Our latest cookbook, The Book of Pizza, is officially a @nytbooks Best Seller, and we couldn’t be more excited (or grateful)!
This book was created to answer a simple question: what does it really take to make great pizza at home? So years of work, love, and flour created this deep dive into every element of the pie — from mixing and shaping dough to sauces, cheeses, toppings, and those all-important finishing touches. Learn more and grab your copy at the bakewithus link in our profile >> @kingarthurbaking
Huge congratulations to King Arthur authors Martin Philip @breadwright , @davidtamarkin , Jessica @jbattilana , @katboytsova , and Ryan Salerno @vermontbaker !
Wrote an Occasional Tamarkin about Gourmet and every irrational feeling I ever had for that dead magazine. I also touch on the new Gourmet (@gourmet.lives ) and give some Spring Advice (happy birthday, Aries!). Here’s a snippet from the issue, the entirety of which can be found in all the usual places:
“I was working as a newsdesk assistant at a radio network at the time; my ambition was to become Susan Stamberg and talk about the news all day. But that issue of Gourmet, and in particular that review of the truck stop, did something to me. I read it, page by page, over and over again; wherever I went, I carried the issue with me. It became ratty and torn, like a disgusting baby blanket, and my boyfriend started to worry. When we met up for dinner after work, he’d dig into my messenger bag to see if the magazine was in there. He needn’t look; it always was. He’d lift it out with two fingers like it was damp trash. “What is wrong with you?” he’d say.
What was wrong with me was that I had decided to become a food writer. And it was entirely Gourmet’s fault.”
Pizza lovers, we’re heading to Brooklyn. 🍕
Join us at @bestpizza33 to celebrate the release of The Book of Pizza, King Arthur’s newest cookbook dedicated to the art (and joy) of making incredible pizza at home. Spend the evening mingling with co-authors Martin Philip @breadwright and @DavidTamarkin for pizza, drinks, conversation, and a book signing. Every ticket includes a copy of the book.
📍 Best Pizza — Brooklyn
📅 Monday, April 6
🕡 6:30 p.m.
Space is limited, so get your tickets at the link in our bio >> @kingarthurbaking
Never been more proud of a book I’ve worked on than this one. The Book of Pizza—written by @breadwright , @jbattilana , @katboytsova , Ryan Salerno, and me!—arrives April 7th. It’s my baby! Pre-order my baby! 🍕🫃🏻
In the latest Occasional Tamarkin there are two things you can use immediately: a playlist of music I fell in love with in 2025, and a recipe for buttery, golden, lightly-vinegared mushrooms on toast (with optional egg). I use both to look back on my year and how I got through it. Perhaps I would have survived 2025 just as well without Thelonius Monk or the new Cécile album, or without those mushrooms. But I choose to believe I would have been worse off, that these things saved me in little ways throughout a year that was at times grueling. More in the latest issue. Thank you for reading. Thank you for listening. Happy new year!
I tried very hard to optimize my summer, and it worked—I was constantly on the move, in and out (mostly out) of Manhattan. So it was surprising that my most relaxing and restorative weekend was actually the one I spent at home alone. (Optimization: it’s a trap!) I wrote about that and of course I wove in some other things, namely Lonesome Dove, a cringey book about walking, the new @carrierstheband album, and a very delicious cake I’ve been making for over a decade. Oh, and an update on my Provincetown daddy, Hank. (Pictured: some views from Hank’s house and his driveway tomatoes. Also pictured: that cake. Soundtrack has nothing to do with my essay, I just saw Rufus perform a few days ago and he’s been in my head ever since.)
I don’t know what to do with the despair I feel about the bill that’s currently going through Congress, except to A. Call my senators, and B. Write about it. I don’t write about politics and I haven’t worked in hard news for a couple of decades, but as a food writer I think that SNAP, and the attempts to kill it, is firmly in my beat. So here’s a simple primer on what’s in the bill and what we can do about it. Republicans in congress have no qualms about decimating SNAP, it seems—even though many of the people who will suffer are the very people who voted for them. But if we let them know we’re paying attention, we can make one or two of them think twice.
20 years ago the first issue of Time Out Chicago hit newsstands (when newsstands still roamed the Earth!). That anniversary shook loose a lot of memories and feelings that I channeled into Issue 12 of The Occasional Tamarkin. The TOT logo was designed by a Time Out alum (@mrjoshe 💥) and this issue (and many others) was edited by another TOC alum (@laurenmviera 💅🏼). That’s not a coincidence—everybody who worked at Time Out was a talent and I look for ways to collaborate with them still. That’s what this issue is about. It’s also about what a little sh*t I was during that time, all in the name of ambition. Do I have regrets?? Read and find out!
The Occasional Tamarkin I just sent out is about a song I heard an accordionist play on the subway, and about end-of-year angst, and of course it’s also a little bit about bakeries. At one point I also had a couple of paragraphs in there about the little Christmas tree that somebody always puts up on the corner of 157th Street and Broadway. It’s totally a Charlie Brown tree and I love it ferociously but I deleted those grafs because Christmas is over and frankly I think that you, by which I mean I, need to accept that. (Still, enjoy this photo.) This letter is, as always, free, but for the first time ever I made it public so that anybody can read it. I think that means I’m a blogger now? I’m a blogger now!
This massive project of a book, King Arthur’s Big Book of Bread, is out tomorrow!! I am obsessed with this thing. It’s so gorgeous, so comprehensive, so smart. Everybody at King Arthur worked really hard on it. If you’re in NYC on Tuesday 10/22, please join us at the Barnes & Noble on the UWS at 7pm to meet the authors, @breadwright , Melanie Wanders, and @jbattilana . Our friend @shilpauskokovic will be moderating a conversation and I’ll be in the audience, weeping tears of joy. See you there.
Eggplant is so annoying. You’re expected to salt it and let it sit for a while, and after all that you have to cook it forever—and use $20 worth of olive oil—to get it truly creamy. (And if you get impatient, you’re really screwed—few textures are worse than eggplant that’s “al dente.”) And yet I put up with all this mishegoss because I’m smitten. Anyway, in the latest T.O.T. I give my formula for caponata, which is tied with baba for the best thing to do with eggplant. I also write about the shabby (gross?) Provincetown apartment I love, and my eccentric friend who lives there. And I have lots of September Advice, including the potato chip that will ruin your relationships with all other potato chips. I hope you enjoy it and I hope you tell everybody you know to sign up!! 🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆
Many, many years ago a therapist told me that he “doesn’t value advice,” and though I don’t think I really understood his point I took that stance and made it my own. To this day I’ll hear myself tell a friend in need that I don’t value advice—and then proceed to give it. Also, I seek advice on everything, and I mean everything—like, should I wake up this morning? Take this poll! Anyway, in the latest Occasional Tamarkin I have a lot of August Advice™️ as well as a recipe for a zucchini salad and a little essay about all the extremely unfunny jokes I’ve told in my life (see: this caption). I hope you will read and enjoy this newsletter. If you didn’t receive it in your inbox, you know what to do!
