Extra-Special Sauce: Ed and Kenji Take Your Calls

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

This week's episode of Special Sauce is, well, special. Inspired by Car Talk, one of our all-time favorite radio shows, we did a call-in session featuring Kenji López-Alt, Serious Eats' managing culinary director and the best-selling author of The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science.

We tried to answer the thoughtful questions of three passionate, discerning cooks with humor (you'll hear how Kenji once made me duck testicles in one of his many cast iron pans), humility, and grace (the hallmarks of Car Talk), and I hope we succeeded. The subjects we tackled included the care and use of cast iron pans (we'll call it cast iron pan therapy), as well as what kind of hot dogs a Minneapolis-based chef should serve for his hot dog cart passion project. Finally, Kenji and I coached a Boston-based barbecue aficionado on how to get the best possible results when cooking brisket in a convection oven.

We had such a blast with this format—stay tuned for more call-in episodes in the near future. Special thanks to all three of our brilliant callers, to my man Kenji, and to Special Sauce's first sponsor, the good folks at Soy Vay marinades.

Special Sauce is available on iTunes. You can also find the archive of all our episodes here on Serious Eats and on this RSS feed.

You Could Be on Special Sauce

Want to chat with me and Kenji? We're accepting questions for more call-in episodes now. Do you have a long-standing argument with your spouse about the best way to cook bacon? Have you been refining your sandwich-construction technique for the past five years, but have a question about the order of operations? Does your brother make the worst roast chicken, and you want to figure out how to give him tips? We want to get to know you and solve all your food-related problems. Send us the whole story at specialsauce@seriouseats.com.

[Chicken photograph: J. Kenji López-Alt]