Podcast appearances and mentions of Mimi Sheraton

Mimi Sheraton has seen it all in her 92 years. In this Reheat of our spinoff podcast from 2018, Ask Mimi, the legendary food critic offers advice on food and life to live callers and celebrity guests. The Sporkful's Dan Pashman moderates. In this episode, humorist Mo Rocca joins Mimi and Dan live on stage to ask for help with an issue involving his mom. Mimi died in April 2023 at the age of 97; read her New York Times obituary here.This episode originally aired on February 12, 2018, and was produced by Dan Pashman and Margaret Kelly and engineered by Jared O'Connell and Eric Jorgensen. The Sporkful production team now includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Kameel Stanley, Jared O'Connell, and Giulia Leo.Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.Right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. Get all your favorite podcasts, more than 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, and live sports coverage with the SiriusXM app.

Starting this week we're pulling one classic Sporkful from the deep freezer every other Friday and sharing it with you! We're calling these episodes "Reheats." If you have one you want to hear, email us at hello@sporkful.com! This week to kick things off: We discuss the beauty and tyranny of tradition, as well as the Wheel Of Infinite Thanksgiving Anxiety, with legendary food writer Mimi Sheraton, Milk Street Kitchen's Christopher Kimball, and cookbook author Kian Lam Kho. And yes, we're serious.This episode originally aired on November 13, 2017, and was produced by Dan Pashman, Anne Saini, and Margaret Kelley. The Sporkful team now includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Nora Ritchie, Jared O'Connell, and Julia Russo.

Meg tracks down three babies who were snatched out of NYC hospitals in the 80s. Jessica chows down on restaurant critic Mimi Sheraton's 1983 manifesto against American nouvelle cuisine.Please check out our website, follow us on Instagram, on Facebook, and...WRITE US A REVIEW HEREWe'd LOVE to hear from you! Let us know if you have any ideas for stories HEREThank you for listening!Love,Meg and Jessica

Mimi Sheraton was a food writer and restaurant critic for The New York Times. So she wouldn't get preferential treatment at a restaurant, she had a collection of wigs to disguise herself. She died earlier this month at age 97.Actor Michael Lerner played a studio mogul in Barton Fink, and a mob boss in Harlem Nights. He died earlier this month at age 81.Also, Justin Chang reviews Showing Up, the new film by Kelly Reichardt.

Mimi Sheraton was a food writer and restaurant critic for The New York Times. So she wouldn't get preferential treatment at a restaurant, she had a collection of wigs to disguise herself. She died earlier this month at age 97.Actor Michael Lerner played a studio mogul in Barton Fink, and a mob boss in Harlem Nights. He died earlier this month at age 81.Also, Justin Chang reviews Showing Up, the new film by Kelly Reichardt.

In this installment of Best Of The Gist, Mike and ESPN's Mike Greenberg talk about a shared passion: the New York Jets. Yes, we're calling it “Jets Talk.” And no, it's not AM radio. Then, to honor the passing of legendary food critic Mimi Sheraton, we listen to Mike's interview with her from November of 2018 … an interview conducted in Mimi's kitchen.  Produced by Joel Patterson and Corey Wara  Email us at thegist@mikepesca.com  To advertise on the show: https://advertisecast.com/TheGist  Subscribe to our ad-free and/or PescaPlus versions of The Gist: https://subscribe.mikepesca.com/  Follow Mike's Substack: Pesca Profundities | Mike Pesca | Substack  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Copper & Heat audio tasting menu. This 6-course experience takes you through dishes from pivotal points in the history of the modern tasting menu. Vote for us in the first inaugural Signal Awards! We were nominated for a Signal Award in the Food & drink category, and we need your help! Vote for us for the Listener's Choice Award at the link above. Guests:Beth ForrestHer faculty bio and booksSam YamashitaHis piece on the Japanese Turn  |  His books  | His faculty bioKrishnendu RayHis book  | His faculty bio The courses:The restaurant by Mathurin Roze de ChantoiseauHassun from Hyotei in KyotoRouge en ècaille de pomme de terre by Paul BocuseSukiyakiToro and caviar by Masa TakayamaNixtamalized butternut squash en tacha from Lenga Madre in New Orleans The articles mentioned in this episode: 'Tasting'' Menu: A Good Idea Sours by Mimi Sheraton in the New York TimesNibbled to Death: Tasting Menus Can Be Too Much of a Good Thing by Pete Wells in the New York TimesThe New Generation of Tasting Menus Won't Test Your Patience (or Your Wallet) by Brett Anderson in the New York Times More resources:The Japanese Origins of Modern Fine Dining by Meghan McCarron (2017)The Never-Ending Pivot: Amid the Omicron Surge, Restaurants Have Turned to Tasting Menus by Jeremy Repanich (2022)The death of the tasting menu by George Reynolds (2022)The Backlash Against the 'Tyranny' of Tasting Menus by Amy McKeever (2013)The Not-So-New Nouvelle Cuisine by Mimi Sheraton (1979)Celebrating the Ringmaster of the Restaurant Circus by Florence Fabricant (2014)How America's First 3 Star Michelin Sushi Chef Serves His Fish on Eater's YouTube (2015)

Meg counts the many red flags waving around Dr. Robert Bierenbaum. Jessica spills the tea on food critics Gael Greene and Mimi Sheraton.

There are around 300,000 Thai Americans but almost 5,000 Thai restaurants in the United States. To understand how Thai restaurants became so ubiquitous in the US, we dive into the history of how Thai cuisine arrived in the US before Thai immigrants started to arrive in large numbers, and how Thai Americans capitalized on the popularity of their food to find their niche in the US economy. I'm joined in this episode by Associate Professor of Asian and Asian American Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Dr. Mark Padoongpatt, author of Flavors of Empire: Food and the Making of Thai America. Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Image Credit: “Thai chef Salapirom Phanita, from Pattaya Marriot hotel catering, prepares food in the forward-deployed amphibious dock landing ship USS Tortuga's (LSD 46) galley during a cooking exchange with U.S. Navy chefs as a part of exercise Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) Thailand 2013. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Amanda S. Kitchner/Released).” Please consider a donation to the Thai Community Development Center. Additional Sources: “How Thai food took over America,” by Francis Lam, The Splendid Table, January 10, 2019. “The Surprising Reason that There Are So Many Thai Restaurants in America,” by Myles Karp, Vice, March 29, 2018. “Jet Tila on the Evolution of Thai Food in America,” by Gowri Chandra, Food and Wine, April 27, 2018. “Thai Food, Constructed and Deconstructed,” by Raegen Pietrucha, UNLV News Center, September 19, 2019. “The Decades-Long Evolution of Thai Cuisine in Los Angeles,” by Jean Trinhm KCET, December 12, 2018. “Thai Cusine's Right Time and Place,” by Mimi Sheraton, New York Times, May 20, 1981. “Pad Thai Diplomacy,” by Savannah Wallace, Medium, August 9, 2020. “You Call This Thai Food? The Robotic Taster Will Be the Judge,” by Thomas Fuller, New York Times, September 28, 2014. “The Oddly Autocratic Roots of Pad Thai,” by Alex Mayyasi, Atlas Obscura, November 7, 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ah… artisan bread – such a gift, such an incredible statement of craftsmanship, such an important part of the human experience. Those who work with the four primary ingredients of bread: flour, salt, water and yeast (or starter) are a special breed. They are individuals who dedicate their lives and passion to mastering the process of mixing, shaping, proofing, and baking those incredible loaves of goodness. The job is physical, emotional, and at some level – spiritual in nature. Bread bakers are “all in”. Join us for an enlightening talk with Matt Funiciello, one of Americas’ premier artisan bread bakers who owns and operates Rock Hill Bakehouse in Glens Falls, New York. Matt is an advocate for wholesome food and shares that advocacy with his crew and customers. Vogue Magazine referred to Matt as “the paragon of purism” and Mimi Sheraton of the New York Times stated that Matt and his crew make the “Best Rye Bread east of the Mississippi”. Walk through a day in the life of bread baking and feel what it is like to work with, what many call the “staff of life”. This is a must listen episode for anyone who studies food, works in a professional kitchen, teaches others about the craft of baking, or simply enjoys the fruits of the baker’s labor.

Chasing Flavor: Techniques and Recipes to Cook FearlesslyBy Dan Kluger Intro: Welcome to the number one cookbook podcast, Cookery by the Book with Suzy Chase. She's just a home cook in New York City, sitting at her dining room table talking to cookbook authors.Dan Kluger: I'm Dan Kluger, and we are talking about my new cookbook called Chasing Flavor.Suzy Chase: If you enjoy Cookery by the Book please tell a friend I'm always looking for new people to enjoy the podcast. Now on with the show. You are the quintessential New York chef, you've worked under and alongside some of the great names in the restaurant world. Danny Meyer, Jean-Georges, Tom Colicchio, and Floyd Cardoz who we lost to COVID in April. Can you talk a little bit about how all of these guys influenced your cooking style?Dan Kluger: I started in the front of the house at Danny Meyer's Union Square Cafe and had really no idea that I would someday become a chef. I was really just spending my days off in the kitchen to learn a little about what goes on back there in the hopes that it would become an owner someday. I should know what goes on. And Michael Romano, who was the chef at Union Square Cafe at the time ended up offering me a job. So I started, I think it was back in 1995 as a prep cook, just peeling potatoes and frying calimari and cleaning salad greens. And it was an eye opening experience to begin with. But, you know, really taught me about the basics of food. It taught me about the basics of production of food, and it opened my eyes to some incredible Italian food. When, when Michael Romano was cooking his Italian food, it was not always you know, what we think of as Italian food. It was from areas all over Italy and he would hone in on something really specific. And so there's a lesson to go with it, which I really loved as a young cook. So, you know, I got a little taste of, of, uh, cooking, a little taste of food and flavorful food and great products from the farmer's market all while working at a place that I had originally worked in front of the house. And so I was tied to hospitality and it was tied to taking care of people. I think that really kind of spawned the interest in this for me and specifically the interest in not just cooking, but cooking to really make people happy and, and bring the whole experience. So that was my time at Union Square Cafe and towards the end of it I was really fortunate enough to be friend Floyd Cardoz who was working out of Union Square Cafe as he was building Tabla and doing menu tastings and his food was incredible. And, uh, you know, at that time it was kind of like nothing else. And Michael Romano was also a huge fan of Indian food so they shared a love for it. I think that's in part why Tabla became Tabla. I didn't grow up eating Indian food and I didn't grow up really with really any ethnic food other than going out for Chinese food and once a month with my parents, so it was really an eye opening experience and a great opportunity. And through that, I ended up going with Floyd to open Tabla and I worked actually alongside him for seven years. And again, like just every day was a learning experience, both in the culture behind the Indian food and the flavors of Indian food and then because this was not just your average Indian restaurant and it was really American and French techniques with Indian spices. I learned so much about technique and building flavor and so I would really credit Floyd as having started my taste buds and my love for this balance of flavor. That's something we talk a lot about in the book I've talked about throughout my career. And, uh, after seven years there, I went off to work with Tom Colicchio on a private club in Midtown. He was a consulting chef and he hired me as a chef and so now going to work for him, I was able to really hone my skills on what I consider American food and what I consider my food today. And then from there I met Jean-Georges and decided to go work with him. I opened a couple different projects for him, but ultimately ended up becoming the chef of ABC Kitchen, which opened, I guess it was 2009, 2010, somewhere in there, and was really based on farm to table nothing could be from further than 150 miles with the exception of our olive oil and our lemons and things like that. So I was able to really polish and hone my skills on flavor using these products and under his tutelage and within this incredible setting of a brand new restaurant. And then I opened Loring Place back in 2016. And here we are today with, with Chasing Flavor. It's a culmination of all those experiences tied into a book that I want it to act as a way for people to become more comfortable with both flavor building techniques, whether it's charring or roasting or smoking, as well as comfortable and confident in terms of building a pantry that they can use with all sorts of different products to create these really flavorful meals.Suzy Chase: Okay. Before we talk about Chasing Flavor, I have to tell you a funny, kind of New Yorky tidbit. I remember when chef Cardoz opened Tabla in 1998, and I could only afford to go to The Bread Bar downstairs, but it was amazing. It was the less expensive alternative. You kind of got a little bit of what was going on upstairs and the onion rings were amazing.Dan Kluger: Yes, they were, yes they were. Yeah. It was an incredible restaurant again, you know the right place, the right time to launch Indian inspired concept that really could speak to lots of different people, whether it was through The Bread Bar, which was this home-style Indian kind of street food menu or upstairs, which was, kind of the crème de la crème of ingredients and techniques to showcase these Indian spices.Suzy Chase: So the month that Loring Place opened, I had Mimi Sheraton on my podcast. And since she's a neighborhood gal, I asked her what her favorite restaurant was and she said, Loring Place. And I was like, what? What's that? And she said, "Oh, it's on eighth street. It's my favorite restaurant." And I was like, oh my gosh, I have to check it out. And so let me just talk about where it's located. So it's located in Greenwich village on eighth street, practically across the street from Electric Lady studios and for the longest time eighth street wasn't, shall I say, the most desirable street? And I feel like you made the street, what it is today. How did you discover that location?Dan Kluger: I don't think I made it what it is today, but I was certainly able to be a, I guess, a big part of, um, it's change and what it's become today, but really I would give the credit to my friends who own Eighth Street Wine Cellar, which is right across the street from me. And they've been around, I think, uh, 14 years now. And I used to come down here a lot after work. And so for me the street was kind of become home. And then probably about seven, eight years ago, uh, The Marlton which is a nice hotel that opened up on the corner and I think really helped Stumptown coffee. And so just through those two places and, and the wine bar, I think we started to see a change in the street, New York in general, started to get a little bit cleaned up from the riff raff that was on that street before and we came in you know, right time before too many restaurants around the block and I was really excited to be part of a neighborhood that I like and a block that I had already seen a bunch of growth on and now be part of its continued growth.Suzy Chase: So I feel like the majority of your career has been centered around the Union Square Greenmarket. Can you share some of your shopping strategies for going to any green market? Like, do you come with a list? Do you have the route mapped out before you get there? Or do you just walk from one end to the other, which is what I do?Dan Kluger: It's all of the above. We're shopping for the restaurant there's obviously a list. What do we know we need? And if we need 10 flats of tomatoes to get us through the weekend, we will probably, pre-order five of them from one of our favorite farmers. And then we'll spend the rest of the time walking around finding the other five so that we kind of distribute amongst other farmers and we're able to pick up tomatoes and taste them as we go. In terms of restaurant, that's a big part of it, but it was not as targeted as that. If I'm not shopping for the restaurant, I'm shopping more for menu development or for myself, then it's really more a matter of I like to walk through with really open-mind looking for whether it's something new or something that I didn't really expect to pick up and cook with, but was sort of inspired at that moment.Suzy Chase: You believe that every recipe should leave us with something beyond a tasty dish. Can you talk a little bit about your takeaways?Dan Kluger: Every recipe as you said, has something called the takeaway .The takeaway could be that this chili sesame condiment is great on the arctic char, but it can also be used not for a raw fish dish. You can braise tomatoes in it and serve it with poached halibut, or the takeaway could be something as simple as, you know, how we cook our parmesan croutons and that's something that, again, they're, they're there for a specific soup, but they can also be used on a salad, or it could be about how we marinate something or how we roast something to get enough caramelization on it that, you know, something like a brussel sprout is still creamy, but now it's crunchy. It's got a little bitterness, it's got extra sweetness from that caramelization. So again, the idea is that we're giving you the confidence to use these skills, whether it's the key ingredient or a full dish.Suzy Chase: So normally you write a recipe for the kitchen staff, how much tweaking did you have to do for us home cooks in this cookbook?Dan Kluger: There's certainly some where we simplified them a little bit, maybe a restaurant recipe, we make an herb oil that has to hang overnight and was a little more time consuming and expensive and in this case we just chopped herbs. So the idea behind any recipe that's in there is still that dish at its best.Suzy Chase: You talk about elderflower syrup in this cookbook, which is one of your secret ingredients for salad dressings.Dan Kluger: We used a lot at ABC, but I grew up every summer going to England and elderflower is a big thing there and I remember my grandmother having this bottle of syrup and kind of fell in love with it at a very young age and at ABC, I really kind of learned the versatility of it and started using it in lots of different things from hot sauces to, to vinaigrettes.Suzy Chase: So I grew up in Kansas and corn was everywhere, but I only learned about a corn zipper on page 11 of your cookbook. Where have I been?Dan Kluger: You know I fell in love with the corn zipper many years ago and just found that it's a little bit easier and cleaner than just using a knife, but obviously a knife works really well.Suzy Chase: I need a corn zipper in my life. So let's go back to that magical day in 1995, when you were a student at Syracuse in the food service program, and you were asked to show a special guest around campus.Dan Kluger: I owe the credit to gentlemen named Leon Genet. His children went there and I think he may have even gone there. And so he had an auditorium named after his wife and a lecture series that he sponsored and he used to bring all these different people up to speak, whether it was the CEO of Macy's or Tommy Hilfiger or in this case, Danny Meyer. And Leon and I had kind of hit it off at an early stage of my time at Syracuse. And he said, I got Danny coming, Danny's great I want you to show him around and we set it up and I attended the lunch with Danny and then we took him for a walk around Syracuse campus and we took them to the Carrier Dome and up in bright lights was welcomed Danny Meyer. And we kind of hit it off and after that, I applied to Union Square Cafe to be a summer intern.Suzy Chase: That's a crazy story.Dan Kluger: Yeah. I lucked outSuzy Chase: Totally well, no, you made it happen. You made the magic happen.Dan Kluger: You know, I think I've talked about this other people for when I've said, you know, I lucked out or I was lucky, then they said, no, no, no, you, you made it you've you you've made these things happen and I think I've made things happen and I've used my opportunities to make the best of them. And I certainly not just been handed a silver spoon at the same token. I got very lucky with these things. I got lucky in meeting Danny. I got lucky in meeting Floyd and I got lucky in meeting Tom. I got very lucky in meeting Jean-Georges and you know, those things, I, I truly believe are luck I mean, I worked my tail off to get to those places, but if I hadn't met any of those people, you know who knows where I'd be today. So I do think luck does have something to do with it.Suzy Chase: This cookbook teaches us some new cooking techniques. So why should we use a wire rack when roasting vegetables?Dan Kluger: So the wire rack sometimes called an icing grate, goes on a normal sheet tray is really great for roasting vegetables because you toss the vegetables in some oil you put on top, and as it goes into a hot oven, the hot air of the oven is not only cooking the top of the vegetables and the sides that are exposed, but because it's on the rack it's going underneath and cooking the bottom of them whereas if you just had them on a tray or on a piece of parchment, they're actually going to steam in part. So this, this makes them become, depending on what you're cooking and how you're cooking it. I kind of refer to it as like raisinating them and it starts to dry them out a little bit and intensifies them and that's what I really like about it is you can take something like a butternut squash and roast it on there, and I just find it, it takes more moisture out and it just makes it more naturally intense.Suzy Chase: That's so smart because there's nothing worse than one side that's kind of crispy and caramelized and nice. And the other side is just kind of like wet and goopy a little bit.Dan Kluger: Yep. Exactly. That's what we're trying to avoid.Suzy Chase: I made your recipe for Heirloom Tomato Toast on page 39. And it took me back to the Union Square Cafe days. Can you describe this recipe?Dan Kluger: Yeah. So it's funny that you talked about Union Square you know, every season we had the tomato bruschetta, uh, where we just took ripe tomatoes and tossed them with a little bit of olive oil, salt, and garlic, and put on toasted bread. I thought it was great, obviously very simple, but for me, it was just a little too simple. It was always missing something. And so at one point I decided to make this heirloom toast where I bought, obviously some of the best tomatoes you could find, but then took the toast and rather just grill it we actually toast it with parmesan so you get this crunchy layer parmesan on it, but it makes this like really great layer to put the tomatoes on it, lots of flavor and then we build the tomatoes up. They're sprinkled with salt and olive oil. And what actually happens is they, they leach out a little bit of their liquid. The bread has been toasted, so it's a little bit dry and can take the liquid. And so now you have this like parmesan bread with soft tomatoes and the bread is starting to soak up some of that juice. And so it just to me becomes an incredible flavored toast.Suzy Chase: Now to my segment called Last Night's dinner, where I ask you what you had last night for dinner.Dan Kluger: I made vegan ramen last night. I built this broth by really caramelizing, deep caramelize, the onions and garlic and ginger, and then add it in miso, which is really one of my favorite products and some Korean chili paste and tomato paste and even some vegetable Marmite basically cooked all that together and then finished it with soy and vinegar and all these things by making this really flavorful base. You wouldn't have known that there's no pork fat in there. I mean it was like still really jammy and rich, just like if it was a deep, normal ramen base. So again, it's, to me, it's always about building flavor in stages.Suzy Chase: Before we wrap it up. I want you to tell us about your Thanksgiving dinner kit at Loring Place. It looks delicious and I'm going to order one for my family.Dan Kluger: Awesome. It's all of my favorites, obviously turkey and then we take the breasts we cook that separately, the legs we braise and we bake into an incredible pot pie and then we have roasted spiced acorn squash, we have roasted brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes, cranberry chutney, which has, you know, this sort of Tabla Indian note to it, then stuffing and then last but not least a gravy that I've been making for years with Apple Jack Brandy and apple cider. So you can have dinner on the table and probably a half hour with not a whole lot of work.Suzy Chase: I'll say hey, look what I made everyone. They'll say, this is delicious. Where can we find you on the web social media and your restaurant here in the village?Dan Kluger: Website is dk@dankluger.com. Social media is Dan_Kluger, LoringPlaceNYC,on social media, as well as our new restaurant opening this December called Penny Bridge LIC and then both of them are PennyBridgelic.com and LoringPlacenyc.com.Suzy Chase: Thanks so much Dan, for coming on Cookery by the Book podcast.Dan Kluger: Thank you. It really a pleasure talking to you.Outro: Subscribe over on CookerybytheBook.com. And thanks for listening to the number one cookbook podcast, Cookery by the Book.

Kenny G may be one of the most successful artists of all time, but did you know he couldn't even make his high school band? He reveals how he overcome this early disappointment and how it fueled him to learn all he could about making music.

Kenny G may be one of the most successful artists of all time, but did you know he couldn't even make his high school band? He reveals how he overcome this early disappointment and how it fueled him to learn all he could about making music.

My 2018 Cookbook Year in Review with Bonnie Benwick, deputy food editor and recipes editor of The Washington Post. (Photo credit Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post) Intro: Welcome to The Cookery By The Book Podcast with Suzy Chase. She's just a home cook in New York City sitting at her dining room table talking to cookbook authors.Bonnie Benwick: I'm Bonnie Benwick, deputy food editor and recipes editor of The Washington Post Food Section.Suzy Chase: So you're the deputy food editor and recipes editor of The Washington Post, where you've worked since 1989. How old were you when you discovered your love of cooking and cookbooks?Bonnie Benwick: I think cooking, definitely when I was about nine years old. My mom was a nurse and so she wouldn't be at home when I came home from school. There was an afternoon help to sort of, it was not quite a babysitter, not quite a maid type person, but just someone who was around because it made my parents feel better about that. But my mom would leave instructions or she would call me from the office and say, "Take this out of the freezer." She was a big freezer cook. Defrost vegetables, put them in a pot, do this, do that. I was kind of her prep cook from very early on. I remember when I was nine I also had my first experience with a pressure cooker, you know those scary kinds with the-Suzy Chase: Yes.Bonnie Benwick: Reports things landing on the ceiling, which never happened to me, by the way. But my father really liked tongue and that's kind of one of the scummier things to cook in a pressure cooker, I think, but I was all in. That was my job. Also made borscht for him. He came home almost daily to have lunch and borscht was his thing. So between that and whatever, I was totally ... I'm just in love with making things in the kitchen, creative and fun and you get to eat it. Cookbooks, I think I ... That's a little harder to pin down for me. My mom had an old settlement cookbook that we might talk about later that she got when she was married. I used to look through that a lot and ask her questions, but she wasn't really a cook by the book kind of a person. I had an aunt who devised her own recipes and everything that she made, she would label it with Aunt Sally's best blueberry muffins, Aunt Sally's best lemon pancakes. I just thought naturally, everything she made was the best. So that was kind of a segue to looking in books that had really good recipes. I guess I landed in this ... That's a scary number, 1989, isn't it? I came to The Washington Post part-time and then went full-time when my kids got a little older. I've been in the food section for almost half that time that I've been at the Post and that's really where I wanted to be. Luckily, I've just landed in this job where I get to look at all the cookbooks I want all the time and talk to the people who put them together, which is always kind of been a little thrill for me.Suzy Chase: In the first line of you December 11th piece in The Washington Post, you wrote, "To be honest, we compilers of Best Of lists are never quite sure about what you, dear readers, want most from the cookbook division." Could you take us through the process, like how many cookbooks do you start with usually and what's the criteria?Bonnie Benwick: Well as you know since you have a cookbook podcast, they tend to come out in publishing clusters during the year. There's a spring graduating class and there are some in the summer that have to do with summer cooking and grilling, but the fall is really, heading into September, that's really the big crush where people tend to remember books most, and give them as gifts, and book reviewers like myself will test out of them quite religiously because we get these advance copies, galley copies way ahead, months ahead of pub dates. So I try to remember the ones that come earlier in the year, but people tend to hold off and really wait. The big crush of them, like I said, is that fall time. I think I must look through several hundred books a year. I don't obviously get to write about all of them, but I can see a little bit about trends in publishing and what people were after. It wasn't hard to spot the dozens and dozens of instant pot titles this year.Suzy Chase: Oh yeah.Bonnie Benwick: So specific that it got down to six ingredients in 20 minutes in your so and so kind of instant pot. It was just like every ... And I think it's going to keep coming, by the way. But then the next sort of round, the books that I tend to stockpile on my desk, or under my desk, or in a special closet that we have. I'll put Post-It notes. I'm a Post-It notes person. I'll tag recipes that I'm interested in, and if a book has got a hefty number of them, I set it aside for a possible best of the year, and try recipes. You also probably wouldn't be surprised to learn that not all recipes in cookbooks work very well.Suzy Chase: Yep, exactly.Bonnie Benwick: Yep. For one reason or another, so we we just make sure that a book that I recommend to people I've been through and spot tested enough that I feel confident that they get good use out of it. I also tend to like a practical, tend to recommend a practical book, something that I think people will not just ... It's not really based on a trend or anything, but it's something that actually teaches them something, kind of a life skill like a bread book, for example, a bread baking book. They've just gotten much better describing things and giving you step by step photos and sort of eliminating a lot of the anxiety in that process, I think, for a lot of people, or trying to eliminate what seems like a hard time and hard work and this that and the other thing.Suzy Chase: I find I'm super interested in the story, if the cookbook comes with a story of a region or a culture.Bonnie Benwick: You mentioned that you like, your Nick Sharma's Season is your favorite of this year?Suzy Chase: Yeah.Bonnie Benwick: I think a lot of what his success was, he had this column in The Chronicle, but other than the beautiful brown hands photography that he did that had such depth to it, I think, it was not only the cuisine that he was cooking, but the story of his life, and what food means to him, and what goes into it when he's cooking. Don't you think?Suzy Chase: It was so heartfelt, and so real, and so honest. I think it's a story that we haven't heard before. That's what got me.Bonnie Benwick: Yes. It seems this year there were more voices. I went for ... I always try to have a more inclusive list in my list of the year, Best of the Year lists tend to be longer than everybody else's. I know I was kind of complaining about, how could I narrow it down, but it seemed to be echoed in several other end of the year lists that I've seen so far. It's like they're all, cookbooks are just getting better. It's not necessarily that they're getting edited better, but we're just hearing from more voices and there are more cuisines out there that are more accessible to people because of the way we shop, or available things online, or that we're all so interested in. There are more people who are reading cookbooks for the stories they tell, not just for recipes that they give you.Suzy Chase: Can you describe the overall quality of cookbooks released this year?Bonnie Benwick: I was pretty impressed. Even the instant pot books, they went after trying to show you specifically what I think is the cuisines that call for a lot of long, slow cooking, Mexican, Indian, even French, all the braises that happen in French cooking, just translate really well to the instant pot. You have to know what buttons to push and how long to do certain steps. The fact that you can sautee chicken before you stew it for minutes instead of hours, that kind of thing. I thought that was pretty good and there's also those books like the Japan book that I recommended. It was just to me a really beautiful attempt at picking and choosing Japanese recipes that are not intimidating, that don't call for a lot of ingredients, that don't have you making your own dashi every five minutes, although there is some of that. But I just thought it was a beautiful attempt at, and this has nothing to do with appropriation culturally. But the author, Nancy Hachisu lived there long enough that she was able to study the cuisine and cook with different Japanese cooks and chefs. So I felt that she had that western sensibility to translate and explain those recipes and choose the ones that she thought would appeal to people like me. So if you've been to Japan, if you're in love with the culture, if you like that way of eating, I thought it was a really nice entrée. Plus, it's just a beautiful book.Suzy Chase: Yeah. I find that all Phaidon books are beautiful, like coffee table books. It's interesting to hear how that cookbook rose to the occasion for you because sometimes I feel like they aren't really that practical, that they're more pretty to look at.Bonnie Benwick: Yeah, definitely. They care about the packaging of the thing, and usually there's some, I wouldn't call it a marketing device, but there's something about the way that they present the material and there's always so many recipes in every Phaidon book, right? There are like-Suzy Chase: A million, yeah.Bonnie Benwick: Yeah, and that you can't really, unless it comes with one of those little ribbons, how are you going to keep that open?Suzy Chase: Well, some of them come with two ribbons.Bonnie Benwick: That's true, I remember Spanish Foods or something from years ago. Yeah, but again, it's not like I've cooked out of a lot of them. So this was a bit of a surprise to me. They always look really pretty, but unless I'm totally wrong about this, it seems like those are kind of giftable. Is that a word? That's not a word.Suzy Chase: Yeah, I think it is a word.Bonnie Benwick: They're good for gifts. It's a book that you present to somebody else. I'm not sure that I've ever seen one that someone has just demolished by cooking through it and breaking the spine and doing something like that. So coffee table sounds about right.Suzy Chase: Cookbook sales soared 25% this year. Does that surprise you at all?Bonnie Benwick: You know, my editor Joe Union and Cathy Barrow, who is the author of Pie Squared, was also on my list and she's a columnist for us and a friend of mine. Full disclosure, she lives in DC. We're talking about this recently and I think that number might be a little skewed by the overall sales, but the book that's really crushed everybody else, and I'm talking Ottolenghi, and Ina Garten, and Dory Greenspan, and all the people that you think sell really well, 10 times over their heads, five times over their heads is the Joanna Gaines Magnolia Table.Suzy Chase: Really?Bonnie Benwick: Have you looked through that?Suzy Chase: Yeah. I've just flipped through it. Wow.Bonnie Benwick: Well, it's almost like food is an afterthought to this empire that she and her husband and their multiple children have built. It's that lifestyle branding, I think, that maybe she took a page from Gwenyth Paltrow or something, but it really seemed to click in. She has far outstripped Pioneer Woman, a distant second she is. But I think Joanna Gaines, I think for just fall numbers for her, I heard something like she had sold a million copies.Suzy Chase: Wow.Bonnie Benwick: That's just in September. Yeah.Suzy Chase: People love her.Bonnie Benwick: That's crazy.Suzy Chase: They make pilgrimages to that darn place in Waco that they have.Bonnie Benwick: Yeah, I think she made it a whole, revitalized the industry, and more power to her. I just don't know really where her recipes come from. I haven't researched it enough and I haven't cooked out of the book, although it's on my desk at work. I feel like I need to give it a shot because people are buying it for some reason, right? That alone I think has skewed the overall numbers. If you look at Publisher's Weekly stats, it tends to be not that much different from last year if you take her off the top.Suzy Chase: In the same vein, it's no shocker that I'm not a fan of celebrity cookbooks, so tell me about Cravings: Hungry For More, Chrissy Teigen's latest cookbook. That was on your list too.Bonnie Benwick: Yeah. The thing about her is I think she's funny. I do believe that she likes being in the kitchen, but the thing that she was really smart about is she got a very smart recipe developer-Suzy Chase: Adeena Sussman, yep.Bonnie Benwick: Absolutely. Don't we love her? We love her.Suzy Chase: We love her.Bonnie Benwick: Right. So you know the recipes are gonna be okay and it looks like and sounds like, by all accounts, they have a really good time when they're in the kitchen together. Plus, she's kind of, I'm a little bit of an evangelist in that if Chrissy Teigen has made it easier for some people to do more cooking or to see that there's a simple joy in it, then I can go there. She even included, I came across one recipe in her book that she said, the head notes really are entertaining, as she is, that she said something like, "Yep, this recipe was in the last book. It's so good we put it in here again. Sue me." It was just a whimsical thing. She can do it. She's a super celebrity star, mom, whatever. I don't know, it just kind of tickled me.Suzy Chase: I went to the book launch that she did with Twitter here in New York City. It was packed. The line was out the door and people were just excited about her food, about listening to her talk. She has a whole thing like Joanna Gaines going on too.Bonnie Benwick: Yeah. Does she have her own line of lamps, and sheets, and towels, and stuff like that though? I don't know if she's gonna do that.Suzy Chase: I think she has her own line of pots and pans at Target.Bonnie Benwick: Well, yeah.Suzy Chase: So there you go.Bonnie Benwick: We're just envious. We want our own line of pots and pans too.Suzy Chase: We're just bitter.Bonnie Benwick: Like I said, I'm happy for her and at least in celebrity cookbooks for sure, you're gonna come across 25 pictures of them in the pages of the cookbook? But hers are obviously staged and they're funny. Plus, she's kind of beautiful so it's something for everybody to look at.Suzy Chase: So onto Nigella, it's her 12th cookbook. What was special about this one, At My Table?Bonnie Benwick: Up front, I have to disclose I'm a total anglophile. Usually during the year, I troll BBC food, I read the columnists, I'm in love with Diana Henry. Ever since Nigella's first book, it seems like I've been following her. I think when the first one came out, the domestic goddess one, I was working in the commentary section, the outlook section of the Post, and it just so happened one of the editors had gone to Oxford with her and was a roommate with her for a time. So she told me this story about how Nigella used to throw these dinner parties all the time when she was in college. It seemed authentic. It seemed like her love of food and the fact that she was this homegrown cook, not a chef, was doing her own thing. She's got such a love of ... She's such a good writer. I love the way that she plucks words out of the air, that she'll call something squidgy and she makes it sound like a million bucks. She does have kind of an economy of language when she's writing recipes and head notes, but they tend to conjure these images that you get. I just like that she's keeping on, keeping on. It seems when a new book of hers comes out, and they haven't all been fabulous. I wasn't a huge fan of Nigellissima, whatever, her take on Italian food and stuff, but I just appreciate that she's still around and still doing her thing so well.Suzy Chase: I used to love that show.Bonnie Benwick: Do you like her?Suzy Chase: Yeah, I loved her show. Remember that show?Bonnie Benwick: Oh yeah.Suzy Chase: What was it called? Something ... I don't know. But she was a lot curvier.Bonnie Benwick: Yeah, she was in the kitchen. Yes, and she-Suzy Chase: And she loved to eat.Bonnie Benwick: But she's also had this ... Yes, that sort of late night thing in the fridge was just genius, right? Who else was doing that?Suzy Chase: We all do that, yep. I was so excited to see seven of the cookbooks on your list were featured on my podcast this year, which is super exciting.Bonnie Benwick: Don't we have good taste?Suzy Chase: Look at us. What about Secrets of the Southern Table by Virginia Willis? Talk a little bit about that.Bonnie Benwick: Have you ever met or been in her presence?Suzy Chase: She was on my podcast.Bonnie Benwick: That's great. How long ago?Suzy Chase: She kicked off season four in September.Bonnie Benwick: That's really great. I totally admire her. I've known her for a long time. She has these kind of bona fides that I really admire. She's a trained chef, she did the classic French training thing, but she also very early on got into the business of making it accessible for people through television. She worked at Martha Stewart, she worked at the elbow of Natalie Dupree. She learned how to present food to people in a way that I think is not chef-y even though she's a very good chef. She understands how real folks cook and in this book, she was explaining origins of southern food in a way and did a lot of research and traveling around for it that I'm sure she told you about. One story that I was particularly taken with was this almond pudding that you make very simply with almond milk and gelatin. It's a southern thing, but it was actually Chinese. She explained how the Chinese people came to the south, and how they learned to cook, and how their tradition sort of got melded into southern culture, which I really hadn't read much about. So I appreciate the fact that she did the homework and is passing along information like that. For me it enriches, like you said, it enriches the story of a cookbook, don't you think?Suzy Chase: I learned so much from that cookbook. I think she needs to do a companion PBS series just on what she learned traveling around in the south, the history of food in the south.Bonnie Benwick: That would be great. She's really great on television. Plus, if you talk to her for three minutes, I end up sort of saying, "Well, hey," you know.Suzy Chase: Hey, y'all.Bonnie Benwick: Picking up her lovely Georgia accent. Yeah, she's just great. Plus, years and years ago she did a Thanksgiving menu for us that included her mom's pecan pie. Joe and I think it's the best one. It holds up year after year. It's the best recipe we've ever made. The ratio of goo to nuts is perfect and also, this blackberry cobbler, which is kind of genius, that she does in a skillet, very easy. Pour in the batter, pour in the fruit. It's kind of a perfect recipe. I think it got included in the Genius Desserts book by Kristen Miglore this year.Suzy Chase: I'm gonna have to look up that pecan pie recipe because I always find that there's more goo than pecans and it always makes me mad.Bonnie Benwick: Exactly, but this is, I'm telling you, this is the way to go.Suzy Chase: I love Jessie Sheehan and that darling cookbook, The Vintage Baker. With all of the baking books on the market, why this one?Bonnie Benwick: I just thought it was sweet. She doesn't overreach. I like the fact that it wasn't 800 recipes. Again, I like where she's been baking and how she learned it. But in this one, you're tricked a little bit. It's vintage baker but she's applying modern methods and tweaking very traditional recipes in a way that I think makes them, reintroduces them to us. So I appreciated that. I just think she has a nice feel for things. She doesn't make things too fussy, don't you think?Suzy Chase: And yeah, she is modern. You feel like you're gonna be flipping through grandma's baking book with her refrigerator cakes, but it's not. It's so modern. I think she's onto something.Bonnie Benwick: I tend to lard this end of the year list with a lot of baking books. Could you tell? I do. I like all forms of cooking and baking in the kitchen, but really, baking is kind of my jam. So when they come out in full force, all the cookie books and the ... There were fewer cake books this year, I noticed. I thought that was kind of interesting.Suzy Chase: What is one cookbook trend or type of food you'd like to forget in 2018?Bonnie Benwick: I'm gonna get in trouble for saying this. Cauliflower.Suzy Chase: Thank you.Bonnie Benwick: I've never liked it and just this year it turned into flower, and rice, and microwavable cup things where normally they would have some starch, they used cauliflower instead, which must smell so horrible to me, from the microwave. I can't even tell you. They made cheese crackers out of it, like fake cheese crackers out of it.Suzy Chase: Those are awful.Bonnie Benwick: And even ice cream. Have you had those?Suzy Chase: Yeah, they sell them at Trader Joe's. They're awful.Bonnie Benwick: Please. I really just would like that to go away.Suzy Chase: What about kale?Bonnie Benwick: Kale doesn't bother me. It got overworked a little bit, but I think it's settled back down into a happy place where people just aren't writing about it, but I think they're still using it. I like a good massaged kale salad. I like the way that it's a rich green. I like the way that it's a hearty green that will hold up in a soup. I like kale better than chard, I think. So for those Italian wedding meatball soups and things, I started using kale in it and I like it.Suzy Chase: Well, okay.Bonnie Benwick: I'm sorry.Suzy Chase: You know who Mimi Sheraton is?Bonnie Benwick: Oh yeah.Suzy Chase: She hates kale. Hate, hate, hates it.Bonnie Benwick: She hates maple syrup.Suzy Chase: She hates everything. I love her.Bonnie Benwick: She's funny when she hates it.Suzy Chase: Yeah.Bonnie Benwick: She actually wrote this essay for us on why she hates the taste of maple. It gets overused this time of year. You should look it up. It's very funny. She gets so ... Talk about click bait. Everybody was just, what are you talking about? Now every time we use maple in a thing we're like, "Sorry, Mimi."Suzy Chase: What is one trend you see on the horizon for 2019?Bonnie Benwick: Probably already half trended out. Fried foods maybe? People are gonna rediscover them based on ... The re-tweeted food media seems to have picked up on the air fryer and they're all over it. They think that by spraying their food with cooking oil spray and basically putting them in a convection oven, which is pretty much something you can do in a convection oven, I think, is going to turn the tide. So we'll have fried zucchini and sweet potato fries.Suzy Chase: Fried cauliflower.Bonnie Benwick: Sure, all the time.Suzy Chase: There you go.Bonnie Benwick: At home. For me, it's not ... I think frying foods in general is something that people avoid maybe for the wrong reasons. They say they don't want a lot of overused oil, but I have this theory that in the vast middle of America, take away the coast, but I think people know how to fry. I think they reuse the oil and they strain it, reuse it. I think once you get a feel for it, it's not like it's in there soaking up buckets and buckets of oil. It's in, it's out. You have to learn how to do it, right? Again, it's the sort of thing where I think if you know how to do it, you're not gonna buy an air fryer. If you, all the times that you maybe go out and you're guiltily ordering the fried mozzarella sticks or something, it's just funny to me that it's opened up this world of possibilities where there was a world of possibilities already there. But I could be totally wrong about this too.Suzy Chase: We'll see. What cookbook is sitting on your bedside table right now?Bonnie Benwick: The one that's on the top of the list is not a new book, it's an old book. It's a 2003 book called Cooking 1-2-3 by Rozanne Gold. Do you know it?Suzy Chase: No.Bonnie Benwick: It's like a game-changing book. She gloms on very early to this, it doesn't take a lot of ingredients, and if you want to get dinner on the table, this is how you do it. So the one, two, three is a minimal amount of ingredients, but it's just also very easy steps. I tend to have it on my bedside every now and then when I'm looking for inspiration for my Dinner In Minutes column, which is quick weeknight meals. Usually, there's something in there that I can start tweaking or playing off of. You should look it up. She's very good in a very simple way. She's one of those people that might be under the radar for people who aren't on the east coast, but I have a lot of respect for her and what she's done. She's done several cookbooks, nothing recent. I don't know if she does that anymore, but she's also I think a driving force behind the cookbook section that was donated or created or something for New York Public Library. I'm getting that wrong, for New York University.Suzy Chase: Oh yes. I've been to that.Bonnie Benwick: I think it's called the spine collection or something. Have you? Yeah.Suzy Chase: The Fales Library?Bonnie Benwick: Fales, that's it. Suzy Chase: Yeah. It's incredible.Bonnie Benwick: Then let's see, something that I have current on here is a galley for Solo, which was on my list. Was that on your list, by Anita Lo?Suzy Chase: No, but I'm dying to talk to her.Bonnie Benwick: Yeah, I think she'd be a really good interview. I remember when she appeared on top chef she was someone you wanted to listen to. Every couple of years, people remember that people aren't cooking for groups of 12. They come out with a cooking for one book. Years and years ago, I think just after Joe had come to the food section, we came up with the idea of a cooking for one column and he did for several years. We started off with getting different cooking for one constituencies to author it, like somebody who runs and eats food for fuel, basically. Obviously someone who was a widower who hadn't been cooking and then just had to start it up and give her her own life. Then Joe sort of glommed onto it and made it things that he likes to cook. It was very popular. What Anita has done in the Solo book is first of all say it's not all about her being by herself because she is in a relationship, happens to be, but even if you're living with other people, every once in a while you cook by yourself and these are empowering recipes that she'll give you that you can treat yourself well without making a whole big deal out of it.Suzy Chase: I think she lives in my neighborhood.Bonnie Benwick: Well, lucky you. You should definitely get together with her.Suzy Chase: She had a restaurant a couple streets over. I cannot think of the name right now, but it closed and everyone was so sad.Bonnie Benwick: Yeah. Was it Annisa?Suzy Chase: Yes.Bonnie Benwick: Anyway, sure. Her restaurant closed and everybody is sort of waiting to see what she's gonna do now.Suzy Chase: What is your favorite vintage out of print cookbook?Bonnie Benwick: Probably that settlement one that I mentioned, just for sentimental reasons. The 1949 edition, again, was when my mom got married. That was the year my parents married. I downsized about six months ago and I had so many cookbooks that at some point, I just thought if it's in a box and I haven't looked at it in such a long time, I'm not even gonna open the box. I donated about 12 boxes to a local DC organization that teaches cooking skills and also provides food for the city through city support residents, and I gave it away. I don't have it.Suzy Chase: Oh no.Bonnie Benwick: When I opened up the books that I took with me to my apartment, it's gone. I feel bad about that, but she had written notes in the margins. I think I would just like it back in my life for comfort. I can see ... I've gone online before and looked for this edition, and it's hundreds of dollars through somebody who understands how sentimental somebody can be about it. It's really very solidly about the memories and not so much about everything that we made out of it.Suzy Chase: It's interesting. I was just talking with Jan Miller, executive editor of Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook yesterday, and so many people feel the same way about their really old Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook. It's like an old friend.Bonnie Benwick: Yeah. Did the old ones used to have that red and white gingham thing on the cover?Suzy Chase: Yeah, and the tabs.Bonnie Benwick: Tabs, yes.Suzy Chase: Yes.Bonnie Benwick: Yeah.Suzy Chase: Aw.Bonnie Benwick: There were also those, there were a series of, I think it was by Workman, those 365 Days of Chicken or something else books. I don't know if they're really out of print or not, but they were the same size and they came out in the same era that The Silver Palate came out in. It's the paperback book but it's kind of longer size. That 365 Days of Chicken might have been in the same format as Better Homes & Gardens where it had a hard cover and you could open up the pages, but there were some pretty good simple chicken recipes in that book. I think I dipped in and out of that quite a lot. That's another one that I let go.Suzy Chase: I have an oddball question. Why aren't cookbooks critiqued? There are book critics but why aren't cookbooks critiqued?Bonnie Benwick: You know, I should start something, Suzy.Suzy Chase: You should. You're welcome.Bonnie Benwick: Kind of interesting. I think for one, if you're gonna critique it, you can sit down even with a big fat book and read it and then you're done, but with a cookbook, you really need to cook your way through it to critique it honestly, to assess its abilities, and then you have to weight it against other cookbooks and maybe some people just don't have the historical background of reading so many cookbooks and working with so many. I used to write regular reviews of cookbooks in the earlier days of the food section. Then we had other people writing them, and then we just stopped running them. Nobody said a peep. There wasn't one reader who wrote in and said, "What happened to those great cookbook reviews you used to have?"Suzy Chase: Oh really?Bonnie Benwick: No.Suzy Chase: Huh.Bonnie Benwick: When I went on social media and just asked for general feedback, not about us, but about in general, where did people read reviews, or how did they know what cookbooks to choose, overwhelmingly, they said they just read what's on Amazon. I just thought, well, who's writing those? You don't even know.Suzy Chase: Yeah. What pro is writing that?Bonnie Benwick: It's like the Yelp of cookbooks or something. It's like people find their names and they seem authentic, but it could be Russian trolls for all I know. I don't even understand why that's a good thing to go by. I think more than that, these days, people probably just gravitate toward bestsellers. Don't you?Suzy Chase: Definitely. Look at Joanna Gaines. On every episode this season, I've been asking cookbook authors what their last meal would be. So, what would you have for your last supper?Bonnie Benwick: It would be shrimp. I would have different kinds of shrimp. I like those pinky red ones from Maine that they can't seem to get out of the sea these days. I like glass shrimp, which I've had marinated a little bit as an appetizer. I like garlicky shrimp scampi type stuff, really low brow basic stuff. I like just caught gold shrimp that have been poached in a court bouillon and maybe I would just dip it aioli because it would be my last meal and I wouldn't care about anything that was happening to my insides. But I grew up in a kosher eating two sets of silverware kind of house. I think I must have been in high school or college the first time I really had shrimp. I just went out or went off the reservation and I've never looked back. I never get tired of it, I can't eat too much of it. It makes me sad when it goes into the oven and comes out an hour later and it's just dry and rubbery and horrible in a casserole or something. But I'll always give it a try. I like sucking heads out of shrimp. So there you go. I’d be full of shrimp.Suzy Chase: Where can we find you on the web and social media?Bonnie Benwick: I would love for everybody to come and chat with us online every Wednesday from noon to one EST at live.washingtonpost.com. We have an online chat called Free Range and we have a lot of faithful followers and a lot of lurkers who can just look at the questions and answers afterwards. It's a really fun hour. Typically if there's a guest who's written something, we'll have people on there. Had a whole lot of cookie experts on the week that our annual holiday cookies issue came out, and that was fun. People have questions and sometimes they start with, "This is a really dumb question but," and I'm like, "There's no dumb questions." It's all about being non-intimidating. I also have a Dinner in Minutes column. It's been doing a weekly quick meal column since, I don't know, maybe 11 years or so. That now appears in our vertical called Voraciously. I don't know if you have seen it, but it's about a year old and you can get it through Eat Voraciously or washingtonpost.com/food. That'll take you to another link that you can get in. It's basically about non-intimidating learning basic skills. It's brought in a whole new audience for us. I like [inaudible 00:38:57] my column I maybe even come up with a set pantry so that if you buy into the pantry and if you stock what I stock, then you'll never have to go shopping to make the recipe that I've given you for that week. So that seems to be good. On Twitter, it's just my name, first name and last name. On Instagram, I'm @bbenwick. I am not on Facebook. I got hacked a couple years ago and never went back on. Now it doesn't seem like a really good thing to do, does it? Although I think Facebook has Instagram too, but I don't share a whole heck of a lot of my personal life on Instagram, just mostly things I eat and make.Suzy Chase: This has been so much fun. Thanks, Bonnie, for coming on Cookery By The Book Podcast. Bonnie Benwick: Thank you. It’s been fun.Outro: Follow Suzy Chase on Instagram, @cookerybythebook, and subscribe over on cookerybythebook.com or in Apple podcasts. Thanks for listening to Cookery By The Book Podcast, the only podcast devoted to cookbooks since 2015.

On The Gist, who gets to vote? Mimi Sheraton, the first female food critic at the New York Times, has had a prolific career sharing her opinion on everything like ladyfinger sellers, hope chests and china patterns, and why we’re all eating kale wrong. She joins us today to talk her career as a food critic, why smelt isn’t a crowd pleaser, and the importance of eating as a family. She’s a delight on the Ask Mimi episodes of the Sporkful, and her most recent book is 1,000 Food to Eat Before You Die.  In the Spiel, voting mistakes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On The Gist, who gets to vote? Mimi Sheraton, the first female food critic at the New York Times, has had a prolific career sharing her opinion on everything like ladyfinger sellers, hope chests and china patterns, and why we’re all eating kale wrong. She joins us today to talk her career as a food critic, why smelt isn’t a crowd pleaser, and the importance of eating as a family. She’s a delight on the Ask Mimi episodes of the Sporkful, and her most recent book is 1,000 Food to Eat Before You Die.  In the Spiel, voting mistakes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mimi Sheraton, the first woman restaurant critic at The New York Times, doesn’t trust anonymous crowd-sourced reviews and says that authentic food is in the eye of the eater. Also on this week’s show: The near death of Tex-Mex; how to make a simple Tuscan beef and pepper stew; a new theory of wine; and a recipe for a Moroccan Nutella.

The adage "Power of the Press" is never truer than when it comes to restaurant reviews. A review can make or break a business, and more than that, it serves as a reliable guide to diners' experiences. Longtime restaurant critic and food writer Mimi Sheraton shares her insights and experience and sheds some light on the history of restaurant reviews. A Taste of the Past is powered by Simplecast

1000 Foods To Eat Before You Die By Mimi Sheraton

1,000 FOODS TO EAT BEFORE YOU DIE: A FOOD LOVER'S LIFE LIST is a tour guide, recipe guide, and restaurant guide by restaurant critic Mimi Sheraton.

1,000 FOODS TO EAT BEFORE YOU DIE: A FOOD LOVER'S LIFE LIST is a tour guide, recipe guide, and restaurant guide by restaurant critic Mimi Sheraton.

So what was New York like for female chefs back in the 1970s and '80s? As part of our continuing coverage of the Cherry Bombe Jubilee conference, we're sharing a talk titled "The Way it Was" presented by Mimi Sheraton, the pioneering journalist and author of 1,000 Foods to Eat Before You Die. Mimi, as many of you know, was the first female food critic of The New York Times during that era, so she has some great perspective on the city and its chefs.

This week on Cooking Issues, Dave's got Paul Adams, editor of Popular Science, in the studio. Tune in to hear them talk celery, tandoor ovens, kale, chilled monkey brains, and why you should be careful foraging for wild carrots (ps - caller, please let us know you're all right).

Emily Murphy of Baldor Specialty Food grew up infatuated with the cooking world, watching episodes of Two Fat Ladies and Julia Child’s The French Chef religiously at a young age. After studying baking at the Institute of Culinary Education in 2006, Emily made the move away from the kitchen into buying and selling specialty foods for her family business, Baldor Specialty Foods. She worked with Baldor founder Kevin Murphy, who evolved the company from a warehouse full of fruits and vegetables into a produce powerhouse. She may have traded in her apron for a desk, but there is still plenty of excitement in her day, from scouring Europe for the best cheese or running around Manhattan with truffles for the world’s top chefs. Her love for food came full circle after marrying chef David Malbequi and opening David’s Café, a new spot St. Mark’s Place. Emily lives in the East Village. Emma Straub is The New York Times­-bestselling author of The Vacationers, Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures, and the short story collection Other People We Married. Her fiction and nonfiction have been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Elle, and Conde Nast Traveler, and she is a contributing writer for Rookie. Emma’s work has been published in 15 countries. Her newest book, Modern Lovers, is a Brooklyn­based love story that Vogue named one of the best books of the summer. Emma lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two sons—all of whom she’ll be taking along on her next book tour.

Sara Moulton kicked off her fifth season as host of public television's Sara's Weeknight Meals in October of 2015. It was the latest milestone in a storied career that stretches back more than 30 years. A protégée of Julia Child, Sara was the founder of the New York Women's Culinary Alliance, executive chef of Gourmet magazine, Food Editor of ABC‐TV's "Good Morning America," and the host of several well-loved shows on the Food Network during that channel's first decade. A teacher at heart, Sara's mission has remained the same for decades – to help the home cook land dinner on the table. Following her graduation from the Culinary Institute of American in 1977, Sara spent seven years as a restaurant chef in Boston and New York, before joining the staff at Gourmet magazine. By 1997, Sara had begun hosting "Cooking Live," a live call-in show, for the Food Network. During the next ten years, she'd host several other shows for them, totaling over 1,500 episodes. Sara is the author of several cookbooks including her latest book, Sara Moulton’s Home Cooking 101. Bertha González Nieves An entrepreneur with a career rooted in the consumer luxury goods industry, Bertha González Nieves has been identified by Forbes as one of the most powerful women in Mexico. For the last 15 years, her career has centered on the spirits industry, and specifically tequila. During that time, she has been certified as the first female Maestra Tequilera by the Academia Mexicana de Catadores de Tequila. This distinction is usually held only by men in the industry. Los Angeles Times calls González Nieves “The First Lady of Tequila,” Food & Wine and Fortune magazines named her one of “The Most Innovative Women in Food & Drink for 2015.” Prior to co‐founding Casa Dragones, González Nieves spent the last 10 years as a top executive for Jose Cuervo International, the largest tequila company in the world and one of the top ten global spirits. González Nieves was responsible for Cuervo’s portfolio of brands in North America, managing over 65 percent of the company’s worldwide revenue. González Nieves was also instrumental in establishing the company’s global team in New York, and played a key role in the recent upsurge and popularity of the Tequila category in the U.S. and worldwide.

Platty (aka "Dr. Z"), the Admiral, and the legendary Mimi Sheraton share a downtown lunch and talk about the wonderful, often maddening life of the restaurant critic. Mimi, who began reviewing restaurants in the late 60's, has no shortage of stories from old New York, not to mention valuable insights about the risks and rewards of wearing disguises, why she never uses the word "tasty," and which foods she shouldn't be left alone in a room with.  

Brooklyn-born writer Mimi Sheridan is one of the most acclaimed critics food has ever seen. Before becoming the first female restaurant critic at the New York Times in 1976, she wrote for New York Magazine. Four decades later, she has written for almost every food publication that matters and authored 17 books, the most recent being 1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover’s Life List. Mimi’s influence on critical food writing has been unparalleled.

April Bloomfield: The Jubilee Keynote Chef April Bloomfield talks with Gail Simmons of “Top Chef” about opening The Spotted Pig, wanting to be a police officer, and learning from her mentors, Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray of The River Cafe. April is introduced by Mimi Sheraton, the legendary journalist and author of “1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die.” This talk was recorded at the Cherry Bombe Jubilee conference in March 2015.

What does it mean to cook like an "American?" How do U.S. chefs differentiate themselves amidst their international colleagues? Chefs Thomas Keller of Per Se and the French Laundry and Corey Lee of Benu sit down with food critic Mimi Sheraton to discuss how they use their plates and palates as a canvas for exploring our national identity. Recorded April 29, 2015 at New York's 92nd Street Y.

The Clever Cookstr is joined by Mimi Sheraton, a groundbreaking food journalist, the former restaurant critic for multiple publications including the New York Times, and author of sixteen books, including her most recent, 1000 Foods to Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover’s Life List. Visit the website: http://bit.ly/16IUA4v

Food Talk with Mike Colameco is brought to you by the following generous underwriters: This week on Food Talk with Michael Colameco, host Mike Colameco welcomes influential food critic and author Mimi Sheraton, restauranteur and chef Charlie Palmer, as well as Stefanie Sacks to the show. An influential food critic born and Brooklyn native, Mimi shares with Mike how she came up in food writing, starting with her parents who she described as excellent cooks and that her father, notably, was a commission merchant in a wholesale produce market. She recently authored the book “1000 Foods to Eat Before You Die,” which according to Mike fully delivers on the promise of its title. Selecting from the best cuisines around the world (French, Italian, Chinese, Senegalese, Lebanese, Mongolian, Peruvian, and many more)— Mimi profiles the tastes, ingredients, dishes, and restaurants that every reader should experience and dream about. The next guest, Stefanie Sacks, MS, CNS, CDN is a Culinary Nutritionist, author, radio show host, educator, speaker and consultant. She just released the new book “What The Fork Are You Eating? An Action Plan for Your Pantry and Plate,” which she explains to Mike focuses on the small changes in food choices can make big, everyday difference. An overview of the truth about what’s hidden in food plus an action plan with 50 time-tested, delicious recipes aims to get everyone caring about food and ingredients. Lastly, Mike welcomes chef and restauranteur Charlie Palmer to the show. Charlie shares some great details how he came up through the culinary ranks in New York City at a time when French chefs ruled the scene. Mike gets an update with what’s on Charlie’s plate at the moment with his many hotels and restaurants throughout the country, plus other projects on the horizon. Tune in for a great show through and through! “‘1000 Foods to Eat Before You Die,’ is in a way my autobiography. The last 60 years of my life have been made up of going in search of food.” [11:40] —Mimi Sheraton on Food Talk “This book is really about solutions and trying to help people, in a nutshell. […] What I’m trying to do is distill a lot of that information into usable, navigable tools and give people things they can do at home. […] They have to understand that our food is not effectively regulated.” [32:05] —Stefanie Sacks on Food Talk

Not only was Mimi fun to talk to but she contains a wealth of information when it comes to foods from all over the world. There are recipes, photos, mini history lessons about some of the foods you should try before you die, as well as where to find them and the places that sell the ingredients to make them. She takes you on a culinary trip around the globe and introduces you to the some of the most unusual and tasty foods the rest of the world enjoys. Get 1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die at your local bookstore and online at Amazon.com Click on this link to buy now! http://www.amazon.com/000-Foods-Eat-Before-You/dp/0761141685

The title of this episode makes absolutely no sense, right? Let us explain. Today the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences reveals it’s Oscar nominees and our Manny the Movie guy is not happy. In fact he says his heart is hurting. For “Eats” we speak with award winning cook book author, Mimi Sheraton about the 1,000 Foods you need to eat before you die. And for “Tubes” we speak to our tech guy, Jeremy Anticouni about a test track Elon Musk (Space X, Tesla, Solar City) is building for his Hyperloop idea. If you don’t know, the Hyperloop, in theory, could shuttle you, in a tube, from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 30 minutes…and it’s said to be totally safe. Plus stories from the friends: virtual kidnapping, free food for hotties, the flu shot is practically worthless, Mayweather vs Pacquiao is happening and you won’t believe how much money they’ll make, Chris Martin has a beef with the El Capitan climbers, Get a bac [...]

This week’s guest on Radio Cherry Bombe is Mimi Sheraton, a pioneering food writer and a former restaurant critic for The Village Voice, Time, Condé Nast Traveler, and The New York Times. Her writing on food and travel has appeared in such magazines as The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Smithsonian, Vogue, Town & Country, New York, and Food & Wine. She has written sixteen books, including The German Cookbook, first published in 1965 and never since then out of print, and a memoir, Eating My Words: An Appetite for Life. Her book The Whole World Loves Chicken Soup won both the IACP and James Beard awards, and she won a James Beard journalism award for her Vanity Fair article on the Four Seasons’ fortieth anniversary. Her latest book is 1,000 Foods to Eat Before You Die. She was born in Brooklyn and is a longtime resident of Greenwich Village. This program was brought to you by The International Culinary Center. “Though I never thought of having a career in food, I drifted naturally once I started working on magazines.” [04:00] “[As a critic], you try to help people pick a restaurant and know what to expect when they get there.” [08:00] “One of the things that makes it difficult for women [in food], especially if they’re married, is that a husband who isn’t in the business is much more unhappy about being left alone every night for dinner than a wife. That level of tolerance is very different for women.” [14:00] “When you have a core audience that’s really interested in the subject, you can be very specific and detailed but when your’e working for a publication that wants to expand that audience you have to get people that are less interested and entertain them – then you anger your core audience. [19:00] “I write what I want to read. [20:00] –Mimi Sheraton on Radio Cherry Bombe