Anything's Pastable (Guest Episode)

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Hey, I'm Nicola Twilley, and this is Gastropod, the podcast that looks at food through the lens of science and history.

And I'm Cynthia Graeber, and yes, normally we are Gastropod, but this week, we're bringing you a special treat from our friends at the Sporkful.

It's a behind-the-scenes look at host Dan Pashman's experience writing his very first cookbook, Anything's Possible.

We'll be back in a week with a brand new gastropod episode, but for now, take it away, Dan.

Today we're launching a new series, the behind-the-scenes story of a major project I've been working on.

At times, it's consumed my whole life and even involved my kids.

So, you know, you said it would take, like, maybe two or three years to do the cookbook, but I thought it would take longer.

You thought it would take but two or three years is a very long time.

Yeah, but like, there's a lot of stuff to do.

Like, you have to find recipes and you have to make them, take pictures of it, and you have to publish it.

And also, you're doing a lot of recipes, so it's going to take a long time.

All right, this is not going as well as I had hoped.

The sauce has completely cooked off and burnt.

The pan is black, and there are pieces of pasta that are broken off and fused to the bottom of the pan.

Becky, how would you describe how this looks?

This kind of looks like a cry for help.

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 yes, it's true, I have written a cookbook.

It's always been a dream of mine.

This one has been years in the making, and it comes out in just two weeks.

When I started working on this cookbook, the most common question I got from friends was, how do you actually come up with the recipes?

I realized that most people, even folks who buy a lot of cookbooks, don't know much about how they're made.

As I found out, neither did I.

Until I did it, I had no idea just how painstaking the process is, how many thousands of tiny decisions would be required, and how many things could go wrong.

That's why today we're launching Anythings Possible, a four-part series about the making of my cookbook.

In this series, I'm going to take you inside the process, from the highs and lows of recipe testing to a research trip across Italy, to the agonizing decisions over the design of the cover.

By the end, you'll never look at a cookbook the same way again.

Before we get to the book though, a quick recap of how I got here.

In 2021, I invented a new shape of pasta.

Cascatelli.

I spent three years developing it and finding people to help me manufacture and sell it.

We did a five-part podcast series that tells the story of that quest.

It's called Mission Impossible, and it's in your podcast feed now if you want to check it out.

This new series is sort of a sequel to that one, but don't worry, you're going to have to listen to Mission Impossible to enjoy this one.

Anyway, Cascatelli was way more successful than I ever dreamed.

It went viral, getting media coverage across the country.

Apparently, there's a new pasta that has come out.

So, like, bye-bye, spaghetti.

Cascatelli sold out within two hours of being available.

It's called Costatelli.

Costa Catelli.

We can't pronounce it.

And getting attention around the world.

Cascatelli ended up being named one of Time Magazine's best inventions of 2021 and being featured on the cover.

It's now in stores across the country.

And the most rewarding part, sporkful listeners started sending me photos from all over the country and the world, showing me what they were making with Cascatelli.

I felt like people were inviting me into their homes for dinner.

But there was a problem.

75% of the pics I got showed Cascatelli with tomato sauce, meat sauce, or mac and cheese.

A few party animals made pesto.

Add in other well-worn classics like Carbonara and Caccio Ye Pepe.

That was 95% of what I saw.

To me, this was tragic.

Cascatelli works with so many sauces.

And beyond Cascatelli, it just made me sad that so many people were choosing from such a limited range of pasta sauces.

In late 2021, after nine months of seeing these pictures in my inbox and on Instagram, I have an idea.

I love that my Cascatelli journey got so many other people to nerd out on pasta shapes with me.

What if I could do the same for pasta sauces and show folks that there are so many more things they can and should be putting on pasta?

What if I were to write a cookbook that would help people break away for bolognese?

After a few months of letting the idea simmer, I think I have a cookbook concept that'll work.

I start making some calls.

My first is to Evan Kleinman, my pasta fairy godmother and spiritual advisor throughout my Cascatelli journey.

Evan ran a successful Italian restaurant in LA for 25 years, and she's traveled to Italy almost every year since the 70s.

So she knows Italian food.

As I say to Evan, there are so many really great Italian pasta preparations that are very simple and yet are still not well known in the U.S.

Do you think that's fair to say?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's fair to say.

I think that if you look at cookbooks, you find the same 50 over and over and over again.

I'm thinking there must be some amazing pasta dishes in Italy that are unknown to many Americans that I could highlight, right?

And there are probably others that I could bring a new perspective to, put my own spin on.

I explain all this to Evan.

I'm not looking to do super fancy.

I'm not having anybody make homemade pasta from scratch, just basic things like open up a can of good tuna and with capers and lemons or take some fresh artichoke

so this has all been done

so i don't think that you would be covering ground that hasn't been covered before but i also feel like maybe people who who come to a cuisine as outsiders

might feel less beholden to tradition i think you're absolutely 100 wrong

evan says she's seen a lot of supposed outsiders write books about italian food, but instead of bringing a fresh perspective, they just end up falling in love with Italian traditions and nostalgia, and they end up very much beholden to those traditions.

So that's something I need to watch out for as I write this book.

But as I explained to her, Italy is only one part of my book idea.

There's a second part of the book where I want to expand beyond Italian food and play with other cuisines.

Like, what else can we put on pasta?

Why can't we put dal on pasta?

Why can't we make spicy chili crisp pesto?

Let's bring together all these different flavors.

So that's also a big part of the concept.

What do you think about the idea of incorporating other cuisines, sort of sauces, stews, and condiments and putting them on pasta?

I think you must.

You're an explorer.

People are going to expect from you to open the door to the unexpected and the way you disregard tropes and myths.

And that's what people expect of you.

But in order for me to go beyond those tropes and myths, I need to to learn what they are.

Before you can start doing jazz improvisation, you got to know the standards, right?

I barely know which end of the saxophone to blow into.

Even though I've been hosting the sportful for 14 years, I literally have no professional culinary training whatsoever.

So I'm going to need to do some research on Italian food, what cookbooks are already out there, what seems ripe for adding my own twist.

And this is where Evan can help me.

You know what I'm going to do?

Is I'm going to give you a list

of cookbooks from different regions that have been written in English

that

I think were written by real people with no agenda but to preserve these recipes.

Okay.

Am I allowed to tinker with those at all?

What do you mean?

Well, like, what if I want to serve one of the traditional sauces, but with a shape that I think would be better?

Well, that's your brand.

Instead of showing the traditional recipe and then a variation for something different, you will start with the Dan Pashman weirdness, and then you'll explain the traditional one.

Right.

So I can be like, listen, usually they do linguine with white clam sauce, but linguine is trash.

No one should ever eat it, and you should have mafalda with white clam sauce instead.

Sounds like I already sold one copy.

Oh, yeah.

Thank you, Evan, my pasta fairy godmother.

You're always there for me.

I mean, of course, now I'm totally curious.

You want to contribute a recipe to the cookbook?

I don't know.

I need to think about it.

I definitely want acknowledgments.

Oh, you got it.

You'll be acknowledged.

Don't worry.

Coming out of this conversation, the basic question seems to be: do I know enough about pasta sauces to be able to come up with any interesting ones?

I call up my mom, hoping she'll have some words of wisdom.

Her reaction to my book concept?

If you ever look at the pasta preparations in the New York Times, Times, all those things are there.

I mean, there's a there's a noodles with chili crisp, or there's uh cauliflower, or just ricotta cheese and and lemon zest.

There are like a lot of different kinds of pasta preparations that do appear.

So you're saying I should just abandon my whole concept?

No, I I think it's it's gonna be a a a challenge.

Oh, here's dad, so now the dogs are gonna go crazy.

All right, well, I'm gonna go, but thanks for the vote of confidence.

Now, I'm not,

look, it does remind me that so many people who

saw you on the Today show, everybody wants to make the mushroom ragu because they don't think of putting mushrooms on pasta like that.

That's what I'm trying to tell you.

You just validated the concept of my book.

Well, I don't know if that's going to sell a book, though.

It could sell a pamphlet, but not necessarily a book.

That is more skepticism than I was expecting from my mom.

But it occurs to me that these these are the same doubts I heard when I set out to invent Cascatelli.

It's all been done.

There's nothing new to add.

Fortunately, I feed off the doubters.

So you know what I'm gonna do?

I'm gonna make this cookbook.

Because of the success of Cascatelli and Sporkfool's long history, I'm able to get a literary agent who helps me write a book proposal that includes some sample writing and a list of proposed recipes.

But we quickly hit a bump.

The first publisher I go to is Simon ⁇ Schuster.

They published a book I wrote 10 years ago called Eat More Better.

Because that book didn't do very well, the editor there says the higher-ups won't approve a solid offer.

Basically, they're not willing to take another chance on me.

Other publishers didn't have a front row seat to my literary failure, so some of them do make good offers.

I sign on with William Morrow, part of HarperCollins, one of the big publishers.

In spring 2022, I'm ready to actually start writing my cookbook.

There's just one small issue.

While I have lots of opinions about what I like and don't don't like to eat, and I often think about the minutiae of the eating experience, I've never written and published a single real recipe in my life.

So I'm going to need some help.

Fortunately, there are people who specialize in providing the exact kind of help I'm looking for, and they are called recipe developers.

Now, some cookbook authors are themselves recipe developers, so they write all the recipes for their books.

In other cases, the author is bringing their vision in perspective, but collaborating with developers to turn those ideas into workable recipes.

A lot of the cookbook authors we've interviewed here on the show are recipe developers.

One of the first people I get connected to is Rebecca Marsters.

Have you ever worked in a restaurant?

Not back of house.

I've worked service, but that was never my, that was never my vision.

I always knew that that was not the environment for me.

Why?

Just too high pressure.

They say, you know, if it's too hot, get out of the kitchen.

And I just never went in there because I knew it was going to be too hot for me.

So

I'm much more of a cerebral, precise.

I was more interested in the writing and the kind of the, I don't know, the nerdy stuff.

You know, I'm not that like fly by the hip kind of cook.

I've always been.

You're less interested in like, let's, let's raid the pantry and throw stuff in a pan and light it on fire.

And

you're much more like, I want a lot of spreadsheets.

I'm much more like, this is a dish that I could plan to make two weeks from now.

Let me put together a prep list and research which wine I should serve with it.

Rebecca did go to culinary school at Johnson in Wales before she ended up in media.

For many years, she was a test cook and editor at America's Test Kitchen, which is famous for their painstaking approach to recipe development.

Over the years, Rebecca has seen every way a recipe can go wrong for a home cook, because the part of recipe writing that's most stressful is that your one recipe is going to be used by people with different levels of cooking experience in different kitchens with different equipment.

I know that the way I am is an asset when it comes to making recipes foolproof because my main goal is I don't want somebody to fail at home and be discouraged and I want people to have confidence in cooking and give them the tools to do that.

As soon as Rebecca and I get in touch, she's sending me long emails with ideas and questions.

In one email, she writes, apologies if I threw too much at you at once.

I'm a details person.

And I was like, you're hired because I too am a details person.

Rebecca will not be a recipe developer though.

She'll be the book's recipe editor.

basically like the team captain.

She'll refine and cross-test every recipe that the developers and I come up with, a final line of defense against kitchen disaster.

She'll also create a style guide for the book, which will be very important because I'm going to be working with multiple developers, literally a lot of cooks in the kitchen.

But I need all the recipes to be written the same way so the book is consistent.

As Rebecca starts drafting the style guide, it forces me to consider approximately 1 million details I had never considered before.

For example, when I'm writing a recipe, I am definitely an advocate for writing out the whole word teaspoon or the whole word tablespoon.

Rebecca says she's seen a lot of people who misread TSP or TBSP because they look so similar at a glance and then it ruins their recipes.

So, okay, fine.

We'll write out teaspoon and tablespoon.

One small detail resolved.

One more important thing, Rebecca, we got to figure out what kind of salt are we going to use?

Oof, that's the big question, huh?

It's the big question.

It's, it's, you know, people have strong feelings about salt

for good reason.

And I mean, first and foremost, different types of salt have different levels of saltiness.

So one teaspoon of one type of salt, you wouldn't be adding as much salt as you would with a teaspoon of a different type of salt.

Yes, correct.

And a lot of that is about grain size, right?

If you think about like filling the jar with golf balls and then filling it with...

marbles and then filling it with sand, right?

The grain size makes a difference.

You can fit more granules of table salt into a teaspoon than you can a larger grain.

And it's not just grain size that affects saltiness, it's also shape.

Some salt crystal shapes have more surface area than others.

So more of the salt lands on your tongue and you register it as saltier.

Most recipes I see these days call for kosher salt, but there are two totally different brands of kosher salt out there, Morton and Diamond Crystal.

And Morton is almost twice as salty as Diamond Crystal.

So if you see a recipe that just calls for kosher salt and you use a different brand than the one the recipe writer had in mind, mind, your dish will come out either too salty or too bland.

This issue could make you think every recipe in my cookbook sucks.

And in the food world, Morton versus Diamond Crystal is one of the great feuds of all time.

It's Yankees versus Red Sox, Montagues versus Capulets, people who slice their sandwiches in half diagonally versus serial killers.

And as I tell Rebecca, I use Diamond Crystal salt at home between those two.

And I use Morton salt at home.

Oh,

I just feel like Diamond Crystal, I don't get as even of a sprinkle when I use it.

Morton feels right to me when I pick up a pinch of salt.

I don't have any sprinkling issues.

Like you may just be sprinkling wrong, Rebecca.

That's all.

That's true.

I don't know.

Maybe you can send a video of you sprinkling it out.

Do they have a salt sprinkling course at Johnson and Wales?

Maybe you were absent that day.

Maybe I missed that day.

I'm sprinkling hooky.

Morton might feel right to Rebecca, but Diamond Crystal feels right to me.

I also agree with Sameen Nasrat, chef and author of Salt Fat Acid Heat, who swears by Diamond Crystal because it dissolves faster, which reduces the risk of over-salting.

And because Diamond Crystal is less salty, you can use more of it, so it's easier to coat your food evenly.

Problem is, Morten is much more widely available in grocery stores than Diamond Crystal.

And I'm very worried about calling for a salt that many people can't get.

Then you'd have to convert your measurements, which would force you to do math, which is the worst thing that could happen.

Coming up, I involve hundreds more people in this decision about grains of salt.

And I start working on some recipes.

Stick around.

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You're basking on a beach in the Bahamas.

Now you're journeying through the jade forests of Japan.

Now you're there for your alma mater's epic win.

And now you're awake.

Womp, womp.

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So don't just dream about that trip.

Book it with Priceline.

Welcome back to the Sporkful.

I'm Dan Pashman.

And if you're listening to this journey and thinking, I'd love to see some photos and videos from all that, well, good news.

I'll be sharing photos and videos on my Instagram throughout this series.

Please make sure you check that out.

Follow me there at theSporkful.

Okay, I've found my team captain, Rebecca, but I still need to assemble the rest of my group of recipe developers.

The folks I pick will not just carry out my vision, they'll be my collaborators.

I need to find people who are not only talented, but also bring different specialties to the project.

I feel like I'm assembling a squad of superheroes for the most difficult mission of our lives.

Or maybe just of my life.

For them, this is just what they do.

Anyway, after a couple months of scouring food media for the best and brightest, I have my team in place.

In June 2022, the whole group meets over Zoom.

I ask them all to introduce themselves and their specialty and to pick a superhero name.

First up, we have Asha Lupi, who develops recipes for the South Asian spice company Diaspora Co.

My name would be the saucy spicetress.

A lot of my recipes are going to lean towards the interesting interesting ways to use spices.

Asha Lupi, saucy spicetress.

Then there's Katie Laird, who has lived and cooked professionally in Italy.

In my heart of hearts, I am a really old Italian grandma.

So I think I'm like supernona.

I mean, the funny thing is I'm not actually Italian at all and I'm 38.

But I think what I bring is just kind of that old school sensibility.

Katie Laird, supernona.

Then there's James Park, who was on the sporkful last fall talking about his chili crisp Crisp cookbook.

James's specialty for my cookbook.

Taking really delicious dishes and to just like pasta fly it.

I really enjoy kind of translating some of my favorite dishes that I eat globally and just kind of interpret it into pasta.

So I will be the pasta translator.

James Park, pasta translator.

We've also got Darnell Reed, chef and owner of Luella's Southern Kitchen in Chicago.

I'm definitely going to bring a lot of, I would say American, but definitely Southern American.

So I'll be the Southern soul guy.

We decide that Darnell is the soul food sauce boss.

And finally, we have Irene Yu.

I don't know if anyone's seen Ocean's 11 or 12 or 13, but I'm gonna be the Brad Pitt character who is always standing in the corner eating.

My specialty is really like connecting like all the different comfort food aspects of different cultures.

That's Irene Yu, Comfort Food Brad Pitt.

Along with Captain Rebecca, our team is in place.

Now we have a huge decision to make.

None of these folks can put a pot on the stove or a pen to paper until we know what kind of kosher salt we're using.

As I said, I typically use diamond crystal at home, but Morton is in more stores around the country.

So I decided to try out Morton for myself.

Let's just pour it out into a little bowl here.

I mean, that is coarse.

Let's look at it next to the diamond crystal.

The morton almost feels like sprinkles.

Feels weird.

Feels pebbly.

The morton to me looks like the salt you put on your driveway when it snows.

I tried sautéing some mushrooms with it.

I just added the morton salt and it like bounces.

Some pizzas that landed on the cast iron pan and bounced up.

I don't want my salt bouncing around.

It's supposed to land on the food and stay there.

I really want to go with Diamond Crystal.

But as I say to my wife Janie after dinner, I'm having a crisis of confidence.

If more people can get Morton and that's more standard, then maybe I should just go with that.

Is that which one is stronger?

Morton.

But I like diamond crystal personally.

I just like the way it feels in your hand.

It doesn't matter what it feels like in your hand.

What tastes better?

What makes the recipe better?

Well, it doesn't matter.

All right.

It doesn't matter what it feels like in your hand.

I'm going to go consult someone else.

I love you, but not for this.

I decide to do an Instagram poll to consult with you, Sporkville listeners.

The next day.

All right, the poll results are in.

I got DMs from a number of established cookbook authors telling me how they had agonized over this exact decision.

This is a big issue that really keeps cookbook authors up at night because cookbook authors want the readers to succeed when they make the recipes.

On Instagram, 68%

for Diamond Crystal.

I made the decision for my cookbook, I'm going with Diamond Crystal.

So it's Diamond Crystal, final answer.

And in fact, in the time after I would make that decision, the company that produces Diamond Crystal would invest in a glow-up for the packaging and much wider distribution.

So it's actually in a lot more stores across the country now.

Anyway, choosing Diamond Crystal is my first big decision on this book.

And while, yes, I did consult my family, my cookbook team, and thousands of people on social media, in the end, I went with my gut.

I chose the salt I like better, but I used my own kitchen.

But I'm plagued by the feeling that that's not how I should be making these decisions.

Because I'm not a chef or recipe developer.

So what do I know?

Why should anyone listen to me?

These feelings persist as I try to come up with a list of recipes for the team and me to start working on.

I ask all the developers to send me a bunch of ideas for pasta dishes.

I also do my own research.

I'm reading through the old Italian cookbooks that Evan Kleinman told me to look into, looking for inspiration.

And I'm listing pasta dishes I already cook at home, like my pesto baked ziti and mac and dahl.

I take all these options and select about 20 recipes to get us started.

I want to get a feel for the process, see what's working before I pick more.

As I find out, developing even one recipe has many steps.

Here's how it goes.

Step one, the recipe developer cooks the dish several times, tweaking as they go until they think it's good.

Step two,

I cook it, making note of my questions and suggested changes.

If there are big changes, the developer may make it one or two more times.

Then I'll make it again to be sure I'm happy with it.

Step three, the recipe goes to Captain Rebecca for the final test.

If it passes, it's done.

The first developer to start sending recipes in is Katie, aka Supernona.

My daughter Emily and I test her new and improved version of my pesto baked Ziti.

Maybe just a little more grated parmesan cheese, I think.

Yes, put more, as much as you need.

You can dump the entire thing in there if you need to.

Alright, I will.

I gotta measure it, though.

Why don't you need to measure it?

Just dump the the entire thing.

Because we got to keep track of exactly what I'm doing so I can put the recipe in the book.

All right, one more half cup.

I also start getting recipes from Asha, aka the saucy spicetress.

I try out spagatoni a la tadka.

Tadka is the term for the Indian technique of cooking whole spices in fat to coax out a ton of flavor.

Thank you, Kamir.

I made a second batch of this.

I was hoping you would say that.

So the first one was good, very good, but to me, it had a little bit of like a burnt taste to it.

Yeah, I was saying that too, but I didn't want to say that because I thought you would feel bad.

Well, thanks.

But listen, going forward, we're recipe testing here, so if something isn't good, you got to tell me because this is the time.

Well, it was good, it was just that one thing.

Right, so let's see.

Try this.

This is the same recipe, just very small changes to get rid of that flavor and to bring other flavors forward.

Tell me what you think.

It's so good.

So that one's a winner.

Another success?

Cachio Yova.

It's cheese and egg, like a meatless carbonara or super silky mac and cheese that you can make in about 20 minutes.

It's so beautiful!

It is so good.

But not everything's a hit.

There's a slow-cooked sirloin ragu, basically an upscale tomato-based meat sauce.

It's good.

I just, I don't know that I would want to make it again.

Like everyone makes a tomato-based sauce, so like this isn't so...

This isn't like a new thing for a lot of people.

All right.

Decision made.

This recipe doesn't make it.

Just got cut.

You're dead to us.

You're dead to us, sirloin ragu.

I would make this recipe, so that's selfish of you to just assume what other people would want.

You're gonna make this recipe that takes an hour and 45 minutes?

You wouldn't even put away your socks.

Burn.

After that sirloin ragu, I make a key decision.

I will not put any tomato sauce recipes in my cookbook unless they're really different from anything I've had before.

For any dish where you just need a basic tomato sauce, I'm going to tell people to use jarred sauces.

There's so many good ones out there.

Why do you need to make one from scratch?

I'm even going to make a jarred jarred tomato sauce decision tree full of things you can add to a jar of sauce to take it to another level.

I'm very pleased with all this, but my family's already pushing me to tackle bigger issues.

What are you going to name your cookbook?

Like, wasn't it like More Than Meat Sauce or like Beyond Bolognese or something?

Those are two of the working titles: More Than Meat Sauce, Beyond Bolognese.

But my editor, Cassie,

she said she doesn't like book titles that tell you what the book is not.

I think that's kind of a good

thought.

I have another working title though.

Tell me what you think of this one, ready?

Put it on pasta.

I mean, do you want it to be silly or serious?

I want it to be accessible.

Pasta for the best.

Janie's got some pitches for the title of the book.

Pasta Bilities.

Yeah.

Here's another one.

Feeling saucy.

What are you reading?

You're reasoning off your phone.

What are you doing?

I'm just looking at some like pasta puns.

Bro, that's Google's intellectual property.

How about

feeling kind of lonely?

Feeling kind of lonely.

But if we're going to do a pun, why don't we call the book Mission Impossible?

Mission Impossible, The Quest for New and Different Pasta Preparations.

By me.

Yeah, exactly.

Come on.

Come with something new people sound like you're out of ideas

ouch we'll put a pain in the title for now

a few weeks into recipe testing things are going great i'm in the car on my way to the store to pick up another box giant box of diamond crystal kosher salt because i'm out also need more garlic um and i was just thinking about the fact that i am having so much fun testing all these recipes.

It's a lot to manage time-wise with life and all that, other jobs and things, but like I do love cooking.

I don't get to cook as often as I would like because I'm busy working.

And now when I have to cook for work, it's kind of like, I don't know, I guess maybe it like allows me to justify it in my head, like, oh,

you should stop your meetings at three o'clock today because you have to cook for work.

And it's also pushing me to

cook with ingredients that I haven't cooked with before, techniques I haven't used before.

All that being said, I'm like six recipes in.

So we'll see if I still feel this way in six months.

Coming up, after more like six weeks, I start having less fun.

And Janie wonders whether all this is worth it.

Stick around.

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Welcome back.

Before we get back to the show, I want to tell you about a couple of recent Sporkful episodes that I think you're going to really enjoy.

In February, we talked with a professor who consults with restaurants on how to design the dining room to maximize profit.

We see her in action at an Indian restaurant restaurant in Queens and they make changes based on her suggestions.

But does it increase profit?

We find out.

In another episode, I talk with comedian Gary Gullman about how he uses food in his act.

And in our feed, we also have all four episodes of our new podcast, Deep Dish with Sola and Ham, which shares deep dives into the surprising stories behind a bunch of dishes.

From a bagel baker union's battles with the mob to a police investigation that starts with two dead bodies and a trunk full of tamales.

You can find all those episodes and more in our feed.

And please make sure you hit follow or subscribe or whatever it is in your podcasting app so you never miss an episode.

Thanks.

Okay, back to the show.

A month into the testing process, we're still humming through the first batch of recipes.

But there are a few that Supernona, Katie, and I aren't sure about.

So we decided to be more efficient if we cook them together in person and discuss.

In July 2022, on a trip to visit her sister in nearby Queens, Katie comes over to my house to cook with me.

Yes.

I won't take it personally that you brought your own pan.

Okay, this is very specific.

I actually, I bought this pan for this cookbook.

Katie and I have two recipes on our agenda today.

They're both dishes she's already done some testing on, so we're not starting from scratch.

First, fettuccine al Ubriaco, which means drunken fettuccine.

That's because instead of boiling the pasta in water, you boil it in red wine.

That way it absorbs the flavor, but also the color.

And at the end, you get these deep purple noodles that are unlike any pasta I've ever seen.

This dish ticks a lot of my boxes.

It's a classic Italian pasta dish, but it's not well known outside of Italy.

It's easy to make and simple enough that it's sort of a partially blank canvas.

It offers Katie and me opportunities to make tweaks or, dare I say, improvements.

And Katie thinks the traditional method could use some help.

Now, a lot of the complaints about this dish that I've heard from people is that, well, I used a whole bottle of wine.

Now I have nothing to drink.

And I don't really taste it in there.

So

I've tried to brainstorm a few ways to pump this dish up with some flavor.

In previous tests, Katie cooked the pasta in undiluted red wine, but the result was too bitter.

So in another test at home, she tried half water, half wine.

That turned out a little bland.

This time, she's basically splitting the difference.

The wine?

As we finish making the ubriaco, Janie walks into the kitchen.

Katie sets out the pinkish-purple pasta for us to try.

If I didn't smell the wine, like, I don't know that I would even know what the flavor is.

There we go.

You know, that's a really, that's the feedback about this dish a lot.

I think part of my, you know, thought about this dish is, is it more of a presentation piece, you know, because it has such a dramatic look?

Or is, does it really hit some flavor that we think people will love?

Right.

So it sounds to me like both of you are sort of saying like maybe this shouldn't be in the book.

Yes,

for my personal palate, maybe it shouldn't be in the book.

This gets to the heart of a big issue for me, which was also a big issue with Cascatelli.

I said throughout that process, I don't want a gimmick.

I didn't want to just make a pasta shape that would get a lot of likes on Instagram.

I wanted it to be legitimately amazing to eat.

With Ubriaco, it looks so striking, the photo of the purple noodles alone would probably sell cookbooks.

And I can certainly imagine getting pressed for the book through a very clickbaity article about the recipe with a headline like, This little-known pasta dish has an entire bottle of red wine in it.

But I don't want gimmicks.

As I tell Katie and Janie, I want sauces that I can't stop scraping out of the pot, that I wake up the next morning wanting to make and eat again.

Like, I don't know that this rises to that standard.

I'm leaning towards saying we should cut it, but I'll put the leftovers in the fridge and see if I'm craving it tomorrow morning.

Oh, you won't.

I promise you.

I promise you, you won't.

All right.

Now it's time to move on to our second dish of the day.

And I think the journey of this dish in particular will give you a real sense of where recipes actually come from.

It's cavatelli with artichokes and preserved lemon.

Cavatelli is kind of shaped like a little canoe.

Now, this idea started with one of the classic Italian cookbooks Evan assigned to me.

It had a pasta with artichokes and lemon.

Sounded fantastic.

When I brought it to my team, recipe developer Asha Lupi, aka the saucy spicer, suggested a tweak.

How about instead of just lemon juice, we use preserved lemon.

It's not a common ingredient in Italian cooking.

You find it more in North African and Middle Eastern cuisine.

But I love it.

It's salty and savory and very lemony.

I was immediately sold on the concept.

Since it was rooted in an Italian classic, I assigned it to Katie, who got to work.

After four trials, she had a recipe where the artichokes were coated in cornstarch and fried, making them golden brown and crispy.

When I tested it, I loved the flavors, and I was so pleased that I sent it ahead to Captain Rebecca for a final test.

We declared it done.

But then I wanted to eat it again.

So I made it again and doubts started to creep in.

First, some people are intimidated by deep frying and others avoid it for health reasons.

Second, the artichokes that weren't eaten right away lost their crisp, which cancels out the benefits of frying.

Third, I wanted more artichokes.

During one of the Sporkful team's weekly check-ins, we got to talking about artichokes, as we do, and producer Andrei Sajara mentioned that you can take canned artichokes, drain them, pat them dry, toss them in olive oil, and roast them on a sheet pan until crispy.

At my house, Katie and I prepare to try this method with the artichoke and preserved lemon dish.

This is test number eight.

So we got the canned artichokes.

They have been drained, patted dry, quartered, patted dry some more.

Yeah.

Now I'll say right off the bat, I don't think that these are going to end up as crispy as the fried ones.

No, and I think that maybe that's okay.

Maybe we change the title of the recipe.

You You know, right now we're calling it crispy artichokes, but roasted artichokes sounds pretty darn nice too.

And I mean, let's face it, preserved lemon are the real star of this dish either way.

I'm just going to make a couple notes on what we did here.

As we go to put the artichokes in the oven, Katie and I have a major realization.

Now that we're not frying the artichokes, we can add more of them.

With frying, we were constrained by the size of the pan.

And I didn't want to make people fry in batches.

That gets annoying.

But with the roasting method, we can fit a third can of artichokes on a single sheet pan.

This could be huge.

Three cans of artichokes.

We're going to three.

But this is good because I love artichokes.

I do too.

We're making your dreams come true.

Once the artichokes are done, we assemble the dish, adding olive oil, garlic, capers, pecorino, the artichokes, and that crucial preserved lemon.

And we've actually made one more tweak.

In earlier versions, we used half a preserved lemon, but this time we're going for a whole one.

Wow, it's beautiful.

I mean, the the color is really really beautiful here janie joins us again for the taste test this one is so good every single time

i is it walking a salty line right now you think it's too salty i'm just not i don't i'm not a fan of the preserved lemon like when i get a bite of the preserved lemon i don't want to mic it up but

i will say maybe a whole lemon might be a little aggressive I think you're right.

But I think a half wasn't enough.

Exactly.

So where does that leave us?

Like, it's evident.

If only there was some number in between a half and a whole.

If only.

Of course, to confirm three-quarters of her preserved lemon works, Katie will have to test the recipe again when she gets home.

Once she's happy with it, I'm going to want to cook it one more time to be sure it's right.

Then it'll go back to Captain Rebecca for a final, final test.

So, with test number eight, we've made progress, but it's still far from done.

Katie doesn't seem phased.

I have tested a recipe 100 times before.

Whoa.

But no, I think that the value in a cookbook over

getting free recipes on the internet, which I'm not trying to knock that out because I write those too, but is knowing that these recipes have really been vetted and that it's been a lot of different sets of hands.

So, no, I don't think nine times is.

I mean, I'd be happy to keep going on this, you know?

Janie, what are your thoughts?

How does this whole process work?

It seems like so much work.

I'm actually like, do you really want to do this cookbook?

It is honestly, I mean, we're still only maybe 25% of the way into the process.

It's more work.

How many recipes do you want to have?

I'm required by my book contract to have 75 to 100 recipes.

I'm like, I need a nap.

There's just a lot of recipes already out there.

This sounds familiar.

That's what I said about the pasta.

Why are you making a new shape?

We're at the point now where if Janie doesn't doubt me, I feel like I'm on the wrong path.

I've doubted everything you've done.

Because I don't have faith in you.

Truth comes out.

I didn't really think about it.

By the time we finish washing dishes and Katie leaves, it's late afternoon.

And what do we have to show for a day's work?

We spent half the day on Ubriaco and then decided to cut it from the book.

The other half of the day we spent reworking a dish we thought we'd already finished.

And now, it's still not done.

I do love the artichoke and preserved lemon one even more now.

I mean, it is so, so good.

But still, it doesn't exactly feel like we accomplished much.

Janie's out doing errands, also reflected on what she saw in the kitchen earlier.

We might have been laughing during our taste tests, but when we talk on the phone, it's feeling less funny.

I saw, like, how much work it is for one recipe.

And I had to do this, like, 75 to 100 times.

And,

you know, it was so amazing with the pasta.

Like, you put in all that work, and it actually was successful.

But, like, I just feel like books,

like you're putting all this work in, and then like, like what if the book, you know, doesn't sell?

And

you are a great storyteller, and you're a great writer, and you're very smart, but like,

you even say you're not a chef.

I mean,

look,

I feel sort of imposter syndrome myself about the fact that I'm not a chef, but that's why I hired all these super talented recipe developers.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I just I think I just

it just seemed like a lot

To come up with all these different dishes.

But

I want to be more positive.

You're turning over a new leaf?

Yeah.

As much as I'm trying to project confidence, the truth is that the questions Janie's asking are the same questions I've been asking myself.

which can really all be summed up in one big question.

Why am I doing this in the first place?

I guess if I can do it well, it might take care of that chip on my shoulder about being a food podcast host with no culinary training.

And I am very excited about the concept of this book.

I can't wait to share these recipes with people.

But most of all, I think what's driving me is that I just want to prove to myself that I can write a great book.

Like I said, I wrote a book 10 years ago called Eat More Better.

It wasn't a cookbook, more just my opinions about food and eating.

It had some parts I still love, but I never really figured out how to put my weird food theories into a book in a way that connected with people.

I still remember going to my local bookstore months after it came out and seeing copies of it in the discount bin.

Now, a decade later and more experienced, I got another chance to see if I can write a book that matches my ambitions.

As I say to Janie.

Like, as much as it's a lot of work, it's also exciting to have a new creative challenge, to push myself to do something that I haven't done before.

This is my second book, and my first book, nobody bought.

And if no one buys this book, I'm not going to get a third shot.

So it just feels like I got one more shot to write a successful book, you know?

Yeah.

So I want to make a cookbook.

Janie wants to be more positive.

You both got a lot of work to do.

Coming up in part two of Anything's Possible, I begin work on the next batch of recipes, which requires a research trip to Italy in search of the country's most obscure pasta dishes.

A lot of people, even in Italy, don't know about it.

People must know about this.

Then, later, as our series continues, the recipe developers and I test and retest dozens more dishes.

And my family and I all reach our breaking points.

I gotta be honest, I think I'm getting tired of eating pasta.

Really not?

Oh, my goodness!

And you feel the VSA problem!

Honestly, it never ends!

And you just go!

Oh, wait, do you kick us?

Because I gotta accomplish nothing.

I don't know, know, I'm tired, and I'm over the cookbook.

If you're eager for part two of Anything's Possible, there's no need to wait.

It's up right now in the Sporkful's podcast feed.

So start listening.

And if you haven't already, please be sure to follow or subscribe to the Sporkful Interpodcasting app.

You can do it right now while you're listening.

Also, if you want to see photos and videos of all the ups and downs of this journey, I'll be sharing those on my Instagram.

Follow me there at the Sporkful.

And remember, Anything's Possible comes out March 19th, but you can pre-order it right right now wherever books are sold.

If you pre-order, you can get an invite to a private Zoom cooking class I'm leading.

You can even pre-order a signed copy.

Get all those links at sporkful.com slash book.

And remember to get your tickets for Sporkful Live, the Anything's Possible Book Tour.

I'm hitting 12 cities across the U.S.

starting in just two weeks.

These are live podcast tapings and book signings.

There's also a free virtual event with Kenji Lopez Alt.

All those details are at sporkful.com slash tour.

Special thanks to Evan Kleinman, who hosts Good Food on LA's KCRW, and thanks to all my recipe developers.

If you want to learn more about them, we've been sharing their personal backstories in short segments in the podcast, which ran in February.

So I hope you'll check those out if you haven't already.

The Sporkful is produced by me, along with managing producer Emma Morgenstern, senior producer, Andres O'Hara.

Our editors on this series are Nora Ritchie and Tracy Samuelson.

With editorial help from Tanika Wetherspoon and Julia Russo.

Our engineer is Jared O'Connell.

Original theme music by Andrea Kristen Stochter.

Additional music help from Black Label Music.

The sportful is a production of Stitcher Studios.

Our executive producers are Colin Anderson and Nora Ritchie.

Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

And I'm Diane in Edmonds, Washington, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.

This month on Explain It to Me, we're talking about all things wellness.

We spend nearly $2 trillion on things that are supposed to make us well.

Collagen smoothies and cold plunges, Pilates classes, and fitness trackers.

But what does it actually mean to be well?

Why do we want that so badly?

And is all this money really making us healthier and happier?

That's this month on Explain It to Me, presented by Pureleaf.

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