Pod Insights The Sporkful Samin Nosrat’s Success Looked Different Behind Closed Doors About this episode It’s been eight years since Samin Nosrat published her smash-hit cookbook, Salt Fat Acid Heat. She says her whole adult life was on a trajectory toward that book. But in the aftermath of its success, Samin ended up in a dark place, struggling to understand why achieving her goals didn’t fix her problems.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:17 Dan Pashman? So, Samin, this is the second time that you're joining us here on The Sporkful.
1:20 Speaker 01 No, it's more than that.
1:21 Dan Pashman? Well, I'll tell you why it feels like more.
1:23 Speaker 01 Well, we did the, because I did the pasta thing and we did one-
1:26 Dan Pashman? Oh, you're right, right, right. You're right, sorry.
1:28 Speaker 01 And we did one, you lost it, we rerecorded it.
1:30 Dan Pashman? Yes, that's-
1:31 Speaker 01 And then we did the pasta one, so I-
1:33 Dan Pashman? So you've been on three times, but you have, oh, and you and Rushi-
1:35 Speaker 01 And didn't we do cookies? You're just like-
1:37 Dan Pashman? Sorry.
1:38 Speaker 01 You're erasing me from history.
1:43 Dan 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. Now, one quick note before we get started, it's that time of year, friends. I want to hear your New Year's food resolutions for 2026. Send me a voice memo with your first name, location, and tell me what food you resolved to eat more of in the new year and why. Send that voice memo to [email protected] and you just might hear it in our year-end show when I will also be revealing my New Year's food resolution for next year. All right, let's get into it. This week on the show, I'm talking with Samin Nosrat. As you heard, she's been on the show many times, four to be exact.
2:26 Dan Pashman? The first time, we did a long form interview and we really hit it off and became friends. So she was the one I called when I needed help naming my pasta shape cascatelli. And we've stayed in touch over the years. I even went to her house a few years back. So now that she's got a new book out called Good Things, I wanted to have another nice, long chat to catch up. Now, first, a quick recap of Samin's backstory, which we covered the first time she was on in 2018. She's from San Diego. Her parents came to the US from Iran. And being the child of immigrants, Samin said that from the time she was young, she always felt a lot of pressure, both from her family and from the outside world. Here she is during that first appearance on our show.
3:02 Speaker 01 I felt like I was always in two worlds. Like going to school, I wanted to be a good student. I wanted to make my parents happy. I wanted to make them proud and I wanted to succeed. So I worked really hard and I did my best to sort of fit in. And I figure, I sort of told myself this story that if I worked really hard and sort of succeeded, that maybe nobody at school would notice, wouldn't notice that I wasn't just like everyone else.
3:27 Dan Pashman? That feeling that success would fix these issues followed Samin into adulthood. She worked her butt off getting into the food industry in college. Her first job was as a bussler at the legendary Bay Area restaurant, Shea Panis. She also harbored dreams of being a writer while working in other high end restaurants and cooking in Italy. Her twin passions of food and writing finally came together in one of the most successful cookbooks of the last decade, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. Recently, Samin said that her whole adult life was a trajectory towards that book. It sold over a million copies. Samin followed that up with a Netflix series of the same name, which ratcheted up her stardom to a whole new level. Now, Samin has a new book, Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love.
4:10 Dan Pashman? It's been eight years since Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat came out. And in this conversation, I was most interested to talk with her about those eight years in between, dealing with the success of her first book and TV show, falling into a period of clinical depression, finding her way out of that, and then channeling it all into her new book. One of the things that helped Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat connect with so many people was the way Samin wrote it. She very intentionally tried to come across as your kitchen friend.
4:38 Speaker 01 I wanted you to know so clearly that I would do it this way. And like, one of the most beautiful sort of compliments anyone's ever given me is my friend Lex's mom Barb. One year for Christmas, she wanted to make a beautiful beef wellington. She was like, had made some big like reduction sauce, but the dinnertime was fast approaching and the sauce was still too watery. And I was in the kitchen. She was like stressed getting everything ready. And I was like, oh, it's fine. Like, all we have to do is just set up four pans, you know, and divide the sauce and turn them up, crank them up and reduce faster.
5:09 Dan Pashman? Right.
5:10 Speaker 01 And she was like, what? And so we got the meal on the table or whatever. And like, the next day she called, she's like, you know, every time I'm in the kitchen with you, it feels like I'm in the kitchen with my own mom. Like, it feels so comforting in this way where I know like you have my back. And I was like, oh, that's a really nice thing. I sort of was like, well, maybe I can be that for you.
5:31 Dan Pashman? But in some ways, this kitchen friend approach worked too well.
5:35 Speaker 01 Too well. You know, the book and the show were a little more than a year apart in coming out. And so already with the book, there was plenty of that sort of people feeling very close to me. But the show was just to another level because people see you and they feel like they know you. I think people really had the like, developed very deep parasocial relationship with me, which I could not have anticipated or like understood or wrapped my mind around.
6:01 Dan Pashman? I think it's natural.
6:01 Speaker 01 It's totally natural. And it's not like that it's not genuine. Of course, like, the silliness, the warmth, the openness, the curiosity, those are absolutely parts of me. It's just that there's a lot of other parts of me that don't make it on the camera.
6:14 Dan Pashman? This relates to a clip I want to play for you, Samin.
6:16 Speaker 01 Oh, God.
6:17 Dan Pashman? This is you on Brene Brown's podcast in 2021.
6:20 Speaker 01 Wow, you went deep, Dan.
6:23 Dan Pashman? All right, let's hear this clip.
6:25 Speaker 01 I think people think I'm just the one version of me that's edited and put out on a podcast or on a TV show. And the thing is, is I'm not an actor. Like, that's really, truly me, what you see on the TV show. It really is truly me. But it's just one part of me. I'm also kind of a huge bitch. Like, I'm really judgmental, most of all toward myself. I'm an incredibly critical person. You know, I'm not pure niceness and joy. There are a lot of difficult things in all of us.
6:58 Dan Pashman? So, Samin, if you'll-
6:59 Speaker 01 Is the name of this episode gonna be like, Samin is a huge bitch?
7:02 Dan Pashman? We'll see how it goes.
7:03 Speaker 01 Okay, great.
7:04 Dan Pashman? Well, Samin, if you'll humor me, I'd like to do a little exercise with you. Let's just for a minute, set aside Samin the Kitchen Friend.
7:11 Speaker 01 Okay.
7:12 Dan Pashman? I want to talk to Samin the Judgmental Bitch.
7:14 Speaker 01 Oh, okay.
7:15 Dan Pashman? And let it out.
7:16 Speaker 01 I've never been reddier.
7:19 Dan Pashman? All right. What's the worst thing about food TV?
7:21 Speaker 01 Oh, the fact that everything is a competition is so dumb. I think it's because they've, like, the executives have stumbled upon a production formula that's relatively inexpensive and sort of gets enough views. And it's really dumb. Like, it's just really dumb. It's not actual cook. It's just really stupid.
7:45 Dan Pashman? What's the thing about food influencers that gets you most pissed off?
7:49 Speaker 01 I think for me, the thing that makes me the saddest, and I find myself sometimes being like, I should do this. Like, I should do affiliate links. I should do ads. And then when, anytime I get close to doing it, there's just like a deep depressive, like, dark hole of sadness inside of me where I'm like, this is what the world has become is just all affiliate links?
8:07 Dan Pashman? Right.
8:08 Speaker 01 I don't know, man. It makes me so sad for the state of the world.
8:12 Dan Pashman? All right, we're getting a little off track. Let's try to stay angry here, Samin.
8:14 Speaker 01 Okay, okay, okay, okay, sorry. Sorry, sorry.
8:16 Dan Pashman? We crossed over in the sack.
8:17 Speaker 01 I gotta go back to judgmental. Okay.
8:20 Dan Pashman? All right, last question in our-
8:21 Speaker 01 That's it. This was, I was just getting into it.
8:25 Dan Pashman? What's the most overused ingredient? And why does it make you so angry?
8:29 Speaker 01 Oh, I love burrata so much. There's a weird way where ingredients like burrata, some of them that are rich and like have a certain amount of like, it's often from a Western culture, but like international cachet, become like a symbol of your refined taste. And so then there's a way where like, there's just a burrata salad everywhere you go or whatever. First of all, all burrata is not created equal. The burrata itself.
8:58 Dan Pashman? Big time.
8:59 Speaker 01 And then also like, I don't know. I don't always want like, want to eat your weird hot house tomatoes in February. Like, I just, I don't, I don't know. Like, there's other ways to be creative.
9:10 Dan Pashman? I would add, if I can tap into my judgmental bitch. The biggest problem with burrata in restaurants, at least in America, is that it's cold.
9:17 Speaker 01 Yes.
9:18 Dan Pashman? They take it out of the fridge.
9:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
9:19 Dan Pashman? It has, you know, 50% of the flavor that it would have had if it had been sitting out.
9:23 Speaker 01 Yes.
9:23 Dan Pashman? But I was just in Italy and I had burrata there. And then they just leave it out on the counter.
9:26 Speaker 01 Yeah, because it's also made fresh every day there.
9:29 Dan Pashman? Right.
9:29 Speaker 01 And that's the, that's the real bummer for me is that there is like one sort of mediocre burrata place. And then all the rest comes from Italy. And so it's not fresh.
9:38 Dan Pashman? Right.
9:39 Speaker 01 It's like 10 days old. It's starting to get a little tangy and fizzy. And you do not want to eat that. I do not want to eat that.
9:50 Dan Pashman? So that's Samin's judgmental side. But that's not really the person I saw in our first interview. To me, she came across as very earnest. In fact, as I learned, she had a practice of writing down a list of her hopes and dreams. But I wondered how Samin feels about that list now. I want to play for you, Samin, a clip from the first time you were on the Sporkful.
10:09 Speaker 01 Oh, terrifying. Okay, okay.
10:11 Dan Pashman? Um, this is 2018.
10:13 Speaker 01 Okay.
10:13 Dan Pashman? This was after the success of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, the book, on the eve of the release of the Netflix series with the same name. Um, and this was when you had mentioned that you had a manifestation journal.
10:23 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, my manifestation journal.
10:25 Dan Pashman? And I asked you to read something from it. So this is you reading in 2018 from your manifestation journal.
10:32 Dan Pashman? Read me the first page.
10:33 Speaker 01 Okay, so it just says, long term, find the thing I love to do, do it well, and make enough money doing it to live comfortably. Okay, I think I'm like getting there on that one. Okay. Fall in love and have have and sustain a healthy relationship with a smart, funny, handsome, confident, caring, steady man. Hmm, not yet, has not happened. Raise at least two healthy children. Nope, has not happened. Publish, this is so specific. This is so specific. Publish four books, popular, well-reviewed books that I am proud of by good, well-known publishing houses. Okay, well, I did one.
11:08 Dan Pashman? What are your thoughts hearing that?
11:12 Speaker 01 Um, I mean, honestly, nothing about that list is that embarrassing or intense, but um, something about hearing my voice.
11:26 Speaker 01 It just makes me really sad.
11:28 Dan Pashman? Why?
11:35 Dan Pashman? I mean, if you don't want to go into this, we don't have to.
11:36 Speaker 01 No, no, no, I just am trying to find words for it. Um.
11:42 Speaker 01 I've just spent so much time
11:49 Speaker 01 trying to like do all the
11:53 Speaker 01 things a person's supposed to do in their life and feeling like I'm failing at it.
11:59 Speaker 01 And
12:03 Speaker 01 I feel like I can hear that inner voice. Like, you know, I mean, it was just such an intense time, like, it's such an intense thing to like spend your whole life
12:19 Speaker 01 trying to be like recognized for the thing you're doing, trying to do a really good job.
12:25 Speaker 01 And then getting that attention in that like massive tidal wave. It's so um.
12:34 Speaker 01 It's just, it was so much. And even there was like, almost like a frenetic energy in the way like I was talking and reading.
12:48 Speaker 01 I just, I mean, that person is also me. It's not completely gone. I haven't totally like healed that. But it just, and I still have that journal. I still open it once or twice a year and write in it. It's not like, I think it's nice to have dreams. I just, um.
13:06 Speaker 01 I don't know.
13:07 Dan Pashman? And one of the things you talk about in the new book is that after that success,
13:15 Dan Pashman? which, you know, I think to the average outsider would be like, this was your dream and you attained your dream. But that wasn't how it felt. And as you, you talk very openly, that, that actually triggered an intense period of depression.
13:27 Speaker 01 It was a really lonely time. I didn't have help. It was just me. Just me checking my email, just me getting a million texts from people who I hadn't heard from in 30 years. Just me like, getting stopped on the street. Like people would grab me. They would grab my clothes on the street when they recognized me. I mean, out of, out of like excitement and joy, but still there was just a way I got like lost and eaten up. And I also like, I'm still a brown, people pleasing girl. And so there was like a rage inside of me. There was a loneliness, a sadness, like
14:06 Speaker 01 there was a lot of it I hated, but you can't show that because you have to, and I also am and was so grateful. So you have to hold all this stuff in. And then in my own regular life at home, I mean, I have wonderful friends, but even a lot of those friends, like in some ways I felt very separate from because. Again, like, what author doesn't dream of selling a million books? You know, like, and there's just a lot of cost that comes with it in toll that I did not anticipate or understand would happen. And I didn't have anyone to talk to about it. And I didn't have any way to let it out. I was holding so much inside.
14:47 Dan Pashman? Roughly around that time.
14:49 Speaker 01 Yeah, you came and visited.
14:51 Dan Pashman? Yeah, I came and I happened to be in the Bay Area. I dropped your line. You said, sure, come on over. And yeah, I mean, you were, you were not in a great place.
14:57 Speaker 01 No, it was hard.
14:58 Dan Pashman? I'll be honest, like, I left there like, a little worried about you.
15:01 Speaker 01 Yeah, I remember. That was a bad time, yeah.
15:03 Dan Pashman? It was almost like, where's Samin?
15:05 Speaker 01 I certainly, in that depression, lost sort of my desire to eat and my desire to cook. And so if I'm not curious, if I'm not interested, then there's like, why am I even doing this? I don't, I don't know.
15:20 Dan Pashman? Right, you say you were subsisting on like Trader Joe's pizza half the time.
15:22 Speaker 01 Totally, I had a lot of Trader Joe's pizza.
15:32 Dan Pashman? Coming up, Samin finds a ritual that helps her work her way out of her depression with the help of some ruined pork. Then she tells me what she's done in her new book that she swore she would never do. That's after the break. Stick around.
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19:09 Dan Pashman? Welcome back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Pashman. Last week on the show, man, we get into some big issues. We talk about the cooking fat wars. In America, the cooking fat you use, whether it's lard, butter, shortening, oil, it's long been a signifier of health, virtue, and class. So what is it about fat that gets us so riled up? Well, reporter Adjoa Jimabrempong looks at how our attitudes towards certain fats have changed over the years, including how that played out with former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Eleanor Roosevelt is like a margarine influencer?
19:43 Speaker 04 Now just imagine her doing like the little influencer hand with the stick of margarine.
19:47 Dan Pashman? Come with me as I go to the store to get some good luck margarine.
19:49 Speaker 04 Get ready with me with my margarine toast.
19:53 Dan Pashman? In this episode, we also get into the rise of Crisco, the trans fat debacle of the 1990s, and of course, the panic around seed oils today. In the end, we ask, what does all this say about food culture and about America? It's a really good one. I hope you'll check it out. It's up now. Okay, back to Samin Nosrat, whose new cookbook is Good Things. Even as Samin was questioning everything after salt, fat, acid, heat, she had a book deal for the follow-up she had to fulfill. She had multiple concepts for it that she ended up throwing out. She even tried to cancel the book contract. She really was lost, not just emotionally, but creatively. Then during one of her lowest points, she had an epiphany. She was watching Taco Chronicles on Netflix and there was this episode about tacos al pastor,
20:37 Dan Pashman? the ubiquitous Mexico City taco filled with pork cooked on a spit. For the first time in a long time, Samin felt inspired.
20:45 Speaker 01 Because I had sort of lost my appetite and lost my own like direction and like even curiosity. If there was a whiff of interest or curiosity, I was like, holding on to that for dear life. So the fact that I was like, wow, these tacos look good. I was like, I wish I could make that at home. Turns out that premise is just inherently flawed. Like you cannot translate like this thing that cooks on a spit in Mexico
21:10 Speaker 01 to your house oven. It's just, it's never going to be the same. So I was probably on my third or fourth try. Every time I was doing like a four or six pound pork shoulder or whatever. But I live by myself. So that means every failure is something then that I'm going to have to eat for the next, you know, 37 meals.
21:29 Dan Pashman? So every bite is kind of a reminder that you haven't done the thing you were trying to do.
21:33 Speaker 01 I'm already depressed. And so there's just this way that like, by the time I had gotten this one into the oven, I knew it wasn't right. And my friend texted right when I was putting it in the oven. She said, can I come over? And I said, oh yeah, I'm just ruining some pork. She's like, what's going on? And I was like, oh, I'm just, I can't do this. And it's, and then I'm going to have to eat the whole thing by myself. And she was like, you can bring it over to our house. Like we'll help you eat it. And so this felt like this lifeline. I was like, really? I can bring dinner over to your house and you'll let me do that? So it was a perfectly good meal, but it was just more than that. Like there was just warmth to the night. There were kids being chaotic. It was so comfortable and cozy. We all, I think, had a really nice time and we were like, should we do this again next week? And they said, yeah.
22:15 Speaker 01 So we just kept doing it and it would just became sort of an anchor in our week. And we were probably doing it for like eight months before it really clicked. Like, oh my gosh, like this is a weekly dinner ritual, which is something I have been dying to create in my life and for a million different excuses, not been able to over the last several years. And I had always envisioned that it would be something I do, I host, it's at my house. And this was different than that. And I think because it looked different, it hadn't occurred to me that it was the same thing.
22:46 Dan Pashman? Right. Why was that something you wanted so badly?
22:49 Speaker 01 I think in a way it actually speaks to the fact that even before I could see it, I knew. I was not rooted in my own life and I was really lonely. I have always just focused on my work first. That's a really sad and lonely way to be. Even when the work is things that you want to do and actually quite social and you have a big social circle around it. There's an emptiness underneath.
23:17 Dan Pashman? Samin already had a model for a weekly dinner ritual. Her friend Greta had been hosting one for years in New York. And Greta became almost philosophical about the dinners, thinking about them as a real anchor of her life. That's why Greta gave Samin a 1951 book called The Sabbath by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. He talks about the importance of the Sabbath as a weekly ritual, a time for rest and connection. Samin didn't grow up with any religious tradition, but she grabbed on to this concept. And she came to understand that weekly dinner with her friends as this same sort of sanctified weekly ritual.
23:50 Speaker 01 And it felt like if I could have a way that guaranteed that I saw the people I love on a regular basis in a non-stressful way. I think that that's part of it, too, is people keep calling these Monday dinners like dinner parties. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. It's not a dinner party because a dinner party is something like.
24:09 Dan Pashman? It sort of suggests a formality.
24:10 Speaker 01 It's an idea, like a formel.
24:11 Dan Pashman? There's invitations that go out.
24:12 Speaker 01 There's like, you think for days or weeks about the menu you're going to serve. And this is not that. This is actually everyday life. And that's exactly what makes it so special.
24:24 Dan Pashman? These dinners became the heart of Samin's new book, Good Things. In it, she writes about the joys of eating in community and she lays out how you can build your own weekly food ritual. She also gets really personal throughout the book. It's almost like that kitchen friend of yours has become a closer friend. Now she's confiding in you. She tells you about her depression, stories from her childhood, details of her Monday dinners and lessons she's learned. Just as with salt, fat, acid, heat, Samin knew good things had to be in her voice, her perspective on cooking. But it is a departure in one critical way, which I asked Samin about. A lot of the approach of salt, fat, acid, heat was this is like a cooking class in book form. It's less about a collection of recipes. It's going to teach you the principles of cooking.
25:07 Dan Pashman? You even like actively resisted having recipes in the book. This new book, though, has recipes.
25:14 Speaker 01 Surprise.
25:16 Dan Pashman? So what happened?
25:18 Speaker 01 I'm a hypocrite.
25:20 Dan Pashman? Yeah, you write that at times putting together a book of recipes felt like a betrayal to yourself and your readers.
25:26 Speaker 01 Yes, it's never been lost on me that I have railed my entire professional career about recipes and then produced a book of recipes. However, I think two things happened. One, I always believed that once people learned these four elements, sort of how to use them, that it would change the way that they cooked for the better in like a big, big way. And for by and large, that has been the response is people say things like, this changed the way I cook. I'm such a better cook. But I think what I didn't anticipate is that also in these last eight years, there has been a lot of feedback of, wow, like your buttermilk chicken, we make that every week.
26:09 Speaker 01 Or the lasagna is my birthday meal. The individual recipes have found meaning for people in their lives, too.
26:16 Dan Pashman? But it seems like in some ways, this book is still not a totally traditional collection of recipes because there is still built into it a lot of opportunity for improvisation. There's a lot of recipes that are like, throw these things together. It doesn't have a measurement at all. And so I feel like there is still a kernel of that idea.
26:32 Speaker 01 I'm always me. You know what I mean? Like, I'm never gonna not be me. The places where I give less detail or less instruction are places where I feel like it's actually less important.
26:43 Dan Pashman? Right. When you write recipes like that, I think it's also trying to communicate to people like, it doesn't have to be perfect. There's more than one way to do this and you can still have great results. Which also sort of feels like you trying to talk yourself out of your own tendencies towards perfectionism.
27:00 Speaker 01 On many levels, that was the project of this book. You know, I'd have an idea for something. There's these quesadillas I started making where I would take Oaxaca string cheese and put it directly in the pan. And like let it, because it like browns and sizzles so beautifully.
27:15 Dan Pashman? Like halloumi or something.
27:17 Speaker 01 And then, and then just put the tortilla on top. And then if I had some thing from the garden, a squash blossom or zucchini or corn or whatever, I would sprinkle it over the cheese, then put the tortilla. But then I'd get this like amazing, like super like crisp, golden brown cheese. I'd flip it. It was an open-faced quesadilla. And I was like, This does not need a recipe. Like, do you know what I mean? There's just, and I'm like, do people, people are gonna be like, she wrote a whole new book and she gave me a recipe for melon balls, carrot sticks, and an open-faced quesadilla. Like, this is recipe, this is cookbook?
27:48 Dan Pashman? Like, how high is Samin?
27:49 Speaker 01 Yeah, totally.
27:51 Speaker 01 Like, this is not, what am I paying for, or whatever?
27:54 Dan Pashman? Well, also, you know, not every book has to be Michelangelo's David.
27:57 Speaker 01 Totally.
27:57 Dan Pashman? It could just make people happy, and that's also great. Samin sets up the book as her little box of treasures. So there are some of those smaller delights, like the open-faced quesadilla, or roasted almonds with fried sage, or a miso and labna onion dip. Oh, man, that sounds good. I want that one. There's even a little aside, not really a recipe, about olive oil fried bread. There's a whole section on cooking with mostly pantry staples. There are also more elaborate dishes, like peri-peri chicken, lasagna with homemade fresh pasta sheets, and cuckoo kopita, a Persian riff on spinach pie. When I picked up the book, I immediately zeroed in on one recipe in particular. You have a recipe for warm castel-vetrano olives.
28:38 Speaker 01 Oh, I see where you're going, Dan.
28:42 Dan Pashman? Now, I love a castel-vetrano olive.
28:44 Speaker 01 I know you do.
28:45 Dan Pashman? Probably my all-time favorite olive.
28:46 Speaker 01 Me too, it's my favorite.
28:47 Dan Pashman? But your recipe calls for them unpitted. Now, we've debated this before.
28:51 Speaker 01 Yes.
28:52 Dan Pashman? I only buy pitted olives.
28:54 Speaker 01 I know.
28:55 Dan Pashman? I was just in Italy last week, and there was olives on the table, and I put one in my mouth. Of course, it has the pit inside. First of all, when the pit is inside the olive, it robs you of a lot of the experience of, like, biting through the olive to experience the meatiness, which is part of what I love about an olive.
29:11 Speaker 01 I like judging the meatiness of an olive by the distance my tooth gets to travel to the pit.
29:17 Dan Pashman? But, you know, I want to bite through it.
29:18 Speaker 01 I understand.
29:19 Dan Pashman? And I also feel like, just the process of having to navigate the pit distracts from the enjoyment of the flavor of the olive. Because now I'm like, what?
29:28 Speaker 01 How do you feel about cherries?
29:30 Dan Pashman? I take the pits out of those, too.
29:31 Speaker 01 You pre-pit cherries?
29:32 Dan Pashman? I have it, we have a cherry pitter in our house.
29:34 Speaker 01 Wait, you don't just eat a bowl of cherries?
29:36 Dan Pashman? We have a cherry pitter in our house.
29:37 Speaker 01 I have a cherry pitter, too, but I use it when I make a cherry dessert.
29:40 Dan Pashman? No, I take a bunch of cherries, I'll take like 20, 10 or 20 cherries.
29:43 Speaker 01 Whoa.
29:43 Dan Pashman? I'll pit them all, and then I eat them, and I enjoy them very much.
29:46 Speaker 01 Okay.
29:48 Dan Pashman? But anyway, these are all my objections to the pit. Number one, it takes away from the texture. Number two, takes away from the flavor. Number three, no graceful way to get rid of the pit.
29:55 Speaker 01 Amazing.
29:56 Dan Pashman? How do you respond?
29:57 Speaker 01 Okay, I've come closer to your side.
29:59 Dan Pashman? Okay.
30:00 Speaker 01 And even just last, literally last night, Greta, my Sunday dinner friend who I'm staying with, she now has two little kids and she was just saying, she's like, I only buy pit at Castel Vetrano's now. And guess what? Like, I use them so much more. I find myself adding them to salad. I find myself cooking with them.
30:19 Dan Pashman? Cause you can grab a handful or a spoonful out of the, yeah.
30:22 Speaker 01 And I was like, oh, interesting point. I like that. I often have both.
30:27 Dan Pashman? You're gonna come back in seven years to me and I'm gonna have fully swayed you.
30:29 Speaker 01 Yes, but I don't think it's ever gonna happen for cherries.
30:35 Dan Pashman? You have seven salad dressings in the book and three uses for each, which I'm very excited about. I don't know why, but I cannot for the life of me make a good salad dressing.
30:44 Speaker 01 Why?
30:45 Dan Pashman? I have followed recipes.
30:46 Speaker 01 It's cause you know the secret ingredient?
30:48 Dan Pashman? What?
30:48 Speaker 01 Olive pits.
30:53 Dan Pashman? That's what I'm doing wrong. But I love a decision tree. You have boiled spring vegetable matrix, roasted vegetable salad matrix, tomato salad matrix, summer salad matrix, all these different things where like, if you have this, use this or choose from this different category, mix and match. This to me feels very in keeping with salt, fat, acid, heat.
31:13 Speaker 01 Yeah. The thing I am still ruled by is very much like, how can I communicate to you all of the possibilities? And some things, like the dressing itself, might need a very like precise list of ingredients and like the order in which to combine them. But in general, in daily cooking in life, it sort of comes down to like, what's in my fridge?
31:37 Dan Pashman? Right.
31:37 Speaker 01 Or what's in my pantry or whatever like? And so I wanted to sort of take into consideration. The actual variables in daily life.
31:48 Dan Pashman? Right.
31:49 Speaker 01 And end up with something good for whatever your situation was. There's a lemon miso, like creamy lemon miso, sometimes poppy seed dressing. You can leave the poppy seeds out if you want. That dressing is so good. The idea of like, for me, limiting you to only one salad by saying like, mix it with these like little gems and put.
32:08 Dan Pashman? Right, it has to have these greens, it has to have this dressing.
32:10 Speaker 01 Makes me really sad because to me, I want you to know, man, this thing is awesome. I can use it 50, 100 million different ways in my house anytime it is so. But also I know it can be overwhelming to know how to pair things. So that was why I sort of came up with these decision trees to sort of hold you by the hand to take you toward that possibility so that whatever situation you're in, you can adapt to it pretty easily.
32:35 Dan Pashman? I do feel like there's something about this cookbook that is in its own way, kind of revolutionary, which is how deeply personal it is. And you're really sharing a lot of yourself. How did you think about that part of it?
32:48 Speaker 01 Well, there were two parts of it. One is I have been through so much sort of up and down and gnarly stuff in the last several years that I felt like people need to know what I've been through. They need to know what I've been through so they understand why this is meaningful. But also I think a lot of how I found my way into an individual recipe, like even the introduction of the chicken chapter. I'm like, what is there to say about chicken? Like, I'm like, here's some chicken recipes. I like chicken, you like chicken, go cook them. And in the end, I had to just say, tell a story about like my favorite little moment when I'm cooking chicken is you've like roasted chicken, you carve it, you bring it to the table, you go back to the kitchen and you like pick all the stuff off the cart.
33:31 Dan Pashman? Yes, yes.
33:32 Speaker 01 Before you sit down.
33:33 Dan Pashman? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
33:33 Speaker 01 Which reminds me of like some of my favorite moments working in professional kitchens because professional cooks are always eating the little ends and bits of things, which are sometimes the best parts.
33:42 Dan Pashman? For sure, yeah.
33:43 Speaker 01 You know, and I was like, this kind of shows you like what chicken sort of symbolizes for me. I have to give you something very personal to make it be unique.
33:56 Dan Pashman? In a recent interview, Samin said that when she started the book tour for Good Things, she said a little prayer to herself that it would be different this time. In other words, she was praying that the new book wouldn't trigger the same sort of spiral that Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat did. Now, a few months later, she's at the end of the tour. So I asked her, has it been different this time?
34:15 Speaker 01 Yeah, you know, this is my very last interview before I go home.
34:19 Dan Pashman? Congratulations.
34:20 Speaker 01 Thank you. And I survived. I'm tired. I'm chewed up for sure. But I'm not like worn down to the bone. I still have things I'm excited about. Yeah, I'm so excited to go home and see Father.
34:31 Dan Pashman? Father being your dog.
34:36 Speaker 01 Father being my dog, yeah. It has been different and I'm really proud of myself.
34:39 Dan Pashman? What do you attribute the difference to?
34:41 Speaker 01 I have so much more help than I had. I'm not, I don't feel alone in the way like that I did. I was really managing so much by myself. So now I have, I have help. Yeah, I have the grounding of a group of friends and a girlfriend. I have like people who are checking on my welfare. Not that, again, I have amazing friends, so it's not that people weren't checking on my welfare before. It's just that I'm more connected to that. When I go home, it's not like I'm gonna be like this sad place that I'm returning to that's been neglected. Like, there's care. I live in a community.
35:14 Dan Pashman? You're more connected.
35:15 Speaker 01 Yeah, and also, I was more protective this time. Last time, I gave everybody everything that they wanted. I never said no. I sat after every book tour event and I signed books for three to five hours. I took pictures with every single person because I felt so amazing that anyone would care. And it still does feel so amazing, but now I know if I do that, I'll be sick. I need to rest. Like, so there was just a lot more protection this time.
35:42 Dan Pashman? What have you added to your manifestation journal recently?
35:45 Speaker 01 Oh, man, you know what? I haven't opened it in a long ti-- I usually do it around my birthday, which was a couple weeks ago, and I haven't done it. So I've actually been thinking it's something I need to do. Sometimes I think it would be like really lovely to sort of like melt away and disappear into obscurity and never do anything and put it out in the world. But that makes me sad, I realize, because I wanna make stuff and I wanna give it to the world. So I will continue to do that. I think I need to spend some time like figuring out what that is and that'll go in the manifestation journal, like what I would like to do and make and what, how I would like to sort of shape my life in the next coming time.
36:21 Speaker 01 Thanks so much.
36:21 Dan Pashman? That's a wrap. Thank you, Samin.
36:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, you're so, that was really lovely and you're so thoughtful and I really like talking to you.
36:27 Dan Pashman? I appreciate it. Thank you. I always enjoy talking to you.
36:29 Speaker 01 I'm done!
36:30 Dan Pashman? You're done. You survived. That's it. Crack open the champagne or whatever it is.
36:34 Speaker 01 Oh, Martinelli's.
36:35 Dan Pashman? Yeah.
36:43 Dan Pashman? That's Samin Nosrat. Her new book is Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love. And hey, exciting news. If you subscribe to the Sporkful's email newsletter, we'll enter you into a giveaway to win the book. We'll be choosing one lucky winner to enter. All you get to do is sign up for our newsletter. If you're already on the list, you're already automatically entered into this and all of our giveaways. So sign up by December 23rd at sporkful.com/newsletter. Again, that's sporkful.com/newsletter. Open to US addresses only. Next week on the show, it's our second annual Salad Spinner Year in Review. Yasmin Tayak from The Atlantic and Helen Rosner from The New Yorker join me to talk about the year's biggest, wildest, and silliest food news, as well as their own picks for favorite and
37:28 Dan Pashman? least favorite trends. That's next week. While you're waiting for that one, check out last week's episode. It is a survey of 150 years of cooking fat history in America, and I think it'll give you a lot to think about. 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/sporkful. This episode was produced by me, along with managing producer- Emma Morgenstern. And senior producer-
38:13 Dan Pashman? Andres O'Hara. It was edited by-
38:15 Speaker 05 Camille Stanley.
38:16 Dan Pashman? Our engineer is- Jared O'Connell. Our interns are-
38:18 Speaker 05 Morgan Johnson.
38:20 Dan Pashman? And-
38:20 Speaker 05 Jasmine Sutherland.
38:21 Dan Pashman? Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of SiriusXM Podcasts. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.
38:30 Speaker 06 And I'm Natomi Peters, living in Long Beach, California, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.
38:50 Speaker 01 Now I want to do a deep dive on Dan and then do this to you, give you a dose of your own medicine.
38:57 Dan Pashman? I'm ready. I'm ready.
38:58 Speaker 01 Great.
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39:49 Speaker 03 and toes. Common side effect is nausea. For full prescribing information, call 1-833-4-NUR-TAC or visit nurtec.com. All right, back to your podcast playlist or whatever's keeping you going today.
40:04 Speaker 07 Meet Craig. Craig manages the local haunted house. He's got a lot to juggle. Tangled cobwebs, flickering lights and scheduling vampires.
40:13 Speaker 08 Now it's time for your break. I'll break when I'm dead. You are dead. That's like your whole thing. Here, have a Kit Kat. Fine, 15 minutes, but no longer. Good, I'm grabbing a Kit Kat too.
40:28 Speaker 07 Nobody should have to wait until they're dead to take a break. Have a break, have a Kit Kat.
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