The Joy of Cooking Podcast · The Joy of Creation Production House

Tamar Adler: A Casual Culinary Chat About The Ride of Book Writing

March 18, 2026·1 hr 7 min·3 clips

Tamar Adler joins Joy of Cooking hosts Sarah Marshall, Megan Scott, and John Becker for a wide-ranging conversation that moves from kitchen mishaps (ruined pasta rollers, scorched eyelashes, truffle overload) to the origins of her latest book Feast on Your Life — born from a depression-fuelled gratitude practice and a Ross Gay-inspired pitch from her agent. Tamar shares her philosophy that recipe developers are often self-importantly wrong about ingredient quality, that good beans are the cornerstone of effortless entertaining even in a one-room Madrid apartment, and that the trick to creativity — in cooking and in writing — is simply to begin. The episode also features an extended, scientifically grounded debate about when to salt beans, the kidney-bean lectin danger in slow cookers, Northern vs. Southern cornbread theory, and how to specify chocolate quality without naming brands.

As heard by us

A loose, practical kitchen conversation about beans, mishaps, and making a tiny Madrid apartment work for company.

The episode stays close to what the show does best: recipes, stories, kitchen wins, and misadventures. It keeps a practical center as it moves through scallions, a ruined hand-cranked pasta roller, beans, garbanzos, garlic, olive oil, and the routines that make a tiny Madrid…

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A bean-forward chat about cooking, book writing, and hosting in a tiny Madrid flat.

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