This Is TASTE

Mélanie Masarin is founder and CEO of Ghia, the Mediterranean-inspired nonalcoholic aperitif. Mélanie returns to talk about her debut cookbook, Riviera: Recipes from the Coast of France and Italy. In this episode, we talk about how the book is anchored by the handwritten recipes and philosophy of her grandmother Mymo. We also talk about working in the surging NA category and what is exciting in the land of Ghia. We have a lot of respect for Mélanie’s career, and I really enjoyed going over it.

Also on the show we have a great conversation with Nichole Accettola, author of Scandinavian Everyday: Vibrant, Simple Meals from Northern Europe.

Listen to Mélanie's first appearance on This Is TASTE.
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Claire Wadsworth and Nikki Hill are the owners of La Copine, an oasis of a restaurant in California’s Mojave Desert. It’s been a beloved destination for over a decade, winning over a mix of Joshua Tree locals, LA weekenders, and celebrities passing through. Now they’re sharing La Copine’s thoughtful takes on all-day cooking in a debut cookbook. It’s so fun to have Claire and Nikki in the studio to talk about what it takes to run a restaurant in the high desert, their journey as a couple in business together, and making this book.

Also on the show we have a live recording from a recent panel conversation at Baldor BITE in New York City, a conference run by the legendary specialty food company. Matt is joined on the stage by four leading chefs including Missy Robbins (Lilia, Misi), Paul Carmichael (Kabawa), Tiffani Faison (chef, restaurateur, and judge on Chopped), and Tim Ma (Tim Ma Hospitality). The panel unpacks a pressing question in today’s restaurant world: how do you judge success? 

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Adeena Sussman has published three solo cookbooks, with the latest, Zariz, landing as the culmination of a possible trilogy, arriving after Sababa and Shabbat. Adeena is a Tel Aviv–based, Palo Alto–raised food writer who joins me in the studio for a great conversation. I absolutely love an Adeena Sussman cookbook, which includes her own work as well as collaborations with Chrissy Teigen and others. Adeena’s books are creative, thoroughly tested, and show how Jewish food identity is represented in multitudes around the world. In this episode, we talk about her life in Israel and how this new book was written with ease in mind.

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Brian Rudolph cofounded Banza in a Detroit kitchen in 2014 with a wine bottle, some chickpea flour, and a gluten sensitivity. Twelve years later, Banza is the country’s number-one better-for-you pasta brand—and recently, it launched its first-ever pasta with wheat. In this episode, Brian returns to the studio to catch us up on all things Banza, including the brand’s continued growth and how launching a non-gluten-free pasta required the company to dig deep and listen to its fans. I love catching up with food founders, and Brian is one of my favorites in the game.

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George Howell has been working in coffee longer than most roasters have been alive. In 1975, he opened the Coffee Connection in Boston’s Harvard Square, with a strong conviction that great drip coffee—single-origin, lightly roasted, treated like wine—could change the way Americans drank their morning brew. It did. George also helped popularize the Frappuccino, sold his company to Starbucks, cofounded the influential Cup of Excellence, pioneered the freezing of green coffee, and opened a new café inside a Harvard Square bookstore—at age 80. In this episode, we speak with the godfather of specialty coffee about all of it.

And it’s the return of Three Things, where Aliza and Matt discuss what’s interesting in the food world, including a reminder that Hearth is one of New York’s finest restaurants. Potluck Club is cooking exciting things in Manhattan’s Chinatown, and Echo Lake is a celebration of rum in Brooklyn from a serious drinks world duo. Also: Tart’s black malt vinegar is inspiring some kitchen explorations, a scene report from the Kiln x Comal pop-up in New York, and high praise for the Barker Cafeteria roasted sweet potato sandwich.

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