Cooking Issues with Dave Arnold

Dave is joined by chef, food truck lifer, yakitori operator, and SNIBBS co-founder Daniel Shemtob for a run through hearts, food trucks, and what actually keeps you upright on a greasy kitchen floor. They start with skewers and offal: chicken hearts vs duck and beef heart, a Korean beef-heart “Heart & Soul” taco, tortilla engineering, and why overstuffed tacos are a design flaw. From there it’s boiled peanuts, peanut butter nerdery, uncooked cranberry “relish” with horseradish, Thanksgiving recaps from LA, Milwaukee, and beyond, plus British Columbia saffron versus Iranian saffron and how Persian techniques layer saffron, rosewater, and pistachio. Quinn and Dave get into extraction temperatures for mushrooms and saffron, raising kids to eat more than grilled cheese, and where dishes like tofu stroganoff and meat-free mapo tofu do (and don’t) earn the original name. In the back half, Daniel breaks down what 15 years on The Lime Truck have really taught him: why most of the money is in catering, how to design menus that can scale up and down, and how easy it is to gross big numbers and still make almost nothing if you don’t control labor and food costs. He also walks through the origin of SNIBBS—his own career-changing slip-and-fall, working with an orthopedic surgeon, why chefs need firm soles and a small but real heel drop, and how he ended up building a chef-driven shoe brand backed by people like Nancy Silverton, Andrew Zimmern, and Michael Voltaggio.

For this Thanksgiving “Classics in the Field” episode, Dave is back in studio at Rockefeller Center with Kitchen Arts & Letters’ own Matt Sartwell for a long, nerdy tour through cookbooks, regional food, and holiday obsessions. John’s on mic, Joe’s on the panels, and the show kicks off with cranberry-sauce loyalties, paper-bag chicken nostalgia, and why Dave will never forgive you if he walks into your house on Thanksgiving and it doesn’t smell like turkey.Matt announces Kitchen Arts & Letters’ new kids’ cookbook club—built around Peter Kim’s Instant Ramen Kitchen and led by Annette Tome and Pam Abrams—then dives into listener questions: the single gin book he’d take to a desert island; what to give a Spanish-cuisine nerd who actually wants context; how to hunt down Japanese parfait inspiration; and which books really capture Cape Cod and New England cooking.From there, it’s deep cuts: Provincetown seafood and Pops Masch’s Cooking the Catch, John Thorne’s Simple Cookingand his legendary toast essay, William Woys Weaver’s Christmas desserts and class-conscious holiday history, and the under-the-radar Aria regional cookbook series. Along the way Dave rants about lavender in gin, cold fried chicken with shredded cabbage, why you should cut the back out of your turkey, and why smaller birds (and a second turkey for sandwiches) are non-negotiable.

Dave and the crew welcome chef and author Joshua McFadden to talk about his new book Six Seasons of Pasta: A New Way with Everyone’s Favorite Food. They get deep into dried vs fresh pasta, why salting your water to around 1% actually matters, the right way to use olive oil at the beginning and the end, and how a 50/50 Parm–pecorino mix behaves in the pan. Joshua explains the thinking behind his “six seasons,” why he’s obsessed with dried noodles, granular pesto, tuna mac, and nut ragù, and how no-boil lasagna sheets somehow made the cut. Along the way they veer into onion-tart sandbagging, salted cooking wine, U.S. butter politics, zucchini as “water bags,” pears vs apples in the Willamette Valley, cabbage glory, and Dave’s pressure-cooked Westphalian pumpernickel experiments.

Dave Arnold, with Jean and Joe Hazen, runs a tight, New-York-only, “No Tangent” session—clearing the inbox and dropping hard technique. Dave details a successful Westphalian pumpernickel shortcut (from ~2+ days to a single shift) using controlled enzyme rest and pressure-cooking in wide-mouth pint jars. From there the crew debates the only correct patty-melt bread (rye), cheese choice (Swiss vs. American), and why English muffins punch above their weight. They hit chutney’s disappearance from American fridges, flatfish eye migration (confirmed), and the axolotl-as-food oddity. Listener questions cover freeze-dried fruit ice cream, pairing cocktails on prix fixe menus, induction with 5-ply pans, espresso-tonic nucleation, lactic-acid math for brewers, hot cocktail service, yuzu preservation, brand-specificity in recipes, flour tweaks for pizza, and carbonated dairy constraints. Quick shoutouts land on Manhattan Special, myrrh and schisandra infusions, and next week’s guest, Joshua McFadden.

Dave is joined in studio by chef Alex Kemp, a Quebec-born, Philly-based chef and co-owner of multiple neighborhood restaurants, for a wide-ranging hang about food, restaurants, and questionable late-night decisions. Alex talks about growing up between French and English Canada, separatist grandparents, and how he and his wife juggle two restaurants, a third on the way, and a nine-and-a-half-month-old.The crew ranks fried foods (why french fries and perfect fried chicken rule, and why tempura and hand-pulled noodles might be overrated), gets specific about schnitzel, fish and chips, fried okra, shrimp, and ketchup loyalty, and admits that Heinz is untouchable. They detour into hot dogs, pears as the heartbreak fruit, heritage apples, apple butter, and Pennsylvania Dutch cooking.A caller from Dublin asks about lobster bisque: how long to cook shells, why over-extraction goes chalky, fortifying stocks in short passes, using gelatin, and whether enzymes like chitinase are worth the trouble. Dublin also brings “spice bags” and proper Guinness into the conversation. Jack checks in with a North Korean restaurant story and the table debates whale, monkey, and one-and-done Guinness's.Dave and Alex close on old-school French technique, why real seasonal menus are a logistical nightmare, and the pleasure and pain of running truly market-driven neighborhood restaurants.

This week on Cooking Issues, Dave Arnold welcomes cocktail historian and author David Wondrich to celebrate his new release, The Comic Book History of the Cocktail. From 19th-century juleps to modern mixology, Wondrich and Arnold trace how drinking culture evolved — and occasionally went off the rails. They revisit the lost luxury of real peach brandy, debate the right way to build a punch, and trade barroom war stories about the revival of the craft-cocktail movement. Along the way, the crew talks Jim Croce lyrics, over-engineered drinks, and what happens when architects and bartenders both depend on Amazon.

Dave is joined in studio by chef, author, and TV host Diane Kochilas (My Greek Table on PBS) to talk about her new book, “Food Stories, Love, Athens: A Cookbook,” and to dismantle a bunch of lazy assumptions about Greek cooking.They get into the real Athens food scene right now: young chefs, post-crisis reinvention, and why the city doesn’t cook like some stuck-in-time postcard. Diane explains how Athens food culture evolved from 1970s “bourgeois cuisine” and French-influenced bechamel to the current wave of creative, ingredient-driven cooking — and why some of the old-school dishes still absolutely slap. 

Dave, Jack, Nastassia, Quinn, Joe, and a caller turn “no-tangent Monday” into a focused run of kitchen opinions and practical technique. Jack recaps China trip eats and questions the culinary payoff of hot pot vs. the social vibe. The crew debates DIY dining (fondue, hot pot), ordering strategy, and server trust, with classic Luger/Rao’s anecdotes. Quinn’s Canadian Thanksgiving menu features turkey mole and sparks a deep dive on flour-tortilla mechanics (Sonoran/White vs. soft wheat; protein, hydration, chew).A listener calls in with a home-martini problem: freezer gin, dilution on ice vs. stirred, chilling limits, and a batching tip (stir to proper dilution, bottle with air excluded, quick-freeze before service). Lab corner hits common pain points: rotovap foam control (vacuum “kill” venting, boil-over sensors, frit/Scotch-Brite in the vapor path, bump traps), water-core apples (why it happens, flavor/storage tradeoffs), stabilizing lacto hot sauces (xanthan ≈0.25%), and walnut-butter astringency from skins (use dairy applications to blunt tannins; next time, skin the nuts). Practical notes include how to pack Scotch bonnets for travel (dry, ventilated, non-refrigerated short-term is fine), freeze-dried berries in ice cream (account for sugar/solids), and a quick cameo of Dave’s Jäger spritz spec. Carbonated-dairy troubleshooting is queued for next week.

On this episode of Cooking Issues, Dave Arnold welcomes culinary historian and award-winning author Michael Twitty to discuss his new book The American South. Twitty shares stories of growing up with Southern food traditions, his deep research into the region’s culinary roots, and how gardening, foraging, and heritage recipes shaped his perspective on what “Southern food” really means.The conversation ranges from okra soup, red rice, and long-simmered green beans to the history of sweet tea, sassafras, poke salad, and rice bread. Twitty explains how dishes evolved across communities—African American, Indigenous, European, and immigrant—and why understanding migrations is key to understanding Southern cuisine. He also reflects on the challenges of translating historical recipes for modern cooks, the impact of changing agriculture on flavor, and the importance of reclaiming overlooked foodways.Along the way, the crew trades stories about Taiwan’s cocktail bars, bison steaks, and Maryland fried chicken, while diving into listener questions on how to approach historic cookbooks and balance authenticity with adaptation.