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The Bittman Project

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Food is everything. A publication from the @markbittman team. (Be sure to also check out @communitykitchennyc, our “sister” enterprise!)

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a rare instance in which “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” doesn’t necessarily apply—swipe for multiple reasons to make the elements of eggplant parmigiana, and one really good reason to make the dish itself, the recipes are now available @bittmanproject❤️

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Florence Fabricant has been writing about food for the New York Times since 1972. She has watched farm-to-table go from fringe idea to cliché, lived through the rise of the celebrity chef, and outlasted most of the restaurants she ever wrote about.

This week, Florence joined Kate and me to talk about her new memoir, Salty, Not Sweet: A Life in the Food World — a book she resisted writing for years and then couldn’t stop once she started. We chatted about how André Soltner at Lutèce changed the way Americans thought about chefs, why food journalism has never been more democratized and never less rigorous, and the writeup she considers among her most consequential: a pitch about pigs in blankets that may have permanently changed the hors d’oeuvres table at every bar mitzvah and gala in America.

Search “Food with Mark Bittman” wherever you podcast to listen, or tap the link in my bio.

Plus, we’re giving away a copy of Florence’s new book. To enter:
1. Write a review of Food with Mark Bittman on Apple Podcasts
2. Take a screenshot from of your review
3. Send the screenshot to food@markbittman.com

That’s it! We’ll select a random winner on 10/14/26.

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Did someone ask for whole grain, raw sugar candy? Maybe not, but we made it anyway and it’s so good, we’re sharing the recipe immediately.

This quinoa-caramel crackle starts with exploded quinoa, turbinado sugar, butter, vanilla, and salt—and the best part is that the whole thing happens in the oven. There’s no need for a candy thermometer or a glass of cold water to fret over whether the sugar is the right temperature. The magic happens all by itself.

Get the full recipe, made with @bobsredmill organic quinoa, bittmanproject.com (link in bio).

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On this week’s episode, Jennifer Siebel Newsom (@jennifersiebelnewsom), First Partner of California, joined Kate and me to talk about what actually happened when the state decided every public school kid deserves two free meals a day, and that more than half of those meals should come from California farms. It sounds like a policy conversation, but it’s really a story about scratch kitchens, nacho bowls, salad bars, fountain milk, and what it looks like when someone decides to treat school lunch like it matters. We covered the Farm to School roadmap the First Partner built from the ground up, how California became the first state to pass universal school meals legislation, why LA Unified now only buys local, and what it would take for other states to do the same.

Search “Food with Mark Bittman” wherever you podcast to listen, or tap the link in my bio.

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On our latest episode of Food with Mark Bittman, Kate and I interviewed Nik Sharma (@abrowntable).

Nik is a former molecular biologist who left his lab for a kitchen and never looked back. He’s a three-time James Beard finalist, an editor-in-residence at America’s Test Kitchen, and the author of Fundamentals of Flavor.

We chatted about what baking soda actually does to meat (the meatball revelation alone is worth the episode), why you can marinate all day in yogurt but never in vinegar, and the four elements of nature as a framework for understanding everything that happens in a kitchen.

Search “Food with Mark Bittman” wherever you podcast to listen, or tap the link in my bio.

Plus, we’ve got two recipes from Fundamentals of Flavor: Sparkling Water Pancakes with Spiced Stewed Pineapple, and Poached Eggs with Green Chutney + Yogurt — find those at bittmanproject.com.

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hot and cold salads, a reminder (with recipes now on @bittmanproject) that it’s still summer🌞

cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, eggplant—eat em🧡

📸: @sammuller

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Today is Marion Nestle‘s (@marionnestle) 90th birthday, and boy is she is a woman worth celebrating. Marion is the doyenne of food politics, my friend, my mentor — and the author of more than 20 books, including the all-important Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health. For today’s newsletter, Marion generously allowed us to excerpt her newest book, Sugar Coated: Unboxing the Hidden Forces Shaping America’s Favorite Breakfast Food, and we also have her on the podcast to talk about this book, which she co-wrote with former Kellogg’s VP (and current Interim President of Jacksonville University) Lisa Sutherland.

Search “Food with Mark Bittman” wherever you podcast to listen to the conversation, or tap the link in my bio. Plus, read an excerpt from Marion’s new book at bittmanproject.com

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more potatoes for the feed: latkes with two types of mushroom gravy—similar to poutine, but guaranteed to be crispier. inexpensive and vegetarian-friendly. an ideal meal for one, I think. recipes are available @bittmanproject🧡

📸@sammuller xo

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We’re celebrating an extraordinary life in food.

On Thursday, September 24th, during Climate Week NYC, Food Tank is bringing together friends, colleagues, writers, chefs, advocates, and changemakers for Marion Nestle’s 90th Birthday Party at WNYC-NPR Studios’ The Greene Space.

In partnership with NYU and Rodale Institute, the evening will celebrate Marion’s remarkable legacy, her decades of work transforming how we think about food, nutrition, politics, and public health, and the generations of people she has inspired.

Confirmed speakers and performers include: Jennifer Berg, NYU Steinhardt; Mark Bittman, The Bittman Project; Maria Caputo; Nancy Easton, Wellness in the Schools; Kathleen Finlay, Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming; Cathy Kaufman; Frances Moore Lappé, Small Planet Institute; Marion Nestle, New York University; Danielle Nierenberg, Food Tank; Kristie Patten, NYU Steinhardt; Jake Pedersen, Ragtime; Ruth Reichl; Maria Rodale, Rodale Institute; Amber Rubarth; Kim Severson, The New York Times; Max Sinsheimer, Sinsheimer Literary, LLC; and Lisa Sutherland, Jacksonville University.

The evening will also feature the Rodale Institute Organic Stewardship Award for Lifetime Achievement in Education, presented to Marion, followed by a special conversation with Marion and Danielle, birthday cake, candles, and a celebration worthy of 90 extraordinary years.

📍 WNYC-NPR Studios’ The Greene Space, New York City
📅 Thursday, September 24
⏰ 6:30PM–9:30PM

Join us:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-week-nyc-marion-nestles-90th-birthday-party-tickets-1993937464632?aff=oddtdtcreator&keep_tld=true

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I met my friend Jean-Georges Vongerichten (@chefjgv) in 1987 when he first moved to New York. I could talk about him for a half an hour without stopping. I really could. But instead of doing that, I talked to him for the podcast, almost 40 years later.

Search “Food with Mark Bittman” wherever you podcast, or tap the link in my bio to listen.

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Baker Paola Velez (@smallorchids), Kate and Holly talk about their biggest recipe development fails.

Tap the link in bio to listen to the full episode, or search “Food with Mark Bittman” wherever you podcast.

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You’re not likely to get cyclospora, and you’re even less likely if you eat at home. That’s not so much because your kitchen at home is cleaner than an industrial or restaurant kitchen. It’s probably not, actually.

But when you cook at home, fewer people touch your food — in fact, once it leaves the store, it’s unlikely to be handled by anyone but you, whereas in commercial settings it’ll get touched by many different people.

And although small farms may have less sophisticated handling systems than more industrial operations, they are also part of a shorter supply chain and supply fewer people. It’s not like lettuce from Mexico, which is distributed all over the country; anything that goes wrong on a small farm, by definition, has a limited impact. This is especially true of cyclospora, which is a parasite, not a bacteria, and therefore not contagious.

The big problem is that local, state, and federal health agencies have lost a lot of funding. CDC staff has been cut by twenty-five percent under Trump, and a lot of that was senior leadership. The administration has also made some cuts to FoodNet , which is a tracking system that helps figure this type of outbreak out. Twelve billion dollars in cuts to public health agencies that would be helping with the situation. Plus, people have lost health insurance. Some of them are getting sick and aren’t able to go to the doctor, or they do go to the doctor and it puts a financial strain on them.

The source has not yet been identified, and it’s a challenge, because the parasite takes at least a week and up to two to make you sick. So you’re saying to people, “What’d you eat two weeks ago? Where’d you eat that lettuce two weeks ago?” And everybody’s like, “Well, I don’t know.”

The Trump health-related budget cuts really hurt, and now you’re seeing that. It was predictable. It’s been demonstrated all over the world that Trump budget cuts are killing people. Now they’re making Americans sick. At the same time, I don’t want to say people are overreacting, but any individual is very unlikely to get cyclospora. – mb

Image: Unsplash

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