this. I have to think about it. I think I could do something. So I certainly could do a peanut butter brownie. I think that might be the move, but in a similar style with the bubbling up. Let me think. You'd have to think about it.

55:08It seems from this book, it's cakes over cookies, right? I like cookies. I know you do. I like cookies. I like cakes. I kind of – so, yeah, I'm really in my cake moment. But here's what I think. I want everybody to bake. Even you, Matt. Even me. Because I think there's such pleasure, such satisfaction to be gotten from baking something and having something to share. I think these cakes are really doable. Oh, yeah. They're a good place to start if you're not a baker. I mean the bunt. Right? The bunt. Every bunt looks gorgeous. Every bunt looks gorgeous, Dorian. And I'm looking at it. It's a nice section of bunt cakes.

55:52I don't own a bunt pan. Your face. Matt. Your face. I'm sorry. You look mildly heartbroken. I could help you out. I have a huge collection. You have a huge collection. But I think cakes are so shareable. Cakes are so hello, come in, sit down, let's talk-able. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like they made that verb. I feel like we can talk about cakes like forever. I mean, cookies have a little bit of a limit. I could make a case for cookies, but cakes. I mean, I think when we think of occasions, when we think of being together with friends and family. Cake. I have to talk about design, too. Okay. I made some choices.

56:37This is an illustrated book. Yes, it is. It's very cool. Very unique way to do art for our programs. Very cool. So, Nancy Pappas did the illustrations. I met her in 2019 at a cherry bomb jubilee. Loved her. Loved her work. and thought one day, maybe, maybe, maybe I'll have a project that we can work on together. And when I decided that the cakes were going to be really simple, I wanted the design to be very graphic. I wanted the simplicity to be the draw. I didn't want it to be hidden by beautiful – I mean, I love photography and I've been really lucky to work with great photographers. But I wanted the cakes to be there, not with a stack of plates and beautiful flowers, as gorgeous as that is.

57:30I wanted the cakes front and center. And I think Nancy's illustrations just did it. Did you have to fight for that for your publisher? Was that a conversation or was it right away? I think it was my editor, Sarah Kwok, loved the illustration from the start. But it was a conversation because it's very unusual. It's not traditional. And the best way, I love books that push forward form. And I think it's a beautifully designed book. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm a big fan of the way that you are thinking about art direction with this book. Thank you. I'm so excited about the look of the book.

58:03Yeah, it's very, very, very cool. I guess, how do you look at your three kitchens, New York City, Connecticut, and Paris? I mean, I know you said you do most of your development in Connecticut, but you have these three kitchens. I do have three kitchens. Are you entertaining equally in all of them? So sadly, I'm hardly in New York anymore. I'm really between Connecticut and Paris. And you know, it's funny. Paris is a big city. I find it so easy to get people together in Paris, easier than in New York or in Connecticut. Hi, want to come to dinner tomorrow? Sure. It's just I don't know why people are just free or have more time.

58:45And so I do a lot of entertaining. A lot of friends in for simple dinners and cake. And my kitchen is tiny. I could, you know, like stand there, put out both arms and, you know, touch the walls. And it's not very deep either. But I love working in that kitchen. And I bake a lot there. Yeah. Before we get to taste check, I have to ask, 15 books in the can. What are you thinking about for future projects? I just, you clearly love this stuff. I love this stuff. And you have ideas. What can you say? I mean, I don't want to put you on the spot. But you did. I kind of did. Yeah, you're right. So I don't have – I have ideas.

59:34Nothing is set yet. You know, I write a substack XOXO drawer. I love doing that. So I'm going to keep doing that. But the way my mother's coffee pot perked. Yeah. Yeah, that little percolation. There's something going on up there, and I think it's Paris, but it's not set yet. I love your Substack, by the way. What's it been like on being in that world, the Substack world of it all? It's so nice. Yeah. You have a lot of fans, a lot of readers. I've got a lot of readers. They're so lovely. I love being in touch with them. It's a good community. It's a good community, and I love writing it. So you're writing it weekly?

1:00:16Weekly. Weekly. Weekly, yeah. Tuesday. So I decided to publish on Tuesday because Tuesday is book publishing day. Yeah. And there's a baking group that started in 2007, I think, called Tuesdays with Dory. They're still baking. They're going to be baking from Anytime Cakes. Oh, cool. And so Tuesday is the day it comes out because Tuesday seemed like the right day. It's a beautiful day to put on a sub stack. So do you connect with these Tuesdays with Dory? Yeah, sure. On Instagram now. It was a blog when we all started. So fun. Yeah. And now it's on Instagram and Facebook and yeah. Love that. Dorian, this is Taste.

1:00:55We asked guests about the discerning taste. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid fire, fast and furious taste check. Are you ready? Well, that was really fast. I can speak fast, but I can't think fast. All right. We will slow down a bit. The best fruit. So I'm going to say berries because I can bake with them. But I also like apples and I like oranges and I like bananas. You said a lot of fruits there. I'm sorry. You didn't expect one answer, did you? I didn't expect it. The worst vegetable. Maybe. I don't know. I love vegetables. Rutabaga. But it would be a shame to really call it the worst vegetable because it's so much fun to say.

1:01:30It's a great word, but it doesn't sound very good. What is your typical breakfast? I don't have breakfast. It seems to be a trend on this show. Getting so many of these answers, I don't do breakfast. I have coffee. And then I have what could have been breakfast, but I don't feel like it early in the morning. About 11 o 'clock, I have oatmeal with chili crisp. I love that move. That's a good one. It's a great late breakfast, getting you to the day of the savory. And chili crisp. Oh, yeah. Do you make your own? Do you have a product that you like? Fly by Jane. Great, great, great product. Great, great guys over there.

1:02:06All right. We ask everybody this, and you have to answer it. The best dessert. I have to answer it? Yeah, the best dessert. I knew this question was coming. Yeah. So I'm going to cheat a little bit. Best dessert is ice cream. Put on something good. Put on cake. A la mode. A la mode. A la mode is your best. Okay, you get a pass there. Thank you. A restaurant you wish you could bring back from the dead. So since I've been in kind of memory mode lately, the chock full of nuts, you didn't have it, I'm sure. I mean, it was gone by the time you got to New York. Yeah. But Chock Full of Nuts used to have these restaurants that had, they were just counters.

1:02:48You sat at the counter on a high stool and they made a Dayton nut bread sandwich that was so good. And it was the first place I ever went when I was allowed to take the subway by myself and go shopping in downtown Brooklyn and have lunch. Beautiful. Is there cream cheese in this sandwich? I'm imagining. Yeah. Yeah, lips are smacking. I mean, the memory of a date nut bread. If I taste, you know, I think if I tasted it now, it would still be good. I bet. Have you done any recipe memory lane for that? So there's a cake in the book that has dates and nuts. And it's my. And your tribute. My tribute.

1:03:33I love that memory. Yeah, before my time. Way before your time. Those counters, you know, legendary counters of different style of dining. You know, I love that. When you're craving fast food, where are you going? So, is this horrible? I don't crave fast food. I crave potato. I crave fast snacks. Does pizza count? Sure does. But pizza is so good and so well made. Pizza is not really fast food unless it's a fast food pizza chain. I don't have anything. That's okay. Sorry. Straight up pass. M &M's? No, pass. That's more of a package good. I think fair. Oh, wait. Can I come back and ask you? It's Taco Bell.

1:04:15Taco Bell. Probably. Or McDonald's. I've had McDonald's fries. You've had McDonald's fries. I have, yeah. You've never had anything else from McDonald's? I had chicken nuggets. I've never had a burger. That's fair. That's okay. We've had chicken nuggets. Yeah. Le Royale with cheese, they say. Paul Fiction, you know, funny. A dated reference. I guess you should maybe not do that if you don't want to go to that. Maybe because I don't know it, I don't crave it. Yeah, yeah, totally. Oh, look. Oh, you could start me down a path. I think so. Yeah, you could. Taco Bell, here I come. Yeah, I think you should.

1:04:50I mean, you've got to try Taco Bell in your life. Come on. Okay. Maybe once. I'll see. I'll answer your last two questions or whatever, and then I'm out of here to Taco Bell. Yeah, go to Taco Bell down here in Midtown. Yeah, it's good stuff. Your favorite city to visit for food? I don't know that I have one. Don't feel sorry for me. I don't get out much between Paris and New York. Yeah. But I've eaten really, really well in L.A. Yeah. I've loved the food in L.A. Love that. What's a memory? Give me one. Oh, pasta at Felix. Oh, yeah. Great spot. Yeah. That's a great call. Last one, your favorite sandwich.

1:05:27A tuna fish salad. Why do we say tuna fish? Can't we just say tuna? I don't know why we say that. It feels right. It feels right to say tuna fish. Tuna fish. I mean, ever since I was a kid, I said tuna fish salad sandwich. Yeah. But I want the tuna salad made by either my son or my husband because they use more mayonnaise than I do. Yeah, you don't want to know actually how much the right amount of mayonnaise is. And little Joshua cuts teensy, teensy tiny little squares of red pepper. Oh, I like that. And puts them into it. It's nice. Red pepper. Good move. I like that. What's the bread choice?

1:06:04I don't know. It should be white bread, but—and it's always white bread. But wouldn't it be nicer on brioche? I think a brioche makes many sandwiches nicer. I mean, for real? Yeah, for real. A beautiful brioche? Like, come on. Like, that richness. You want, like, that rich bite versus— And the way it toasts so that it's brown and crackly on the outside. but if you cut it thick enough, it's like soft and beautiful inside. Oh, maybe not Taco Bell. I think we're going to brioche after. We're going to go to a bakery. Dory Greenspan, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining This Is Taste.

1:06:43This has been so much fun. Thank you.

1:06:50This Is Taste is hosted and produced by Eliza Abarbanal 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.