Burnt Toast

We sit down with David Gelb—director of Netflix's popular Chef's Table and the 2011 documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi—to talk about what's just off camera: How he selects chefs to feature, what goes into each episode, and what's in store for the new season, launching May 27th. 

How do the James Beards really work, anyway? We go behind the scenes of the Oscars of the food world to trace a cookbook from submission to judging to—fingers crossed—winning an award. 

Kristen Miglore—our mighty Creative Director and colleague—has been surfacing recipes from food luminaries that promise to change the way we cook for the past 5 years. She collects them in her James Beard Award-nominated column, Genius Recipes, and also in a New York Times best-selling book by the same name. This episode goes behind the scenes on how she chooses them, those that have taken on a life of their own, and what it is, really, that makes a recipe genius. 

It's Italy Week at Food52, so we sat down—and drank spritzes—with the authors of two of our favorite new books: Talia Baiocchi and Leslie Pariseau, authors of "Spritz," and Katie Parla of "Tasting Rome." We talk cocktail legends and carbonara origin stories, and, spoiler: We do some of it in Italian.  

Getting 30 minutes in a room with L.A. restaurant critic and Pulitzer-winning food writer Jonathan Gold is a little like feeding the man himself a single taco. We do it anyway. Listen as we discuss City of Gold—the new documentary featuring him—plus the role of a critic, the insignificance of anonymity, and the great mosaic that is L.A. food.

How it works, all of the behind-the-scenes that happens before you see the tournament play out on the site, and more than a handful of disasters that have happened in the 7 years it's been running. Hear it all—and more—in this week's episode. 

Today's the first day of our annual NCAA-style cookbook tournament, so we asked for your predictions. Hear who our judges and readers think is going to win—and hear from a bookstore owner who's running her own competition—in today's episode.

Or so says food writer Michael Ruhlman, who wants to know if you know what’s in your food. He wants to restart the conversation around this—and change the way we talk about what we eat. Today, we hear why he thinks kale isn’t healthy, and what we can do to be better cooks, eaters, and shoppers. 

We invite editor and creator of #Cook90 David Tamarkin into the studio to talk about what it's like to cook 3 meals a day for 30 days—and we find out about the things he never expected to learn, and the questions he never intended to raise. This episode is sponsored by Casper, offering premium mattresses online for a fraction of the price. Get $50 toward any mattress purchase by visiting casper.com/toast and using promo code TOAST.

We ask all of the above what the new hotness will be in 2016. Will soup be the next hot food? And much more, right this way. You heard it here first. Spoiler alert.  

We asked you to share your holiday disasters—the biggest flubs, the most comically tragic things that inevitably happen when everyone comes together for the holidays. You delivered. Here are the best of the worst—and here’s to reminding ourselves that whatever happens this year, it could probably be worse. 

In honor of Trillin's campaign to change the national Thanksgiving dish from turkey to spaghetti carbonara, we ask him to read his 1981 essay. Listen to him tell the tale of the very first Thanksgiving dinner, and then maybe start a campaign of your own. Happy Thanksgiving, turkeys. This episode is brought to you by Texture. The app that gives you an all access pass to the world's best magazines, right on your phone or tablet. Try Texture for free when you go to texture.com/TOAST. And by The Message, a new podcast from GE Podcast Theater.

We talk with the domestic goddess herself: Listen to Nigella Lawson on cooking as necessity over therapy, how she doesn't entertain, and about making up her own words. 

This week we find out what it's like to cook the food for your entire wedding. Food writer Jill Santopietro walks us through how she did it—right down to showing us how to make the 3,428 gnocchi she rolled for that day, 8 years ago. Plus we hear some wedding food advice from some of our friends in the food world. 

Kenji López-Alt of Serious Eats’ Food Lab fame just published a book, and it’s 900 pages of hard cooking science and strong opinions. We learn what makes him and his recipes tick, then decide to tackle his 8-page meatloaf recipe on our own. Is it all worth it? 

We invite writer and former editor in chief of the iconic Gourmet Magazine Ruth Reichl to our office for a dinner party in honor of her new book, My Kitchen Year. Learn about her time post-Gourmet, where she thinks she learned to write a lede, and how Twitter helped her tell her stories.

Find out when the chef and former Top Chef contestant thinks fusion food actually works, why there are half-naked women in his cookbook, and how he and JJ Goode worked together to turn his vision of authenticity into their new cookbook, Asian American. 

Over a few PBRs, we talk to the head brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery about all things beer: Big breweries and their craft offshoots, the differences between East and West Coast styles, and where polka music comes into play (hint: it does).  This episode of Burnt Toast is sponsored by Casper.com. Right now get $50 towards any mattress purchase by going to Casper.com/TOAST This episode is also sponsored by Audible.com. To get a free audiobook of your choice go to Audible.com/TOAST 

We talk to Food52 contributor and author of our forthcoming vegan cookbook Gena Hamshaw all about veganism: her favorite dishes, what you should never try to make vegan, and why our Managing Editor Kenzi should give cashew cheese another go.  This episode was sponsored by Casper, an online retailer of premium mattresses. For $50 toward any purchase, go to Casper.com/TOAST.   

We talk about the beauty and chaos that is feeding our children. Together with writer Phyllis Grant—and a studio full of kids—we cover rules, haphazard recipe development, and why you should never feed eggplant to a child under the age of 9.