Episode 596
with Jamie Loftus, J. Kenji López, and Danielle Ponder
Writer and podcaster Jamie Loftus dives into her New York Times bestselling book Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs, a travelog on the cultural and historical significance of the American sausage; chef and food writer J. Kenji López-Alt tests his knowledge of cooking gadget infomercials; and R&B/Soul vocalist Danielle Ponder performs "So Long" from her debut album Some of Us Are Brave. Plus, host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello go on some hypothetical road trips.
Jamie Loftus
Emmy award-nominated writer, comedian, and podcaster
Emmy award-nominated writer and comedian Jamie Loftus may still have three of her baby teeth, but now she also has Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs, her debut book that is part travelogue, part culinary history, all capitalist critique AND all good! Before her deep-dive into the history of American meats, she wrote and starred in her own web series for Comedy Central, and regularly works on viral videos for Super Deluxe. As for her comedy, it often borders on performance art: she has dated an American Girl doll, sold “Shrek nudes” on Etsy to raise money for Planned Parenthood, and attempted to eat a copy of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. Furthermore, she is the host and creator of three critically-acclaimed iHeartRadio podcasts: My Year in Mensa, Lolita Podcast, and Aack Cast. Along with fellow comedian Caitlin Durante, she co-hosts The Bechdel Cast, a weekly podcast about the representation of women in film. Website • Twitter • Instagram
J. Kenji López-Alt
Author
J. Kenji López-Alt is a chef, parent, and New York Times best-selling author of The Food Lab, which won the James Beard Award for General Cooking and International Association of Culinary Professionals’ Book of the Year. He is also the author of Every Night Is Pizza Night, a food-inspired children's storybook illustrated by Gianna Ruggiero. He is a wildly popular New York Times food columnist, and the host of the YouTube video series Kenji’s Cooking Show which has over a million subscribers on YouTube. His newest cookbook, The Wok: Recipes and Techniques is the "definitive guide to the science and technique of cooking in a wok." Website • Instagram
Danielle Ponder
Genre-defying singer-songwriter and social justice advocate
Bravery can take many forms. For singer-songwriter Danielle Ponder, it took the shape of leaving her successful day job working in the public defender’s office to devote herself full-time to sharing her powerful voice with the world. The sixth of seven children, Ponder had always been musical, but she chose to pursue a career in law after her brother received a 20-year sentence due to a “three strikes” law. Still, music was never far from her heart. Written and recorded over three years, the singer-songwriter’s mesmerizing debut album, Some of Us Are Brave, is a refreshingly original, shiver-inducing mix of pop, R&B, blues, rock, and moody trip-hop topped by Ponder’s celestial voice. Described as "a singular talent on a meteoric rise” (SPIN) and following her much lauded performances at SXSW and showcases in New York and Los Angeles, Ponder continues to successfully tour. She is among the 30 new artists in YouTube’s Foundry Class of 2022, a global development program for independent music, supporting indie artists at all stages of their careers through annual artist development classes and ongoing release support campaigns. Alumni including Arlo Parks, beabadoobee, Dua Lipa, Clairo, ROSALÍA, girl in red, Kenny Beats and more. Website • Instagram • Twitter
-
Luke Burbank: This episode of Live Wire was originally recorded in June of 2023. We hope you enjoy it. Now let's get to the show. Hey, Elena.
Elena Passarello: Ciao. Luke. How's it going?
Luke Burbank: Oh my goodness. Are you really that person now? I know you've been in Italy.
Elena Passarello: Ciao, ciao.
Luke Burbank: Ciao, Elena. Welome back from being under the Tuscan Sun. Are you ready to do a little Station Location Identification Examination?
Elena Passarello: Si si, si.
Luke Burbank: Okay, this is the part where of the show where I quiz Elena on a place in America where we are on the radio. She's got to guess where I am talking about. Okay. This place, uh, was where a Scotch tape was invented.
Elena Passarello: Hmm. Definitely a place with a lot of people who emigrated from Scotland.
Luke Burbank: I don't think of this city as being associated overwhelmingly with folks from Scotland speaking, though, of which, uh, F. Scott Fitzgerald, uh, was born in an apartment in this city and then later wrote the book, The Side of Paradise in this place.
Elena Passarello: I do believe you mean F Scotch Fitzgerald, which. You could insert a a joke about his love of liquor here. But, uh, we won't do that.
Luke Burbank: I feel like I really teed that one up for you with the Scott and the scotch. Okay. You sound like you know. Where are we talking about?
Elena Passarello: Well, like all card carrying English majors, I know that F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Luke Burbank: Absolutely. Right where we are on the radio on KNOW Minnesota Public Radio there in the beautiful Twin Cities. So shout out to them. Uh, you ready to do this radio show?
Elena Passarello: Let's do it.
Luke Burbank: All right. Take it away.
Elena Passarello: From PRX, it's Live Wire!
Elena Passarello: This week, podcaster and writer Jamie Loftus.
Jamie Loftus: I think it's like a nasty hot dog that will make you think, like, surely someone needs to answer for their crimes.
Elena Passarello: And chef and author Kenji López-Alt.
J. Kenji López-Alt: That's like one of my favorite infomercial lines ever: Stop having a boring tuna. Stop having a boring life.
Elena Passarello: With music from Danielle Ponder and our fabulous house band, I'm your announcer, Elena Passarello, and now the host of Live Wire, Luke Burbank.
Luke Burbank: Thank you so much, Elena Passarello. Thanks to everyone tuning in from all over the country, including the Twin Cities out there listening to KNOW radio. We have a great show in store for you this week. Of course. We asked the Live Wire listeners a question in honor of, uh, one of our guests experience, Jamie Loftus, who wrote this book called Raw Dog about hot dogs. She drove all over the country eating hot dogs in different parts of America. The question we're asking listeners this week is, what's your ideal road trip? We're going to have those responses coming up in a minute. First, though, it's time for the best news we heard all week this week. This is our little segment at the top of the program, reminding us all that there is some good news happening out there in the world. Elena, what's the best news you heard all week?
Elena Passarello: Well, I know we're talking about road trips this week, and I would like to take a road trip south of here to San Jose, California, because of something that happened recently. There's a gentleman named Doctor Robert Moore. He was a dean at San Jose State for many years. He's long since retired. And Doctor Robert Moore recently became a centenarian. He's now a member of the 100-year-old club. Woo hoo! And his daughter Allison wanted to do something special for him, and she knows he is an avowed dog lover. So she got on NextDoor and asked her neighbors to walk their dogs past his house at a designated time so he could enjoy those dogs is like a fun community birthday present.
Luke Burbank: Uh huh. Well, was it probably like ten dogs showed up? 12 dogs?
Elena Passarello: She was hoping for 20. So kind of ambitious, I mean, I think. But it turns out that 250 dogs showed up that NextDoor ask went viral. The dog showed up with their owners in costumes some of them had on tuxedos. Some of them had on cowboy hats. One lady just really wanted to come. She didn't have a dog, so she just brought a stuffed dog wear like a fuchsia fedora. They brought cupcakes and flowers and signs and, uh, just filed past his house for what I'm assuming took at least an hour, if not more. And, uh, Allison says that her dad pet every single dog that passed by, which is so cute. I love this story. I love the idea of this happening, and I'm not the only one. Actually, our listener, John Mock actually told us about this story, so thanks for letting us know about that. John.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. Hat tip John. Thank you. My best news I saw this week also involves somebody who well, they're listed in the headline as a granddad. Granddad wins gold in arm wrestling. But he's only 53 which the older I get Elena the younger granddad's get. [Elena:Yes.] It would appear because this is the story of a guy named Mark Walden. Mark Walden, um, like too many people, uh, became very ill during Covid. He actually contracted Covid, and then, uh, he it turned into pneumonia. He was living in the UK and, um, and while he was, there was a period of time that he was kind of not sure if he was going to make it. He was very, very sick. And, um, luckily he pulled through and as he was convalescing and just trying to kind of pass his time while he was still in recovery, he started watching a lot of competitive arm wrestling videos, like on his computer, and he got really inspired. I guess he was always like a pretty strong person. He'd always gone to the gym. I've seen a picture of him. He's a big guy.
Elena Passarello: He's above granddad.
Luke Burbank: He's a real buff granddad. You might even call him a grand zaddy, I don't know. He decided if he, you know, made a full recovery, he was going to, uh, get into competitive arm wrestling. And then he started entering these arm wrestling competitions, and he was losing all the time because even though he was a big, strong person, he didn't have the specific muscle groups like in his hand and forearm that you need to be really, really top level at arm wrestling. And so he said he studied those muscle groups and started going to the gym to just work out those muscles. And he says the hardest part of his training was not even physical. It was kind of mental because he felt very silly at the gym, like doing some kind of pinky press.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, I'm imagining all of his fingers having little sweatbands on, you know, like, uh, and that, like, while they do, like, like thumb squats or whatever.
Luke Burbank: Exactly. Uh, but he I guess he overcame the embarrassment because he recently won two gold medals at the IFA European Championships in Finland. So, uh, he dedicates all of it to his grandkids. He's got a daughter named Grace, which is a great name. It's my daughter's name as well. And, uh, she calls her granddad The Hulk. What does that like to grow up calling your granddad the Hulk? Like? That's a far cry from how we regarded Farnham Burbank. Yeah. Back in the day.
Elena Passarello: We called my granddad Bee-pal, which I don't think. Uh, well, it doesn't mean anything, but it definitely doesn't mean Hulk.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. Bee-pal or uh, you know, or P-pal or those are more granddad ish names. Right. And then the Hulk. Look. Anyway, the amazing accomplishments of Mark Walden, a buff granddad at 53. That is the best news that I heard all week. You. All right, let's invite our first guest on over to the show. She's an Emmy nominated writer and comedian whose work The New York Times describes as unexpectedly gripping explorations of niche subjects. Uh, some of those subjects include Mensa, which is the high IQ society. Although if you're in that I didn't have to tell you. The book Lolita, which she pointed out has been misunderstood by a lot of people over time. And then also she took on the comic strip Cathy, who was actually doing a lot more than just saying Ach! and I'm a chocoholic. Uh, her latest project is the New York Times best selling book, Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs. Take a listen to this. It's our conversation with Jamie Loftus here on Live Wire. Hi, Jamie. Welcome back to the show.
Jamie Loftus: I'm so happy to be back.
Luke Burbank: Um, it turns out that you're not only an amazing podcaster. You're an amazing writer. Um, was there a specific hot dog that you were having, or, like, a moment where you thought, yes. Uh, this this should nay, this must be a book about hotdogs?
Jamie Loftus: I think it's like a nasty hot dog that will make you think, like, surely someone needs to answer for their crimes. Because my my dad, he's, like, sick of me repeating this in public, but he would do these really gnarly, like, boiled hot dogs. That was very like, dad's around right now. And he's gonna he's about to make an attempt. And so I always like, associated this nasty mushy meat to with like: We did it! We're a family!
Jamie Loftus: I don't know I really love, uh, talking and thinking about hot dogs because it is like, even when it's disgusting, it always feels very personal because most people, uh, start eating them when they're very young. And it can be a very, very gross food that people will like absolutely die for because it reminds them of something important to them.
Luke Burbank: Um, can you explain what the parameters of, uh, Hot Dog Summer 2021 were you went on this road trip to just kind of experience different hot dogs in different parts of the country? And, uh, also, uh, you don't have a driver's license yet?
Jamie Loftus: No.
Luke Burbank: That seems like a—
Elena Passarello: Or a pet sitter.
Luke Burbank: That's like step one of a of an epic road trip would be driver's license.
Jamie Loftus: No. You just need a, uh, boyfriend and then you don't need a driver's license. But, yeah, I know my ex and myself and our both of our animals. Uh, I got hired to write this book, um, shortly after we had been vaccinated, and about, like, a week into the trip, uh, the delta variant really started kicking up, and it was like we were already kind of stuck, you know? And so it was it was a very, I think, like, I didn't let myself process it at the time because it's such a silly reason to be outside of your home is to eat 200 hot dogs. But I was contractually obligated to eat 200 hot dogs, and I was like, we have to do it. We have to do it safely and we have to do it together. And I cannot drive the car.
Luke Burbank: I think a lot of these, I think a lot of these public radio types and honestly, myself included, Jamie, are, are kind of thinking like, aren't hot dogs terrible? Like on every level for us, for the animals. How do you, uh, socially conscious entertainer and writer Jamie Loftus square all of that?
Jamie Loftus: Well, it's, uh, they're definitely bad for you. Uh, but, I mean—
Luke Burbank: They're worse for the pig, right?
Elena Passarello: Well, yeah.
Jamie Loftus: Arguably harder to be. Yeah. I mean, I think that the animals are always going to have sort of the worst deal in context, although there are, uh, an increasing number of, uh, vegan and vegetarian options that don't suck, I swear.
Luke Burbank: II've wandered the earth looking for, like, uh, plant based hot dog that has the snap. You talk about the snap a lot in this book.
Jamie Loftus: I would love to meet the person who can replicate, uh, animal skin breaking in your mouth.
Luke Burbank: That's all I want.
Jamie Loftus: Because that's what it is.
Luke Burbank: I'm a simple man, and I want someone to make a plant based thing that reminds me of snapping through the innards of an animal.
Jamie Loftus: I just I truly think that, uh, a vegan that could accomplish that is a real sicko. It's a weird mission, but, yeah, I mean, it's I, I tried to say at the beginning of the book, like, vegans are correct, vegetarians are correct. Meat consumption is always going to be some sort of mental and ethical compromise. And so when I was researching how hot dogs are made, uh, it was about, uh, 2020 and 2021, um, the meatpacking industry was going through such a horrible time during lockdown, especially because of the Trump executive order to keep meatpacking plants open, which essentially that executive order, it was revealed in late 2021, possibly early 2022. That was like drafted by the CEOs of Tyson and Smithfield.
Luke Burbank: Hold on. Let me sit down. Let me sit more down. You're telling me a major agribusiness had a direct line to the Trump White House?
Jamie Loftus: Yes, they did.
Jamie Loftus: But but it's so I mean, it's like that's not shocking. And then you read about the individual cases of how, uh, individual workers and families were affected by that. And it's stuff that you that is like truly sickening to have to face on a very human level. And that's not to speak of how they treat the animals. Um, and so I think like, I had to reach a point where I was really hoping by the end I'm like, I'm going to be such a good person by the time I finish writing this.
Luke Burbank: But, um.
Jamie Loftus: I am never going to eat meat again like I am going to be. I'm going to go clear, um, which I didn't, and I still don't really know why I think that, like, I've never not eating meat. And it was really I found it pretty impossible to stop. And so what I have been trying to do is to just not eat from Tyson and Smithfield and try to eat, uh, more ethically when I can.
Luke Burbank: All right. Yeah. Well. I guess we'll say goodbye to sponsors Tyson and Smithfield. We had a great run. [Jamie Loftus: Sorry about that.] All right, we got to take a quick break here on Live Wire. Uh, we're going to be back with Jamie Loftus. Her new book is Raw Dog. We'll be back in just a moment. Stay with us. Hey, welcome back to Live Wire from PRX. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. We are at the beautiful Alberta Rose Theater right here in Portland, Oregon, and we're talking to Jamie Loftus about her new book, Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs. Let's get into the five hot dogs you can purchase easily in heaven. Okay, this is basically the Mount Rushmore of hot dogs that you lay out in the book and we'll just kind of go through them. Rapid fire. Uh, number one on the list appears to be the Costco hot dog. What is what's so special about this?
Jamie Loftus: I would like to stress easily purchased. They're not the best hot dogs. They're just the ones that you can have. Um, so Costco. Costco, everyone is, uh, always losing their minds every six months about how the CEO of Costco threatened to kill someone.
Luke Burbank: This email, right? That comes up all the time. It was the Jim cynical I think that's saying he's going to like, fire the guy off the price of the hot dog and soda go up by $0.05 or something.
Jamie Loftus: He says he's going to, uh, effing murder him.
Luke Burbank: Yeah.
Jamie Loftus: If, which is a great story. But I always like people always send that to me. I was like, you got to consider the hero of this story is a billionaire CEO of Costco.
Luke Burbank: I also think that story was published in like Costco Connections, which is the newsletter for Costco, which.
Jamie Loftus: Is the whole thing with like, I mean, hot dogs in like all sorts of marketing where you're like, they're making it up and you're circulating it like you just found out Keanu Reeves was a nice guy for the first time. Like, I just I have higher expectations of internet users, which is on me. Um.
Luke Burbank: Uh, what about the, uh, what about the Home Depot hot dog?
Jamie Loftus: Okay. Depot dog. That's something special. Uh, so I don't actually know if. Did you. Does the Pacific Northwest have depot dogs?
Luke Burbank: Uh, when I was growing up, they did. And the way that that little kind of foyer area. You know what I mean? Like, you're in the Home Depot, but you're not all the way in. Would smell like the hot dog cart.
Jamie Loftus: Uh, it's so good. So they're independently owned hot dog carts outside of Home Depot. Why? Shut up. And it's great. There's, like, certain areas where, like, we do taco stands, we do like, there's different kinds, there's churros stands and stuff like that. But like depot dogs, no matter where you go, everyone is always so thrilled. And like, there have been, uh, state representatives that have spoken out when depot dog stands have closed. Um, because Home Depot after a while was like, what is going on? Like, we're not getting a cut of this. And then public officials were like, you cannot shut down that hot dog stand. My aunt loves those hot dogs.
Luke Burbank: What about hot dog on a stick? They also make the list.
Jamie Loftus: They do. They make because it's an easily gettable hot dog. Hot dog going to stick, you know, is fine. It's, uh.
Luke Burbank: That where they wear the hats.
Jamie Loftus: That's where they wear the sexy little outfits. Yeah, it's a weird one. It's just like a sexy little hot dog that comes out of sexy little Muscle Beach, and you eat it and you're like, nah, I'm fine.
Luke Burbank: Uh, then you have Auntie Anne's.
Jamie Loftus: Yes. Auntie Anne's? Fascinating. If no one knows the story of Auntie Anne it is so wild. She grew up, uh, in an Amish community in Pennsylvania. She and a number of women in her community, uh, were survivors of sexual abuse from a priest in their community. No one saw this twist coming. I swear, this ends with a hot dog. I have to cut the tension in the room because it is very scary. So? So there is an abusive person in their community. They speak to each other about it. They force this priest out of the community. And, uh, Auntie Anne and her husband decide they want to start a community center for women who have survived sexual abuse, but they don't have any money. So Auntie Anne decides she's going to start making pretzels and now she's a pretzel gazillionaire. And so. And then she did speak at the Republican National Convention. So you know it's yeah, I yeah I know what your politics are.
Elena Passarello: But it's hot dogs like you got a I mean, it's an American story. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: You buy the ticket, you take the ride. Yeah. Um, yeah. We're talking to Jamie Loftus about her book, Raw Dog. Let's talk about a place that you visited that I used to also go to often about two in the morning when I lived in Washington, DC. And that would be Ben's Chili Bowl. Yeah. Home of the half smoke.
Jamie Loftus: Yes.
Luke Burbank: Um, and, uh, what what did you think of the hot dog? And also, why was that place of particular interest to you?
Jamie Loftus: Oh, I mean, that business is fascinating for a number of reasons. It's, uh, one of the few black owned hot dog businesses that I covered, uh, throughout my travels. There's not many, especially, um, ones that have as huge an impact. There's all of this lore, like DC based lore, uh, connected to Ben's Chili Bowl, where allegedly, um, MLK began writing the I Have a Dream speech. There's a lot.
Luke Burbank: You can't say that about an Auntie Anne's.
Jamie Loftus: There's like, all like. Like Stokely Carmichael is said to have gone there a lot. Like there's all of these famous, uh, civil rights figures that would hang out at Ben's Chili Bowl eating a delicious hot dog that will make you poop so much. Um, and, like, having the time of their lives and their, like, their. I just think it's, like, really wonderful when hot dog business owners become local celebrities. Uh, because almost every sitting president, I think since that business has been open, it's like a part of, like, okay, I got voted into office. I have to go to Ben's Chili Ball to take a picture with this, like, chili soaked hot dog. And I think that that's great. I also noticed across the country, uh, Jimmy Fallon has been to every hot dog place in the entire world.
Luke Burbank: Because there's a picture of him.
Jamie Loftus: Yeah. I was just like, go to work. I don't know.
Luke Burbank: This is just, like.
Jamie Loftus: Really bizarre.
Luke Burbank: I thought you were going to say, like, Guy Fieri or something. I'll be in a random place sometime and just look up and he'll just be there with, like, his oakleys on backwards. Just like approving of this gas station bathroom, I mean, or something like, like, man, he's been everywhere.
Jamie Loftus: There is a place I went to in North Carolina that I don't know what the theming of the restaurant was before Guy Fieri went there, because it seemed like the theme was Guy Fieri's been here. He was everywhere.
Luke Burbank: Uh, you also went to the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog because of a fans of people dunking their hot dogs in water where they eat them, which is, for some reason, the part that really, really upsets me about that whole process is that, you know, that's the most effective way to eat, you know, 50 hot dogs, right? Is to dunk them in water first.
Jamie Loftus: Yes.
Luke Burbank: What did you make of that whole spectacle?
Jamie Loftus: Oh, I hated it at first. I intentionally like went into that pretty like, you know, raw. I didn't know very much. I was like, I'm just going to let this experience wash over me and see how I feel at the end, because it's a ten minute long competition. And I just felt my feelings change in real time where it starts and it's like Joey Chestnut wins every year and you know, he like dunk, split, chomp, chomp, swallow. He ate 76 in 10 minutes. [Audience groans.] No, you should be cheering there. But like it was so like I started off so not on his side I was like this is this should be illegal. And then at some point in the middle I was like, no, this is a sport. Um, and then the guy on ESPN, I will never forget it. Like, you can check the 2021 broadcast said that Joey Chestnut eats hot dogs the way Ernest Hemingway wrote novels.
Luke Burbank: Yes.
Elena Passarello: And no adjectives.
Luke Burbank: The guy who announces them. He's this PR guy from New York and he, like, inherited this little kind of not particularly notable, like hot dog eating competition. And then in I think he wanted to be a writer. Right. And yeah. So he now gets out all of his sort of writerly instincts in how he describes the competitive eaters.
Jamie Loftus: It's so intense. Yeah, it's this guy, George Shea, who I think is made his living kind of being like, I'm the Vince McMahon of Hot Dog. Yeah. And you're like, well, I hate that.
Jamie Loftus: Don't want that. But it's like, has the showmanship of, uh, Vince McMahon. And also a lot of the things that people hate about Vince McMahon. Uh, because there's he has this whole history, as does this contest of really, uh, making and breaking like lives have been ruined. I'm a huge fan of, uh, Takara Kobayashi, the greatest hotdog eater to ever do it. Um, and he was, like, really, really screwed over by, uh, by George Shea and by Major League Eating, uh, for reasons that were.
Luke Burbank: That's the name of the league?
Jamie Loftus: What's so funny? Yeah, it is called Major League Eating, and we can laugh about it, but, uh, Kobayashi was this amazing eater who came over from Japan, popularized, uh, the hot dog eating contest is a huge reason that it was on ESPN and all this other stuff. And then, uh, once there was a white American champion in the form of Joey Chestnut to present a challenge, uh, George Shea and Major League Eating did everything they could to make Kobayashi's deals worse and worse and worse until he was essentially forced out of the sport. I feel so strongly about it. And, uh, not to mention that the women's contest is still broadcast on ESPN three, which makes me want to shove my hand in a garbage disposal. Like, why is that?
Elena Passarello: And and Shea is the one who made it split by gender. It used to be that women would be in the hot dog eating contest along with the men, right?
Jamie Loftus: Yeah. Everyone eats food like?
Jamie Loftus: It's so weird that it's split like that. But yeah, that was an intentional decision by George Shea in 2011 to split the contest. And originally, um, the women competitors were told at a tea party he threw for them because he's a bit evil. So he threw them this Tea Party said, you're going to be on ESPN three now. Uh, the men's prize is still $10,000. Yours is $2,500 now, and here's this new pink belt we got you.
Elena Passarello: Right. The belt is pink.
Jamie Loftus: It's technically the Pepto-Bismol belt, but it was still a huge, like ugh.
Luke Burbank: I mean, what I think is so interesting about this book and even about this conversation we're having, Jamie, is that this the hot dog seems like this kind of just silly thing that, you know, we consume mindlessly, and yet we've already touched into, like 2 or 3 really big cultural things around gender and and class and all of this stuff that's tied up in it because it's so, uh, sort of inherently American at this point. It also brings with it all of the weirdness of this country. Right?
Jamie Loftus: Yeah. It's a it's like a symbol. And we're told that it's a very American symbol, but like, why who did that? And what does an American like, an American symbol—is that a good thing?
Luke Burbank: Right.
Jamie Loftus: Do we have to feel good about that? And I tried to explore it from every way that I could because I love hot dogs still, they're the best, uh, I can and have talked about them for hours on end. And I will continue to. But there's also so many, uh, things about, you know, hot dogs that, uh, are connected to, yeah, like systems of exploitation and oppression in America. And also, uh, people have sex on the Wienermobile, so there's a lot going on.
Luke Burbank: Jamie Loftus, everyone in the book is Raw Dog. That was Jamie Loftus right here on Live Wire, recorded at the Alberta Rose theater here in Portland. Her new book, Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs, is available now. Our next guest is a chef and also a wildly popular New York Times food columnist and he's the bestselling author of The Food Lab. He's the host of the YouTube series Kenji's Cooking Show, which has over a million subscribers. And his latest cookbook is The Wok Recipes and Techniques. It's available now. Uh, this is our conversation recorded at Town Hall in Seattle with Kenji Lopez-Alt. here on Live Wire.
Luke Burbank: Hi, Kenji. Welcome to the show.
J. Kenji López-Alt: Thanks. Thanks for having me.
Luke Burbank: Now you're one of those classic chefs that studied architecture at MIT.
J. Kenji López-Alt: Mhm.
Luke Burbank: When did you actually get into food?
J. Kenji López-Alt: So I started getting into food. Um, the summer after my sophomore year of college, when I was quitting biology because, uh, because I took organic chemistry, and I hated that. Uh, so that summer, it was, I was going through this, you know, what am I going to do with my career? Uh, and so I needed to make money. So I was looking for a job as a server. Uh, and then a restaurant I walked into was like, uh. Well, we have we have a prep cook who didn't show up this morning, so you can start today. You can have a job as a cook for the summer. So I was like, okay, I'll do that. Uh, and that's when I started cooking.
Luke Burbank: Do you remember what you were doing [Kenji Lopez-Alt.: Oh, yeah] in those first days in the kitchen?
J. Kenji López-Alt: Yeah. I remember that my very first day when I, um, I it's a the question they ask you is, do you know how to hold a knife? And I said, yes, but I didn't really um, and I was, I was slicing oranges for the bar, and one of the prep cooks comes over to me and like, like, just like, stands there shaking his hand. And so he showed me how to hold a knife properly and how to slice an orange. And I had to practice on a lot of oranges. Yeah. It was, it was, it was that like it was at a all you can eat Mongolian grill?
Luke Burbank: Is that the kind with the big the big grill where you bring the bowl of your stuff and you put on a section of the grill.
J. Kenji López-Alt: Yeah, yeah like pre pre-COVID days.
Luke Burbank: Yeah.
J. Kenji López-Alt: You got it. You go to the raw meat bar where everyone's like poking around. Oh yeah. Well yeah. And then um, I started as a prep cook and within two weeks I was a knight of the Round Grill, so.
Luke Burbank: Well. And that was your title.
J. Kenji López-Alt: Um, and then after, after working in restaurants, that's when I started to sort of get into eating food. And I was like, oh, this is like, interesting. Before that, I was a pretty picky eater. Um, especially, like going out at restaurants. I didn't want anything interesting. Um, and so I started learning how to cook, and then I was like, oh, this is a whole new world of stuff to appreciate. And then got into food after that.
Luke Burbank: Your grandfather was a chemist.
J. Kenji López-Alt: Organic chemist.
Luke Burbank: Now, do you feel. Do you feel? Uh, do you feel like that? Sort of. In your DNA that you were programed to want to really get into food on a more kind of molecular and scientific level?
J. Kenji López-Alt: Uh, I mean, I don't I don't think, um, interest in science is, like, genetically. It's not.
Luke Burbank: That I mean, that's not phenomenal.
J. Kenji López-Alt: But. But, you know, but, um, but certainly like my my grandfather was a chemist, my dad was a biologist. And so there's a lot of sort of science conversation at the dinner table. So, um, so in that sense, yeah, I think it definitely got passed down to some degree.
Luke Burbank: Your first cookbook was this huge hit. What do you attribute that to? Was it just that you were able to help people understand how to make some relatively simple stuff just a lot better using science?
J. Kenji López-Alt: No, I mean, I think I think a lot of it is like being in the right place at the right time, just like being really lucky. Uh, when I started cooking, um, there wasn't really I mean, there was an internet, but there wasn't even, like, YouTube or anything like that. Um, and then, uh, you know, and so I learned how to cook in restaurants and then, and then I went into the writing world, and then I kind of, I kind of came along the writing world, uh, and my career as a writer kind of paralleled, uh, the shift from paper to online media, um, and got really lucky to, um, fall into like that, those early sets of, like, sort of food blogs that became popular and finding a platform, unserious eats, you know, as far as the book goes, the way I thought about it was that, you know, I didn't come into cooking until much later in my life compared to a lot of chefs. I know you know who like, maybe they had parents who cooked or they have the food of their people on. And, you know, it's like I didn't come into food that way. I came into it as like a summer job. Uh, and then I wanted to learn about it, you know? So for me, as a cook in restaurants, like I did have a lot of questions about, like, why things work the way they did and whether I could make my life easier by if I did it in a slightly different way, you know. So when I wrote that first book, I was kind of thinking, yeah, if somebody wrote a book for me when I was 19 or whatever and wanted to like. Not waste so much time. Um, poorly peeling boiled eggs. Uh, what would that book look like? And so that's that's what that first book kind of was.
Luke Burbank: What's the key to effectively peeling boiled eggs?
J. Kenji López-Alt: You start them in hot water. So, like [Luke: it's science.] Yeah. I mean, like, thousands of eggs worth of testing on this. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: You heard it here first on Live Wire. Okay. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. We're talking to Kenji Lopez-Alt, the, food writer and YouTube host about his latest book. It's, uh, called The Wok Recipes and Techniques. Um, now, is it true that your interest in the wok really came from seeing an infomercial about kitchen gadgets or something?
J. Kenji López-Alt: Uh, it was an infomercial about woks, yeah.
Luke Burbank: Specifically woks? [Kenji Lopez-Alt.: Yeah. Yeah] and what were they doing on there that that you found compelling?
J. Kenji López-Alt: Uh, well, it was a it was like a very British guy, um, uh, calling it the Great Wok of China.
Luke Burbank: Oh, nice.
J. Kenji López-Alt: And, um.
Luke Burbank: Casually racist.
J. Kenji López-Alt: Yeah. And a lot of.
J. Kenji López-Alt: Steaming when there was supposed to be stir frying going. Um, but, um, the selling point of this wok was that it was, like, hand hammered, and they showed this footage of, like, uh, like where they were where the people were making the woks and the in these factories, and they're like, hammering them into tree stumps to mold them. And I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. But anyhow, uh, I, I watched a lot of infomercials as a kid. Um, and that one always kind of stuck out to me as like, oh, we actually have this one in our kitchen.
Luke Burbank: When, in your cooking life, once you, you know, realize this, what you wanted to do and you're starting to really look into food and write about food, did you start to use a wok more?
J. Kenji López-Alt: The wok was one of the few things that my, you know, my mom cooked a lot of. She came here from Japan. She cooked a lot of Japanese and and sort of, uh, sino Japanese food in, um, a wok. But I, you know, I bought myself a wok when I was in college. So, um, like, right after I started cooking, um, so I bought it. Yeah. Bought at a target in Somerville, uh, for 20 bucks and that same wok, up until this book was published in March, and that wok was, like, fully functional until, like, April or so.
Luke Burbank: The one you bought at target for 21 years.
J. Kenji López-Alt: I mean, because I cooked for, you know, it's like I cooked in college. I cooked, um, like when I was after college, living with roommates and, you know, like when it was just me and my wife. And, like, every stove I've ever had, like, at least 60% of the time, like, there's that wok was sitting on it, you know, like this entire book, there's only 1 or 2 recipes that call for anything other than just a wok on the stovetop. Um, and so, you know, whether you're learning how to cook or whether you're, you're trying to learn a new style of cooking or familiarize yourself with a very ancient and, um, well researched style of cooking, it's it's it's a cheap investment.
Luke Burbank: I, like a lot of folks, bought a walk at some point, tried it a few times. It never gave me or I never got the effect I was going for. Didn't taste like the stuff I'd been eating in a restaurant that was cooked in a wok, right? What are people like me probably doing kind of wrong in that scenario?
J. Kenji López-Alt: Well, so a couple things, um, you know, the first one is that—
Luke Burbank: Um, like, how much more time in the show do we have for me to list the ways you're bad at this Burbank?
J. Kenji López-Alt: No, no. So the first one, I think, is that is that you're, um. You're trying to. You're trying to get exactly what you get at a restaurant, you know? Which is it's a goal. It's an achievable goal. Um, but it's not necessarily, I think, the first goal you should have with the wok, you know, um, and particularly like ones that have, like, a lot of, like, walk like the, the smoky, like getting the flame in there, like, that's a, that's a technique that takes some practice and also some specialized equipment to do at a restaurant scale. Um, and, you know, and then that said, in the book, I talk about a few ways you can try and get some of those restaurant flavors. Um, so in particular, like a lot of it comes down to cooking in smaller batches. Um, and um, instead of trying to do what they do on the infomercial, like where you just had like tons and tons of stuff until it's like all the way to the top and to steam.
Luke Burbank: That was literally exactly what I did. I probably bought, you know, like $40 worth of, like, vegetables, meats and everything. And it was like it was for an army. And then just like my, my bird like arms can't even, like, toss this thing on my dorm stove. Uh, we're talking to Kenji Lopez-Alt. About his latest book, The Wok: Recipes and Techniques. Okay. Now, as you mentioned in the book, and as we've been talking about, you're kind of first, a little bit of interest in the wok was from an infomercial advertising it. Um, and so we wanted to test your knowledge of some other infomercials about culinary contraptions. This is a game we're calling: Inspect your gadgets. Okay. Yeah.
Houseband: Inspect your gadgets yo hoo.
Unidentified: Live Wire houseband, by the way.
Luke Burbank: Now here's how it's gonna work. Kenji. I'm going to play you a snippet of an actual infomercial. Okay? And you have to try it. These are all. Yeah, these are these are infomercials for for, like, food based items. Okay. Okay. Things in the kitchen. Okay, so here's the first one. What do you think this is an infomercial for real food thing.
Infomercial playing: I used to use a fork. Get a fork out of here. Now you just grip it, dip it, flip it. And the best part is, your fingers stay clean.
J. Kenji López-Alt: Um, jeez. Is that, um, I don't know. Is it? Is it for, like, uh, like like shredding barbecue?
Luke Burbank: You know, you know, the. This would work with that. This is for a product, a real thing called Trongs. Uh, okay. Trongs, are these little, like, you know, those, like, um, wax like vampire teeth you get when you're a kid, like, you know, for Halloween, they're like that, but you put them on your fingers. Yeah. And they're made of, like, food safe plastic. And when you're eating hot wings or something, that juice doesn't get on your actual fingers. It gets on the trongs. Okay. And then if you watch the full ad, the guy literally says, have you ever been eating wings? And then you realize you can't shake anyone's hands? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a product that was created when a person realized that he couldn't shaken of hands immediately after eating wings.
J. Kenji López-Alt: Because when you when you see the guy eating wings with tronks in the fingers, you don't you don't go close enough to shake their hand. Right.
Luke Burbank: Exactly. It solves the problem, but not in the intended way. All right. Tronks were the most obscure. Okay, that was the hardest one. Probably. Okay, so this one is a little more widely embraced. This is another actual, uh, snippet of an infomercial for a food product.
Infomercial playing: This thing, this tuna looks boring. Stop having a boring tuna. Stop having a boring life. I had this tuna putting it like this. What are you going to do? You're going to love my nuts. Tuna salad. Look at this. You're going to have an exciting life.
Luke Burbank: Who is that?
J. Kenji López-Alt: This is the slap chop.
Luke Burbank: It is absolutely the slap chop.
J. Kenji López-Alt: That's that's like one of my favorite infomercial lines ever. Stop having a boring tuna. Stop having a boring life.
Luke Burbank: Um, that is, of course, that's Vince, right? Yeah.
J. Kenji López-Alt: That guy went to jail for biting someone.
Elena Passarello: I think that's right.
Luke Burbank: No, in in fairness, he he grabbed them with his tronks. Uh, was actually later the court was saying.
Elena Passarello: You should have slapped chopped them.
Luke Burbank: That that that that whole ad is, like, riddled with entendre, like you said, Kenji. Like, he's like, chopping up nuts, and he's like, you're going to like my nuts. He was like the bad boy of infomercials. Vince. I bought a slap shot. Yeah.
J. Kenji López-Alt: How'd it work?
Luke Burbank: Terribly. The problem was. So if you weren't familiar, it was not. The tuna was the least of my problems. The problem was the thickness of the blade. Yeah, it was not a blade. It was a flat piece of metal that was like a quarter inch thick. So it just would mash. I mean, it made the tuna more boring. Yeah, impossibly. But it's the only one of those things I've ever purchased because the ads were that convincing to me. I thought it was really going to change my life. Okay, here comes another one. Can you identify this?
Infomercial playing: Are you tired of fussing with giant pasta pots, strainers, timers, stirring and testing just for a plate of pasta? Well, I've got the solution for you.
Luke Burbank: Hi, I'm Kathy, buddy. I have to finish that line because she was the lady doing all of the infomercials for a while. Kathy Buddy.
J. Kenji López-Alt: Hmhm. Is it a, um, a spaghetti shaped thermometer that you throw at the ceiling?
Luke Burbank: Oh my God.
Luke Burbank: Oh, that is $1 million idea. Yeah, that is not what this is. But that, my friend, is a million. This is why you have 500,000 Instagram followers. No, it is a pasta boat. Okay? It was a boat shaped thing that you would put pasta in and water, and then put it in the microwave and microwave all of your pasta.
J. Kenji López-Alt: I think David Chang sells that now.
Luke Burbank: Yeah.
Elena Passarello: Isn't that just a bowl? Right?
Luke Burbank: No Elena, bowls are cumbersome and they fall out of the cupboard on you as for some reason the screen turns to black and white for that section. Uh, like the easiest thing that we've all been doing. But now if you just film it right, it looks like it's the bane of everyone's existence. Black and white. Have you ever bought a, like, one of these extremely kind of silly kitchen gadgets?
J. Kenji López-Alt: You know, I was just remembering, like, a month ago of a time when we tested a bunch of, like, the most ridiculous, uh, hamburger products you could find. So there's one called the hot dogger. Where you. Where? It's like a hotdog shaped mold, so you can put hamburger into it and shape it like a hot dog. And it's like if you run out of hamburger buns, but you still have hot dog buns.
Luke Burbank: Um, honestly, that's a good idea.
Luke Burbank: Uh, Kenji Lopez, the new book is The Recipes and Techniques. Thanks for coming.
Luke Burbank: Out Live Wire. Thanks. Thanks for having me.
Luke Burbank: That was Kenji Lopez-Alt. Right here on Live Wire. His latest book is The Wok: Recipes and Techniques. This is a Live Wire from PRX. We've got to take a very quick break, but don't go anywhere. When we come back, we are going to hear some truly incredible music from Danielle Ponder. Stay with us. And. Welcome back to Live Wire from PRX. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. As we do each week, of course, we've asked our listeners a question, uh, in honor of the book Raw Dog by Jamie Loftus, where she road trips around the country. We asked our listeners, what's your ideal road trip? Elena has been collecting up those responses. What do you see?
Elena Passarello: This is an ambitious one from Justin. My goodness. Justin says: the ideal road trip involves my besties, impeccable Wi-Fi, edibles, a karaoke machine board and card games, mimosas, a lit charcuterie board, and any destination as long as there is a self-driving car.
Luke Burbank: Wow. I think Justin needs to look into a party bus.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, I think he might be describing.
Luke Burbank: Describe.
Elena Passarello: Yeah. And a chauffeur maybe might do a little better than a self-driving car with all the antics that are happening on that epic road trip.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, definitely. Make sure you've got somebody or some other machine driving that thing. Uh, what's another dream road trip for one of our listeners?
Elena Passarello: Well, uh, Tunvi's ideal road trip is one with someone I love who doesn't mind taking a bunch of detours to check out random attractions. Bonus points if I get to control the music and double bonus points if they don't make me drive. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: I feel like people fall into one of two categories. Uh, which is the enjoyment of a road trip is not having to be the driver, or it's not enjoyable if you can't be the driver. And I am definitely more on the control freak side of things.
Elena Passarello: Well, when w David and I road triped from Austin to Oregon I never touched the steering wheel. I think that's the key to doing that is to be such a bad driver. Someone would rather drive 2200 miles solo than have you behind the wheel.
Luke Burbank: But you enjoy getting to just be like right along. I think on TikTok they call that passenger princess.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, and also I like to travel with my cats, so there's often like cats to wrangle. That's happening.
Luke Burbank: All right. Thank you to everyone who wrote in with answers to our question. We got another listener question for next week's show coming up in just a minute. All right. Before we get to our musical guests, a little preview of next week's show. We are going to be talking to New York Times Magazine writer J. Wortham about the two times that they saw Beyonce in concert, one time as a journalist, uh, the other time as a civilian. Um, and that they may have had a little too much fun on the civilian side. Uh, we're also going to talk to the author, Curtis Sittenfeld, about her newest, a novel. It's called Romantic Comedy. It's set in like a fictionalized version of Saturday Night Live. But then it sort of flips the script on the celebrity stories that we hear about, you know? Or like a famous actress marries the head writer of a sketch comedy show. That thing that seems to happen a lot. Uh, we're not looking at you, Colin Jost. Then we've got music from the fabulous Margo Cilker. She's going to tell us about how she played in a Lucinda Williams cover band in the Basque Country of Spain. And as always, we are going to be looking to get your answers to our listener question. Elena, what are we asking the Live Wire listeners for next week's show?
Elena Passarello: Oh, I can't wait to hear the responses to this one. We want you to tell us what you think is the most romantic movie moment of all time.
Luke Burbank: Oh man, there's a lot that could be on that list, and I'm sure everyone has a different take on that, right?
Elena Passarello: Yeah. Like somebody is going to say Nosferatu.
Luke Burbank: If you would like to toss your unlikely choice or likely choice for most romantic movie moment of all time, hit us up on social media. We are at live wire radio most places. This is Live Wire from our musical guest this week turn to a career in law after her brother received a 20 year, three strikes prison sentence. She served as a public defender in her hometown of Rochester, New York. But this whole time, she was still playing music in numerous bands and eventually took a leap of faith to leave the public defender's office and focus on her songwriting. Written and recorded over three years, her mesmerizing debut album, which is called Some of Us Are Brave, received critical acclaim and has earned her new fans all over the country. This is Danielle Ponder right here on Live Wire. First of all, thank you to both of you for flying all the way out here from Rochester, New York today to do this. We appreciate it so much.
Danielle Ponder: Thank you so much for having us.
Luke Burbank: What song are we going to hear?
Danielle Ponder: I'm going to do this song called So Long, which is a song I wrote, uh, when I went to LA and felt like, uh, I didn't belong and kind of had imposter syndrome. And like most of my songs, it was what I needed to survive the moment. Um, and I dedicate this, uh, artists and creatives who might feel like it's too late for them. I signed my first record deal at 39. I did my thank you. My first U.S. tour was at 40, and, um, here I am now. So, uh, yes. So, um.
Luke Burbank: This is Danielle Ponder with Avis Reese here on Live Wire.
Danielle Ponder plays “So Long”
Luke Burbank: That was Danielle Ponder here on Live Wire, her album. Some of Us Are Brave is available now. All right. That's going to do it for this week's episode of the show. A huge thanks to our guests Jamie Loftus, Kenji Lopez-Alt. and Danielle Ponder.
Elena Passarello: Laura Hadden is our executive producer, Heather De Michele is our executive director and our producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko. Eben Hoffer and Molly Pettit are our technical directors, and our house sound is by Daniel Blake. Tre Hester is our assistant editor. Our marketing production manager is Karen Tan, Rosa Garcia is our operations associate and Jackie Ibarra is our production fellow. Our house band is Ethan Fox Tucker, Sam Tucker, Ayal Alvez, and A Walker Spring who also composes our music. This episode was mixed by Molly Pettit and Tre Hester.
Luke Burbank: Additional funding provided by the Oregon Arts Commission, a state agency funded by the state of Oregon and the National Endowment for the Arts. Live wire, was created by Robyn Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week, we'd like to thank members Mark and Jamie Lewis of Mukilteo, Washington. For more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast, head on over the live Wire radio.org. I'm Luke Burbank. For Alaina Passarelli and the whole live wire crew. Thank you for listening and we will see you next week.
— PRX —
