758: Anna Hezel Killed the Dinner Party. Snacks Won.

10:53TASTE Hosts:Like once it's sort of like an everyday, every grocery trip sort of staple, it's there for a while.

11:00Anna Hezel:Well said. And I think obviously the protein maxing era has a lot to do with it too. And great source of protein and great, you know, you show in book, you can make so many things with tin fish, right?

11:11TASTE Hosts:Yeah.

11:12Anna Hezel:Have you been to Zinnias? I don't know if we ever asked you.

11:14TASTE Hosts:Yeah. I went a couple months ago in the fall. Oh, cool. It's so cool. She has an incredible collection of tins.

11:22Anna Hezel:It's so impressive.

11:24TASTE Hosts:Yeah, and it's really cute in there too. Like she had these beautiful vases on each of the little diner booths with like fresh dahlias or whatever little flower was in season. Maybe they were zinnias.

11:41Anna Hezel:Yeah, they probably were.

11:42TASTE Hosts:But it's a cool place. And the whole menu is like fried fish and sort of fish focused.

11:47Anna Hezel:Yeah, Amy Lawton is amazing. Amazing. Super underrated place. I want to keep talking about it because listeners should go up to Craryville and visit Zinnias.

11:57TASTE Hosts:Yeah, I didn't try the ice cream, did you?

11:59Anna Hezel:I've only been there during the winter months, actually. I've been there twice, and they were both during winter, so I've never actually had the ice cream. But I bet it's great.

12:06TASTE Hosts:Yeah, it looked good.

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14:14Anna Hezel:Clean, whole protein means better support for strength, metabolism, and that steady all-day energy we're all chasing. Every ButcherBox ships free and plans are fully customizable to fit your routine. As an exclusive offer, new listeners can get their choice of chicken breast or top sirloin for a year or ground beef for life, plus$20 off when you go to butcherbox.com slash taste. That's butcherbox.com slash taste. Don't forget to use our link so they know we sent you. Okay, party books. We got to talk about this. Big moment last fall. There were a number of books we talked about on the show. We had a number of those authors on.

14:57Anna Hezel:And as I said, I think that this book gives fresh energy to party book kind of ecosystem. And first off, why did you want to write about party food?

15:09TASTE Hosts:I love parties. I grew up having parties, hosting parties with my family. And so this was sort of a way of tapping into both like how I cook in my everyday life, which is like a very snack focused type of cooking and eating. And also just a way of celebrating those party foods. I noticed the recipes in Tinted Table that people really gravitated towards and cooked over and over again sort of involved little tricks where someone could open a nice tin of octopus, for instance, heat up some garlic and oil in a pan and turn that store-bought product into something that looked like a fancy restaurant dish that they would feel proud of.

16:02TASTE Hosts:serving guests. So I wanted to sort of like deliver on that promise with more recipes that aren't exclusively tin seafood because I know tin seafood isn't for everyone. And it also is hard to build an entire party menu just from tin seafood.

16:21Anna Hezel:Yeah. I mean, you show it in the book how expansive this universe can be and not just with savory, but with desserts. The intro is really funny. I love that you read a James Beard line about parties and it made you think. Gave you a little like, huh, explain.

16:41TASTE Hosts:Yeah, actually, I think I first came across that book when I was working on a taste sort of like themed week about canapes. Do you remember this?

16:50Anna Hezel:I recognize that when you wrote it. I was like, oh, yeah, that was when we were doing that taste. Yeah.

16:54TASTE Hosts:Yeah. At the time, it tastes like we were sort of celebrating the canapes because it seemed like a forgotten art. Everyone was moving in the direction of chips and dips for parties or cheese boards. And we just wanted to appreciate those little phyllo-covered cheeses and things. But yeah, James Beard has this cookbook of canapes and hors d 'oeuvres that's so fussy. He's like hollowing out little logs of cucumber and, like, stuffing it with crab salad and just spending, like, hours and hours architecting these perfect little bites. Yeah. So with party tricks, I wanted to kind of, like, push back on that model of entertaining and say, like, you can have a really fancy, impressive party without taking a melon baller and carving little wells in every single vegetable.

17:54Anna Hezel:Yeah, I think it's funny that he kind of shades in the writing about, like, you know, So some people think a party is a martini and a can of fish.

18:01TASTE Hosts:Right. You're like, what? That's like me?

18:04Anna Hezel:Yeah, that sounds fun. I love that line. And I think that addresses like the writing in the book is all you. And you're so talented. You have like a really fun and irreverent voice. And I think you really worked on the head notes. I enjoyed reading as much as cooking from this book. Let's talk a little bit about the recipes. You know, this list is cool. It's like, you know, salt and vinegar chips with creme fraiche and trout roe. There's anduja oyster crackers. There's a pistachio magic shell. I mean, these recipes, they have a very specific register. You know, they're like retro. Some of them are like high-minded and luxe and kind of deadpan like your vibe.

18:47Anna Hezel:And I mean, where does that sensibility come from?

18:49TASTE Hosts:I wanted to have a book that was sort of like the 2026 version of semi-homemade. Um, like having fun with store-bought ingredients in a way that's not sad, I guess. Yeah. Um, and it's like, it has some nods to like kid foods and kid snacks and like nostalgic things that my grandma served at parties. Um, and I wanted it to just sort of like hit all those notes of having a little bit of sense of humor and self-awareness, but also just things that taste really good and that you're really proud to serve to guests.

19:30Anna Hezel:I love it. I'm so happy you brought up semi-homemade, which I think there was an era when both of us were working in this world where it was shunned. You know, the idea that you wouldn't make everything from scratch seemed like pedestrian and lazy. You could throw a bunch of things. But the more, you know, our world evolves and more people are cooking, it seems like it has to be semi-homemade almost.

19:55TASTE Hosts:Yeah. And I think like the American grocery store has transformed so much since the sort of like semi-homemade of the 70s and 80s. There was like a bygone era where you would just add cream of mushroom soup to everything. And that was sort of like the previous generation's version of phone in it in. And now the grocery store, like we can get all of these like fancy imported ingredients, nice olive oils that weren't available 50 years ago, like things like charcuterie and cheeses, pickles, tin seafood. And so I think that's just changed so much since like since my grandma was having parties in the 60s and 70s.

20:42TASTE Hosts:And that's really like changed the way we cook. And I think it's, like, really made it more – I think it's made, like, our generation more accepting of the semi-homemade idea.

20:55Anna Hezel:Agree. And I think also just to add, like, CPG has improved so dramatically in the past decade where you can, like, make a couple things, but then you can also buy some spreads as well. And of high quality, of interesting flavors. And it's not just French onion dip and crudités, which – no shade.

21:13TASTE Hosts:Yeah, which is also great.

21:14Anna Hezel:Which is great, but, like, you can get hummus of many varieties and so many different spreads. So, I mean, how do you think about that, like, cooking through? Like, for a party, I think we all want it to be plentiful, right? We don't want our guests to ever feel like they're not getting enough. But it's a lot of pressure, right, when you're building your party plan and you have, you know, 10 people, 20 people coming over. You want to have, like, maybe 10 things. That's a lot of cooking. It can be a lot of cooking.

21:43TASTE Hosts:Yeah, it's true. I think like thinking in terms of I like to think of even sort of like an hors d 'oeuvre snacky party in terms of courses and having a few things out on the table the second people walk in. So like there's like a crunchy vegetable or like a bowl of chips for the person who walks in who's starving. and then pulling out like a few dishes along the way. Maybe you pull out a skillet of confit cherry tomatoes to dip bread into or like a skillet of spicy shrimp. Just as like a little like, here's a little surprise along the way.

22:22Anna Hezel:Love this so much. Why don't you talk more about it? So the idea of hosting a party is not to just show your cards right away. You want to like have movements and courses.

22:32TASTE Hosts:Yeah, I think so. And, you know, like you've had people over. Sometimes people show up like an hour after the party starts. And it's nice for there to be like a few things coming out of the oven or off the stovetop.

22:46Anna Hezel:Yeah, but not all at once. And it's cool because I think obviously when you host parties, a lot of people are crowding around the kitchen. So like, you know, having that reveal moment with all your friends around you is kind of fun too.

22:57TASTE Hosts:Yeah, totally. Yeah, but having like a few things out that are just like room temperature and that's fine. It takes the pressure off the host too.

23:06Anna Hezel:And then how do you think about having a sweet course and making it feel complete?

23:11TASTE Hosts:I think it depends so much on how complicated your savory things are. Like if you're doing a really complicated, impressive meal or like array of snacks, I think you can go simpler with the desserts. Like even just put out some chocolates on a plate or like break up a chocolate bar and put it out with some clementines or nice fruit. But if you're having like really, really simple semi-homemade snacks, I think you can get like a little more involved with the desserts. Like I have a recipe in Party Tricks for a plum granita that is really simple. Like you make it ahead of time. You have it ready to go in the freezer.

23:57TASTE Hosts:You serve it with just a spoonful of whipped cream and a little bit of caramel sauce. But, I mean, like serving it all at the right temperature takes a little bit of coordination. So I think like that's one that I would pull out if I were serving something really simple as the savory.

24:13Anna Hezel:Yeah. And I think you need some extra hands, too. Yeah. You need a little help. A little help. But I think this recipe brings up a great point. In the book, you write about when you're hosting a party, you can plan ahead. Obviously, like you can make the syrup for the granita like days ahead. You can have the caramel and the cream obviously portioned out and ready in your fridge. It seems like you're thinking about the practicality where you can like chip away at the prep list.

24:39TASTE Hosts:Definitely. Yeah. I'm a huge fan of just keeping chocolate chip cookies in balls in the freezer ready to throw on a baking sheet and bake. Like, I think that's, like, something everyone should have, whether you're having a party or not.

24:53Anna Hezel:You wrote about it on Taste. Yes. I mean, like, maybe, I just, like, no, that's, like, your identity in many ways. No, part of your identity. A small portion of your identity is always having cookie dough in the freezer.

25:04TASTE Hosts:Yes, totally. I mean, it's kind of like, you know, in college when you'd be at a party and someone at 2 in the morning would, like, order Domino's. And it would be so exciting because, like, this hot pizza would show up. It's kind of like if you pull a tray of hot cookies out of the oven at the end of the night, everyone's so excited.

25:25Anna Hezel:Such a nice gesture. And it shows planning. I think that the best hosts make it, obviously, it's like an effortless event. But also they show gratitude to their guests by doing things like having cookies at the end as opposed to just having that spread out there. And it sits limp for the whole party. And like, you know, listen, like some parties, you don't even need food. Like you just like have friends and conversation. Maybe not your parties, though. You're like, I don't know such parties. I want to talk a little bit about your pantry section. I think like we've worked on books together and like we've like probably had comments about the pantry section of cookbooks can be kind of dry and maybe uncreative.

26:09Anna Hezel:But yours is just the opposite. I love it. crazy point of view in like the best way. I think it's really smart. And I saw Seltzer is on there. I want to like talk about that because having like a requirement of Seltzer for a party seems like obvious, but some people just don't know how to use Seltzer.

26:28TASTE Hosts:Yeah, it's true. I just gave up my subscription after many years just out of practicality. But for the last five or six years, I was subscribed to Brooklyn Seltzer Boys, which is like this company that has the only existing, like the oldest seltzer factory in New York. And they would, once a month, someone would come with like a wooden crate of glass bottles of like siphons of seltzer. And it was just such a cool thing to always have in the fridge because seltzer can be like so many different drinks for non-drinkers. You know, like a glass of seltzer is nice, but also like you can mix in a really nice bottled citrus juice, which I've written about for taste before.

27:21TASTE Hosts:Or like a non-alcoholic aperitif of some kind. And then that feels like more of a fully formed cocktail. But also like for drinkers, you could like mix in some vermouth and that's a really delicious light cocktail that takes almost no time to make. It just, yeah, I have a recipe in Party Tricks for a sun gold shrub too.

27:45Anna Hezel:Yeah.

27:46TASTE Hosts:So like making your own shrubs or syrups is a fun thing you can do ahead of time too if you want to be a little fancy but still have like a drink that takes five seconds.

27:57Anna Hezel:It's a really cool recipe. Do you have like a preferred over-the-counter seltzer that's not like through your seltzer dealer?

28:06TASTE Hosts:Honestly, like Polar, I'm happy with like just big bottles of Polar if I have to get store-bought.

28:12Anna Hezel:Me too. I think Polar is great. That was like my answer as well. I think polar, at least with the, I think with the carbonation, obviously they do it right.

28:22TASTE Hosts:Yeah. It has like those kind of big satisfying bubbles.

28:26Anna Hezel:Big and satisfying. Topo, love Topo in certain moments, but too small and harsh.

28:31TASTE Hosts:Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah.

28:33Anna Hezel:Tell me about your Aunt Doris's cheese dreams.

28:37TASTE Hosts:When I was growing up for Christmas Eve, we would always go over to my great Aunt Doris and Uncle Bill's house for Christmas Eve. And Doris would always make these little cheese toasts that were like the size of Domino's. And I think she made them with like white bread and cheese whiz.

28:57Anna Hezel:So good.

28:58TASTE Hosts:And then they were just like toasted until they got crispy. And I loved them so much. And it turns out I was doing some research on this. It turns out there are a million old school recipes for this. Some that use like super processed cheeses of various kinds. Some that you just grate cheddar cheese or whatever cheese you want. Mix it with like a little bit of egg, maybe some Dijon mustard, some Worcestershire sauce, some butter. So the version of cheese dreams that's in Party Tricks is kind of my dream cheese dream. and you sort of spirit with a toothpick with a little cornichon which I think like balances really well like the toasty cheese with the little pickle flavor is really nice.

29:49Anna Hezel:So is it still domino size?

29:51TASTE Hosts:It's yeah it's pretty little

29:52Anna Hezel:pretty small like little finger little toasts.

29:55TASTE Hosts:Yeah.

29:55Anna Hezel:Love that. Another recipe that really caught my eye was the Caesar Ufmenes really smart had never seen that. I love this dish you know at like brasseries and just basically fancy deviled eggs. But you, you caesared it.

30:11TASTE Hosts:Yeah.

30:12Anna Hezel:And a nice word.

30:13TASTE Hosts:Yeah. Oof mayo is like, I got really obsessed with oof mayo a couple of years ago. And I wrote about like sort of the trend of oof mayo at New York restaurants for Grub Street. And it's kind of like, it's a kind of a gross dish to the American palate. It's just like mayo dumped over boiled eggs.

30:31Anna Hezel:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

30:32TASTE Hosts:But I realized like a lot of the really delicious versions ride on the mayo being so good. Like the mayo has like a little bit of grated garlic or a little bit of vinegar to sort of like pep it up a little. So that's sort of why I decided to go in a Caesar direction. Like really flavorful good mayo equals good oeuf mayo.

30:58Anna Hezel:And so like with Caesar, it feels less mayo forward, right? Like it's like if you don't want to eat like a lot of great mayo, which I mean, I can't imagine that world, frankly. But to Caesar, it is smart.

31:11TASTE Hosts:Yeah, because like Caesar dressing isn't as gross to people as just mayo, even though they are the same thing.

31:18Anna Hezel:They are the same thing in many ways, though, with like anchovies that could be grosser to some people. But Caesar somehow gets a pass and Mene's straight doesn't. But I love that. I love you split the difference there.

31:30TASTE Hosts:And I serve mine on like little small leaves of radicchio, which just makes it easier to like pick up one and eat it. And that's not like a whole messy thing.

31:41Anna Hezel:And that's the real party tricks, which I think is it really it's a strong promise and you deliver. It's like putting radicchio with this is a trick. Like maybe you haven't thought about that. And I love this book. Back to the desserts. You write in the head note for the salty peanut butter badino. This cool creamy custard is for my fellow Reese's obsessives. So, yeah, we've talked about I think our last episode of when you were on the show is we went and tasted through a bunch of dead stock Reese or Reese's, depending on if you're in Canada or the U.S. I don't know if you know this, but, like, I think I like badino more than Reese's.

32:20Anna Hezel:Reese's so you've like created possibly my this is like the dessert made for me so I appreciate

32:26TASTE Hosts:this yeah totally yeah there's also a chocolate like a really fast easy chocolate pudding in the book yeah and um one thing I did a lot while recipe developing and I recommend it in the book is mixing and matching a little bit like um having a batch of chocolate pudding a batch of peanut butter budino and sort of like layering them a little bit doing half and half in the glass

32:51Anna Hezel:this dessert is and it's pretty easy right yeah yeah but you know it's pretty it's not it sounds fancy but it's not yeah it's like pudding and you can make it ahead of time make it ahead of time so and uh i'm like i'm a little bummed that there are no muddy buddies slash puppy chow in party tricks now i have to ask like was there ever a world where they appeared

33:13TASTE Hosts:I'm so glad you asked because yes. Oh, no. I tried a few different versions of my spins on Muddy Buddies. I tried a pistachio version. Tried mixing in pretzels and cornflakes. All of them tasted good, but not significantly better than the back of the box classic. Yeah. And so at the end of the day, I decided nothing's really going to be better than just like mixing butter, peanut butter and dark chocolate and then coating it in powdered sugar. And so I just didn't want to like I didn't want to just add some little trendy ingredient just to do it. You know what I mean? Pissachio cream. It's everywhere now.

34:05TASTE Hosts:You can use it in Muddy Buddies, but you don't need to. You can just use like Jif peanut butter and it will be great, if not better. And cheaper to make, too.

34:17Anna Hezel:Yeah, exactly. And that's one thing that I think recipe developers, that's a trap when they feel like they need to like put a twist and spin on a classic, costs more money and usually isn't as good.

34:27TASTE Hosts:Yeah, right. I mean, there are so many creative things you can do with Muddy Buddies. Like I've seen people do like a cookie butter, like using Biscoff instead of the peanut butter, which is cool. but I don't know at the end of the day like I really just like the peanut butter chocolate

34:43Anna Hezel:powdered sugar trio I saw for a cocky mix for muddy buddies from a recipe no I did I did I did

34:51TASTE Hosts:it wasn't like a savory party mix no it was it was like muddy buddies for a cocky style whoa it was cool I have to remember who it was okay wasn't Molly yay I mean sorry Molly it's

35:03Anna Hezel:not yours I just remember it was like that's rad because you know upper midwest it makes sense I I think it might be a Molly recipe, but maybe there'll be a future where you can figure this out.

35:15TASTE Hosts:Have you reinvented Muddy Buddies? What's your like special spin?

35:19Anna Hezel:I did. I know. The answer is no. I've not created a new spin. I two years ago, we had our crown publishing group holiday cookie competition and I did a Muddy Buddies cookie. Oh, and I got second place. Whoa. I entered this year and got not even close to the final round. So I need to step up my game. I know. Sound effect of sad horn there. But I – thank you, Clayton. I do think that rethinking classics is not a good move. So I appreciate you.

35:56TASTE Hosts:I mean, I don't have any problem with rethinking classics. But if you try and keep trying and the back of the box recipe is just better, then what is there to do?

36:10Anna Hezel:I'll recast the statement because it is true. I misspoke. I think it's rethinking canon. Yes, right. That's what we can't do. So in Tin to Table, you wrote that we should stop apologizing for sardines. Is there an equivalent in party tricks?

36:28TASTE Hosts:I think stop apologizing for semi-homemade

36:32Anna Hezel:love it I think that's great it's very clear in the book that not everything can be done from scratch yeah have to talk about the illustrations I mean the art direction and the package everything is great I mean it's a really really cool looking book I love the truth of it particularly Charlotte Farmer I was unaware of Charlotte's work and these illos are amazing How did you and Charlotte collaborate on this?

36:58TASTE Hosts:Yeah. So Lizzie Vaughn is the art director at Chronicle, and she does amazing work. She designs Party Tricks and Tinted Table, my last book. And she is the person who found Charlotte's work and said this illustration style would be so good for a party book. And so like Charlotte illustrated like little jello molds and like packs of sardines and like hands. Friends of yours. Cocktails. Yeah. I spotted some people.

37:31Anna Hezel:Maybe you are in a few of the shot, maybe, or versions of you.

37:34TASTE Hosts:Oh, I didn't even notice that Easter egg. I'll have to pull it out.

37:39Anna Hezel:I think I saw a little maybe the author in there. But I love a great illustration treatment for a book like this. And I think it really nailed it there. I love that.

37:48TASTE Hosts:Yeah, we were looking at Simple But Elegant by Marion Burroughs, who actually died in the last six months.

37:58Anna Hezel:Yeah.

37:59TASTE Hosts:her original edition that book has been like republished a million times over the years but her original edition had these amazing little line drawings of like fancy ladies holding tiered cakes and things and they were like all had a great sense of humor to them so we were sort of like trying to honor that a little bit

38:23Anna Hezel:I love that that's a great reference point R.I.P. Miriam definitely a legend And on This Is Taste, we discuss about the discerning taste. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid fire Fast and Furious taste check, party food edition. Are you ready?

38:39TASTE Hosts:I'm ready.

38:40Anna Hezel:The best party food store bought?

38:43TASTE Hosts:Potato chips.

38:44Anna Hezel:Brand?

38:48TASTE Hosts:Oh, Fox's, the main brand. That's a favorite.

38:53Anna Hezel:The best party food homemade?

38:57TASTE Hosts:Chocolate chip cookies. Nice.

38:59Anna Hezel:What is the most overrated party food?

39:03TASTE Hosts:Oysters. They look so cool in photos, but they're so annoying to prepare and like not that great to eat in a party setting.

39:13Anna Hezel:Yeah, I know. It's also if it's like July, you're maybe questioning.

39:19TASTE Hosts:Yeah. I just like when like that's such a nice thing to order at a bar and have them shucked fresh, but I don't want to eat them at a party.

39:28Anna Hezel:Take us back, Anna. What is the best party you have hosted food-wise and how did you nail it?

39:35TASTE Hosts:This question is too hard. I'm not going to really answer it, but I did have...

39:41Anna Hezel:You have thrown some great parties. Come on.

39:43TASTE Hosts:I do. My husband and I had like one last big New Year's party before COVID. It was like New Year's 2020. Subconsciously, we must have known because we had a really big fun party at our apartment. I can't even remember much about the food. We had we set up like a martini bar so people could sort of like customize their own martinis. And that was really fun.

40:09Anna Hezel:Have you ever been to a party with a celebrity and what did they eat?

40:17TASTE Hosts:I went to a wedding once that David Byrne was at. I wasn't closely observing his eating behaviors, although I should have been. But the wedding was catered by Katz's Deli.

40:28Anna Hezel:Oh, that's a great wedding. Shouts to that. Who is your dream celebrity guest at your own party?

40:35TASTE Hosts:Martha Stewart. Of course. It couldn't be anyone else.

40:38Anna Hezel:It's a great answer, and I think you give a lot of credit to her first book.

40:44TASTE Hosts:Yes. Yeah, yeah. Entertaining by Martha Stewart. An amazing source of inspiration.

40:49Anna Hezel:And now re-released here at Crown.

40:51TASTE Hosts:Yeah. We have a new edition. Yeah, I have a copy of the new edition.

40:53Anna Hezel:You have a new edition? Cool. Yeah, it absolutely aligns with a lot of your styles, I think.

40:59TASTE Hosts:Yes, totally.

41:00Anna Hezel:At least spiritually. Maybe not the actual recipes, but spiritually.

41:03TASTE Hosts:Definitely.

41:04Anna Hezel:I love it. Let's end with a big one. Are cheese boards overrated?

41:11TASTE Hosts:No. I love a cheese board. I love especially a cheese board where everything's not pre-cut and like sort of getting sweaty on the board, like where you get to cut your own hunk of cheese. That is one of life's greatest luxuries and we can't take it away.

41:30Anna Hezel:It's so true. When you can have all the cheese, you can cut the size you want.

41:35TASTE Hosts:Yes.

41:35Anna Hezel:And you can cut a size that is insane.

41:38TASTE Hosts:Right, yes.

41:39Anna Hezel:And if it's like a corporate catered event, even better. Just like take like half a break and put it in your pocket, your purse.

41:46TASTE Hosts:Definitely. What I am over is like cheese boards where everything is pre-cut and then there's like dessert is like mixed in there for some reason. Why? You know, I don't want like a little bit of chocolate touching my blue cheese.

42:00Anna Hezel:Yeah, your blue cheese. Have you ever written the term salami river in your life?

42:06TASTE Hosts:Definitely.

42:08Anna Hezel:is it in the book? is there a salami river?

42:11TASTE Hosts:no no no there isn't but that's ringing a bell didn't we work on a story that Ruby Ritando wrote for Taste yeah good memory that involves that phrase

42:22Anna Hezel:yeah she did she wrote about

42:23TASTE Hosts:charcuterie boards she did she had a great piece

42:25Anna Hezel:I love that piece that she wrote in 2019 about the cheese board era and the salami rivers we had some fun art with it too

42:32TASTE Hosts:yeah

42:33Anna Hezel:last question guacamole at a party pro or con Oh, pro.

42:40TASTE Hosts:But I think it has to be like a small enough party where it doesn't get, it doesn't sit out too long and get brown.

42:46Anna Hezel:That's the question. I love guacamole party. Maybe it's just because I like making it. But I sometimes make too much. Yeah. And then it gets brown and everyone's sad. And then you have to like, you have all the guacamole left over.

42:57TASTE Hosts:Yeah, that's no good.

42:58Anna Hezel:Yeah. I mean, I love guacamole, but maybe not for a party trick. I think that you've answered my question. I'm going to do more of the cherry granita styles and the cheese dreams and less guacamole at future parties.

43:12TASTE Hosts:Or just start doing a little table side for your guests. Like roll up a little cart so they have a little fresh guacamole for half an hour.

43:21Anna Hezel:That is a party trick if I've ever heard one. Bringing out your own guacamole cart. Anna Heasel, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for joining This Is Taste.

43:30TASTE Hosts:Thank you for having me.

43:35Anna Hezel:Daya Saxena, welcome back to This Is Taste. Great to see you.

43:38Jaya Saxena:Hi, Matt. Thanks for having me.

43:39Anna Hezel:Well, huge news this week with the launch of Ravenous.

43:43Jaya Saxena:Yes, yes. No, so I'm so—

43:46Anna Hezel:I say Ravenous. It's Ravenous.

43:47Jaya Saxena:It's Ravenous, but people pronounce it Ravenous.

43:50Anna Hezel:I mean, I'm Midwest by way of New York for 25 years. Yeah, that's fine.

43:53Jaya Saxena:Tomato, tomato. Ravenous is the word.

43:56Anna Hezel:So I'm so happy for y 'all. Congrats. Oh, my God.

43:59Jaya Saxena:Thank you so much. Yeah, no, I am really thrilled that our subscriber drive has launched and we are we're out there.

44:07Anna Hezel:I love it. Well, before we get to all the news about your new publication, that's really exciting and really talking about this, this food media landscape that is like completely different than 12 months ago.

44:18Jaya Saxena:Yeah.

44:18Anna Hezel:So much to cover. I have to ask the top, where have you been dining out in New York?

44:22Jaya Saxena:Oh, man. This weekend, I actually had a bunch of really good dining out. I went to Frijalero's in Greenpoint, which is this great Mexican restaurant and cocktail bar and sort of just everything is really rich, really inventive. The cocktails are extraordinary. They also have a cocktail called Fuck Ice, which is great.

44:46Anna Hezel:Yeah, here, here.

44:47Jaya Saxena:And no, it's just a really great environment. I mean, it was packed, it was warm, and they had this one dish of gambas that had something called a Mexican burr blanc on it that I was like, I don't know what that is. I don't know what you put in there, but it was amazing. And then I also went to this great restaurant, Lavagna, in the East Village. It is slightly older, I mean, older now.

45:13Anna Hezel:It's like 20 years old. When I lived in the East Village in like 03.

45:17Jaya Saxena:Exactly. No, it's been around for a while, but it is, you know, it's so, it's so lovely in there. You know, it's like tin ceilings, old wooden bar, you know, a window that looks out onto the community garden. And it's just so like, we had my stepdad's birthday dinner there and it was such a nice space. Everyone there is so sweet. and I don't know it just feels like a real local neighborhood place. Yeah and in the East Village I feel like sometimes that's harder to come by and it just made me so happy.

45:54Anna Hezel:So happy it's like mid-block it's like kind of hidden and the food I went maybe like five years ago, eight years ago and it's so good.

46:03Jaya Saxena:Yeah no it was completely fantastic so yeah highly recommend that one. Love those racks those are great.

46:09Anna Hezel:Well, let's get to Ravenous. I mean, you've been telling me a little bit about this along the way, though I didn't know a name until this week. First off, like, what is it and what isn't it?

46:21Jaya Saxena:Yeah, totally. So we are, Ravenous is a new independent worker-owned food and culture website. We are going to be publishing, you know, reporting, journalism, culture writing, all about food and restaurant culture on a national scale, you know, across the U.S. And, yeah, we are extraordinarily excited about it. You know, I think for what it isn't, you know, we are we're not funded by investors or corporate money. We're not relying on ad dollars. We do not use generative AI for anything, which I feel like is something you have to specify more and more these days. And one thing that I think, you know, we're not city specific.

47:11Jaya Saxena:and I also think something that's really valuable is that we sort of that worker owner model there's five of us to start with and it is very direct you subscribe to us we write and edit and produce the content that you get it is very you give us money we give you stuff a very sort of direct relationship rather than well now we have to pay back our investors or now we have to pay our, you know, work with advertisers or something. It's, you know, a simple business model, I think, but an effective one.

47:47Anna Hezel:Absolutely can be effective. And I know you're friends with the folks at Defector.

47:51Jaya Saxena:Yeah.

47:51Anna Hezel:And I know that's been their model, though they've played with advertising. They're mostly reader supported.

47:57Jaya Saxena:Yeah.

47:57Anna Hezel:Before we get to that, though, let's shout out your colleagues by name. Yes. So everyone knows who everyone is.

48:03Jaya Saxena:Absolutely. So, yes, the founding, the founder owners are me, Ashok Selvam, Amy McCarthy, Courtney Smith and Francis Dumlau. And, yeah, we're located across the country. I'm the only one in New York. We have two people in the Dallas area, so we're almost more of a Dallas publication then. But, yeah, we have all, you know, met in food media. Everyone has done really fantastic work. And so I think we're all just thrilled to be working together.

48:33Anna Hezel:Well, there's familiar names to us on the show and me working in the industry. And I can't be forgotten that there's a lot of former Eater staff there.

48:43Jaya Saxena:Yes.

48:43Anna Hezel:So it's like almost like there's a reunion of sorts from folks at Eater. And you guys all have done great work. I mean, Ashok in Chicago, Amy, with Investigations. You write Culture and Investigations based in New York. I mean, do you feel there will be some Eater DNA within it?

49:00Jaya Saxena:I mean, I think that we, you know, a lot of the work of ours that you maybe were familiar with, one of the things that we, you know, we're talking about, you know, we were all laid off. We all lost our jobs and that we still really saw an audience for this type of work that you might already be familiar with. And so we thought, you know, OK, what what is keeping us from being able to do that work? And we saw that, yes, as freelancers and everything, this is work that maybe some other companies are jettisoning or, you know, switching around. They're pivoting away from it. And we were like, well, what would it take to build a place where we could continue to do that kind of work in a more sustainable fashion?

49:49Jaya Saxena:And I really think that this is, you know, yeah, what the driving force behind Ravenous was. And you mentioned Defector before. I mean, obviously, we have been really inspired by the worker-owned movement in digital media. You know, it's not just Defector. There's so many great places out there, like Aftermath, Hearing Things, Hellgate here in New York. So we really had a wonderful group of people to sort of reach out to and be like, how did you do this? How does this work? So we did a lot of research. We talked to a lot of people. and, you know, yeah, I think we're just really excited to be part of that movement.

50:31Anna Hezel:What did you learn when reaching out to your peers who've been doing this type of work, worker-owned, not ad-supported, but member-driven?

50:40Jaya Saxena:Yeah, I mean, I think we learned a lot about marketing and a lot more than, and, you know, again, we are all, you know, sort of writers and editors. We are not necessarily business people, And suddenly we are making budgets. We're making business plans. We are, you know, sorting this out. So I think we learned a lot about what it takes not only to get a subscriber but to retain a subscriber. Learning a lot about, you know, sort of from other people's mistakes I think has been so helpful to learn where people were like, hey, we promised more than we realized that we could give. And that kind of set us back a little bit.

51:23Jaya Saxena:Or, you know, we relied too much on one thing and didn't pay enough attention to this other thing. But I think, you know, we, yeah, we want this to be sustainable. We want this to be something that lasts for a long time. So, you know, we want to go slow. We don't want to, you know, overpromise. We don't want to start with 8 billion things and then burn ourselves out and not be able to keep doing it. And so, yeah, I think we learned a lot about that.

51:52Anna Hezel:What can you tell us about the just the structure of the subscriptions and also your frequency? Do you have like a goal of how often you want to be publishing?

52:00Jaya Saxena:Yeah, totally. So we are starting with three pieces a week. But ideally, you know, sort of the more subscribers we get, the more we'll be able to do. You know, we are budgeting right now that this would all still be part time work for us. You know, this is not a six figure salary and health care for all of us. at the beginning, though please subscribe because we would love for that to happen and to dedicate all of our time to it. But, you know, we have three different paid subscriber levels. We also have the ability to just donate to us if you think we're doing a good job and just want to kick us some cash.

52:39Jaya Saxena:And all of that will be going to paying for us to write stories, us developing our freelancer budget and ideally being able to publish more freelancers and then publish more frequently from that baseline.

52:56Anna Hezel:Yeah, it's definitely the model that has worked for many, but it takes a lot of work.

53:00Jaya Saxena:It takes a lot of work.

53:01Anna Hezel:Especially retain the subscribers. Yeah. You wrote in your missions a statement, which I think is a great read, quote, you're sick and tired of the conversation around food being reduced to AI-generated problem, best of lists, and influencer-driven trends. I guess do you think the readers agree I mean there's a reason I would say that that stuff

53:21Jaya Saxena:especially the lists in particular are popular oh totally and I mean I'm like I use the list as much as anyone like if I'm in a new city I'm not being like yeah I'm googling best tacos in the city like I I think that is there is always that service element that has existed in food media And that is fine. I unfortunately do think a lot of places are using AI more and more to sort of create those little blurbs. And, you know, which is frustrating because AI can't taste. AI can't tell you if it actually tastes good. But I think, you know, when we were looking at the landscape of a lot of food media, we were seeing more and more publications turning to that sort of content only.

54:15Jaya Saxena:And, you know, we thought, OK, that's that's covered. If you want to get those lists and those maps and those blurbs, you know where to go. I know where to go. We'll all go to the same places for those things. But I think we were seeing a lot more of that, like, considered reporting, that sort of culture writing, you know, more incisive critiques of things, you know, just not being fully incorporated into the business model. And like, obviously, there is still that reporting happening. Like, we are living a couple weeks post-giant NOMA report. Like, this does exist. Um, but I think, you know, I think there can always be more.

55:02Jaya Saxena:I think there is less than when I started in food media. And now I'm just really excited that there seem to be more, more people in more places wanting to build that up again.

55:14Anna Hezel:You write that food media has felt, quote, toothless.

55:18Jaya Saxena:Yeah.

55:19Anna Hezel:And I guess, like, you're really well suited. I'd love to have this short conversation about, like, where did it go wrong?

55:26Jaya Saxena:Yeah.

55:26Anna Hezel:Because, I mean, there's like, is it influencer culture? You know, you talked about SEO. Or is this like food media not built to hold power accountable?

55:37Jaya Saxena:Yeah. I mean, I think it's a little bit all of the above. You know, I think digital media in general, and you've experienced this, I think so much of it was built for everyone putting their eggs in the SEO basket.

55:53Anna Hezel:Yeah.

55:54Jaya Saxena:And then when Google and these search engines change their algorithm or when they prioritize sort of AI blurbs as search results instead of trying to encourage you to click on links, everyone's page views tanked, which means that everyone's advertising dollars tanked because no advertiser is going to pay all that money to have their ads run next to links that no one clicks on. And I think food media was particularly susceptible to that. I think that a lot of lifestyle media really has relied on sponsorship money and ad money. I also think in media, when money goes away, the sort of lifestyle content is the first to go.

56:42You know, you look at the layoffs that happen at The Washington Post and a lot of those are in food and sports and these sort of, you know, not hard news area.

56:56Jaya Saxena:And so I think that that's, you know, really a big part of it. But, yeah, I also think that, you know, you have, right, with sort of influencer trends, a lot of people, you know, of course they're looking to that for restaurant recommendations. But then, you know, they're not maybe beholden to the same journalistic standards that someone working at a magazine or a newspaper are. So it's easier for them to get reservations for, you know, sort of pay to play stuff going on. And I mean, that happens in all parts of food media. And then to your point about sort of not being able to hold power to account, I think that's also part of that idea of bringing journalistic ethics into food media.

57:45Jaya Saxena:I think you have a lot of people in food media that don't necessarily come from the world of journalism, which is overall a good thing. Like, I think it is important to have journalism not just filled with J school people. But then there is not sort of that culture of like, we need to be rigorous about this. We need to be skeptical of people. We need to, yeah, hold the powerful to account. And I think there are a lot of ways in which food media has historically kind of failed on that front.

58:17Anna Hezel:Yeah, it's all great points about kind of this trajectory about SEO going away. And I think you're so right that lifestyle was the first to go because it wasn't news. It was like the extra stuff. And once the extra stuff can't be served via SEO.

58:35Jaya Saxena:Yeah.

58:35Anna Hezel:Because, you know, hard news is you're going to New YorkTimes.com and getting that hard news. You're like going to keep clicking on that. Exactly.

58:41Jaya Saxena:Yeah. Whereas I think a lot of these media companies who have, you know, right, who do reporting on multiple things, they see the hard news as sort of the thing that they have to do. And then, right, the lifestyle as stuff that is being paid for by the ads and subscriptions. And so if that's not there, then, like, that's who's out.

59:02Anna Hezel:So what do you think about your peers? I mean, this is a really, really interesting time. And listeners of the show know we've followed all the launches. you know we had Best Food Blog launched about a year ago we recently had Caper launch and had Emma on an editor there of course we have The New Gourmet have not been on the show but I'm hoping that will change soon and of course you know you guys so this is like a really interesting time where all this independent food media in addition to all the great work on Substack and Beehive and really the newsletter creator centric writing is like if you're interested in food you're not going to be limited.

59:41Jaya Saxena:No. And I think that is something that is so exciting. You know, we sort of, you know, internally understand the ways that we are differentiated from, you know, from the other sites. Like Caper is really New York focused right now and we are not focused on New York. Gourmet is amazing, but half of what they do is recipes and we're not going to be doing recipe development. But, you know, you should go there because all their recipes are fantastic. And so I think, you know, I feel like, yes, it is so exciting because you really just get such an abundance of this kind of writing. I think something I keep thinking about in this because, right, we've done a lot of thinking internally of like, OK, how are we going to differentiate ourselves?

1:00:28Jaya Saxena:How are we going to make sure that we view ourselves as different? And I'm sort of like, when I was growing up, I had a subscription to like five different entertainment magazines. I had a subscription to like a bunch of different magazines like for teen girls, like Seventeen and YM and Teen Cosmo or whatever it was. And I'm like, yeah, they all had their different vibes and attitudes. But there were probably stories that could have run in any of those magazines and it would have made sense. And it didn't matter because I just I wanted all of them. I was excited about all of them. And I really love that there is that environment being created now where like if you are someone who values food and food writing and is interested about how all these interconnected industries work, there are now so many places for you to get that writing.

1:01:25Jaya Saxena:And hopefully, you know, as we continue to grow so many different places for other food writers to be able to place those stories.

1:01:34TASTE Hosts:Yeah.

1:01:35Jaya Saxena:And I also, you know, I think a lot with this worker owned model that, you know, Gourmet and Best Food Blog also have that, yes, we are competitors, but I also I personally see us as comrades and I see us as like being able to support each other in our endeavors and the different things that we do. And I just think that's like an attitude that is going to be so helpful for this mode of media moving forward.

1:02:06Anna Hezel:Have you thought about bundling at all?

1:02:07Jaya Saxena:Oh, man, we haven't gotten to that conversation yet. But I would be I feel like that has to be happening.

1:02:13Anna Hezel:Yeah. Because, I mean, you were talking about there's so many wonderful, you know, newsletters, sub stacks, beehive, things like that, too.

1:02:20Jaya Saxena:And then I'll look at my inbox and be like, oh, my God, like, I can't possibly read all of this. and then being like, what if there was one place I could subscribe at a flat rate and I got all of these and then I'm just like, oh, you just reinvented magazines. You reinvented cable. But I do think, I don't know, that has to happen at some point.

1:02:41Anna Hezel:I think there will be some consolidation amongst independent media in all genres, not just food. And I think it's all about top of the funnel marketing, right? You want to get out to as many people as possible for your subscriber drives and if you can deal, you know, have a partnership deal with a couple of the other publications and then share revenue in some way.

1:02:59Jaya Saxena:I mean, that would be incredible. But I also think what's so thrilling to me about this model is that, you know, right, coming from other parts of digital media that we're really focused on, we have to get as many eyes as possible. We have to get as many page views as possible. And this sort of scattershot way of just like, draw in anyone, even if they potentially have no interest in our website whatsoever. So ill-advised. That we're sort of like, with a subscriber model, our goals are to make enough money that we can continue doing what we're doing. We are not chasing infinite growth. We're not chasing infinite profits.

1:03:37Jaya Saxena:We would love to make enough money for a full-time salary and maybe some benefits and maybe some other hires and to pay our freelancers fairly. But we're not trying to be the biggest thing in the world. And so that doesn't require hundreds of thousands of subscribers. I feel like it's much more manageable that way and sustainable.

1:04:00Anna Hezel:So some of your Eater work really revolved around labor coverage. Yeah. The Amy's Kitchen piece you wrote, dandelion, chocolate, unionization, delivery worker policy. I feel like out of all the folks we've mentioned, they aren't covering it.

1:04:16Jaya Saxena:Yeah.

1:04:17Anna Hezel:And I think it seems like just with you in particular being on one of the founders, this seems like a place that you may want to focus on.

1:04:24Jaya Saxena:Oh, yeah. This is going to be definitely a focus of ours. You know, I think we all have our eyes on various unionization efforts. You know, we are looking at other – we want to profile other sort of worker-owned food businesses. I think this is, you know, something that's also happening a lot in the food industry. That is really something we want to do. And I think as we were talking before about like food media holding power to account, I feel like there is always and perhaps understandably an ongoing focus on the chefs, on the people at the top of these structures. And I am just, you know, I'm always so interested in the labor angle of any of these stories.

1:05:13Jaya Saxena:So that's something I really want to pursue. I know it's something that the other founders want to pursue. So, yeah, I think that angle and that coverage is really going to be a cornerstone of Ravenous.

1:05:24Anna Hezel:I would love for you guys to cover payroll tax in New York City.

1:05:27Jaya Saxena:Oh, man, I just had I taught for a semester at CUNY and a former student of mine has been, you know, working at a restaurant and then just emailed me wondering where she could place a story about that because she just got sort of her first paycheck afterwards and was like, OK, this is something this is a big change. This is a big thing. And so, yeah, I am so fascinated to see how that continues to play out.

1:05:54Anna Hezel:Yeah, I would love to see that kind of reporting. And I think it's so needed just to bring these real, you know, these burdens that are being placed upon both the workers at restaurants and also ownership at restaurants to keep them sustainable over time.

1:06:10Jaya Saxena:Yeah.

1:06:10Anna Hezel:You must have a big board. You have a Word doc or a Google sheet with all sorts of story ideas. I am not asking you to spoil a good show, but Jaya, what are some themes or even specific stories that you're working on just to give us a little tease? because I know you're going to start publishing soon.

1:06:27Jaya Saxena:Absolutely. Well, you know, I am working on a story right now, speaking almost a little bit of the labor angle or also the mutual aid angle, about Chef Telly Justice here in New York, who's at HAGS, and she's been doing this sort of tour of the country, doing pay-what-you-can pop-ups and dinners at other restaurants and sort of helping other restaurants to figure out how to do pay-what-you-can dinners. Hags does a weekly pay-what-you-can brunch. It's a real sort of part of their business model. And so just looking at what it takes to bring this model to other restaurants and how they're responding and how their communities are responding.

1:07:12Jaya Saxena:So I think that is really fascinating. You know, we've got a story about real estate agents who are sort of doubling as food influencers. and this sort of double thing of, okay, I'm traveling around the city, so of course I know where the good restaurants are, but also presenting these restaurants as reasons why you might want to move into a certain area. You know, we're working, actually you mentioned Substack about how many restaurants are now getting on Substack and utilizing Substack for promotion. And, you know, now you have these restaurant blogs.

1:07:51Anna Hezel:Yeah, someone asked me that recently just in passing if I thought it was a good idea for a chef or restaurant to have a sub stack. And I was kind of lost. I didn't really have an opinion. So I can't wait to read that.

1:08:02Jaya Saxena:Yeah. And so I think it's really, you know, we're looking into that. So I don't know. You know, we're looking at, I mean, we have some pop culture stories. We've got some legal and labor stories. we you know pie in the sky dream if we make enough money we want to try to send a shok to Rome to talk to the Pope because he's also from Chicago and there is an opportunity there

1:08:27Anna Hezel:potentially so subscribe and uh try to make sure try to get the Pope to do a shot of Malort with a shok I think yeah that you guys would have a world exclusive on that um and I mean there's

1:08:40Jaya Saxena:going to be a Malort story down the line or some other Malort story, but I, yeah, so I feel like we want it to be a really good range of, you know, investigative pieces, long form, but also, you know, we love a fun blog. We love an opinion piece. We love, you know, getting our thoughts out there. So I think, you know, we don't want it to just be 10 ,000 word, you know, intense things. We want it to be a good mix and hopefully a lot of our subscribers can have some fun in there.

1:09:13Anna Hezel:Well, that's always been your sensibility and I've really appreciated it. Thank you. Writing for Taste and, of course, Eater and all your other work as you've written about really serious topics, but there has to be a little bit of humor in your own personal work because I think you humanize through that.

1:09:28Jaya Saxena:Oh, thank you. Well, yeah. I mean, I think that is something I feel like I go off of, you know, what I like to read. And some days I want to just dive into a really intense story. And some days I want to read something that is just someone giving their snarky opinion on, you know, some trend that they've seen. And I think both are important. And I think there's going to be room for both at Ravenous.

1:09:53Anna Hezel:Well, let's this is a little, I would say, abstract form of question. But I really want to get into this because in this day and age with food media, there's so much video content.

1:10:03Jaya Saxena:Yeah.

1:10:03Anna Hezel:And there's also a lot of audio content. You're listening to it right now. Make the case for reading. Weird question I get, but like just on your phone, on your desktop, when you're reading Ravenous, like sitting down and actually reading journalism. I feel like you sometimes have to like reteach people this behavior because there's so much scrolling and swiping happening and our brains kind of become – they kind of like go into like neutral. Yeah. But like I think I find myself sometimes forgetting that. Like I just love reading.

1:10:36Jaya Saxena:Yes, exactly. And it's a skill and it is a skill that can atrophy. And I've noticed this in myself sometimes where I am trying to just be like, no, sit down and read more because I personally think it's a worthwhile skill to have. which is it's just the skill really of paying attention and I don't think that's impossible to do with video and audio but you know one thing I know for myself is that if I'm listening to a podcast I think it's a little easier sometimes for my mind to wander and then yes you have the go back 15 seconds button and I can I can rewind but you know sometimes it'll go away from me and then I'll be like, wait, what happened in the last five minutes?

1:11:21Jaya Saxena:I have no idea. And now I'm kind of lost. Versus with reading, you know, if your mind wanders, you can, it's easier to go back and read that section. Or you can reread a section and you can sit with it and you can go at your own pace and you are sort of in control of the experience a little bit more than video and audio. I will also say more for video, not as much for audio. Video favors certain people. I am becoming ever more aware of this the older that I get. That, you know, I am turning 40 this year. And the more wrinkles you get, the more gray hair you get, the more weight you gain, the more you cease looking like someone that is, you know, supposed to be on TV.

1:12:10Jaya Saxena:The less clicks you get, the less people want to look at you. And so I think that if you are relying only on video, not always, unless you like curate your feed very specifically, you are going to be getting a certain kind of voice and a certain kind of perspective. And media is obviously not perfect when it comes to prejudices. But I think that there is a greater opportunity with the written word where flat out it does not matter what the person behind the typewriter – not the typewriter. What am I talking about? The keyboard. The screen.

1:12:54Jaya Saxena:I don't know. Maybe there's a website where someone's writing everything on a typewriter and faxing it and putting it up on a site.

1:13:00Anna Hezel:There's a subset that's going to be a fax. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

1:13:02Jaya Saxena:But, you know, I think that it does not require that same worry about how you look when you're doing something. And I feel like that's something I balk at whenever anyone says, oh, in order to get your information out there, you got to be on video. and I'm like, that's a different skill. I'm a writer. That's a different thing that I do. I can absolutely go on video if I want to, but that is not how I have developed my skills. So I think with reading and writing, you're going to be getting people who develop that skill specifically. Well said.

1:13:42Anna Hezel:Thank you for taking that weird question. No, totally.

1:13:45Jaya Saxena:I love thinking about that stuff.

1:13:47Anna Hezel:Yeah, and I've just been thinking a lot about So just, you know, just screen time. And, you know, I know this is a digital publication, so it will be on a screen, but it's a little different when it's inert and not like a moving image. And I just think with the newsletter, too, like there's no algorithm. Yeah. Like it's literally your selection of stories that are in the order that you want to present them in and the amount of space that you want to present them in. And it's the inbox. Yeah. You decide if you want it to come or not come. Exactly. And that's why obviously this has been really a big boom for people who are like sick of media being distributed via algorithm.

1:14:20Jaya Saxena:Yeah, no. And I think that is, you know, a huge part of why we're excited about it, because, you know, yes, we have our arguments of why we think you should subscribe. But we're we're not going to beg you. We're not going to trick you. We don't want to attract people who fundamentally don't want to be here. What we can promise is that if our pitch sounds good or any of those stories sound good, then you can subscribe and you will find more of that sensibility there. but yeah I'm not trying to dangle some story in front of you to ensnare you into subscription if you don't want to be there and you know sort of what a joy and a relief to be able to talk to readers directly instead of standing there and being like hey does anyone want to click over

1:15:10Anna Hezel:here does anyone does anyone want this I mean I did work online in in 2015 yeah I feel like that's I don't know why that's the year that pops in my head. It's literally when everyone was, that's all they were doing. Exactly. That's all we were doing.

1:15:24Jaya Saxena:Yeah. And sometimes it was fun, but a lot of times it was really hard. And a lot of times it wasn't very rewarding.

1:15:31Anna Hezel:It was deflating. Yeah. Like right at a job where it's like seven posts a day.

1:15:38Jaya Saxena:Oh, my God.

1:15:38Anna Hezel:You know that kind of volume. Having a calendar that was done by the hour. I mean, you remember having our editorial calendars here at Taser by the day. Yeah. I had editorial calendars as you did by the hour. Yeah, it was nuts.

1:15:51Jaya Saxena:And then you're not getting the best stuff when you plan things that way, when everyone every hour suddenly has to think, OK, what am I writing about now?

1:16:01Anna Hezel:Yeah, I know. Reactive blogging was such a thing. But really kind of fun.

1:16:05Jaya Saxena:Yeah, no.

1:16:06Anna Hezel:Like reactive blogging is kind of fun.

1:16:07Jaya Saxena:There are so many. And this is the thing. It's like, I want there to be room for the reaction blog. Yeah. Even, you know, even when I was at Eater and yes, it was a by the day thing. Obviously, there were times when something happened that, you know, we felt we had to react to it. Or there were times where something happened and on my own, I'm like, we don't have to react to this. I just want to. Please let me just write a blog about this dumb thing that I saw because I know I have it in me and it is a joy to do something like that. And so, no, I so appreciate it. I just can't do that eight times a day.

1:16:47Jaya Saxena:I'm going to die.

1:16:48Anna Hezel:It would be great if you had like a reactive day.

1:16:51Jaya Saxena:Yeah.

1:16:51Anna Hezel:Or a day out of the month. Yeah. We could like log in and just watch you do 10 posts in a day and just like total flashback. I feel like I want to bring, I feel like it has been rarer that people do this.

1:17:03Jaya Saxena:And again, I understand why. But like there's part of me that kind of missed the live blog. Live blogs. I remember, God, I mean, I think a couple people did it. Was it Eater? Was it someone else? But they would always do a sort of live blog from McSorley's on St. Patrick's Day.

1:17:20Anna Hezel:Feels like a gawker slash early eater.

1:17:23Jaya Saxena:Yeah, it was something like that. And I remember always having fun just like refreshing. Yeah. Being like, and now what happened that, you know, didn't happen 15 minutes ago. And so, I don't know. Yeah, maybe I got too much of a soft spot in my heart for like that part of the internet.

1:17:40Anna Hezel:I mean, seriously, like, you know, the New York Times is a really good product for live, for breaking news, where it's essentially a live blog with like time code and really, you know, goes in reverse cron. I feel like some of these platforms or your own platform, are you on Beehive?

1:17:56Jaya Saxena:No, we're on Ghost. On Ghost. But I mean, yeah, similar. Yeah. Newsletter capabilities and things like that. They'll build in a live blog because I think like live is obviously the future.

1:18:07Anna Hezel:Yeah. For a lot of this. Like, you know, we I think Twitch is certainly in its own world.

1:18:11Jaya Saxena:Oh, yeah.

1:18:12Anna Hezel:So like the collective five of you just digging into a topic and just hearing you all kind of jump in. I would I'm I will give you my money.

1:18:21Jaya Saxena:Oh, my God. Good idea. Thank you. No, I feel like, yeah, we, you know, I am really excited to see once we have sort of our baseline going, once we have our day-to-day settled and know what that looks like to continue to add on top of this. You know, we have so many ideas. I think we have so many things that we want to do. Yeah, the idea of getting live blog capabilities is exciting to me. the idea of, you know, other events, other sort of, you know, maybe a podcast, maybe just one off, like, video or audio things. Yeah, like no promises on any of it. But I think that we, you know, we want to see where this goes.

1:19:10Jaya Saxena:And we want to see what we can do.

1:19:12Anna Hezel:I mean, the live blog is essentially the chat, by the way.

1:19:14Jaya Saxena:Yeah, no, exactly.

1:19:15Anna Hezel:It's been recontextualized as a chat. And like, all these platforms have great chat functionality and of course there's like discord and all that yeah and slack and all that but i i think just seeing the journalism the five of you in live i would love to see that yeah amazing well

1:19:28Jaya Saxena:podcast all right i mean you know who knows but i feel like uh you know it is it is a fun way i mean we all just like talking to each other so sometimes maybe it's like well what if people wanted to hear us talking to each other.

1:19:44Anna Hezel:Yeah, switch the formats up. Yeah.

1:19:46Jaya Saxena:But, you know, I think we we also want to be really focused on what our subscribers seem to be responding to. You know, we don't want to come out of the gate with something that then no one actually wanted from us. And so we want to see what they react to, you know, what we enjoy doing and find that great combination of those things.

1:20:07Anna Hezel:Well, I'm linking in the show notes. You need to subscribe. I already have. Jaya, this has been so much fun. Please come back. Thank you so much for joining us.

1:20:14Jaya Saxena:Thank you for having me.

1:20:20Anna Hezel:This 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.