This week on Special Sauce, we're revisiting a great 2022 episode about pizza featuring the great pizzaiolo Anthony Mangieri and his friend and fellow pizza lover Billions co-creator Brian Koppelman. At the time pizza purist Mangieri had just reopened Una Pizza Napoletana on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Now because Tony loves sipping espresso in cafes he has recently turned Una into a cafe on Saturday mornings serving coffee, pastries like an olive oil layer cake, and even a mortadella sandwich on house-baked bread. And now in a surprise twist Anthony Mangieri now has a line of frozen pizzas made in Italy with buffalo mozzarella called Genio della Pizza. And when I caught up with Koppelman he told me that he's been so busy with writing and producing season 7 of Billions that will see the return of Damian Lewis and his character Bobby Axelrod, AKA Axe, he hasn't even had time to do much pizza exploring.

This week on Special Sauce Kenji goes deep into his foolproof pan pizza recipe, which is one of Serious Eats' most popular posts of all time.

Kenji created quite a stir recently with his column on Chicago Thin Crust Pizza in the New York Times. We're gonna talk about that column and many other pizza related topics on this episode of Special Sauce.

*It is with much sadness that we acknowledge the passing of this week's guest on Special Sauce, Raghavan Iyer. Raghavan died just after we posted the second part of our extraordinary conversation. Iyer was a passionate, fierce advocate for Indian food and culture. As I mentioned in the episode he probably taught more Americans to cook Indian food than anyone else. And he faced his longtime battle with cancer with uncommon grace, courage, and determination. 

• This week on Special Sauce we continue our conversation with Indian food evangelist Raghavan Iyer. You'll hear more of Raghavan's insights on curry history, and we'll hear how living with his cancer diagnosis changed his outlook on food and life.

Raghavan Iyer has written 6 influential cookbooks on Indian food, including the all-time classic 660 Curries. On this episode of Special Sauce we’re going to hear about his own personal food journey, from the family table in Mumbai to a publishing lunch at Betty Crocker that changed his life.

This week on Special Sauce Kenji waxes (pun intended) poetic on the secrets to both seriously delicious french fries that taste just like McDonald's when they are fresh out of the fryer (that's when you have to eat 'em). He also gives some seriously helpful tips on roasting potatoes.

This week on Special Sauce hilarious cookbook author JJ Goode is back to go into detail about why he insists he's "America's best worst cook." JJ explains why and how he's ruined innumerable grilled cheese sandwiches at home. And yet JJ insists that his cooking cluelessness makes him a better collaborator on chef's cookbooks.

This week on Special Sauce, we're revisiting my conversation with Joanne Lee Molinaro, AKA The Korean Vegan. When we last spoke Joanne had already gone from corporate litigator to writing the James Beard Award-winning ‘The Korean Vegan Cookbook’. Now less than two years later Joanne has become a social media superstar. Joanne's Youtube channel has over a million subscribers and she has over 3 million followers on Tik Tok.

On this episode of Special Sauce we talk chef cookbook collaborations with the extraordinary James Beard Award-winning food writer JJ Goode. JJ has collaborated with everyone from Iron Chef Morimoto to Sam Kass, who cooked for the Obamas at the White House. JJ has accomplished it all in spite of physical limitations that might have held him back. JJ's essay in Gourmet magazine about trying to cook with only one arm was selected for The Norton Anthology of Nonfiction Writing.

When I interviewed Milk Bar co-founder Christina Tosi last summer we talked about her extraordinary journey from home baker to pastry chef to entrepreneur. Tosi had an inspirational story to tell, and we thought it was a story worth repeating. Of course the peripatetic businesswoman has hardly been resting on her laurels since then. Boxes of Milk Bar soft baked cookies are coming to a grocery store near you, as are pints of Milk Bar ice cream. Christina published All About Cookies: A Milk Bar Baking Book, in November of 2022. And just for good measure (pun intended) the second season of the baking competition show she hosts Bake Squad, is just out on Netflix.