Hey everyone,
So excited to have Dan Souza on the pod today! Not only is he the editor-in-chief of Cook’s Illustrated, he’s a regular on one of my all-time favorite cooking show’s: America’s Test Kitchen on PBS.
Today our conversation covers everything from his responsibilities as editor-in-chief, how difficult it was to make changes to the Cook’s Illustrated format when he took over, what he makes when he doesn’t feel like cooking, his love for seafood, and his obsession with tea.
We also talk about his perfectionism, what it means to make “the perfect” version of something, how he wants to empower people with techniques, and how he uses cookbooks to move away from his perfectionistic habits.
If you want to hear more with me and Dan, tomorrow I’m posting a bonus episode where I ask him ten rapid-fire questions including: “What’s the best technique you’ve learned in your time at America’s Test Kitchen?” and “Which three spices would you bring to a desert island?” Subscribe here to have access to that:
As for the subtitle of today’s post — Is this the end of Lunch Therapy as we know it? — the answer to that is: yes!
Starting next week, I’m going to delve further into the process of blending my podcast with my newsletter by rebranding Lunch Therapy as The Amateur Gourmet Podcast.
What that means is that podcast episodes will now correspond more to what I’ve been cooking and eating and thinking about food-wise. So after making Melissa Clark’s rhubarb-upside down cake (see Monday’s newsletter), I might ask Melissa Clark to come on to talk about cooking with rhubarb now that rhubarb’s in season.
Or after writing about finding the best restaurants when you travel, I might ask Bill Addison, who was the roving correspondent for Eater National before becoming the food critic for the LA Times, to come on to talk about his restaurant-finding strategies.
A good example of what I’m talking about is when I had David Lebovitz on to talk about moving his blog to Substack after I wrote the essay: When Food Blogs Become Newsletters.
Mainly, I want the new pod to be less about me playing the role of food psychologist and more about me just talking about food and cooking and restaurants and food media with people who love all of that as much as I do!
So that’s the plan for now! Let me know what you think in the comments.
See you back here tomorrow for Thursday’s newsletter and bonus episode…
Your friend,
Adam
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