Does ice cream really need a job beyond being delicious? Dan Pashman, host of The Sporkful and inventor of cascatelli pasta, joins Catherine to make the case for pleasure as a perfectly good reason to eat—and explain how he turns his food obsessions into projects he actually finishes.

We talk about following your curiosity without chasing every idea, getting through the middle of a project when the excitement wears off, and why Dan’s seemingly sprawling career comes down to doing one thing at a time. He also shares how six layoffs in eight years led him to start The Sporkful, and why he’s more interested in making something that lasts than going viral.

Plus: grilled chicken thighs that do double duty for dinner and lunch, duck-fat tortillas worth ordering by mail, a spirited disagreement about Jack and Coke, and the annual White Castle party at Dan’s house.

In this episode:

• Why Dan hates the term “functional food”
• Hyperfocus, outside deadlines, and finishing what you start
• What inventing a pasta shape taught him about playing the long game
• His approach to family dinners, leftovers, and build-your-own meals
• Making the kitchen less chaotic before you start cooking
• Dan’s advice as Not From Concentrate approaches its first anniversary

Find Dan on Instagram @thesporkful, listen to The Sporkful wherever you get your podcasts, and look for his cascatelli pasta from Sfoglini.

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A jar of Korean barbecue marinade in the fridge can take dinner in a lot of directions: short ribs, chicken, tofu, even mushrooms. Chef Ji Hye Kim joins Catherine to talk about bringing those big flavors into your home kitchen, and why getting started is easier than you might think.

Ji Hye is the chef behind Miss Kim and Little Kim in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She shares the pantry staples she keeps on hand, a flexible approach to Korean barbecue, and how learning one vegetable preparation can open up a whole farmers market’s worth of possibilities.

We also get into what Korean Buddhist temple cooking has taught her about paying attention without getting hung up on perfection, how her mother’s cooking and centuries-old cookbooks shape her menus, and her path from an office job to restaurant ownership through Zingerman’s. Plus: why good systems make room for creativity, and when the most useful thing anyone in a busy kitchen can say is “take five.”

In this episode:

• The Korean pantry essentials: soy sauce, gochujang, doenjang, sesame oil, and sesame seeds.
• A mix-and-match barbecue marinade for meat, tofu, and mushrooms.
• How to turn the vegetables you have into banchan.
• The difference between thoughtful adaptation and chasing a food trend.
• Korean temple food, cooking with care, and letting go of the perfect ingredient list.
• Building a restaurant where feedback, asking for help, and taking time off are part of the culture.

Subscribe to the Not From Concentrate newsletter for Ji Hye’s recipe, and share this episode with a busy-brained friend who loves Korean food.

What do a perfect cookie, your mom’s cooking, and a song you can’t stop listening to have in common?

This week, I’m joined by musician Hrishikesh Hirway, creator of Song Exploder and co-host of Home Cooking with Samin Nosrat. We talk about the chole and puri he requested for every birthday, the mango pie mishap that inspired an ice cream collaboration with Salt & Straw, and why he once asked a baker to make thousands of cookies for a live audience.

We also get into the complicated business of making things you care about: how interviewing successful musicians fed his own writer’s block, what brought him back to songwriting, and how he’s learning to separate the value of his work from its reception. His album, In the Last Hour of Light, opens up a conversation about grief, family, and the stories we want to tell.

Plus: the chocolate chip cookie on his backstage rider, why he resists following recipes, and the little glass bowls helping him bring some order to his kitchen.

We get into:

• Growing up in Peabody, Massachusetts, with a food scientist dad and a mom whose cooking kept his friends coming back.
• Keeping food memories alive when you can’t quite recreate the dish.
• “Cookie Exploder,” and how Samin helped him pitch his first food story.
• Finding his way back to music after years of writer’s block.
• Making meaningful work without knowing whether it will be a hit.
• Cooking to audiobooks, improvising dinner, and slowing down enough to clean as you go.

Find Hrishikesh and his projects:

• Website: https://hrishikesh.co/
• Newsletter, Accept Cookies: https://hrishikesh.substack.com/
• Album: In the Last Hour of Light

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