(Spoiler: Our Sea Salt Potato Chips Made the Cut!)
Dan likes to say that his podcast, The Sporkful, is not for foodies, it’s for eaters. As he explains, he uses “humor and humanity to approach food from many angles, including identity, culture, science, history, economics, and lengthy debates on the best way to layer a PB&J.” Dan is a champion of accessible cooking, and, well, we can’t help but notice that we seem to have like-minded approaches to food! In our Guiding Principles, we say, “Good food is for everyone, not just a select few. … No advanced degrees are needed to appreciate it—just a willingness to taste and experience the pleasure it provides.”
Dan shares his joyful approach to food on his award-winning podcast. (If you’re counting, it’s been honored with three James Beard Awards, two Webby Awards, and was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Best Podcasts Of All Time.) He’s also shared a collection of nontraditional pasta sauces in his cookbook, Anything’s Pastable: 81 Inventive Pasta Recipes for Saucy People. Just how inventive are the recipes in this national bestseller? Library Journal says, “If Willy Wonka and Alton Brown collaborated on a pasta cookbook, the end result might be something like this—revolutionary in all the right ways.”
And if that all wasn’t impressive enough, Dan’s also created a pasta shape—Cascatelli! It took three years of research and development for Dan to develop the pasta with the pasta makers at Sfoglini, but the end result was worth it. After focusing on three key qualities—sauceability (how well the pasta holds onto sauces), forkability (how easy it is to get the pasta on a fork), and tooth sinkability (how satisfying the pasta is when chewed)—they determined that they not only came up with three new terms, they also created “the perfect pasta for any situation.”
Needless to say, we’re pretty excited to have Dan’s pasta and his cookbook here at the Deli. It was also pasta-tively thrilling to have Dan shop our Specialty Foods selection and choose a handful of his favorite foods:
Smoking Goose Guanciale – scrumptious pork jowl cured with juniper, black peppercorns, and nutmeg, it’s ideal for Roman pastas
Rizzoli Anchovies– plump and meaty, with the clear, crisp flavor of the sea
Zingerman’s Sea Salt Potato Chips – skin-on, small-batch, kettle-cooked chips made from Michigan-grown potatoes by Great Lakes Potato Co. in Traverse City, Michigan
Lemon Poppyseed Coffee Cake from Zingerman’s Bakehouse — Dan’s wife’s “favorite cake ever,” this tastes like biting into a perfect morning: sunny, rich, and satisfying
When you stop in to shop for these supplies, you can also pick up a free copy of Dan’s Kimchi Carbonara recipes—it’s one of his favorites in his book, and it just so happens to put some of his favorite Zingerman’s items to good use. Our potato chips might not be in the recipe, but Dan does recommend snacking on them while you cook! (If you’re planning on making his Kimchi Carbonara, we love the Brinery’s Oh Gee Kimchi and think the Parmigiano Reggiano Caldera would be great in his recipe.)
