Welcome to SALT PIG! After analyzing all sorts of home-cooking topics over these last 22 episodes (!), we marvel at how often we neglect certain basics and niceties when cooking day in and day out. As cookbook professionals, we are devoted to the details of our clients and our work; but when left to own devices, we can really phone it in and forget/refuse to make cooking as pleasant and fulfilling as it can be. So for our SALT PIG season finale, we explore if there's a way to make putting dinner on the table more of a practice than a task. What tiny, easy acts make a nicer experience for ourselves? Do we have the brainspace and time to prioritize joy and ease in the kitchen? Is there a price to “treating” ourselves to the right piece of equipment or a little extra care and attention? Being intentional just may be the secret (ingredient) to everything.

Happy summer, pals! We are taking a break until September. Write us and let us know what you’re up to. We’ll be back for season 2!

Discussed in this episode:

• Chicken cutlets dredged in Preserved Lemon Paste
• Jenna Helwig’s interview with Greta Podleski
• Lukas’ Snacks For Dinner
• The SALT PIG Lentil Salad Matrix
• Alice Medrich’s melted butter tart crust
• Full circle to our first SALT PIG episode: Food Waste vs Recipes

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Bean tribe, unite! This week, we have a very special guest joining us: Steve Sando, founder of everyone’s favorite heirloom bean company Rancho Gordo and author (or publisher) of nearly a dozen books on the topic. We get philosophical: What is actual simplicity in cooking (and can it exist in cookbook publishing)? We get genre-bendy: Is there a connection between making fashion choices and eating beans? And of course we get very deep on the specifics of bean cookery: pre-soaking, brining, blending, and what to do with the liquid gold that is bean broth. Plus, Steve’s ultimate no-fuss dinner-party finale: Pockys and Amaro? Yes, please!

Discussed in this episode:

• Caballero Beans
• Pineapple Vinegar
• Lukas’ Smoky Confit’d Beans with Olives, which is one of the most popular Rancho Gordo Bean Club recipes OF ALL TIME
• The Rancho Gordo Bean Club (sorry, there’s a waiting list!!)
• The Rancho Gordo Cooking with Clay Facebook Group
• The movie The Taste of Things, on our to-watch list now
• Rancho Gordo Gift Boxes
• Also, Steve is on Substack!

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Sometimes having people over can be kind of stressful. But as they say, you have to make the community you want, right? And we want dinner parties. We share the successes, the mishaps, the too-small chicken pot pie, the desserts to remember. We debate if it’s better to apologize for your own shortcomings or just zip it and hope no one notices. What can be done to make an evening no-fuss, tasty, and, most of all, fun for you, too? We have thoughts! Plus more strategies to get your spouse to bring leftovers for lunch.

Discussed in this episode:

• Lots of people eat chive blossoms
• Snacking Cakes by Yossy Arefi
• Nora Efron on Lee Bailey and the “Rule of Four”
• Julia Child’s My Life in France
• Amiel Stanek’s Homemade Onion Dip

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Welcome to SALT PIG! There comes a time every year when we wonder: is paying for a membership at Costco worth it? Especially given the spectacle of the almost-fistfights in the parking lot, the morality of buying the world’s most giant chicken breasts, the longest lines, the tallest soft serves, the lifetime supply of Zyrtec that might expire before you can take it all, the physical grappling to fit it all in your freezer when you get home…it is truly savage. But then, after the food is all ziplock-portioned and decanted and the millions of boxes are tied up and dragged to recycling, there is a deep contentment, knowing that you might never, ever, EVER need to go shopping again. Is this just the price one pays to wild-out at one of the few clubs middle-aged people still go to?

Discussed in this episode:

• Ellie’s Old-Fashioned Rice Gratin
• Can the Golden Age of Costco Last? from The New Yorker
• The olive oil we both buy: Terra Delyssa organic extra virgin olive oil
• Lukas’ favorite Costco treat: Whisps

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Welcome to SALT PIG! This week, we are pushing back against the enshittification of Big Food and talking about what veggies are growing on Lukas’ roof and in Ellie’s backyard. Turns out homegrown food has a wide range of highs and lows: mistakenly planting the proliferative yet dull-as-rocks banana pepper, the verdant joy of clipping your own herbs and lettuces, the diverse findings of chili pepper experiments, and the horrifying, nightmare-inducing girth of a lost cucumber from 2012. Plus, can a ferment get too fermented, or is Ellie just a ninny?

Discussed in this episode:

• Pale in Comparison: What to Know about US Butter (via Radio New Zealand)
• The Enshittification of Big Food (via Mike Lee)
• Lukas’ fermented hot sauce
• Lukas’ soupy orzo

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Welcome to SALT PIG! This week we are talking about eating food outside of home: from the beach to the park, from a car trip to just about every social interaction during COVID. Lukas extolls the virtues of slab sandwiches wrapped in parchment and individual half-pint containers. Ellie makes orzo salad with giardiniera-brine dressing. And we dissect the difference in appeal between a communal trough and a curated sharable spread. (Do you want to share long noodles with anyone??) Plus, hear the genesis story of Lukas’ love affair with oatmeal and one way to get extremely crispy salmon skin.

Discussed in this episode:

• Goodbye Caputo’s…I guess we’ll be making our lard bread at home now.
• Ellie’s Marinated Beans
• Lukas’ Spicy Marinated Butternut Squash
• Lukas’ Beach Linguine
• Snacks For Dinner

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Welcome to SALT PIG! Buckle your seatbelts everyone, because we are about to break the biggest scandal this side of the East River. Or at least in SALT PIG history, in all three months of its existence. Lukas—cookbook writer extraordinaire, vegetable whisperer, bean club acolyte—has a thing AGAINST lentils. WHaaat? But don’t despair! We break down many ways these sometimes-chalky pulses can be prepared and we dissect the root of his ambivalence. Will he find a lentil dish he truly craves? Will Ellie recover from her shock? Listen and find out!

Discussed in this episode:

• Table Manners episode featuring Kristin Scott Thomas
• Mujaddara/mujadra/mujadarah/mejadra recipes from Ottolenghi, from Hot Date! by Rawan Alkhatib, from Naz Derivian
• Fagioli: The Bean Cuisine of Italy by Judith Barrett, and recipe for Pasta con Lenticchi
• Deb Perelman’s My Favorite Lentil Salad
• Catherine Newman’s Red Lentil Falafel

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Welcome to SALT PIG! This week, we go beyond the Tupperware drawer of yore to discuss the food storage realities of our kitchens: what containers are best for freezing our ever-present broth, what jars and packaging we wouldn’t dream of recycling, the appeal versus futility of beeswax wraps, and the best receptacles for pawning off leftovers for our husbands’ lunches. It opens up some big life questions, like, why is decanting rice so satisfying? Can gallon-sized ziplocks ever be properly washed, and are they a vice worth keeping? Plus, find out the root of one of Ellie’s romantic fantasies—all we will say here is that it involves a “sugar drawer.” Spicy!

Discussed in this episode:

• We’re not the only ones obsessed with Talenti Gelato containers
• Weck Jar Lids
• Cambro Containers
• Souper Cubes
• Soy Sauce Marinated Eggs

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