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Special Sauce with Ed Levine

Serious Eats' podcast Special Sauce enables food lovers everywhere to eavesdrop on an intimate conversation about food and life between host and Serious Eats founder Ed Levine and his well-known/famous friends and acquaintances both in and out of the food culture.
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Now displaying: January, 2020
Jan 31, 2020

This week's Special Sauce features part two of my conversation with the online cooking star Maangchi, but first we get to hear from Kenji, who answered a question from Serious Eater Kyle Johnson about whether or not you can freeze the base for his white chili with chicken. Kenji being Kenji, he doesn't just limit himself to yes or no, but he offers a few pears of food-freezing wisdom, like "Flat things freeze faster and they defrost faster."

Maangchi and I mostly discussed her new book Maangchi's Big Book of Korean Cooking: From Everyday Meals to Celebration Cuisine, in which she wrote that Korean food "embodies generosity, innovation, patience, compassion, frugality, practicality, flexibility, and resourcefulness." But she also told me about how she was surprised by the fact that people have called her "YouTube's Korean Julia Child." In fact, she said, "Actually, when I heard the Julia Child...I didn't know who she was. I'm telling you the truth."

Finally, we close out the episode with SE Culinary Director Daniel Gritzer weighing in on making the perfect French omelet. He says that you need the right gear, of course, but it isn't anything fancy: Gritzer's omelet-making secret weapon is a plastic fork.

Maangchi on Korean food, Kenji on why the frozen food world should be flat, and Gritzer on the special qualities of a plastic fork. All in all, a fun, revealing, and informative Special Sauce.

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The full transcript for this episode can be found over here at Serious Eats: https://www.seriouseats.com/preview?record=451351

Jan 23, 2020

Maangchi. Maangchi. Maangchi! Need I say more?

On this week's Special Sauce I had a chance to sit down with YouTube cooking sensation Maangchi, who, in addition to being an inspiration to all of us here at Serious Eats, is our associate producer Grace's hero. And I discovered she's an impossibly engaging woman, as charming and disarmingly forthright as anyone we've had on.

And her path to success was definitely unorthodox: Maangchi went from living in a room in the back of her father's seafood auction house in Korea, to cooking fried chicken and burritos for her grocery store manager boss in Toronto, to becoming a master video gamer (that's when she came up with her nom de game, Maangchi), to teaching millions of people on YouTube how to cook real Korean food. Her life would make a great movie.

But before we get to Maangchi's story in this episode, Serious Eater Little Chefs Dubai asked Kenji, "What are your favorites to cook with [your daughter] Alicia?" I won't give away Kenji's answer, but I will tell you that Alicia is an accomplished and willing sous chef and she's not even three.

And, finally, to finish, we have the latest dispatch from the Serious Eats test kitchen, with Stella weighing in on no-bake cookies. "I have a secret to share with you about no-bake cookies," Stella says. But to hear what that secret is, you'll have to tune in.

Maangchi, Kenji, Alicia, Stella: This episode is indeed a very special Special Sauce.

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The full transcript for this episode can be found over here at Serious Eats: https://www.seriouseats.com/2020/01/special-sauce-kenji-on-cooking-for-his-kid-and-maangchi-on-becoming-a-youtube-sensation.html

Jan 16, 2020

On this week's far-ranging Special Sauce we cover a lot of territory- and I mean a lot- of territory. We've got Sean Brock on the highs and lows of an extended stay in rehab, and the joys of parenthood; Kenji on being a Juicy Lucy skeptic; and Stella on making an olive cake so delicious and so easy it can be in your mouth in less time than it takes to watch an episode of Billions.

Before we get to Sean Brock's ongoing battle with recovery, Serious Eater Mike Suade wants to know if Kenji will join him in Minneapolis for a Juicy Lucy (two hamburger patties stuffed with cheese), which is most assuredly not Kenji's favorite style of burger. "I've probably said in the past that Juicy Lucys just don't sound like a great idea."

Sean Brock talks honestly and painfully about the non-linear path of recovery he embarked on when he checked into The Meadows rehab facility. He also reflects on the unadulterated joy of parenthood. Finally, he discusses the pleasures of letting go of his compulsion to control everything in his life, which has allowed him to redefine success. "I had a different definition of happiness. I thought success was happiness."

Finally Brave Tart rhapsodizes about her shockingly easy to make olive oil cake. "This is a fantastic last-minute recipe," she says. "It comes together in about five minutes flat, bakes for 33 minutes, give or take, cools in 10. So let's do the math. You can have this cake in your face in an hour."

This episode of Special Sauce will both make you hungry and make you believer in the power of redemption.

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The full transcript for this episode can be found over here at Serious Eats: https://www.seriouseats.com/2020/01/special-sauce-sean-brock-on-the-distinction-between-happiness-and-success.html

Jan 9, 2020

On the first new Special Sauce episode of 2020, we go deep and wide on a whole range of topics. First the insanely talented chef Sean Brock, whose new book, South: Essential Recipes and New Explorations, has just been published, takes us on part of his extraordinary journey as a chef.

Brock talks about picking vegetables in his grandmother's kitchen and getting his first job in a restaurant kitchen as a teenager, which he describes as feeling like walking on to a pirate ship. He then delves into how that first restaurant job set him on the path to becoming a James Beard Award-winning chef. But Brock doesn't just talk about his success; he also reveals how his proclivity for obsessively going down culinary rabbit holes and working in fits of manic intensity threatened his mental and physical health and well-being.

But before we get to Brock, Serious Eater Zack Kreines asked Kenji about his favorite cut of meat, and his answer might surprise you, and our pastry wizard Stella Parks rounds out the episode with the key ingredient to her pumpkin cake (which she says is superior to pumpkin pie), a three-dollar purchase that'll enable anyone to make the "fluffiest cake in the universe."

Any episode of Special Sauce that covers Kenji's favorite cut of meat, Sean Brock's extraordinary life story, and Stella giving us the key to making the fluffiest cake in the universe is worth a listen.

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The full transcript for this episode can be found over here at Serious Eats: https://www.seriouseats.com/2020/01/special-sauce-chef-sean-brock-on-the-perils-of-working-too-hard.html

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