Episode 152: Maya-Camille Broussard Maya-Camille is the creative force behind Justice of the Pies , her Chicago bakery that’s become known for inventive and unmatched flavors (Lemon Espresso Pie … Blue Cheese Praline Pear Pie … and so on). Much of Maya-Camille’s work traces back to her roots, with a significant influence from her father, the self-dubbed “Pie Master,” who worked as a criminal defense attorney by day. As with many family stories, Maya-Camille’s is complex and dotted with both ador...
Jan 10, 2023•42 min
Hi there, today we’re excited to release the fifth episode in our 2022 Baking Month. Thanks for your patience, as our team was under the weather! Today’s guest is Brian Noyes , whose latest cookbook is The Red Truck Bakery Farmhouse Cookbook . For all of December, we’ll be celebrating some of the year’s best baking books with a handful of author interviews, dozens of featured recipes, excerpts, and more. Read on! * Do you love Salt + Spine? We’d love if you shared this email with a friend who mi...
Dec 23, 2022•41 min
Hi there, today we’re excited to release the fourth episode in our 2022 Baking Month. Today’s guest is Laurel Kratochvila , whose debut cookbook, New European Baking , is out now. For all of December, we’ll be celebrating some of the year’s best baking books with a handful of author interviews, dozens of featured recipes, excerpts, and more. Read on! * Do you love Salt + Spine? We’d love if you shared this email with a friend who might want to #TalkCookbooks with us, too: Episode 150: Laurel Kra...
Dec 14, 2022•41 min
Hi there, today we’re excited to release the third episode in our 2022 Baking Month. Today’s guest is Erin Jeanne McDowell , whose latest cookbook, Savory Baking , is out now. For all of December, we’ll be celebrating some of the year’s best baking books with a handful of author interviews, dozens of featured recipes, excerpts, and more. Read on! * Do you love Salt + Spine? We’d love if you shared this email with a friend who might want to #TalkCookbooks with us, too: Episode 149: Erin Jeanne Mc...
Dec 09, 2022•40 min
Hi there, today we’re excited to release the second episode in our 2022 Baking Month. Today’s guest is Brian Levy , whose sugar-free baking book, Good & Sweet , is out now. For all of December, we’ll be celebrating some of the year’s best baking books with a handful of author interviews, dozens of featured recipes, excerpts, and more. Read on! * Do you love Salt + Spine? We’d love if you shared this email with a friend who might want to #TalkCookbooks with us, too: Episode 148: Brian Levy Ne...
Dec 07, 2022•35 min
It’s our annual Baking Month, and we’re kicking things off with some return guests! Back on the show today are Rose Levy Beranbaum and her collaborator-turned-hubby Woody Wolston. They’re joining Brian in-studio to talk about their latest work, The Cookie Bible . Episode 147: Rose Levy Beranbaum Rose likely needs no introduction to those in the cookbook world. But here’s what you need to know: * She published the ground-breaking The Cake Bible in 1988, changing how many home and professional bak...
Dec 05, 2022•51 min
Hi there, exciting show for you this week. Melissa Clark , one of the most prolific cookbook writers of the modern era, joins us. Read on! * Do you love Salt + Spine? We’d love if you shared this email with a friend who might want to #TalkCookbooks with us, too: Episode 146: Melissa Clark This week, Melissa Clark joins us to #TalkCookbooks! When we launched Salt + Spine, I wrote a short list of our dream guests — the cookbook authors who, at the time, I felt were pushing the industry in new dire...
Nov 30, 2022•46 min
Hi there! After a short break last week, we’re back with new episodes and bonus content for subscribers. This week, cookbook author Odette Williams joined us in our studio at The Civic Kitchen in San Francisco to talk pasta. * Do you love Salt + Spine? We’d love if you shared this email with a friend who might want to #TalkCookbooks with us, too: Episode 145: Odette Williams This week, Odette Williams joins us on Salt + Spine to #TalkCookbooks! Odette was an actor long before she started calling...
Nov 15, 2022•46 min
Hi there! It’s Election Day in America, so we’re bringing you a special episode today that’s all about baking with a political and emotional spin. If you haven’t voted yet, find your polling place here . If you’ve already voted, it’s always a good time to donate to organizations like the ACLU or Color of Change to protect our voting and civil rights. * Do you love Salt + Spine? We’d love if you shared this email with a friend who might want to #TalkCookbooks with us, too: Episode 144: Becca Rea-...
Nov 08, 2022•23 min
Hi there! This week’s episode is coming to you a bit later than normal, as I’ve been under the weather fighting what feels like my 47th sinus infection over the last few years. Thankfully, we recorded this chat with the wonderful Kristen Miglore several weeks ago—with both a live audience and a non-nasally host. That said, we’ve got a great show for you: Kristen is back for the second time on the pod, this time sharing a new batch of Genius tips and tricks (and hacks, if you will). Plus, recipes...
Oct 27, 2022•43 min
Episode 142: Jorge Gaviria This week, we’re thrilled to welcome Masienda founder Jorge Gaviria to #TalkCookbooks with us. Jorge’s first cookbook, Masa: Techniques, Recipes, and Reflections on a Timeless Staple , explores the deep history and significance of masa—the dough made of nixtamalized corn that goes on to become tortillas, tamales, sopes, and many more Mexican and global staples. It all started with a realization while apprenticing at Blue Hill at Stone Barns. Jorge started to dream of o...
Oct 19, 2022•51 min
Episode #141: Sophie Minchilli This week, Sophie Minchilli joins us to #TalkCookbooks. Sophie leads food tours around Italy with her mother, cookbook author and previous Salt + Spine guest Elizabeth Minchilli . The two lead food lovers through Rome, Umbria, Puglia, and other destinations. Growing up in Italy with a cookbook author as a mother, Sophie’s life has always revolved around food. She left briefly for university in London, before moving back home to Rome to devote her career to food. No...
Oct 12, 2022•33 min
Episode 140: Erin Gleeson This week, Erin Gleeson joins us to #TalkCookbooks. What a fun episode! I packed up our recorder and microphones and headed south from San Francisco and into the woody, serene drive to Erin Gleeson’s charming cabin-esque home in the South Bay. Just look at this enviable set-up—I wish we could record every episode here! And Erin even prepped us a plate of lavender shortbread, which is featured in her latest cookbook, and a warm pot of coffee: Anyway — we were at Erin’s h...
Oct 04, 2022•52 min
Episode 139: Eitan Bernath This week, Eitan Benath joins us to #TalkCookbooks! Eitan is one of the most visible people in food media today. At just 20 years old, he’s amassed a remarkable 8+ million social media followers. Odds are, if you have a social media account, you’ve seen Eitan. Whether on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, or even Snapchat, where he’s hosted three cooking shows. Last year, his original content reached more than 350 million people with 3 billion views. It all started with Food...
Sep 28, 2022•45 min
Hi there, happy Tuesday! This week, Nicole Taylor joins us in studio to talk Watermelon & Red Birds. Plus: We chat with Carla Lalli-Music later in the week—and bring you featured recipes and highlight new release cookbooks. Read on! Do you love Salt + Spine? We’d love if you shared this email with a friend who might want to #TalkCookbooks with us, too: Episode 138: Nicole Taylor Nicole Taylor —author of Watermelon & Red Birds —joins us this week to #TalkCookbooks. A Georgia native, Nicol...
Sep 20, 2022•50 min
Episode 137: Ali Slagle This week’s episode is a fun one — our first live event since pre-pandemic! Ali Slagle joined me in front of a live audience at Omnivore Books in San Francisco recently. A Los Angeles native and UC-Berkeley grad, Ali started her career at Ten Speed Press, where she worked on several cookbooks as an editorial assistant. She joined the Food52 team after working on their Genius Recipes cookbooks ( featured here in our 2018 chat with Kristen Miglore !) and later went solo wit...
Sep 13, 2022•35 min
Episode 136: Kristina Cho This week, we’re joined by Kristina Cho to discuss her debut cookbook, Mooncakes and Milk Bread: Sweet and Savory Recipes Inspired by Chinese Bakeries . Kristina is a Bay Area-based recipe developer and writer who grew up in a restaurant family in Cleveland, Ohio. After a degree in architecture left her longing for something more, she turned to food blogging and launched Eat Cho Food . As her recipes grew in popularity, she realized some of the hits were items you’d fin...
Sep 07, 2022•42 min
Hi there — happy Tuesday! We’ve got a great conversation for you today with author Adrienne Cheatham on her first cookbook, Sunday Best . Check out the episode and more—featured recipes!—below. But first, a few announcements: * Our Summer Cookbook Club is in full swing and we’re baking our way through Jessie Sheehan’s Snackable Bakes . Next Tuesday, we’ll come together on Zoom with Jessie to make a cherry clafoutis (if you’d like) and to discuss cookbooks, sweets, and more. Reserve your seat now...
Jul 19, 2022•42 min
Hey there, We’re back with a very special episode for you: Today’s episode was the first we’ve been able to record in-person in 899 days! We met Bay-Area native Andy Baraghani at The Civic Kitchen (our studio home in San Francisco) to hear about his first cookbook, The Cook You Want To Be . We’d almost forgotten how magical in-person interviews are. While we’re grateful to have been able to bring you great conversations, recorded remotely, during the pandemic, there’s something special about how...
Jul 07, 2022•52 min
Hi there, Thrilled to share this week’s conversation with you—we’ve got Jessie Sheehan in the virtual studio! And stay tuned: we’ve got an exciting Cookbook Club announcement coming your way shortly. Episode 133: Jessie Sheehan Peeps! We’ve got the easy-peasy baking star Jessie Sheehan on the show this week. You may know her from her beloved previous cookbook, The Vintage Baker , or from the recipes she’s developed for numerous media outlets. Or, perhaps you too were sucked into TikTok at the st...
Jun 23, 2022•50 min
Hi there, Apologies for the silence last week! The COVID fairy finally pulled my card, and it knocked me (and my family) down for a number of days. We’re all recovering over here, and I’m excited to share this week’s conversation with you now! I hope you’ll forgive the delay. Read on for more on my recent chat with Kwame Onwuachi—and make sure you’re subscribed to our Substack to access exclusive recipes from Kwame’s My America later this week. –Brian Episode 132: Kwame Onwuachi It really does f...
Jun 15, 2022•34 min
Hi there — Happy June! This always feels like the best month to me (spoiler alert: it’s my birthday month! 🦀). It’s probably still a holdout, many many years later, of the school’s-out-and-summer-is-here bliss, but the days feel long, the dinners feel relaxed and homey, and I feel energized. How are you feeling this June? Whatever you’re feeling, we’ve got a great show for you this week: Episode 131: Sheldon Simeon This week, we’re joined by chef and author Sheldon Simeon to discuss his debut c...
Jun 02, 2022•33 min
Hi there, Memorial Day is this weekend and if, like me, you’re just getting around to thinking about food, we can help. We dug into our Salt + Spine archives for some grill-tastic options: * How about some Smoked Chicken or Pork T-Bones (two prime mains from pitmaster Rodney Scott )? * Stacey Adimando’s got a side dish covered with her Blackened Summer Squash with Buttermilk Cream Sauce, Rosemary, and Chives . * And wash it down with Grilled Margaritas from Maggie Hoffman ! And to ring in summer...
May 24, 2022•37 min
Hi there, Hope you are doing well — I am finally (I hope) recovering from a little non-COVID infection that took my voice fully away for a good 24 hours. Every podcast host’s nightmare! But it’s back-ish (bear with me) in time to tee up this week’s conversation, which I’m thrilled to share with all of you. My long-overdue conversation with chef and author Renee Erickson is hitting the podcast waves today. We recorded our chat quite some time ago and, sadly, the world got in the way and it’s been...
May 18, 2022•51 min
Hi there, I’m excited to share today’s episode with you: We’re joined by chef Peter Hoffman —of the legendary New York City restaurant Savoy, and then of others—to discuss his career and first book. Today’s Guest: Peter Hoffman Peter Hoffman was the chef-owner of Savoy, the farm-to-table eatery in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood he opened in 1990 and that upended ideas about fine dining at the time. Savoy ran for two decades before Peter shut the doors in 2011. (His other restaurants closed in...
May 10, 2022•45 min
"People ask me, 'What's something that's changed a lot in publishing, or what's the most important or hopeful part about publishing?' And my answer is that authors have more control now than they ever have had, but that also means they also have more work to do than they've ever had before." —Monika Woods, literary agent This is the final episode in our four-part series, Behind the Spine. Over the last four weeks, we've shifted our focus away from the authors to learn more about some of the othe...
May 05, 2022•48 min
"And so you're asking a lot of somebody who's reading a cookbook. You're kind of engaging them, you know, head, heart, and hands, really. It's this very different way of relating to a book than you are to an art book. And that's why I love designing cookbooks because there's a creative aspect to it, but there's also a very practical aspect, too. And you have to kind of keep that balance in mind whenever you're designing." —Frances Baca, book designer and creative director This is the third episo...
Apr 27, 2022•56 min
"I put myself in there so people of color can imagine themselves in the kitchen, making those dishes—because food is for everyone to cook. It's not restricted to a certain class of the population. I want everybody who wants to cook to be able to see themselves making things, enjoying them, and trying new things." –Nik Sharma, cookbook author and photographer Today's episode, part two in our Behind the Spine series, is all about the mouthwatering photography that draws us to our favorite cookbook...
Apr 20, 2022•41 min
"No matter how perfectly the recipes are written, no matter how accurate you are with all the measurements—it's a different person, in a different place, using different ingredients so that they end up with something slightly different. And I used to think that that was a problem, that that was something I was trying to account for and correct in the testing and in the recipe writing. But I actually now see it as a really beautiful thing ." —Maria Zizka, recipe tester & developer Today's epi...
Apr 13, 2022•51 min
This week, we're excited to welcome Zoe Adjonyoh to Salt + Spine, the podcast on stories behind cookbooks. Zoe Adjonyoh is the chef and founder of Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen, a pop-up restaurant/supper club that’s taken place in various places around the world—from London, where Zoe lives, to Berlin and New York. Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen has grown into a distributor of African ingredients and spices. In 2014, Zoe gathered her work as a writer and chef together, bringing recipes from her experiences in Ghana...
Mar 17, 2022•42 min
