Burnt Toast

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. This episode was originally released on February 25, 2016. 

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. This episode was originally released on April 21, 2016. 

We went back through the archives to highlight some of our favorite clips over the past two years. Why? Burnt Toast is taking a short break to come back even better—with deeper storytelling—in 2017. We’ll be re-releasing episodes we love in the meantime. For now: Enjoy stories of diapers on turkeys, Jonathan Gold on being a critic, and the story of a wedding toast that went awry. 

We revisit a topic from one of our earliest episodes of Burnt Toast—and the one you’ve listened to most: first food jobs, and advice for future food writers. Listen to how co-founder of Food52 Amanda Hesser and founder of Lucky Peach Peter Meehan got to where they are now, and hear if any of their advice has changed.

Go see the World's Largest Peanuts (yes, there are two) or the World's Oldest Ham—We'll tell you what to eat and what to listen to along the way. Welcome to the great American road trip season. Happy travels, listeners. 

Does Michael Pollan always follow his own food rules? Does he *truly* believe sustainability is economically feasible? We talk to journalist and one of today's important voices in food about these things—and you tell us how his work has impacted your life. 

We go behind the scenes of the Food52 Shop, which celebrates it's third anniversary this summer, and talk with founders Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs about what it's like to run a food business, what we've learned, and the mistakes we've made--including, yes, shipping fresh turkeys on Thanksgiving. 

Nigella Lawson, the domestic goddess herself, on cooking as necessity over therapy, how she doesn't entertain, and about making up her own words. This episode is a rebroadcast from November 5, 2015. 

This episode digs into the art of the wedding toast—let it serve as an example of what to do, what not to do, and what to never even think of doing if you're asked to speak. We asked for your best and worst toast stories—here they are. 

This is part two of a conversation with the legendary editor. Last time, we talked Julia Child and Judith’s work as a cookbook editor—but Judith is a cook herself, too. This time we go inside Judith’s kitchen and talk about her own personal intersection with food. 

In part one of a two-part series, we talk to Judith Jones, legendary editor of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Hear about her work with cookbooks and their authors (think: Marcella Hazan, Marion Cunningham), and learn why, even still, she wouldn’t call herself a cookbook editor. And: There’s a Julia Child impression or two in here, just for fun.

This was the subject of our most popular post on Food52 last year, so we asked more of you for your back-pocket, too-tired-to-cook meals. We all have them—here's what you said, plus our tips for riffing and making them even faster. 

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.