Live: Kenji Lopez-Alt And Judy Gold Debate The State Of The Bagel

Should bagels ever be toasted? Why does the restaurant industry have so many scandals? And what could possibly possess someone to feed their baby a straight-up stick of butter?

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Pashman?

  As we turn to fall and the weather starts to cool down, I think of things like crunching leaves. I think of sharing from the sidelines of a soccer game, walking the dog in the woods. And when I think of doing all those things, I'm usually wearing something from LL Bean. Whether it's my puffer vest, my puffer coat, my scarf, whatever you're doing outside this year, you probably need something from LL Bean. Whether it's their boots, their Scotch plaid flannel, their rugged field coat, or more. Grab the layers and people you love and get outside. Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. LL Bean, be an outsider. As someone who has been lucky enough to go to Napa Valley, I can tell you, it's everything people say it is. Beautiful scenery, quaint, beautiful towns, and phenomenal food and

• 0:44Dan Pashman?

  drink everywhere you go. I don't even know that much about wine, but I know that every glass of wine I had in Napa Valley was excellent. I mean, there's no bad glass of wine and no bad meal. Choose between hundreds of wineries, tasting rooms, and chef-led restaurants from a low-key lunch on a vineyard terrace to a full tasting menu paired by the winemaker. Plan your trip at visitnapavalley.com.

• 1:16Dan Pashman?

  So normally when we do a show, like, we don't know before we record whether anyone's gonna curse. And so if it turns out that people curse, we have a pre-recorded thing we can tack on to the start of the show, "This episode contains explicit language." But since Judy Gold is one of our guests, I'm just gonna say it now, "This episode contains explicit language."

• 1:42Dan Pashman?

  This is the Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food. To learn more about people, and we're coming to you live from the Bell House in Brooklyn.

• 2:05Dan Pashman?

  Tonight, we're doing a live version of The Salad Spinner, our rapid-fire roundtable discussion of the biggest, strangest, and most surprising food stories of the moment. We even have the official Sporkful Salad Spinner here on stage. Joining me tonight are two very special guests in addition to The Salad Spinner. She is a legendary comic whose work I have loved forever. She's also a writer and the author of Yes, I Can Say That. If you follow her on Instagram, you know she has no shortage of opinions about food and pretty much everything else, which makes her a perfect guest for a salad spinner. Please welcome the one and only Judy Gold.

• 2:52Dan Pashman?

  I'm just giving you a high five because I can't stand it up. Now I'm chapping my microphone.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  Listen, I'm not cursing at all this episode. You fucking asshole.

• 3:02Dan Pashman?

  And he is the author of two bestselling, James Beard Award-winning cookbooks, The Food Lab and The Wok. He hosts a very popular YouTube channel in which he cooks with a GoPro strapped to his forehead. And he founded a series of live shows called Tasting Notes that pair food with classical music. Please welcome my friend Kenji Lopez-Alt.

• 3:30Dan Pashman?

  So it's great to have both of you here. Let's just take a minute before we get into salad spinner topics and just chat. Judy, I noticed on Instagram recently you posted a video about your love of borscht.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Yes, I love borscht.

• 3:42Dan Pashman?

  Tell me more about what's your favorite kind of borscht?

• 3:46Speaker 01

  Okay, they have this hot borscht? No. I like the beet borscht, okay, with a boiled potato and sour cream.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  It is so delicious. I can't, I just, I crave it. I love it so much. And at the Comedy Cellar, they have this, this restaurant called The Olive Tree, right? They used to have the cold borscht. I would like literally go, I would, you know, hang out there, but I really, I mean, I wanted to do stand-up, but I really wanted to eat the borscht. So, um, and now they don't have it anymore. They have the hot borscht with the, you know, the cabbage and the, then the meat and the bone and, and I'm, no.

• 4:33Speaker 02

  Can you, can you just buy the hot borscht and wait?

• 4:38Speaker 01

  I'll do the jokes, okay? Whatever.

• 4:42Dan Pashman?

  Kenji, you've been, you've recently founded this thing called Tasting Notes.

• 4:45Speaker 02

  A couple of years ago.

• 4:46Dan Pashman?

  Right. So you're cooking on stage while people are playing classical music?

• 4:50Speaker 02

  That, that's how the shows have, have been. Yeah. We, so we, we do, uh, it's a live stage show that's sort of interactive. Um, yeah. And the idea is that musicians and chefs are both creative craftspeople, you know? And so, um, when I had the opportunity to try and figure out a way to put them together, that's why we came with Tasting Notes.

• 5:06Dan Pashman?

  And are you like going out there, is there a plan for what you're gonna cook and what music they're gonna play?

• 5:11Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:11Dan Pashman?

  Or is it like whatever the, however the spirit moves you?

• 5:14Speaker 02

  No, no, no. It's, it's, I mean, it's scripted. So we, we do sort of discuss how, yeah, the sort of the themes of each section of the show and how the music and the, and the food relate to each other. The one we're doing in Seattle is gonna be a lot more, it's a smaller show, so it's just me, uh, and a single violinist, my partner Tessa. It's gonna be a lot of audience participation. So we have like 20 pounds of unflavored gummy bears. We have, everyone's gonna get blindfolds, everyone's gonna get nose plugs, and we're gonna do all kinds of, kind of fun, fun, interactive things.

• 5:42Dan Pashman?

  And you did one of these at a circus?

• 5:44Speaker 02

  We, we did a small version at, uh, with, with the musicians from Cirque du Soleil. It was kind of just like a friends and family fun thing. It was an excuse to go into the circus.

• 5:53Dan Pashman?

  You said it was a fulfillment of a lifelong dream for you to be in the circus.

• 5:55Speaker 02

  I, I did wanna be in the circus when I was a kid.

• 5:57Dan Pashman?

  What, what did you want? Your, your, which job did you want?

• 6:00Speaker 02

  So I learned to juggle. I learned to ride a unicycle. Like I learned to play my violin on a unicycle.

• 6:05Dan Pashman?

  This is commitment.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  I'm gonna go with not that popular.

• 6:11Speaker 02

  I was not popular, no.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Same, same.

• 6:14Dan Pashman?

  Judy, if you could, if you could have had any role in a circus, what would your role be?

• 6:18Speaker 01

  The tall woman.

• 6:23Dan Pashman?

  All right, let's get going with the salad spinner here. We have our actual salad spinner.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  I feel like you talk to him for like, you know, 10 minutes. Oh, and you're doing this show, and you're doing that show. And I get nothing, nothing.

• 6:35Dan Pashman?

  What else do you want to talk about, Judy?

• 6:36Speaker 01

  Whatever, let's go.

• 6:39Dan Pashman?

  Judy, can I ask you to please give the salad spinner a whirl?

• 6:46Dan Pashman?

  All right, you can stop it now.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 6:50Dan Pashman?

  You're both native New Yorkers, so I want to start off today with a discussion of the state of the bagel.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  Mmm.

• 6:56Dan Pashman?

  Not just in New York, but across the country. Judy, you first, sum up the state of the bagel in one word.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  In one word?

• 7:03Dan Pashman?

  All right, whatever. Asking Judy to do anything in one word is a bit unfair.

• 7:07Speaker 01

  It's over the top, over the top. I feel like, like I'm really upset about this whole pumpernickel bagel thing that's going on.

• 7:17Dan Pashman?

  The disappearance of the pumpernickel bagel?

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Right, oh, we're not gonna have pumpernickel bagels. Pumpernickel bagels are the best bagels. They're sweet, right? They're sweet and they taste so great with the schmear. I'm telling you, I'm really upset about the pumpernickel bagel thing. And I'm also upset about like, these are the best bagels, these are the best bagels. No, they're not the best bagels, okay? A lot of these bagels are, are good for like 10 minutes and that's it. It depends on how the water is, that's it. New York, New Jersey, bagels are the best. That is the end of the discussion, okay?

• 7:53Dan Pashman?

  All right.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  And by the way, if you eat a blueberry bagel, don't ever talk to me again.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  How do you feel about cinnamon raisin?

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Cinnamon raisin, I mean, it's very gaiyish, but it's been around for a long time.

• 8:11Dan Pashman?

  So Judy, we've been going, we've been talking about 10 minutes. We talked about 10 minutes and you've come out hard in favor of borscht and pumpernickel bagels.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:19Dan Pashman?

  You're like a 102-year-old Jewish woman trapped in the body of a 63-year-old Jewish woman.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Right. With constipation.

• 8:29Dan Pashman?

  Kenji, you were shaking your head when Judy was saying that it's the water.

• 8:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  Okay, you're not Jewish, don't tell me.

• 8:40Dan Pashman?

  I grew up on bagels, though. I once interviewed Maria Bolinska, a bagel historian, and she sent samples of the water to a lab, and they said that the water in New York is not special.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  The water in New York is not special. Well, the water in New York is also not-

• 8:53Speaker 01

  She's anti-Semitic.

• 8:57Speaker 02

  Depending on the time of year and depending what neighborhood you're in, you're getting water from multiple different sources in New York, and they all have different dissolved mineral solids in them. So the water in New York is not even consistent, and it's not special.

• 9:08Dan Pashman?

  I think the real difference, because we've looked into this, is that it's more just that there's more bagel stores in New York with a longer history of bagel making, so there's more sort of inherited knowledge, and there's a more discerning customer base because we've been eating bagels for so long. And that pushes Jude now-

• 9:22Speaker 01

  That cannot be true, because I go to other states, and the bagels are vastly different, okay? And the Montreal bagels suck. I know everyone thinks that they are, "Oh, yeah, Montreal, we have the best bagels." No, you don't. You have not, you do not have the best bagels.

• 9:38Dan Pashman?

  Kenji, what would you say about this current state of the bagel in America?

• 9:41Speaker 02

  So I think it's exciting in some ways and also, you know, bagels are changing, right? So there's this like LA bagel trend now where the bagels are kind of more somewhere between a bagel and a baguette. I tried one of the bagels you got from Apollo.

• 9:52Dan Pashman?

  That was Apollo Bagels.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, that, like, if it didn't have a hole in it, I wouldn't recognize it as a bagel. But, you know, food changes all the time, and like, the bagels that we had-

• 10:00Speaker 01

  But it's not the bagel!

• 10:02Speaker 02

  No, come on. You moved to New York in 1984, and the bagels that existed in New York in 1984 were not the same as the bagels that were in New York in the 1970s, right? They started getting bigger, they started losing their hole.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Everything was smaller in the 1970s. I mean, look at like the Big Mac or like, you know, you look at what a soda was when I was a kid.

• 10:21Speaker 02

  The Big Mac has always been 1.7 ounces per bagel.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  You're so annoying. You're so annoying. Go join the circus.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  I would, I would say though, you know, I've, I've lived in Seattle for the last six years. When I first moved there, there were, there were no good bagels, but there, there is now like a bagel culture there. And I, I think that's the real important thing is that in cities that don't have a bagel culture, the bagels end up sitting there, right? I mean, so you're not getting a fresh bagel. And, and you know, like, like Judy said, bagels die really quickly. In fact, when, when I was at Sirius Eats, we had this thing called the, the Heisen Bagel Uncertainty Principle, um, which is that it's impossible to compare two different bagels because by the time you get them together, they've already changed. Their state has changed.

• 11:06Dan Pashman?

  That, I, I, I'm with that. To me, the biggest issue that I have with the current state of the bagel is that, look, if you want to try different flavors, different toppings, whatever, but to me, like, a bagel is not just a roll with a hole in the middle.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:19Dan Pashman?

  It's a specific type of bread product that traditionally is made with high gluten flour, so that it is chewy and dense. And if a bagel is light and airy, like, and if the inside is like a baguette or a croissant, it might be delicious, but that is not a bagel. Like, that is the hill I will die on. If it is not high gluten flour and chewy on the inside, then it's bullshit.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  That's fair.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  Bagels should not assimilate. That's all I have to say. Also, I do not get my bagel toasted.

• 11:50Dan Pashman?

  Yeah.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 11:51Dan Pashman?

  Hold that thought, cause Kenji, hold that thought Judy, because, um, I want to, let's play a little bagel related game right now called Devil's Advocate. I'm gonna read off a hot take about bagels. You're each gonna give me your opinion. If you both agree, then I will be forced to argue the opposite side. All right. Hot take number one. Any self-respecting bagel shop would never serve a rainbow bagel.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Oh, great.

• 12:13Dan Pashman?

  Kenji?

• 12:14Speaker 02

  I mean, I, I think there are bagel shops that are self-respecting, but probably maybe not respected by people visiting.

• 12:21Dan Pashman?

  I have to say that I ate a couple of, of the, um, trendy New York bagel places today in preparation for our conversation. Apollo and Utopia, and I liked Utopia much better. And they do do rainbow bagels. In addition to, right now, as we record this, we're just a couple of days past St. Patrick's Day. They also do a green-

• 12:37Speaker 01

  Oh, God, no.

• 12:38Dan Pashman?

  I know, I know, I know. Judy, you're, you're gonna be apoplectic when you hear this. A green bagel with cream cheese topped with Lucky Charms and-

• 12:46Speaker 01

  No!

• 12:47Speaker 02

  Oh, boy.

• 12:48Dan Pashman?

  And hot honey. It's sat-

• 12:50Speaker 01

  No!

• 12:52Dan Pashman?

  I just threw up a little in my mouth when I said that. I can't, I can't argue the opposite side. We all agree. All right, um, next hot take. If you go into a bagel shop and ask them if any of the bagels are still warm, and the answer is no, you should leave.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  My take is, in New York, I'm presuming that they're all baked relatively fresh, that they're turning them around. If they're warm, I'll get them with butter. If they've already cooled down, I'll get them with cream cheese.

• 13:18Dan Pashman?

  But to me, some of the bagels in the shop should be warm. Like, at least one of the varieties should still be warm.

• 13:24Speaker 02

  That's fair.

• 13:24Dan Pashman?

  If none of the bagels are warm, then they probably weren't made there. They're probably old.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  That's fair.

• 13:28Dan Pashman?

  Sorry, I wasn't supposed to give my take before you, Judy. What's your take? I got too excited.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  I ask when they were made. And if they're not warm anymore, I bring them home, and I put the convection bake on, and I heat them up. I don't cut them first, I heat them up. And if they're, they were made a few hours ago, they taste like they just came out of the oven.

• 13:52Speaker 02

  Do you run them under the tap or dip them in water first?

• 13:54Speaker 01

  No, not if they were made that day.

• 13:56Dan Pashman?

  Right, right. Have you tried that? Like, if they're a day old, though, you, like, three, Kenji and I have both done this. You run them under hot water for three seconds.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Right, well, you can do that with bread, like, yeah. All right, so don't act like, oh, who do we?

• 14:10Dan Pashman?

  All right, one more hot take. If a bagel shop is good, they will not offer toasted bagels. Judy, agree or disagree?

• 14:18Speaker 01

  They all offer toasted bagels.

• 14:20Speaker 02

  No, they don't.

• 14:20Dan Pashman?

  There's a handful that refuse to toast bagels. Would you hold those in higher esteem?

• 14:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would. Yes, I would.

• 14:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I agree, a bagel should not be toasted.

• 14:30Dan Pashman?

  You said, Kenji, once, and I always think of this, that toasting a bagel is like, it's an equalizer, it flattens the quality. So if you have a bad bagel, toasting it does make it better. But if you have a really good bagel, then you shouldn't be toasting it.

• 14:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, all the characteristics that make a good bagel good, um, that contrast between like that really crisp, thin outer crust, and like the chewiness inside, all that disappears when you toast it.

• 14:54Dan Pashman?

  Right. Quick postscript to this conversation regarding pumpernickel bagels, which are in fact disappearing, as you said, Judy. Uh, hot new bagel spots like Apollo, Pop-Up, and Gertie are not bothering making pumpernickel bagels. The owner of Gertie told Grub Street, quote, "Not a single person has asked about pumpernickel."

• 15:13Dan Pashman?

  Sorry. I hate him. What's his name? What's his name? He's the owner of Gertie. I think I know him. He's very nice. You should be nice to him. No, he's not that nice, okay? Last thing about pumpernickel. It's a German word. Do you, either of you know what it means?

• 15:29Dan Pashman?

  It loosely translates as goblin's fart.

• 15:34Dan Pashman?

  Is that true?

• 15:39Dan Pashman?

  I can't imagine why no one wants them.

• 15:44Dan Pashman?

  Coming up, the salad spinner keeps swirling. We'll cover recent revelations about abusive conditions at the Copenhagen restaurant, Noma. Then later, we'll get to a new trend: babies eating straight up butter. And we'll debate the limits of the term sloppy joe. Stick around.

• 16:05Speaker 03

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• 16:11Dan Pashman?

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• 16:56Dan Pashman?

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• 17:39Dan Pashman?

  Boar's Head, committed to craft since 1905. As we turn to fall and the weather starts to cool down, I think of things like crunching leaves. I think of sharing from the sidelines of a soccer game, walking the dog in the woods. And when I think of doing all those things, I'm usually wearing something from LL Bean. Whether it's my puffer vest, my puffer coat, my scarf, whatever you're doing outside this year, you probably need something from LL Bean, whether it's their boots, their Scotch plaid flannel, their rugged field coat, or more. Grab the layers and people you love and get outside. Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. LL Bean, be an outsider. I grew up on Lando Lakes cheese. I still remember going to the supermarket deli counter with my mom and her ordering Lando Lakes American cheese.

• 18:24Dan Pashman?

  And now, Lando Lakes cheese and butter are a huge part of my home. There are so many easy weeknight recipes using Lando Lakes cheese and butter that bring delicious restaurant taste right to your table. From chicken parm to weeknight shrimp pad thai, Lando Lakes has plenty of quick dishes that'll have the whole dinner table talking. Visit landolakes.com/reцепes/collection for easy weeknight dinners. Welcome back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Pashman. Last week on the show, we dive into China's recent move to ban imports of Japanese seafood and what that looks like on the ground in both countries. I actually taped this episode on a trip to Beijing and Tokyo earlier this year. And one person I talked to in Beijing said that the ban on imported Japanese seafood set off a panic among sushi chefs in China.

• 19:09Speaker 04

  If we don't have Japanese fish, we can run a Japanese restaurant.

• 19:13Dan Pashman?

  Right, people are almost saying, if we don't have Japanese fish, how can we make Japanese food?

• 19:19Speaker 04

  During that time, I interviewed some, I write articles, and I interviewed a lot of the Japanese chefs. They are felt crazy. They think, oh, it's just like a... Tragedy because they don't have fish.

• 19:34Dan Pashman?

  As it turns out, though, the ban might have actually improved sushi in China. Lucky for me, I get to try some at an omakase in Beijing. That episode's up now. Check it out. All right, we're back with cookbook author Kenji Lopez Alt and comic Judy Gold, and we're here live at the Bell House in Brooklyn.

• 19:59Dan Pashman?

  All right, let's keep it moving. Kenji, spin the spinner.

• 20:05Dan Pashman?

  We getting that on the mic? Is that loud enough? All right. All right, we're gonna get a little more serious here. In March, Julia Moskyn at the New York Times wrote an expose on Rene Redzepi and his past behavior at his Copenhagen restaurant, Noma. Noma is long been considered one of the very best restaurants in the world. The Times talked with more than 30 former Noma employees who alleged a pattern of physical abuse. Among other things, they say that when Redzepi was upset with one of his workers, he would punch them or crouch down in the kitchen to avoid being seen by diners, then poke his employees in the legs with forks.

• 20:36Dan Pashman?

  Now, there have long been critiques of labor practices at Noma. Many young chefs have moved to Copenhagen to intern there for literally no pay, and they work such long hours that they can't have another job. The restaurant was already slated to close by the end of this year, but since this news broke, Redzepi has stepped away from the restaurant and its other ventures, including a limited-run pop-up in L.A. Kenji, you've been posting a lot about this on Instagram. You're a chef. You've worked in restaurants. You've owned a restaurant. First off, just like, obviously, the restaurant industry is not the only industry where this is an issue, but it does seem like certain industries have more of a problem with this than others, and the restaurant industry is one of them. Do you have a theory on why?

• 21:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I mean, I think this kind of stuff happens in any sort of hierarchical system where there's a lot of pressure. You know, most restaurants operate on really thin margins, and they're also very volatile. You know, you can't, when the weather's bad, your money goes down. When beef prices go up, your money goes down. You know, the way restaurants are set up, like the people... At the bottom, um, and the servers who rely on tips and stuff, they're sort of the first people to suffer from those volatile swings.

• 21:41Dan Pashman?

  Even in a well-run restaurant that doesn't have abusive conditions, there's a lot of pressure. Um, there, everything has, you know, when you got a bunch of orders coming in, there's fire, there's knives, there's deadlines, you know, so it's, it's an, even a well-run kitchen is an intense place to work.

• 21:55Speaker 02

  Yes, and when you're running your restaurant in a way that you don't have a contingency plan for when the pressure starts to come on, or when like a little mistake happens, um, then, you know, then there's some amount of chaos that ensues. And because of the way restaurants sort of have historically been run in this like really strictly hierarchical system, that ends up boiling over and, and turning into confrontations, which with the wrong people can become.

• 22:17Dan Pashman?

  I wonder if part of it also just is that like restaurants, and I say this as someone who's also worked in restaurants, and Judy, you've worked in restaurants, all three of us have worked in restaurants, but like, I feel like restaurants kind of attract misfits. You're working nights and weekends, you're kind of like, your, your whole life when you work in a restaurant is kind of like, you're working when everyone else is not working and vice versa. So you're kind of like on the outskirts of society as a.

• 22:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:37Speaker 01

  Try being a comic. You know, it's the same, it's the same stuff.

• 22:41Dan Pashman?

  And I, and I feel like in the world of comedy entertainment, that's another field where you have disproportionate issues with this kind of behavior. Do you have a theory on that, Judy?

• 22:48Speaker 01

  I, I think, don't get mad at me.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  I think it's overwhelmingly men who behave like this. I think it's entitled people who behave like this. And it doesn't, in any, I'm saying in any profession, there are so many high-pressure jobs, but just be nice. It's not hard to be nice. It's not hard to apologize. It's not hard to say, hey, we need to talk. There's no reason for behavior like that. Zero in any job. And it's really, it's awful. It's not, and I, I read this article and I'm looking at, they were showing video of like the, the workers, you know,

• 23:33Speaker 01

  standing there for hours, like putting a, you know, a tulip in the whatever. They, no, it, it doesn't have to be, you can do the work. And learn the craft without being abused.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  I haven't worked in on the line in a restaurant now for 20 years. So I've had a lot of time to sort of think about this, you know, and thinking back, you know, there's people who are like, well, you know, if they don't like that, they can just leave. There's nobody for no, nobody's locking the door. They're not forcing them to stay there. The reasons I stayed in restaurants is you go into restaurants and you end up isolated. You lose all of your friends, you lose all your family, you don't go to, you're working when most people are playing. And so your whole life just ends up being

• 24:14Speaker 01

  The restaurant.

• 24:14Speaker 02

  This restaurant life, yeah. And, and in that structure, you know, there's only one person there, the chef, who is a judge of whether you are qualified or not, you know? And so you end up in this cycle where you almost feel grateful that the chef is like humiliating you because it means that they see something worthwhile in you.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Well, it's negative attention, but it's attention.

• 24:35Speaker 02

  That's the thing you get in your head. And, and the most abusive chefs that I've known are also the most charismatic. And they're the ones that have these abilities to tell when they're just about to push someone over the edge and then give them that little bit of praise and say, oh, like that's a nice plate or like you're ready to work on satay or whatever it is. And then the moment you feel that it's like this incredible high and it's not just, it's not like a fake feeling, you like, you really feel great. Knowing myself now as, as someone who has a history of addictions, it really is similar to, um, yeah, various addictions where it's like, you know, something's not right. You know, it's harming you, you can make the choice. There are many times when I said, okay, like I'm going to quit, I'm going to quit working at this place and I go in to the chef's office determined to quit.

• 25:17Speaker 02

  And then I walk out the door 15 minutes later thanking them and like truly feeling grateful, you know? And, and so I think in many ways it's, it reflects what people experience with, with, um, you know, domestic abuse and domestic violence.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was going to say, you know, I was looking at these workers that and, and hearing, you know, reading their stories about being abused and you think, why didn't they speak up? And this happens to women all the time where, you know, they're afraid to tell their story because A, no one's going to believe them, they have to prove it. And the person is more powerful than them.

• 25:53Dan Pashman?

  If you're at Noma, even if you're getting abused, you have 500 friends from culinary school who all wish they could be you. It's interesting to me, Kenji, that you used to talk about that those people are often the most charismatic.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  Well, psychopaths are charismatic.

• 26:05Dan Pashman?

  Right, right. But, but like Rene Redzepi always struck me as sort of like a charlatan. Like a very charismatic person who had put a lot of things over on a lot of people. I mean, this is a guy who is serving reindeer brain custard and candied pine cones. Anyone who can convince people to pay thousands of dollars for candied pine cones has to have

• 26:25Speaker 01

  Will you just gloss over the reindeer brain?

• 26:30Dan Pashman?

  Well, that at least feels like something that could be expensive.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. You're gonna eat Rudolph's brain as a dessert. No.

• 26:39Dan Pashman?

  People, and not only that, they're paying thousands of dollars for the privilege.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  This reminds me, my son plays professional basketball. He's had different coaches through, you know, since he's a kid. And a lot of the coaches are extremely abusive. But I noticed through coaching which coaches get the most out of the players. And they're not the abusive ones.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  And so in restaurants, I think, I mean, part of the problem is that legacy media and organizations like the Michelin Guide, which I think should just be abolished, but the Michelin Guide, World's 50 Best, even the James Beard Awards, they don't look at what's going on in the kitchen. And when places like Noma that, you know, for a long time, their kitchen staff was almost half unpaid interns and interns who were locked into three-month periods. And, you know, at that point, it's not, it's not, it's not a stache, it's not an internship. It's like, it's a business model, right? Where, where if you rely on unpaid labor to make your restaurant work, like that's, that's a business choice you're making. So the people who are able to attract that kind of free labor, be able to put all those man-hours into a single plate of food are the ones that win these sort of 50 best things.

• 27:47Speaker 02

  And so it encourages the next, the next restaurant, the next chef to push even harder because they don't get punished for doing the bad things that get them there.

• 27:55Dan Pashman?

  Right. Well, I'm at happy note.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Hey now!

• 27:59Dan Pashman?

  Judy, it's your turn.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  God, I'm hungry.

• 28:02Speaker 01

  I want some reindeer ass.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  On a pumpernickel bagel.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  With honey and.

• 28:12Dan Pashman?

  With a side of borscht?

• 28:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, with a side of borscht, yeah.

• 28:15Speaker 02

  I've had bialys that look kinda like reindeer ass.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  I don't know what a reindeer's ass looks like, so.

• 28:22Speaker 02

  Kinda like a bialy.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Thank you for that visual.

• 28:28Dan Pashman?

  Judy, it's your turn to spin the spinner.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  I'd really give it a spin.

• 28:35Dan Pashman?

  Alright, good. You can stop.

• 28:39Dan Pashman?

  I asked each of you to bring in a hot take or story to share. Judy, you're first. What'd you like to talk about?

• 28:45Speaker 01

  I don't know if you know this. I was on Chopped All Stars. I've competed on a bunch of food shows. And I lost on Chopped All Stars. I knew they thought that I was gonna make it to the next round because the next round, one of the ingredients was matzah.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  I swear to God. And no one knew what to do with it and I would've been like, oh, I would've made matzah brian, I would've won. But anyway, I lost. But, you know, I used to make the kids sloppy joes all the time. And I used the manwich. And now that.

• 29:18Dan Pashman?

  Are lesbians allowed to use that?

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Alright, I'll give you that one, but that's it.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  It's now called theywich.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  Anyway, so now I cook all the time. I love cooking. And I was like, I'm gonna make homemade sloppy joes. So this past Sunday, I made sloppy joes. And they were so delicious. And my friend is gluten-free, annoying. So I made smashed potatoes and put it on top of the smashed potatoes. And it was delicious. And then I'm talking to these guys backstage, telling them, and they're like, well, it's not really a sloppy joe because it's not on bread. But I don't agree. Don't you think you can have sloppy joes on potatoes?

• 30:07Dan Pashman?

  That's a tepid applause.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  Oh my God.

• 30:12Dan Pashman?

  It might be delicious, it might just not be sloppy Joes. Kenji's got a great recipe for crispy smashed potatoes if you need one, Judy.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  You do?

• 30:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, we could combine my potatoes with your.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 30:25Speaker 02

  With your Joe mix.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  And then we can open a restaurant together.

• 30:29Dan Pashman?

  What's the secret to good crispy smashed potatoes, Kenji?

• 30:32Speaker 02

  Well, you cook them twice. You know, you cook them once.

• 30:35Dan Pashman?

  You boil them.

• 30:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can boil them and then smash them, then you let them cool and then you cook them again.

• 30:41Dan Pashman?

  Oil them and put them in the oven.

• 30:42Speaker 02

  Lots of oil and hot oven, yeah.

• 30:44Dan Pashman?

  All right, Kenji, what's your hot take or thing you want to share?

• 30:47Speaker 02

  My hot take, I don't think is a hot take anywhere except on a stage with you.

• 30:51Dan Pashman?

  Okay.

• 30:52Speaker 02

  Which is that spaghetti is great.

• 30:55Dan Pashman?

  Oh, man. So just to fill you in, Judy, I mean, I invented a pasta shape which I gifted to you backstage. In the process of inventing it, I studied many other shapes and I decided that I think spaghetti sucks because it doesn't hold any sauce. It's impossible to keep it on your fork.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, no.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  That's all I have to say.

• 31:14Speaker 02

  Can we go through, you have three defined criteria for what makes good pasta. We can go through each one of those in terms of spaghetti and I can explain myself to you.

• 31:23Dan Pashman?

  Why don't you lay them out for Judy?

• 31:26Speaker 02

  Okay, so there is forkability.

• 31:28Dan Pashman?

  Which is how well does it stay on your fork?

• 31:30Speaker 02

  There is tooth sinkability and there's sauceability. All right, so forkability. So first of all, I would say, so you're really into sort of this total food experience, right? And I would say.

• 31:41Dan Pashman?

  That's called eating well, Kenji, but yes.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  The experience, like the sensual experience of twirling spaghetti on your spoon and like the memories it brings up, like the lady and the tramp stuff, like all of that. I really enjoy twirling spaghetti on a fork and watching the strands roll up, pulling it up. When you get that perfect fork of spaghetti where it's twirled up and there's just a little bit hanging down. So mostly it fits in your mouth, but you get a little bit of a slurp at the end.

• 32:06Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, and that happens like one out of every 10 bites.

• 32:09Speaker 02

  Well, okay, I would argue that maybe you don't know how to use a fork very well.

• 32:14Speaker 02

  Now.

• 32:18Speaker 02

  Tooth sinkability.

• 32:19Dan Pashman?

  Yeah.

• 32:20Speaker 02

  Let's talk about tooth sinkability. So that's like the bite, right?

• 32:23Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 32:23Speaker 02

  And I agree, if you're eating a single strand of spaghetti.

• 32:26Dan Pashman?

  It's spaghettio.

• 32:27Speaker 02

  A spaghettio, yeah. Um, not, not, not much tooth, tooth sinkability in that. But, nobody eats a single bite of, a strand of spaghetti. It's just, the, the individual strands combine together. When it's sauced properly, they combine together and you get this mass. And it's almost the same way that like, if you were to take a single layer of a croissant, you know, it doesn't have much texture, but you take all those layers together and you bite into it and you feel the, you feel those little sinks and you feel that space between them.

• 32:53Dan Pashman?

  If it's really good spaghetti, cooked just right, tooth sinkability is the one of the three that it can have.

• 32:58Speaker 02

  Saucability, again, like if, you know, so I, I, I, I feel like, you know, when, when you, you pair your pasta shape to the sauce. So I imagine it's like, if I spilled this sauce on the floor, like what kind of tool would I use to clean it up, right? You know, so if it's like, uh, bolognese, I would use like a, a washcloth, right? And so like a papadella makes sense. Um, if it's something more liquidy, I would use a mop, right? And that's where spaghetti makes sense. And if you're, if you cook your spaghetti properly, if you, if you finish it in the sauce, uh, and you have that good starchy pasta water, then just the right amount of sauce does actually cling to the spaghetti. So if, if you have a problem with the saucability of spaghetti, either you like your spaghetti too saucy, um, or, or it's, once again, just kind of user, user error.

• 33:39Dan Pashman?

  Wait, so let me get this straight, Kenji. You're telling me that if you got, even if I grant you that you got the perfect sized bite of spaghetti on a fork with no danglers.

• 33:47Speaker 02

  I want danglers, but you, yeah, go ahead.

• 33:49Dan Pashman?

  Yeah. Okay. Uh, and, and there's all this sauce left on the plate, which is usually what happens when you're done eating spaghetti. You're telling me that if you take that fork of spaghetti and rub it around the plate like a mop, it's gonna pick up sauce? The, is you're gonna, you're just gonna push the sauce around the plate?

• 34:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, but then what are you supposed to do with the leftover bread? Like that, the sauce is there?

• 34:09Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, that's exactly right. I, I agree. I'm on, I'm on Kenji's side. That's like you're compensating for a flaw in the pasta.

• 34:15Speaker 02

  No, it's all part of the experience. Like it's like you, spaghetti, like any leftover spaghetti sauce, a bit of garlic bread, rub it around in there, that's like the best bite of the meal and you would not have that.

• 34:25Dan Pashman?

  Better than any of the bites of spaghetti?

• 34:31Dan Pashman?

  Judy, what's your take on spaghetti?

• 34:33Speaker 01

  I love spaghetti. It's childlike, and it's delicious, and it's fun. I think you're being a little too serious about this pasta stuff, seriously. Like, I like pasta. I like the taste of pasta. I love spaghetti.

• 34:52Dan Pashman?

  Obviously, it scratches a nostalgia itch, because many of us ate it when we were a kid. But it's also, like, it's the oldest industrialized pasta shape, and it's the most popular mass-produced pasta shape, which to me makes it very primitive. It's like, we're just eating the same shape when we were kids, like, we're not gonna try to do any better. I mean, like, as far, the only thing that I took from the lady and the tramp, Kenji, is that it's, spaghetti's a pasta shape that's only fit for dogs.

• 35:20Speaker 02

  Listen, so, so cascatelli, and I know you put a lot of personal work into cascatelli, and I love cascatelli, I think it's a great shape for many things, but, you know, if all you're doing is trying to kind of optimize these three things that you arbitrarily picked, if all you're doing-

• 35:34Dan Pashman?

  Arbitrarily?

• 35:36Speaker 02

  If all you're doing is trying to optimize, it's like if you ask, like, if you ask AI to write a song for you, you know, and it gets, like, every point exactly right, but it's missing the human element. It's missing, it's missing, like, the little, that little bit of a-

• 35:48Dan Pashman?

  Oh. Now who lost the room?

• 35:51Speaker 01

  I know, wow.

• 35:55Dan Pashman?

  I, I, I think that any pasta shape, because of just the nature of, of dough, anything doughy, is always gonna scratch a deep itch. Uh, and like, there's always gonna be a nostalgia factor when you eat any pasta, regardless of the shape. So I think that that, I would argue that that-

• 36:10Speaker 01

  I think spaghetti's also really good with cherry tomatoes, cooked cherry tomatoes.

• 36:15Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, if you can get the tines of the fork out of the end of the ball of spaghetti, so you can stab those tomatoes, how do you get them in the bite, Judy?

• 36:22Speaker 01

  What is wrong with you?

• 36:29Dan Pashman?

  A lot of things. We don't have time for that.

• 36:31Speaker 01

  Utensil psychosis or something.

• 36:39Dan Pashman?

  All right, let's spin the spinner one more time. Whose turn is it?

• 36:42Speaker 01

  I think it's yours.

• 36:43Dan Pashman?

  I think it's Kenji.

• 36:46Dan Pashman?

  That was very delicate.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  He's very gentle.

• 36:48Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, all right. Time now for the lightning round. Let's keep our answers short. According to the cut, people are now feeding their babies straight up butter. One momfluencer said that grass-fed butter is, quote, "the best snack for babies no one talks about." There is some scientific support for this because it is true that babies need a lot of fat in their diets. Judy and Kenji, you both have kids, although I think they're all old enough to have been weaned off of straight butter by now. Is there one thing you fed your kids when they were little that maybe sounds absurd or feels absurd in retrospect?

• 37:21Speaker 02

  Both of my kids' first solid foods were pizza.

• 37:24Dan Pashman?

  Okay.

• 37:27Dan Pashman?

  Would you have considered feeding them straight butter if it was a trend when your kids were little?

• 37:32Speaker 01

  No.

• 37:35Speaker 02

  I mean, I let my kids taste butter because I like to taste butter, but...

• 37:38Dan Pashman?

  But you weren't like dinner served?

• 37:41Speaker 02

  No. My daughter, for her fourth birthday, I let her pick what she wanted for dinner. We went to the Japanese supermarket and she asked for a bag of salmon heads. And so we had roasted salmon heads for her fourth birthday.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Oh, God, I just lost my appetite.

• 37:57Dan Pashman?

  Would you like some reindeer brain custard?

• 37:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd like that. With salmon. Salmon and reindeer are very... A lot of people don't realize how good they taste together, yeah.

• 38:07Dan Pashman?

  Next up, the Great British Baking Show recently announced that longtime judge Prue Leith will be leaving the show and that passport will guest Nigella Lawson will be taking over. My question for you, who would you choose to replace Prue? Wrong answers only.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  Jesus. I've never seen the show.

• 38:26Dan Pashman?

  Well, who's someone who you think should be a judge on a cooking competition show?

• 38:29Speaker 02

  Judy?

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Yes, I agree. Judy Gold.

• 38:32Dan Pashman?

  Okay. Hey, I mean, is that...

• 38:35Speaker 01

  Yes, I'm in. And I can fake the accent.

• 38:40Dan Pashman?

  You can't curse, though, Judy.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  Did I curse that much? See?

• 38:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would love that job.

• 38:48Dan Pashman?

  You would be very good at it.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  I would just love that job, you know? But don't they have to be mean?

• 38:53Dan Pashman?

  Is that gonna be hard for you, Judy?

• 38:55Speaker 01

  I'm not, I'm mean, I'm not mean. I'm caustic and vulnerable.

• 39:04Dan Pashman?

  All right, next up, a recent article in the New York Times is about the new meal replacement trend. A bunch of products that are similar to Soylent, if you remember that, but updated for the age of Instagram. The article says, "Aspirationally branded meal replacements are hitting algorithms and shelves in droves, targeting Americans who feel busier, more strapped, and more health-conscious than ever." One person quoted in the piece said that after drinking so many of his meals, he recalled a period of time when eating solid food would make his jaw hurt.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  No.

• 39:38Dan Pashman?

  Judy, what's the saddest thing you ever ate?

• 39:43Speaker 01

  What are those things, those green gummies? Grooms? Yes.

• 39:48Dan Pashman?

  Grooms?

• 39:49Speaker 01

  And it's this packet of just green gummies, and there's a lot of them, and they're, it's like all your vegetables. It's so, I have 17 bags of them at home. Because they make you, you know, they make you sign up, and then I couldn't find out how I signed up, and I couldn't get them to stop, and I have like all these bags of grooms at home.

• 40:13Dan Pashman?

  You have a grooms subscription?

• 40:15Speaker 01

  It makes all the joy out of eating, you know?

• 40:17Dan Pashman?

  Kenji, what's the saddest thing you ever ate?

• 40:20Speaker 02

  I don't know about the saddest, but I do get sad when I, you know, I don't get back to New York too often, but I love a New York hot dog from a street vendor, and Sabret's, like, best brand. What I really hate is when you go to one of the vendors that has a Sabret's umbrella, but they give you something that's clearly not a Sabret's hot dog.

• 40:38Dan Pashman?

  I have had a couple of protein balls in my day, that's always sad. You know, where it's like, we mashed up these different nutrients and put it into ball form, you know? It's just like, but like, you're just hungry, and you're on the go, and you need something. Last item in the lightning round. Gothamist reported that a German tourist is suing the New York taco chain, Los Tacos Number One, because their salsa is too spicy. He complained that after eating a taco with their green salsa, his tongue burned, his mouth hurt, his face turned red, and his heart rate soared. One important fact, bit of context that I need to add here, it was the first time he ever ate tacos.

• 41:17Dan Pashman?

  A judge ruled in the restaurant's favor, but have you ever been tempted to sue a restaurant? And if so, why Kenji?

• 41:23Speaker 02

  So this reminds me, I've never been tempted to sue a restaurant, but this reminds me of a story. So when I lived in San Mateo, I lived near this bar called The Swingin' Door, which is like an English pub. They have like a burger with like their own homemade hot sauce on it. And if you eat it, you get your name on the wall, that kind of place. A few years back, somebody ate one of those burgers. It was really hot, and then they sued the restaurant. And everyone thought like, oh, that's like ridiculous. But then I went and looked up the court filings. This person ended up like soaring heart rates, really like burning things. And then the, the capsaicin like burned a hole in his esophagus, and he aspirated like some of the chili into his lungs. And he was in a coma for eight days.

• 42:01Dan Pashman?

  Oh, my God.

• 42:02Speaker 02

  Before coming out. Anyway, I've never thought of suing a restaurant.

• 42:09Dan Pashman?

  My thanks to my guest tonight. Kenji Lopez Alt is a cookbook author and YouTuber. Go check him out on Instagram, at Kenji Lopez Alt, and on YouTube, at J Kenji Lopez Alt. Big hand for Kenji.

• 42:23Dan Pashman?

  And Judy Gold is a comic, writer, and author. She performs all over the country. She has upcoming shows in Boca, Appleton, Wisconsin, Toronto, and Charlotte. Follow her on Instagram, at Judy Gold. That's spelled J E W D Y. Thank you, Judy. Next week on the show, I talk with someone who had a sudden anaphylactic reaction to red meat. And more and more people in the US are falling victim to the same fate. What's happening? Listen next week to find out. While you're waiting for that one, check out our two most recent episodes about my trip to Beijing and Tokyo. I visit two restaurants in Beijing that tell the story of how China's restaurant scene has grown from essentially nothing in just the last 40 years. And we talk about how tensions between Japan and China are playing out over seafood. Both those shows are up now. Thank you all so much for coming out. Good night.

• 43:13Dan Pashman?

  And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sportful. This episode was produced by me along with managing producer Emma Morgenstern and senior producer Andres O'Hara It was edited by Camille Stanley Our engineer is Jared O'Connell Our interns are Morgan Johnson And India Rice Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of SiriusXM Podcasts.

• 43:57Dan Pashman?

  Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 44:01Speaker 05

  And I'm Shalini in Hamilton, Bermuda, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.