706: The Secret History of the Bagel with Laurel Kratochvila 

33:05and yet it keeps some of the old ways of speaking that disappeared in France, right? And I don't know if that analogy works exactly, but it's very traditional here. The Polish bakeries look so much like the very classic Polish bakeries, whereas a lot of what's happening in the Polish baking scene right now is super contemporary. It's a big return to local flowers, super good ingredients. One thing that is very nice about Polish baking is that seasonality, regardless of if you're a traditional bakery or the new style bakery, is always a thing because fruit is such an important part of Polish baking.

34:01and I always say you don't need a calendar to know what time of year it is in a Polish bakery. You just have to look, what's the fruit that's being stuffed into a yeasted bun at this moment? Is it plums? Is it apricots? Is it blueberries? Is it strawberries? And then you know. So I do think they all share this seasonality, but what you find in America is very, very classic traditional Polish bakery. Old school. I mean, I think of the kolachki. Oh, well, the kolachki, that's a very interesting thing. So the kolachki, for anyone who doesn't know, It's this folded cookie with either plum filling or an apricot filling.

34:53And they're made often around Christmas, especially around Chicago. But in Poland, these aren't called kolaczki. It's a cookie you can find. Absolutely. It's there. But it's not really such a thing. Whereas if you speak to people with Polish roots in America, the first thing they'll go to is kolachki. And I think they're not even called kolachki in Poland. Someone was telling me they're just called like rożki or something, just sort of this kind of tubular cookie. So really, I love that as an example of something that became really big here that, eh, take or leave in Poland. Your point before is really interesting that in America, these traditions are being preserved and it's this old school mentality air quotes there.

35:48And it's really it's something that we should prize these Polish communities in our towns at Chicago Greenpoint as many others to really taste these pastries that maybe aren't being preserved in the motherland. I mean, it's a total treasure what exists like in Greenpoint. Oh, my God. It's the best. It's the best. What I will say is these pastries are in Poland for sure. Yeah.

36:22But to have such – I know everybody hates the word authentic. But to have such truly Polish bakeries here, I mean, that's one of the wonderful things about America, right? That you have these perfect pockets of different food traditions. And yeah, the Polish bakeries here are killer. I love it. It inspires me to go out to Greenpoint and not just have donuts. Yes. Which, I mean, come on, we love the donuts there, but go to a Polish bakery. Is there one that comes to mind that we should go to in Greenpoint? I really like Sirena. Yeah. They've got everything, you know, not just the cakes. They also have the breads and the cookies and the yeast buns and the cheesecakes.

37:14Like the, I mean, Polish cheesecakes is a thing of beauty. Yeah, and you have a couple in your book, more than a couple probably. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's hard because if, you know, if we all had infinite pages, I could put 10 Polish cheesecake recipes in there. But I just had to stick to the most popular ones. I have to ask you, I mean, I hate asking some pub day, but what's the next project? Because I feel like you're built for this, Laurel. You really are. I mean, these books that you've made are really impressive. And I think you have only scratched the surface in this category. Well, thank you for saying that, first of all.

37:57I guess, I mean, my agent will kill me for saying this, but I did just finish a novel. I'm a storyteller, I think. But next up, I'm not sure. I'm exploring a little bit. Perfectly okay answer. Yeah. If anyone lets me write another cookbook, I am doing it because I love it. You obviously love what it shows on the page. Before we get to Taste Check, I want to ask you about running a business in Berlin. What's it like in Berlin on the bagel scene? Because we obviously in America can't get enough of bagels and just the fascination and the way they drive crowds in every city. Is it similar in Germany?

38:46That's a very good question. So my place, it's called Fine Bagels, and we've been there for about 14 years. And there were some bagels, but they're always, they're either not boiled or they're really fluffy or they're made with milk, like weird things like that. Ouch. And I, when I opened it, I wanted to do bagels the way I like bagels and just forget the fact that nobody necessarily needs what I demand from a bagel. But then it turned out that people did and they wanted that taste that they've had in New York and what have you. And yeah, if you build it, they will come. Yeah, yeah. So people line up for them.

39:37I hope they always do. It's a good business, you're saying. It's a good business. We keep it classic. We respect the process. Long overnight fermentation, boil it, bake it hot, use the right ingredients. And all hand-shaped. I never want to scale it. I think that'll take the quality and the charm away. I love that you're hand shaping. That's rare. Really rare. Well, so just from a technical point of view, if you use one of these bagel shaping machines, it's very hard to get proper bulk fermentation, which for any bread nerds out there, they don't know what that means. And it changes the quality and the texture, and you genuinely get a better product with hand shaping.

40:31And this is Taste We Asked, our brother, discerning taste. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid fire, fast and furious taste check. Are you ready? Okay, I'm ready. The best fruit? The best fruit is a watermelon. Wow, I love that. It rarely comes up. Really? I ate 17 kilos of watermelon in one week this summer. Good for you. I love that. The worst vegetable? Summer squash. Yeah. It's like a gross zucchini. Agree. What is your typical breakfast? Like five cups of black coffee. No breakfast outside of that. It gets me going. Classic chef talk right there. Classic chef talk. Big one, the best dessert.

41:11The best dessert is a Charleston chew. Into that? Jeez. Unexpected, but tell me why. The texture, that fake vanilla taste. Yes. The way the chocolate just flakes off. and it's kind of waxy. I don't know. Can you get them in Germany? No, you can't. Yeah, I figured. So I covet those. I make people bring them to me. That's part of why. And this all makes sense now. A restaurant you wish you could bring back from the dead? I think Stage, East Village. Good pierogies. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, my God. That's amazing. Your memories are flashing back for me. Just an on-theme answer for you. Yeah, no, it's really good.

42:02When you're craving fast food, where are you going? Taco Bell. Oh, yeah? Yeah. I know they're not real tacos, but... Oh, they're real tacos in my book. Stop. I love Taco Bell. Big fan. And you got to eat them in a car, kind of like a ferret. I don't know. Is this in the U.S. only or in Germany? There is no Taco Bell in Germany. And so when I come back to America, my best friend will take me, we'll go through the drive-thru, and we will eat the tacos. And it's a sacred experience. I am behind that fully. Your favorite city in the world to visit for food? Sometimes I say Warsaw, actually. I think it's one of the sleeper best food cities in Europe.

42:55but lately the place that I do go for food specifically is Vicenza, Italy. There is a restaurant there run by my friend Roberto. It's called Oca Bianca. He used to run a restaurant in Berlin. He closed it. It broke my heart. He has this one dish there. It's biggoli with a white goose ragu and it is the best thing I've ever eaten in my life. and I go to Vicenza like twice a year just to eat Roberto's Bicoli. What a great tradition. Twice a year for the ragu. Sometimes more. Yeah. I mean, it's a nice little short little ride, train ride or plane ride from Berlin to get to Italy. Yeah, Europe is small.

43:39Europe is amazing. Last one, your favorite sandwich. Oh, my favorite sandwich is a clam roll. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's some New England for you. It makes sense. Yeah. Laurel, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for joining This Is Taste. Thank you, Matt.

44:03Hi 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. That's the This Is Taste listener survey, link in our show notes. Today's episode is brought to you by ButcherBox.

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45:11There 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. For 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.

46:00Visit 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 eliza and clayton we are here doing a special end of year chat about fiction i i'm just like we don't do this a lot the three of us on mic together how do you clayton how do you feel about this usually behind the boards oh i feel great about it very excited to be brought out into the spotlight i would say out of all of the many topics that we have discussed making as an offshoot podcast, fiction definitely is at the top and also makes the most sense for us today.

46:42So I'm very excited. I love it. You're so right. We all love fiction and we read it for pleasure. We read it for work sometimes. Here at Penguin Random House, we obviously publish fiction, but Crown Publishing Group where we're kind of taste as part of, has a very ambitious fiction program. So I actually have one crown author on the list. So I think the best way to do this is we each have selected five books. That kind of is the top of our year-end list. I think we've read more than five books, I imagine. Liza, how many have you? What's your number right now? I'm at 40 books for the year. You're 40?

47:21Yeah. I don't keep track. You don't keep track? I don't keep track. You definitely have read the most books this year. You have read the most, I bet. I don't know. I don't know. I honestly don't. Like, I just don't keep track. I wish I did, though, because that would make this easier, because then I would remember everything I read. You don't even do Goodreads? You don't just, like, put in Goodreads? No, I don't. I have a color-coded spreadsheet, which is something that Bettina Machelental posted about on Instagram. Yes, she has. Which inspired me, which made it very easy for me to pick my selections, because I write down all of the books, and then I color-code them based on how much I enjoy them.

47:52And you have tabs for each year, so you can look back. Yes, and I have read the most books this year in the past three years that I've been tracking. Why so? This is shameful, but it's because I got an e-reader, so it just makes it a lot easier. Shameful. E-readers are great. They're not sexy. They're not like, no one has ever like, I saw you reading your e-reader and had to ask what it's about, you know? Like, I think there's something about holding a physical book that I romanticize. But especially when I was traveling, it was easier to, you know, carry a lot of books. I like that. Is it a Kindle or is it one of the other ones?

48:21It's like, it's a Kindle. Kindle. Yeah. A refurbished green Kindle. How many books have you read this year? I've read 23, mostly nonfiction, actually. On the fiction side, last year I read way more fiction. This year I read a lot of memoir because of this show. Yeah. I think I read like six or seven memoirs for prep, and most of them were great. I still think the Juniper in the food memoir realm is my favorite, and Laurie Wolver's memoir is a close second for me. But McNally's is not on my list at the end. I didn't really like that book. Wow. I just didn't. I felt like he's a really proficient writer and tells a great story, but it was, for me, it just didn't, it didn't connect at all.

49:11And there was like some shit in there that was very suspicious, I would say, in the way that like Keith Richards' life is very suspicious. So you'd say it's closer to fiction maybe? Perhaps. Okay. Anyways, we're not here to like talk about Keith McNally. Yeah, let's get into the fiction. Let's get into the fiction. Why don't you start, Clayton? First book. We did this last year. Yeah. You and I. Eliza was not. Just because Eliza, I think you were on a trip. I was out of town. You were out of town, yeah. And Matt gave me a lot of guff for not reading any books that were in the 21st century. That's right.

49:44So my first book is Breaking and Entering by Joy Williams, which was released in 1988. You're getting closer. Never change, Clayton. Yeah, never change. So it's sniffing the 21st century. So Joy Williams, an author that I had heard about, never really read anything by them, and then was like, pick this book up because it has an all-time great cover, fully 80s. I mean, Eliza's seen it because I let her borrow this book. Yes. And the characters are so interesting without being quirky, which I think that's like one of my main things that I don't like about books and not to be negative to start. But, you know, quippy and quirky are sort of things that I try to avoid in my fiction.

50:27And this is just unorthodox characters being their unorthodox selves. And Joy Williams, I was like, where have you been my whole life? I just went and bought all the rest of the books. She currently has a new book that just came out this past month, which is short stories. She's more known for short stories, really. It's called The Pelican Child. We publish it here in this beautiful building of ours. And so I also have that one because I found it on the take shelf. Oh, yeah. Those take shelves are beautiful. But Breaking and Entering is about two young, freshly married sort of drifters who just go around Florida and make themselves at home at people's vacation homes.

51:13And they meet various characters. And it's just, yeah, it doesn't have much plot, but it has a lot of interesting takes on, you know, the way people live their lives and the way people waste. And, you know, even though it was 1988, I think things have changed, but things have stayed the same in a lot of ways. So I just think it's a really funny book, too, which is very hard to pull off. So Breaking, Entering, Joy Williams, that's my first. I like it. Liza, what's your first? My first book, I'm going to talk about a new release just to start with the end of year. I really enjoyed Lonely Crowds, which is the debut novel from Stephanie Wambugu.

51:53I think similarly to what Clayton is saying, the style of the writing is the thing that like will easily hook me the most. And I think that this is just such a beautiful and accurate depiction of friendship, specifically between two young women as they're growing up. The two protagonists are Ruth and Maria, and they're growing up. They meet because they're the only two Black girls at this Catholic school in suburban Rhode Island. And then they kind of are followed as they become college students and then adults trying to make it in the art scene in New York in the 90s. And they have this kind of infatuation with each other that ebbs and evolves and flows.

52:30And I think that the writing and their friendship is just really relatable and the dialogue is really witty and smart. I think dialogue can easily be the thing that takes me the most out of the story is being kind of put on. All of this just felt like it kind of breathed. I read that review recently, and I thought I should pick it up. Yeah, it's great. And also the next issue of Cake Zine that we're releasing next year has a bunch of flash fiction, and Stephanie is writing one of the pieces. So I solicited her because I loved this book so much. So I'm excited about that. My first book is also new.

53:06It's Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley. I had Holly on the show maybe six months ago to talk about this book. And for some of the books that we've already had on the show, I'm not going to go too detailed. But this book spoke to me squarely because I grew up in the generation that she's speaking about, which is the early 2000s music blog era. I was writing about music at the time, and I felt a connection to this character, Percy Marks, who is at Berkeley and is writing about music, but not a musician and befriends a singer-songwriter and helps him write a song that becomes pretty successful. And it's a multi-generational story or multi-year.

53:48It's over 20 years. And I just think it's a really nice way to connect with a lot of music of the era, the way that she brings in real-life songs. And I think she really has a knack for writing about music in the voice of Percy. and the book has been optioned for A24 for a film. So I believe they're starting filming too. So it's not just on paper. So it's called Deep Cuts. Clayton, your next pick. My next book is a book that was released by McNally Editions. So the bookstore McNally Jackson has their own imprint where they will republish a lot of books that have fallen out of print. And this is one that I read around Halloween, and it's called Stainless by Todd Grimson.

54:37And it originally came out in 1996. And it's a vampire book. It's about a rock star, so sort of connected to your last one, who damages his hands and he falls into this relationship with this female vampire and they live in this mansion together. and it's been called sort of a slacker vampire novel. So as soon as I saw that on the back, I was like, well, I got to read this. The thing about this book is that it also is not super plotty. It does end up having some sort of plot to it, which is not my favorite part of it. Otherwise, just his life and her life and then the author sort of mixes POVs from a bunch of different characters because there's also another vampire that's super evil that does some really disturbing, terrible stuff.

55:30So I would say if you have a weak stomach, don't read this book because it goes from being very chill to being very not chill in a lot of sections. But it was just a book that stayed with me. It almost didn't make my five. And then I was like, but it really did. I thought about it a lot afterwards. So I feel like that means something. So, yeah, I would recommend it, but not for the, you know, somebody who has a weak stomach. What are the fits in 1996 for these vampire musician rock stars? Like, what are you looking at? Well, he's not a vampire. He's just her helper and lover. You know, it's pretty much just like, it's not wearing like leather pants or anything like that.

56:16No, like skids? Yeah, he's wearing skids. They have slap bracelets. Slap bracelets. They play pogs a lot. But Eliza is shaking your head. Well, I mean, you're losing me a little. But they don't play Pogs. They don't play Pogs. When you said like Rockstar, all you needed to say was Rockstar Vampire book. And I was sold. So I can't wait to read this one. Yeah. Eliza, what's your next one? My next book, I'm going to shout out Babel by R.F. Kwong, which was originally published in 2022. But I really love this year. It's speculative fiction that's set at Oxford in the 1830s in a world where there's magical powers that are derived from when you try to translate something between two different words.

57:00And the kind of intangible thing that's lost in translation is what creates this magical power. And this in turn is driving Britain's whole global economic and colonial supremacy in this period of time. They basically inscribe two words in different languages on a set of silver bars. And then this intangible thing therefore creates a magical power that that silver bar has. And it's specifically about a linguistics wing at the School of Oxford, which they call Babel. And it's following this kind of cohort of students who come from what is like Hong Kong at the time and India and a couple other places.

57:39And they're kind of trying to find their place. And I really was a kid who loved kind of sci-fi and historical fiction and speculative fiction. And I think as an adult, it's a genre I don't read that much of. So I really enjoyed kind of getting back into that with this book. And I think also because I'm interested in languages and studying languages, this kind of magical component really kind of scratched an itch for me as well. So that's Babel by Arv Kwong. I love that. Wow. It's hard to explain. The two bars. I know I got a little heady, but I think once you start to read it and you see some examples, it kind of makes more sense.

58:14Great. What's your next thing, Matt? My next book is – it was published in 2003. It's called The Waitress Was New by Dominique Fabre. In translation, Dominique is – I think Dominique is still alive. I have to double-check that. But I picked up this book in Canada from a recommendation from a bookseller. I love this book because it's set in a bar, restaurant, cafe in France. You could kind of slash, you know, very much a multipurpose dining space. But I love it. It's an internal monologue over the course of three days. And it really, for me, it really captures the life of a bartender working anonymously in the restaurant industry.

59:02And to me, a lot of fiction in the food world or even film and television, it can get to be a little bit exaggerated and caricature. And rarely do you kind of get to a place where you're like, it's like shifts. We're talking about shifts. We're talking about talking to strangers. We're talking about serving absinthe and cappuccinos in the morning. It's a really tender story. I like the way the narrator gets into the heads of the owners which I thought was a really it's a unique dynamic very French there are mistresses involved and you know there is no resolution spoiler it felt very much like the kind of book that I want like a novella sized book I don't need it to be summed up I just want to like hear about this guy's story so it's called The Waitress Was New by Dominique Fabre that's a good book I mean I read it you let me You gave me a copy of it.

59:56It's very good. Right. You read it. Yeah. I really liked it a lot. Archipelago. Yeah. Archipelago did it. Yeah. I published it. Translation. Right. Speaking of translation. So my next book is a book called Blue Light Hours by Bruna Dantes Lobato. I'm hopefully saying that name right. They're a Brazilian translator and they've won the National Book Award in 2023 for translation. But this is their first novel. And it is a novel about a young woman who moves to the U.S. from Brazil. And it's her communicating with her mom, who still is in Brazil, through screens, so through their laptop and things like that.

1:00:43And it's very short. It's really sweet. It's like I read it. I read it really late at night and read the whole thing in one sitting. And it was incredibly touching. It's about, you know, anytime you go to a new place, you move to a new city, whether it's, you know, somebody who's moving to just a different city in America or, you know, somewhere else across the globe. You have that sort of connection now through technology, but it's just not the same. And I do think it shows how we live now. And the language is so beautiful and well chosen because of her day job, which is translating. And I just think it was really touching.

1:01:30It was one of my favorite, obviously, favorite books of the year. And I just think about it a lot, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. That one sitting that you read till dawn. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was a perfect time to read. It was like I read it till like two in the morning. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Yeah, it's a very beautiful book. What's your next one, Liza? My next book is called Martyr. It's by the Iranian-American poet Kaveh Akbar. It's his debut novel that was released last year that I finally got around to reading. And this was something that I saw a lot of people recommending and really enjoying, which made me want to pick it up in the first place.

1:02:04And I guess I will join that chorus in saying I think the prose is so beautiful as a book written by a poet would be. And also just the kind of storytelling that happens. It's following this young man named Cyrus who's growing up in the Midwest who is kind of obsessed with the idea of death, mostly because his mother was killed in a fictional version of the real-life incident of this 1988 Iran-era flight, which was shot down by the U.S. Navy carrying a bunch of civilians. And he kind of is shaped by that and goes on this whole journey to try to understand death and martyrdom and life by extension where he comes to New York to meet with this performance artist who is in her last performance dying in the Brooklyn Museum.

1:02:49Wow. And I know that sounds really heavy, but I think there is kind of like a lightness and a wonderment and a beauty in this book. And there are a lot of threads of the story that kind of intersect and tie together in unexpected ways. I think some of the books we're talking about today maybe are a little light on the plot and more on the kind of dialogue or those kind of other elements. But I think this book really balances both. And it ends in a place that I just would not have expected it to start from, but I think makes a lot of sense. What's your next book? My next book is a book that I've spoken about and I spoke with the author.

1:03:23It's called I Leave It Up To You by Jinwoo Chong. To me, this book did something very difficult. It told the story of a restaurant family while keeping the plot intact. It felt like it was a natural fit to have a story about a guy who wakes up from a coma in 2021, having gone into the coma in 2019. And we know what happens in the world between 2019 and 2021. So there's some explaining that's needed when he wakes up. but it follows his life and his shifts working at the restaurant in Fort Lee that his family runs. And it's a really sweet story about this family coming together and overcoming some really bad things in their past.

1:04:10And there's kind of a side plot about TikTok and social video influencers that I thought was handled really well. and I loved my conversation with Jin Woo. It was cool to meet him. So I leave it up to you. Great. Clayton, you're up. Yeah, and I do want to just say for my last one, Blue Light Hours was from 2024. So I should be celebrated for being in the 21st century. You are, right. Damn. Yeah, but my next one is even more recent. It came out this year. Wow, new. And it is a book called Sky Daddy by Kate Folk. And it is about a young woman who is sexually attracted to planes. And I know that sounds like it is a funny idea for a book, and it is, but it is really, really well-written, very, very compassionate about the main character.

1:05:08I had not read any Kate Folk before. She had done a short story collection in 2022 called Out There. And this book is pretty long, but it flies by. I did not mean to make that a pun, but it does. It zips by. And it's laugh out loud. Like I rarely laugh when I read books. And the way she writes the main character and the way the main character thinks is just really funny. But it's not mocking. And I think there's a lot of characters in here that do bad things. They might not be likable characters. But there's always some sort of compassion you feel for them. Yeah, I was really, really. this book, this book made me laugh, but also, you know, everybody who is dated in this day and age has dealt with like how hard it is to find somebody who sort of understands you.

1:06:07And this is one of those things where, you know, being in love with planes and trying to explain that to people is very difficult. But I think you can put that onto the other things that you, you know, when you're out in the dating scene, trying to be like, who would ever love me for this or that or whatever. I think it's a very relatable thing. And it's also hilarious. So Sky Daddy. Sky Daddy. Recommend highly. Shout out to Ping and Random House for publishing Sky Daddy. I was going to say, yeah, that's right in here. Do they get into like some of the, like are they into the plane porn, like the A380 versus the 777 wide body?

1:06:43Oh yeah. Stuff like that. Matt, do you have something to tell us? That was a lot of plane information. I mean, I enjoy a good flight tracker. 24. I do look to the heavens for the aircrafts and the equipment flying above me. Matt, I see you and I understand you. You understand me now. I can't wait to read this book so I can understand. I really love anything dealing with planes. I do enjoy it. Yeah. That's a great, great rec. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to talk about Butter by Asako Yuzuki as my fourth book, which was published in Japanese in 2017, but the English translation was released last year. I think I mentioned this on a three things.

1:07:28You did. Because it is a food-related book in that it is about a woman who's a journalist at a men's magazine in Tokyo who's trying to cultivate her big break by getting interviews with this woman who has been accused of tricking and potentially murdering her ex-boyfriends by seducing them with food. Wow. And the way this journalist decides to cultivate this relationship in hopes of getting this career-defining interview is by seeking out all of the food that this woman can no longer eat but is deeply craving because she is currently in prison. And the first food thing that she seeks out or is told to seek out is to get this one very good French butter and to eat it with warm rice and a drizzle of soy sauce.

1:08:09And the way that that is written in the book, just immediately I had to go make it for myself. And I think that there are a lot of really kind of fun and unusual food writing moments in this book and it kind of sent me on a saga of reading a lot of Japanese translation. So I think this is a good way to get into that. And that is butter. I remember that book and this butter, rice, and soy sauce combination is, I love that. I mean, there's something so simple and perfect about that. There's a lot, there's a great like griddled mochi interlude that I could think about right now, et cetera. Griddle Butter Mochi.

1:08:46Yeah. My next book is Kaplan's Plot by Jason Diamond. Jason's a writer of taste and a friend of the show. And really, this is a debut novel, and I was just really blown away by it. I think it's one of my favorites of many years because it's a story of a family in Chicago. It's a multi-generational story. It's a little bit of Boardwalk Empire gangster. It's a little bit of modern day tech billionaire bad deeds. I mean, there's some really interesting subplots here. But the core of the story is Yitz, Elijah, and Eve. Yitz is Eve's father. Elijah is the son of Eve. And it's their kind of intertwined stories about and how Eve's, you know, being on her deathbed and kind of having some revelations and some things to share with Elijah takes us back to the 20s in Chicago.

1:09:46And Jason does a really superb job of bringing to life the Jewish, you know, the shtetl of Maxwell Street in this important period in Chicago history. I particularly like his writing of the kind of the genesis of the Chicago hot dog and we talked about it on our interview and our conversation and he kind of writes his own narrative of what how that came to be and how you know anyone who knows the Chicago hot dog knows that you do not put ketchup on that hot dog so it's a fun little part of the book but I love this book it should be picked up by listeners because I think there's a lot of great food imagery in there and it's just great great fiction so Nice.

1:10:27Your last one, Clayton. My last one is a book that I probably talked to everybody who's come into my circle at some point this year is The Wall by Marlene Haushofer, which it was originally published in 1963. It got republished in 2022 by New Direction Publishing, which they do a bunch of great stuff. And it was a book that was sitting on my shelf for years. I bought it when it first got re-released. I sort of had tried to read it, and then I put it back down, put it back down. And then for some reason, I picked it up off my shelf, and I just immediately got immersed in it. And it's one of those books that sort of ruins you for other books a little bit after for a couple weeks.

1:11:19I mean, that's one of the bad things for me about finding a book that I just really love and become so enmeshed in, is that I know I'm going to start so many books afterwards and just put them down because they won't compete, at least not in the mind frame that I'm in now. But this book is about a woman who goes to visit some friends in a cabin and she wakes up one day and she's covered, or at least there's a wall where she can't get out of and it covers a certain area. now uh you know Stephen King did a book called Under the Dome a while ago got made into a TV show all that stuff this is really nothing like that because this is just one person and um some animals and it devastated me this is a book that by the end of it I was I just couldn't shake it and I still can't shake it.

1:12:17And yeah, they made it into a movie in 2012, which I really hesitate to watch because I just don't think it could compare. Maybe it's a masterpiece. I don't know. But yeah, this is a book that I genuinely love and I would recommend for anybody, really. This is the book that I'm going to read next. Such a recommendation. Yeah, I've been wanting to read it because Clayton and I talk about books together a lot. And my fifth book is one that I thought Clayton was going to mention, so I saved it for last, which is the Calculation of Volume series by Solveig Baye. Is that how you pronounce it? It's close.

1:12:52You're better at that than I am. Well, I really just—I'm sure a lot of people listening have heard about this book series because it's become a sensation, so I don't want to overstate it. But it's a seven-novel series, six of which are out in Danish, three of which are out in English. The first was released in English last year, and they released two this year. And they are diary-like entries written from the perspective of a woman who wakes up one day and realizes that she is stuck in a time loop on November 18th. And she goes to great lengths and also does nothing. The way in which she has to figure out what is happening to her and the way in which her world both contracts and also expands, I think, is really special.

1:13:37And, you know, I wouldn't recommend reading, you know, three books so far about a single day if I didn't think they were just exceptionally written and done. And I have to thank Clayton for giving me two of the three books that have been out so far. We just read the third one recently. And immediately I texted Clayton because I and the next day, thank God, we were recording and I was able to come in and discuss it at length with you. But I think it is just such an accomplishment. Did I speak about it? OK, do you want to add anything? Oh, no. I mean, I think one of the reasons I didn't put it here is because I thought you might.

1:14:10So I thought that one of us would talk about it. I had a backup one in case you mentioned it. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, I think it's one of those things where it's like still evolving this story. And I think what's really fun about it is reading it with other people. in the sense that they're very, they have give you so much to discuss. And I think that's great because, you know, when you read a book in isolation, I know for me, I just want to talk to somebody about it at some point. And the fact that I think this has become a popular series and people are speculating about it makes it even more fun.

1:14:45And I do think it's good quality writing and, you know, what's being left out is being filled in by the people talking about it, which I think is like really, really fun. Yeah, I mean, it's about sustainability and consumption and community and isolation and the time-space continuum, all of these things. And there's still time to get into it because we are all waiting for the next four to come out. In the translation, but they've been written, so we know. She is writing the last one right now in Danish, so there is no resolved ending to the series. And I will say at one point in time this year, Clayton was on his Duolingo game because he was going to learn Danish to read this series.

1:15:25So I don't know if you want to share any Danish with us. Oh, I'm not. Well, I'm not doing Duolingo anymore because of certain, you know, I've heard they were using AI. So I was like, yeah. Oh, yeah. We don't have to give them any love. But I think any translation that will drive people to try to read the source material is a book worth reading. Yes. I feel like you need to join this club. Yeah, it's not too late, Matt. It's not too late, and I can share this conversation with you. Oh, they're super short books, too, so you can definitely catch up. I think I'm going to do this. Catch up before April.

1:15:58That's when the fourth one comes out. April, so they have a release date for the final one. Well, that's for the fourth one. In English. In English. Got it. It's like Breaking Bad. It's like binging Breaking Bad before the finale. I don't know if you did that. I think it would definitely take you less time because each book is maybe 200 pages or something. Oh, it's easy. Not so thick. What's your last book? My last book is the second book in a trilogy by Colson Whitehead. It's called Crook's Crook Manifesto. Read it at the beginning of this year with hopes that the third book would be released in 2025.

1:16:30No news. No news from the Colson Whitehead camp. But I just think there's no living writer I appreciate more than Colson Whitehead. And a reminder, he's the author of books like The Underground Railroad and Nickel Boys, historical fiction. and books that are really kind of stylistically different from this pretty hardcore crime series that involves heists and cons and slow games. I like this one in particular because it's set in Harlem in 1971, 73, and 76. So you see a little bit of Harlem's kind of progression through an interesting period in history. And if you love old New York stories, and you're in that crime genre and you're into bodies turning up on the beach, this is the kind of book that I would recommend.

1:17:25Crook Manifesto. Cool. I'm so excited. I have so many books to read now going into the holidays. Definitely. I love these when we talk about fiction on three things or when we have our recap. We should do a summer reading. 15 things. Something like that. Yeah. Love talking with you guys. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thank you.

1:17:48This 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. Episode portraits by Louise Zergon Pomeroy. Logo design by Ellie Skirzat and Ian Dingham. 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.