Sirius XM Podcasts.
So Grace, we're sitting here chatting about the mystery cake that you brought.
That's in this sealed box in front of us.
This is like the Chekhov's gun of this taping.
At some point, it's going to get open and I'm going to eat some cake.
But right now, I have no idea what's inside there.
Right.
This is The Sporkful.
It's not for foodies, it's for eaters.
I'm Dan Pashman.
Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people.
Today we're bringing you two different stories about big summer food spectacles happening in the next few weeks.
Later on we'll get the inside scoop on some very exciting restaurant collabs happening as part of an upcoming food festival in New York called The Great Nosh.
That includes a Jewish taco and an Indian bagel.
But first, you might have heard that this July 4th is America's 250th birthday.
The formal name for it is the semi-quincentennial, but literally no one's going to use that word.
Let's just stick with America 250.
And of course, every birthday needs a cake, right?
So today we're going to get the full story behind the official cake, the design and planning, the hundreds of pounds of materials needed to make it and the person behind it.
Her name is Grace Pack.
So how did you end up being the person making the official America 250 cake?
That actually was my own doing.
I was looking at the America 250 Commission.
It's a commission that they established over 10 years ago.
And I was looking at all their programming and they have these fascinating programs all around the country on July 4th.
And I... realized that there was no cake.
So I had emailed the commission and also congressional caucus leaders and said what you're doing is amazing.
It's historic.
It's so, you know, impressive.
But there is a grave omission. our country's biggest birthday party is missing a birthday cake.
And I said, I would love to make this birthday cake.
Now to be clear America 250 works with the nonpartisan Congressional Commission that was created 10 years ago to plan this whole big celebration.
America 250 is totally separate from Freedom 250, which was created by President Trump and which has been the source of much controversy.
Now, it's not like anyone could have emailed America 250 and secured this very special baking gig.
Your Meemaw's Dr. Duncan Hines cake ain't gonna cut it.
Grace is a cake artist.
She has her own bespoke cake bakery in New York City called Duchess of Cameron.
She's known for making incredibly elaborate cakes.
She's been on the Netflix show, Is It Cake?
And perhaps most impressively, she's made cakes for the Marine Corps' last two birthday parties, which are huge events where the cake is especially important.
So Grace has been building towards the America 250 cake for a while.
But not forever.
She started out as an artist.
When she was an art student in NYU, she did installations and performance pieces.
I had something called Snowball in Summer and it was a performance where I just sat on the floor, made sandcastles, but out of ice cream.
And it was throughout a few hours where my hands were freezing and it would just melt.
What was the temperature in the room?
How quickly did it melt?
Room temp.
It took forever because I had buckets of ice cream sitting with me on the floor.
And yeah, it took forever.
But I also did other installation pieces like a tree that grew French fries.
I laid out a picnic blanket in the middle of Astor Place.
And yeah.
There were tiny hamburger clay sculptures.
There were I think 200 something clay sculptures of hamburgers and only five of them were actual, real hamburgers.
And I would walk by, pretend like I didn't know what was going on.
Looked at the hamburgers, picked up the one real hamburger, ate it, and then just kept walking.
And then people would look at me like, what is going on?
And they look at the hamburgers and it's all clay.
I wanted to present something that kind of introduced humor, but also confusion.
But so it's interesting Grace, because there's a few through lines that I see in your early work in art, taking you up to today.
One is food.
Yep.
One is a bit of a sense of humor.
What was the other thing you said?
You said that it was- Confusion.
Confusion, right.
Yeah.
Which is like, is it cake or is it not cake?
Right, right.
And then also just this idea, especially like with the ice cream sandcastles, of sort of like impermanence.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yep.
What was it about all those themes that excited you?
The fact that something can't live forever, I feel like people pay attention to it more and really appreciate the time that they have with this object right now.
You're really in the moment, you have to soak it all in.
And something about food that I love, And especially with my cakes, is you know, you see a painting on the wall.
You take it in visually mentally emotionally, but it's not becoming a physical part of your body.
And this cake, it becomes a physical part of your body.
So I'm like, my art is part of all of you now.
I'm part of all of you, which is really, really cool.
After getting her fine arts degree, Grace took the logical next step, going for a graduate degree in neuroscience.
Well, she was really interested in how art and science fit together, how artists' brains work.
By the time she was 30, she was done with her master's and working in a lab.
That's when tragedy struck.
I lost a few people in my life in a very short amount of time.
In a single week, I lost three people, completely unrelated events.
And it was just one of those moments where it didn't make sense.
The world didn't make sense.
This didn't make sense.
And then I said, I don't make sense.
Nothing makes sense right now.
So I had to take a pause and really think about life.
And I started listing, what do I love spending my time doing?
I love hands-on work.
I love making things with my hands.
I'm very DIY at home.
I love learning new skills and just experimenting.
And lastly, I love heightening people's experiences and I want to make people's experiences more memorable.
And out of that exercise, immediately I said, oh, I have to make cakes.
Grace quit her job at the lab and signed up for culinary school.
When she showed up for the first day, she realized she might be a little different from the other students.
I think I was probably the only one who had never baked a cake before.
So everyone came in with experience.
You literally had never baked a cake?
I think probably two or three times I baked a boxed cake.
Okay.
But no, I had never baked anything from scratch.
It was just boxed cakes three times maybe growing up.
Were you even like a home cook?
No, no, never cooked.
I never, but I was a big foodie.
How did you stay alive?
My mom.
So what are they like?
How was there?
Gosh, I have so many questions.
So many more questions now.
Like, has anyone ever gone to culinary school with less cooking experience?
Like.
Honestly, probably not.
Probably not.
I knew nothing.
Some tools they would say, and I wouldn't know what it is.
And I would have to just look at my classmates like, what is she grabbing?
I'm going to grab what she's grabbing.
It's a baking pan.
This is a spatula.
But you know it was fun because I think as an adult we don't really experiment and we're kind of afraid of new things.
And you don't want to put yourself in a vulnerable position.
Yeah, afraid of looking foolish.
Right.
But for some reason, that to me was like a playground.
I was a little kid just experimenting, experiencing new things.
What can I learn?
I love learning.
So, yeah, it was fun for me.
It was a mixture of science and art put together.
And I said, oh, my God, my past is coming together.
I don't know how it's going to unfold, but I just love the very exact preciseness, but also how I can experiment with ingredients and different chemistry.
And also I can make art out of this cake.
I can paint on it.
I can sculpt it.
So it was incredible.
Meant to be.
But was there any moment where you were like, I might be in over my head?
No, I have a weird sense of confidence.
I'm like, I don't know how to do this, but I'll figure it out.
And if I make a fool out of myself, well, it's a learning experience.
You learn from your mistakes.
This trial by fire learning method seemed to work well for Grace, so well that one of the judges of Grace's final project invited her to be part of a cake-themed TV show that this judge was working on.
That's where Grace started to learn to sculpt cakes.
Think of the super elaborate stunt cakes you see on food shows.
Eventually, she opened her own cake business, Duchess of Cameron.
She mostly did weddings.
But then she went on another TV show called Candyland, where she upped her game even more.
All these TV shows, they want something crazy.
They say, we want giant, we want big, we want crazy.
I had never made a five foot tall creature before. made out of cake before.
So yeah, I learned all these structural elements that people don't really know about.
When they see these big cakes, people don't really realize that there are steel structures inside.
There is wood.
We're always working with power tools.
So this is one of my questions.
So in a competition cake show in general, are you allowed to use inedible components?
Yes.
You have to use it for structural components or else the cake just won't stand.
Right.
What about the taste of the cakes?
We're talking a lot about the appearance.
Right.
But like, tell me about the journey of deciding how these different cakes are going to taste.
Yeah, I have my go-to classic flavors.
You know, my favorite one is chocolate cake with passion fruit, Swiss meringue buttercream and pistachio Swiss meringue buttercream.
But yeah, I like to experiment with different flavors, different pairings.
I do like to bring in different ingredients from all over the world.
What's the longest amount of time you ever worked on one cake?
Oh, wow.
Probably like a month.
So how does it feel to watch something that you spent weeks or a month working on?
It's finally finished with this beautiful masterpiece and then it gets destroyed.
Yeah.
How does that feel?
I love it.
Which may sound crazy and everyone says, I can't cut into it.
And I actually get mad if they don't cut into it.
I'll say, cut it, cut it.
Because also the cake has to see it cycle through.
You know, the cake is meant to be eaten.
That is the purpose of the cake at the end of the day.
You have to enjoy it.
I also love seeing a slice of the cake on a plate.
Just that sliver of the designed element to me is just so fun.
And yeah, I love seeing people eating it also.
It's like, I can't eat this.
And they'll eat it.
It's like, oh my God, it's so good.
Coming up, Grace shares a sneak peek at America's birthday cake and I get to taste it.
Then I go to our nation's capital to see the decorating process.
Stick around.
And now, a delicious word from our sponsors.
Welcome back to The Sporkful.
I'm Dan Pashman, and Father's Day is just around the corner.
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All right, back now to Grace Pack and America's Birthday Cake.
A few months ago, Grace got the green light to make the America 250 cake.
She planned to set up in D.C. for the whole month of June.
She'd start by making the outside decorative elements from sugar and modeling chocolate, because those things won't go bad.
She'd bake the actual edible parts of the cake in early July in preparation for the cake cutting ceremony on July 4th at the Library of Congress.
After that, she'll transport the remainder of the cake to the White House Visitor Center, where it'll be sealed with a special spray to prevent spoilage and displayed for another month.
But before any of that could happen, Grace had to figure out what this cake would actually be.
Did you already have ideas in mind?
I, for the design?
Right.
Absolutely not.
This seems, I would have guessed, I would have guessed that you did not.
Right.
But I did have some elements, ideas that I had not necessarily what the cake looked like, but I wanted this to be a gift to the nation, for the people, by the people.
So I wanted as many hands as possible to make the cake with me.
And that's where I came across the idea of inviting members of Congress from all 50 states and US territories together to come make the cake with us.
Bipartisan, bicameral, this is for our country, our people.
And then also incorporate children's artwork.
So America 250 had this artwork contest called America's Field Trip, asking children what does America mean to you?
So we're actually using the winning artwork as a base for the cake design as well.
When you say the members of Congress are going to help you make the cake, what exactly does that mean?
Members of Congress are literally going to hand finish an element of the cake that we're putting on the cake.
Now, this could be as simple as putting a dot on the cake with an edible marker, or they can do extensive sculpting however they feel comfortable.
But we want some element that they are making and contributing to the cake.
But, like, what if they screw it up?
They won't.
I mean, your blind confidence is...
Phenomenal, Grace.
I love it.
But you don't think that some congressperson who's never cooked a thing is going to come in there and try to draw a flower, and it's going to be botching it.
But...
You know, even that is beautiful because I love there's perfection in imperfection.
And if this member of Congress is botching this flower, that's what's going on the cake.
And I think that's really beautiful.
You know, I mean, that's a very nice idea.
But like this thing's going to be on display at the White House Visitor Center.
Like what if it looks like a disaster?
That's why we're all there to help them, walk them through different techniques.
We'll teach them how to do things.
Right, okay.
I mean, I have confidence in you.
I'm sure it will be phenomenal.
I just can't, I would never be able to let go of that much control.
That's the whole fun of this cake.
You don't know where it'll take you.
All right.
So this isn't just a cake that Grace is going to make and display.
It's really more like an interactive art installation with participation from a bunch of folks and a dash of chaos.
As Grace and I are talking, it's mid-May.
She's headed to D.C. in a couple weeks to start the cake construction and decorating process.
She'll have help from five chefs in the Marine Corps who'll be working with her in a volunteer capacity outside their marine duty.
She's only just gotten the children's artwork that'll be featured on the cake.
So now it's time to start designing.
I sketch it in my sketchbook.
And then the final will be done on the iPad with real color and sketches and different angles.
And then like how many cakes do you actually make trial cakes?
Or once if it's on the iPad, you know, it's good to go.
It's good to go, but a lot of times we have to change because a 2D sketch can never fully translate to a 3D element.
So as we go, there's a lot of tweaking and adding and subtracting.
Once we start working on the actual cake, you can't start from scratch again just because you've spent so much time and you don't have time to.
So you have to pivot.
It's always a troubleshooting situation.
So Grace is still a ways from a finished design, but she does have a theme for the cake.
It's going to be American made cake.
In the beginning, I wanted to make a cake that was representative of all Americans.
And then very quickly, I realized that is almost impossible.
So I wanted to think of something that every American could relate to.
What is something that everyone can see themselves in?
And I landed on American Made because throughout history, throughout history, present future, all these children looking at the children's artwork, we have all made something.
And that could be something like a cake, the Cascadelli pasta.
It could be laws, you know, but we also, America in the history, have made some painful things too.
But we have overcome that and made fixes.
It's a lot about making and how making is also a progress.
We're not done making, we're still making, and it's an ongoing, it's an active verb.
So I am asking members of Congress from every state a question, so that they can help us with design as well.
What are the people of your state... making right now that you or the state are proud of.
And that could be innovation.
It could be something very minimal, local.
It could be something in a bigger scale.
So we're going to be putting all that element into the cake too.
And how big will the final cake be?
Do we know that yet?
Yes.
So they keep saying the size of a car.
I'm like, which car?
Are we talking like an Escalade or a Mini?
Right, exactly.
It'll most likely be 11 to 12 feet long to 4 to 5 feet wide and 7 to 8 feet high.
Oh, that's high.
Yeah.
That just broke my brain.
So our limitation was the doorway at the White House Visitor Center.
So whatever we could fit through the doorway was our maximum size.
Grace is still figuring out what the shape of the thing will be.
In keeping with the idea that this cake is a gift to the nation, all the ingredients will be donated.
No taxpayer money will be used for it.
And for such a big cake, they need a lot of ingredients.
So just for the fondant and modeling chocolate, I think I had it estimated to 800 or 900 pounds.
Oh, my God.
But I made sure to ask them.
If you have any near expiring products or expired products that you can no longer sell, please donate those to us, because no one's going to be eating that portion of the cake.
Oh, I see.
Yeah.
So to reduce waste.
Right.
If it's all going to dumpster anyway, we can salvage it.
Now, so far we've mostly been talking about what the cake will look like the size, the shape, the decorations.
But I also want to know what this cake is actually going to taste like.
Turns out the ingredients are a whole other part of the story.
For that, Grace decided to take some cues from our nation's history.
I met with Paula Johnson.
She's a food curator at the Smithsonian.
We looked at recipe books from 1792 by Amelia Simmons.
It's called The American Cookery, and it's the first American cookbook written by an American.
And I really wanted to study the recipes from back in the day to create the American 250 cake recipe.
And it was fascinating the way recipes were written.
Very short.
They didn't have ingredients listed on like one, two, three, four, five.
Right.
It's just like combined eggs and butter.
Yeah.
And how are they mixing all of these ingredients when they didn't have mixers?
So based on these recipes, I created this America 250 Modern Heritage Cake recipe.
So what exactly is the inspiration from that 1792?
Yeah.
So I was able to see what kind of ingredients they used.
So flour, eggs.
They used a lot of fruit soaked in alcohol.
It was beautiful.
Very boozy cakes.
It was very dense because they didn't have mixers.
They didn't have chemical leaveners.
So everything had to be done by hand.
Hand whisked.
And it says whisk an egg for an hour by hand.
What?
Yeah.
And their whisks were made out of twigs.
So they were just bundles of twigs.
So imagine whisking with bundles of twigs for an hour.
And it's not just a tiny bowl.
It's six pounds of eggs that you're whisking for an hour.
I'm just like, these people must have had crazy arms.
So Grace, in order to keep your America 250 cake connected to that history, are you going to whisk all the eggs for an hour with a twig whisk?
We kind of do want to try and see how close we can get.
Whisk for an hour.
But using a real whisk.
No, we're going to find some twigs.
Oh, you are going to do that?
I was joking.
No, we actually want to try because we want to see how well we can do it.
You're also sourcing 18th century flour from George Washington's grist mill.
Yes, it was so cool.
So George Washington I never knew, besides being the first president and the general during the war, was a crazy entrepreneur.
And he was an innovator.
So he has his own gristmill in Mount Vernon that is still operating today.
So they make small batch flour the same way they used to make it in the 18th century and how George Washington used to make his flour.
It's stone ground flour.
So everything's powered by water.
And they were so generous enough to donate their flour to make our America's 250th Modern Heritage Cake.
But this flour isn't what most of us are used to seeing in cakes today.
This is whole wheat flour.
It is not fine grain flour, which is very different from the cake flour that I use normally.
I actually loved the whole wheat texture because it felt really real.
It felt like a homemade cake and...
In terms of history, too.
So back in the day they had really super fine grain flour, but that was really for you know the governor.
So someone in high class had the fine grain.
Everyone else had mixed grains because it was really it was expensive also.
And they would add things.
They even added potato and beans just to make more substance.
And like cornmeal and corn flour.
And this heritage cake, the whole wheat, it's grittier.
It's not as fine as cake flour.
But I experimented with different ingredients that they used back in the day.
And how does it all fit together?
So just in terms of the texture and flavor, it really helped bring other flavors out.
And you'll taste that soon.
I actually brought you the cake.
I want you to taste it.
And I want you to tell me what you taste before I tell you anything about it.
Oh, wow.
This is a fun game.
I'm going to be honest with you.
I'm not great at that in general.
People expect me, because I host a food podcast, to taste something and be like oh, it has turmeric and whatever.
You can tell me how you feel when you eat it.
All right.
So should we open the box?
Yes.
Let's do it.
Grace and I opened the box.
She's brought a whole round layer cake, frosted but not decorated beyond that.
There's just a thin layer of white buttercream, a crumb coat for those of you who watch Bake Off.
You're the first person to taste this outside of our household.
Wow.
I'm very honored.
You're special.
I feel very special.
Wow, look at this.
You want me to try to guess what the flavoring is?
Yeah, or just like what you feel when you eat it.
Okay, I'll try, but I'm not great at guessing flavors, but okay.
I start cutting through the cake to get my slice.
Oh, I already love how dense it feels.
I like a dense cake.
I don't need a fluffy situation.
Oh, I see, is that a fruit?
Is that a raisin that just popped out?
Oh, it just looks like apples.
I mean, as American as apple pie, makes sense, raisins.
I take my first bite and try to guess the different components.
It's a whole wheat style flour.
Orange.
Okay.
I mean it's really good.
And then the, is this buttercream?
I love buttercream.
Swiss meringue buttercream.
Is that vanilla or is there something else going on?
Vanilla bean.
Did I miss anything?
Yep.
Turns out the cake has ginger, nutmeg and cardamom.
It's flavored with orange blossom water because historically that was more available than vanilla.
The apples are sauteed and what I thought were raisins are actually black currants macerated in Kentucky bourbon.
Then the cake gets a honey thyme soak, giving it all an herby vibe that cuts the sweetness just right.
You've got the apples, the currants, and then cake and the frosting.
It's like every bite is different.
Mm-hmm.
Well, I think you've done some great work here, Grace.
Thank you.
I can't wait to see the finished product.
Happy birthday.
Happy birthday, America.
Mm-hmm.
Coming up, I head to D.C. to see a member of Congress do his part to decorate the cake.
Then we get a sneak peek at another exciting summer food event when we go behind the scenes of the Great Nosh Picnic.
Stick around.
It's time to open up a can of advertisements.
Welcome back.
A few weeks after my chat with Grace, we meet up in D.C.
All right, Grace, set the scene.
Where are we?
What's happening?
We're in the Cannon Building, which is one of the house buildings on the hill.
And we're in the Rotunda with all this marble, beautiful decor.
Grace is in D.C. for the whole month constructing the cake.
She's running from one congressional office to another in pursuit of her goal of getting at least one member of Congress from every state to help with the decorating.
She's wearing a chef's coat with an America 250 seal on it and she's got a collapsible cart on wheels with all of her cake decorating supplies.
One thing is you can't bring sharp items here.
So I had to be really creative because we use X-Acto knives a lot for these detailed items.
So yeah, I've been bringing wooden skewers.
I brought a pizza cutter, which has been great.
And how's it going so far?
Great.
It's been really fun.
Everyone's been having, like, everyone's really excited for this cake.
And it's something that they don't get to do, especially in their offices on the Hill.
Right.
There was like laws, laws, laws.
Exactly.
Laws, laws, laws.
Yep.
Cake.
Cake, yeah.
And everyone's happy and smiley.
Right, right.
What is the status of the overall design?
What's the larger concept?
Do you want to see the design?
Oh, my God, yes.
I have it.
Okay.
Wow.
Grace rummages in her cart to find her iPad.
Okay, so... Here's the design.
It's large, as you remember.
So the theme of the design is American-made.
So we're going to have all these painted elements kind of in the center of chocolate starbursts and they're going to be scenes from history.
She points to a different section of the cake, which is the future part.
This is where she's incorporated the children's artwork from the nationwide contest.
Then there's a wavy bronze ribbon, which is where the members of Congress will come in.
Each state will have a small sculpted item that represents it, and the congressperson will decorate that item.
Even though Grace is showing me the design, I can't tell you more about it right now.
It's highly classified and it's all happening right now.
And Grace is feeling the time crunch.
But it's OK.
I just won't sleep.
Grace and I leave the rotunda and head to the office of Congressman Tom Suozzi, who represents New York's third district, part of Long Island and a little bit of Queens.
How are you guys doing?
Good.
How are you?
What am I doing, Grace?
Am I decorating a cake?
You are.
Do I have to have any artistic ability?
Maybe.
No, I'm just kidding.
Grace sets up a small folding table and lays out her equipment.
I have no idea what's about to happen.
I'm getting a little worried.
She's got all these different devices.
Grace has set up a little pop-up table.
There's a pizza cutter.
There's containers.
It's not really, is it a pizza cutter though?
Is it called a pizza cutter when you're?
It is.
It's a pizza cutter.
Why is a pizza cutter for a cake?
Because I couldn't bring in any sharp objects here.
They don't want anything sharp in the halls of Congress, including members of Congress.
How about elbows?
I am going to first present you with an apron.
Am I supposed to wear this?
Yes, please.
All right, thank you very much.
Just so you can protect your jacket.
I feel very, very bakery right now.
Grace shows the congressman her cake design and explains all the elements like she did for me.
Then she breaks out an Empire State Building that she sculpted for modeling chocolate.
That will represent New York.
Yeah, so we actually have...
The Empire State Building here.
My grandfather put the lights on top of the Empire State Building electrician.
Oh, my God.
IBEW Local 3.
Grace wants the congressman to add some parts to the lower level of the building and some texture to the windows.
I would like to have done something a little more creative than a little block of the Empire State Building.
Do we can...
Do an impromptu sculpting.
Grace is a master improviser, Congressman.
I'll have you know it.
How about we paint this yellow and put a yellow taxi passing in front of the Empire State Building?
That's so cute.
I love that idea.
Oh my God, look at this.
He's actually sculpting a taxi.
Wait, he's actually sculpting a taxi.
It looks really good.
What?
Gotta do some wheels on it now.
I love how into it the Congressman is.
Cancel the rest of his meetings.
What do you think?
I love it.
I think it looks great.
This is a real team effort.
This is like totally collaborative.
If only Congress was like this and everyone worked together.
Maybe they will.
Yeah.
This is going to turn everything around.
You know, we are all working on this cake together, which is amazing.
Yeah.
Can I put a wheel on?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, my God, please.
The Empire State Building is about seven inches tall and the little taxi isn't quite to scale, but it looks surprisingly good for someone who's never even touched modeling chocolate before.
I think we can all have a lot of confidence in Grace that she's going to make it look amazing.
Yes, I have great confidence.
Before we leave, I have a few questions for Congressman Swazi.
I know that you were a teenager in 1976 when we celebrated our bicentennial.
Yep, I was 14 years old.
What are some of your memories from that?
Everybody in the town was involved.
It was such an exciting time.
There was a great parade that we had.
We had a festival in our downtown and people were dressed up in colonial costumes.
And I just remember how excited I was about being an American.
How would you compare this upcoming celebration to that one?
I feel like we're a lot more fractured than we were back then.
I think that, because a lot of it has to do with, the media is fractured so we're not kind of all on the same page, getting the same information.
And I don't feel like it's as much of a community effort as it was back then.
It would be great if we could get to that point, as we get closer to the 4th of July, to get more people unified, celebrating the history of the greatest country in the history of the world.
Yeah.
And it's interesting looking back.
You know, the couple of years leading up to 1976 were also rough years in American history.
There was a major recession.
There was an oil embargo.
We've had rough times.
Watergate was right.
We're coming out of Watergate.
We're coming out of Vietnam.
There's always been there have been struggles in American history before.
I guess I'm optimistic that the issues you're talking about will hopefully be just a period of time, as some of those rough issues
Well, I couldn't stay involved in politics unless I was optimistic.
I mean, it would be impossible.
And I'm very optimistic because I have faith in people.
So we have to get back to a place where we're kind of sharing some common interest.
And I think that.
The 250th anniversary could be the start of that because it's something we all share in common.
Thank you so much, Congressman.
Thank you, buddy.
Some people leave Congress and go into lobbying.
I think this congressman might have a future in baking.
My thanks to Congressman Tom Swasey and extra big thanks to Grace Pack.
Her cake company is called Duchess of Cameron.
The cake cutting ceremony will happen on July 4th at the Library of Congress.
The only people who actually get to eat the cake are one young person, a first grader, Tiger Scout, and one senior, probably a veteran.
You'll be able to go to the White House Visitor Center to see the America 250 birthday cake on display, starting July 6th through the end of the month.
Now, America 250 isn't the only big thing happening this summer.
In fact, this weekend many people will head to a small island off Manhattan called Governor's Island for the Great Nosh.
It's hosted by the Jewish Food Society.
We featured them in an episode a couple years ago.
The Great Nosh has become one of JFS's signature events a giant picnic with music, arts and, most importantly, some incredibly exciting food collabs.
Usually, the Nosh tries to pair a Jewish restaurant with a non-Jewish one, and the results are extremely exciting and delicious.
In anticipation of this epic food fest, we got the stories of two of these collabs to understand how they came to be.
One is a pastrami taco.
The other is a chicken tikka stuffed bagel.
We'll start at Santo Taco, a small taqueria in Manhattan that's gotten a big following.
I'm Santi, chief taco officer of Santo Tacos.
Jake Dell.
I'm the fifth generation owner at Katz's Deli.
Jake basically grew up at Katz's.
It's a New York institution.
It's been around since 1888.
At six years old, little Jake was handing out order tickets to people in line.
Now he runs the place, trying to balance tradition with the need to change.
But I think I quickly realized how special and how amazing this place is and what it means to so many people.
Where, you know, I changed the bathrooms to make them bigger and more accommodating.
And that was met with backlash.
People were upset that you made the bathrooms work better for customers?
100%.
100%.
I think any sort of change is met with skepticism at a place like Katz's Deli that has so much history in it and means so much to people.
It's more than just food, right?
There's nostalgia and an atmosphere component to that experience.
But Jake isn't afraid of change, which is why he's paired up with Santo Taco for the great nosh.
Santi Perez grew up in Mexico City.
He came to New York and founded the fine dining restaurant Cosme, which earned a Michelin star.
Last year, he turned his focus to Santo Taco.
12 years have been primarily focused on fine dining and I really wanted to take some of those elements from fine dining and apply it to a fast food, setting the attention to detail, the quality of the ingredients, you know like, caring about the design and the hospitality, and that's how Santo Taco was born last year.
I just learned this morning from the team at the Great Nosh that Katz is the oldest a brand or a collaborator in the festival and we're the youngest.
So, like, we carry a one-year history, whereas you guys carry a 138-year history.
It's a lot of responsibility, you know?
For sure.
What were some of the early ideas that you were throwing back and forth that didn't?
I think there was a Reuben taco.
Yeah.
Okay.
We transitioned to more just, let's keep it classic, the pastrami.
I'm very happy that you went with pastrami over corned beef.
Because this is my hot take.
People have a lot of feelings.
I know.
Shots fired.
I get it.
Shots fired.
But I really, look, I'm not against corned beef.
I like a Reuben.
Corned beef is good, but I just feel like pastrami in general in the world is running circles around corned beef.
I happen to agree with you.
I will say there are a lot of people who would disagree with you.
I mean, we do about 18, 20,000 pounds of corned beef every week.
So there are a lot of... And how many pounds of pastrami?
Double that, like 40,000 pounds.
Okay, all right.
So, yes.
Santi, what's your take?
Pastrami or corned beef?
Pastrami.
All right.
For me, there was no doubt, you know, but I would have played along.
While Jake brings the culture and history of Katz's Deli to this collab, Santi will bring the culture and history of the taco.
I mean, Mexico is a giant country and the fact that there are so many types of tacos is just a function of how rich and large the land is right.
But I would say there is a common denominator across all tacos.
There are three elements.
One, it needs to have a tortilla.
It needs to have a protein or a filling, and it needs to have a great salsa.
I think the most important part that people often overlook is the salsa, because it adds a lot of personality and distinction to the taco.
Part of what makes this collaboration so exciting is that the base of the idea is okay, pastrami on a tortilla, but actually what's going on on top of that is even more interesting, because there's a juxtaposition of flavors.
So what did they land on?
First, you have a tortilla.
It's an heirloom corn tortilla.
Then we put a spoonful of avocado salsa, two slices of pastrami.
Then we add a red salsa inspired by the Russian dressing.
My cat says Russian French.
Yeah, yeah.
The hint of habanero to add a little bit of kick.
And then our escabeche, which has carrot, jalapeños, and their pickles.
So yeah, all together, it's an explosion of flavors.
We'll get to test it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But, like, this is one of the things that I think makes the Great Nosh such a fun and special event.
There are always unexpected collabs.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Oh, is this it?
Oh, my goodness.
Here we go.
You guys are going to eat with me, right?
Yeah, of course.
All right, here we go.
First bite.
All right, let's do this.
Oh, man.
See what I'm saying?
Like, each bite, you kind of, like, it keeps growing on you.
Because right off the bat, the pastrami hits you.
Yes.
But then comes, like... Everything else.
The pickling and the acid and then the spice.
Like, I'm still figuring out what I just ate.
I love this.
Oh, my goodness.
Oh, my God.
That was honestly one of the best tacos I've ever had in my life.
Next, we head to Moonrise Bagels in Manhattan.
I'm Jeremy Rhodes from Moonrise Bagels.
Hi, I'm Chintan Pandya from Unapolitic Foods.
Moonrise is not your traditional bagel shop.
They make stuffed bagels, which is pretty unique in the New York bagel scene.
There's a bacon, egg, and cheese bagel, buffalo chicken bagel, and pizza bagel.
All the fillings are sealed and wrapped inside the bagel before it's cooked.
For The Great Nosh Moonrise is teaming up with Unapologetic Foods.
The folks behind the hit restaurants DeMaca, the Michelin-starred Sema and Rowdy Rooster.
It's two different cultures coming with one of their signature dishes and making it one dish.
So it's going to be a fun Jewish-Indian dish, which is a stuffed chicken tikka bagel.
So it's basically a barbecue chicken.
It has got a little kick to it, a little spice to it, and then we have a little tomato-based sauce going along with it to dip in and eat it, and what fun than having it inside a bagel.
Yeah, so Chintin's team did all the really hard stuff by making this lovely filling for us.
So then we took that and we rolled it into our bagels using our bagel dough, you know, very New York style.
It's high gluten and flour.
We then roll it, we hand roll everything, and then we boil it and bake it.
As we meet them, Chintan and Jeremy are not 100% set on their dish.
There's three variations they have to choose from.
A hand-pulled chicken tikka, a chopped one, and one with extra sauce inside.
Today, they're making all three, tasting them, and deciding which will make it to the great nosh.
First, the bagels get boiled.
So when we're boiling our bagels, we're looking for the lovely shape to take place.
We're looking for a certain texture.
It's like a little tackiness to the dough.
And we kind of go for like a specific color.
So it's anywhere from 30 seconds to two minutes.
After boiling, the bagels go into the oven for 15 minutes.
Once they're out of the oven, Jeremy adds a sprinkle of masala powder.
So it's just a, you know, spice blend that we have that we put on our kebabs, actually.
So there's a red chili powder.
Then there is dried mango powder, cumin powder.
So it's a blend of multiple things.
Yeah, I think for us.
We really like to expand people's minds in a way, have them think about a bagel a little differently.
And you know, I don't think there are many people out there who would say Indian bagel, let's have it.
But I think after today, they definitely won't.
The bagels are done, but there's one more element to this dish.
There's a quintessential butter masala sauce.
It's got tomatoes, some butter, cream, everything that is good and that people love to eat.
That's it.
A dipping sauce for the bagel.
You know I love sauce on the side, which allows you to manage your dip ratio on a per bite basis.
I'm very, very into this concept.
But now it's time for Jeremy and Shinton to decide between the three bagels.
Chopped chicken, pulled chicken, extra sauce.
After taking their tastes, they debate the merits of each one.
I've seen the bagel just kind of get a little soggy in the past if there's a little too much sauce in there.
But what did you love about this?
Flavor?
Although it's got more punch to it, the sauce actually took it to the next level.
That's what I felt.
Okay.
I was looking at it from a bagel perspective, which is so funny.
In the end, they decide on a compromise.
Jeremy likes the pulled chicken one.
Chintan liked the pulled chicken with extra sauce.
So they split the difference and go with a little more sauce.
A dish is born.
All right.
L'chaim!
That's Jeremy Rhodes of Moonrise Bagels and Chintan Pandya of Unapologetic Foods.
Before that, we heard Santi Perez of Santo Taco and Jake Dell of Katz's Deli.
The Great Nosh is this Sunday, June 21st on Governor's Island in New York.
Get info and tickets if they're still available at greatnosh.com.
Next week on the show, we're back in the salad spinner with Washington Post restaurant critic Elazar Sontag and Bloomberg News reporter Dina Shankar.
We'll talk about the quirkiest and most surprising food news of the moment.
That's next week.
While you wait for that one, check out last week's episode where I visit the 1970s test kitchen for Ebony magazine, which had a huge influence on the way we understand black American food.
And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app?
Yes, the SiriusXM app has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage.
Does your podcasting app have that?
And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more.
It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one.
Right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to SiriusXMcom slash Sporkful.
This episode was produced by me, along with managing producer Emma Morgenstern and senior producer Andres O'Hara.
It was edited by Camille Stanley.
Our engineer is Jared O'Connell.
Music help from Black Label Music.
The Sporkful is a production of Sirius XM Podcast.
Our executive producer is Camille Stanley.
Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.
And I'm Scott Dieter, from Cleveland Ohio, reminding you to eat more, eat better and eat more better.
This segment is brought to you by Miralax.
So, Julie, tell me about the first time you accompanied Aiden to watch a soccer game.
Okay, so Aiden and I had met and we were both living in New York City.
This would have been 2012.
And we were in grad school.
We were dating.
He woke me up at like 6 am to say I have to go to Midtown to watch a football game, which he means soccer, but he would never say the word soccer.
That's right.
Still dumb.
So you're right.
We'll respect your wishes for this segment, Aiden.
We'll call it football.
So we got to go watch the football match.
And what are you thinking, Julie?
Well, I was confused.
I was like, it's six in the morning.
There's no football on, like, surely.
And I was a little annoyed because I love sleep.
This is my coworker, Julie Booth, and her husband, Aiden.
Aiden is English, so to him.
We're in the midst of the world's biggest football tournament, which is why here on the show, we're talking with soccer uh, football fans about their love of the game and the foods and drinks they associate with it.
When Aiden woke Julie up that morning, it was to go see his favorite team, Leeds United.
I always say that if you don't experience the lows of which, being a Leeds fan, there are many then you're never going to experience the highs when they do come.
So that's what I keep telling myself in order to be a Leeds fan.
Despite his commitment to Leeds United, Aidan knew Julie wasn't quite so enthusiastic.
So he wakes me up and says, he's going.
And he said, do you want to come with me?
And I said, no.
Why would I want to do that?
It's six in the morning.
And he said, well, if you come, I'll buy you breakfast.
And I was kind of like, okay, sure.
Aidan brought Julie to a New York sports bar called Legends, where a lot of British football fans gather to watch games.
I mean, the great thing about that place is, you know, there's people from all over that come and join.
So, you know, I met those folks.
Within the first week that I came to New York City and it was just like a group of Leeds fans then.
They just all welcomed you in.
And it was like, yeah, this is where we go watch the game.
So come on down.
And you've kind of got a home away from home, which is awesome.
So yeah, so we get on the subway.
We go down to this bar in Midtown Manhattan.
And it's full, by the way, of Leeds fans, whoever they were playing that day fans.
There's like scarves and everyone is drinking beer. at 7 a.m.
And I said, can I get a coffee?
And the bartender was like uh, if you wait for me to make it for like 10 minutes, you have to brew a pot, even though it was 7 am.
So Julie, you finally get your coffee.
In a pint glass.
And what did all these Leeds fans make of you?
Were there other non-Leeds fans who had come along as friends and guests?
I got a lot of brownie points for showing up.
There was men and women, but a lot of the guys had American girlfriends who didn't go.
Everyone was very welcoming.
And Julie, Aiden said he was going to buy you breakfast.
What'd you get?
So this is the thing that started it all.
So I'm looking at the menu and Aiden says, you have to order a bacon buddy.
That's B-U-T-T-Y.
Yes.
Which is basically like a butter sandwich.
Is that right, Aiden?
Yeah, a bacon sandwich, but like not the bacon that you get over here.
Not the streaky kind, right?
It's like the proper...
Well, I'd call it proper fat bacon.
So it's like a real sandwich that you can get into.
It's meatier, less fat.
Yeah, exactly.
So Julie, how was it?
It was so good.
So this is the thing.
He says, get the bacon buddy.
And I said, what is that?
He said, it's a bacon sandwich.
And that sounds really boring, but I got it, a bacon buddy with hot sauce.
And it comes and it's so good.
Like Aiden said, the bacon is very thick.
It's very crisp.
The roll they put it on is buttery.
It's kind of like a roll you would get at a bodega.
It's hot.
It's very filling.
It's great when you're hungover.
I wasn't that day, but I have since learned it's great when you're hungover.
And so that was our tradition.
So anytime leads would play, he would be like, come to the bar with me.
I'll buy you a bacon sandwich.
And another point is it lines your stomach, right?
So you get that started and then you have your pint and you're good to go.
You're set up for success.
Julie, have you gotten to the point where you can switch from coffee to beer at some point at that hour?
No, I really cannot drink beer at 7 a.m. still.
So what did you think, Aiden, when Julie started becoming regular at these games?
Proud, and yet, you know, there was a part of me that also just felt inherently sad for her.
You know, she has to go through this.
You mean go through the experience of watching Leeds struggle, not the experience of coming to the pub and eating a bacon sandwich.
Got it.
Okay.
Through the best of leads and the worst of leads, Julie and Aiden's relationship has blossomed.
They're now married with two kids.
And with all the nations of the world facing off.
Right now the household is pulling for the US and England.
Well, Aiden's mostly pulling for England.
The last time we won, it was 66.
And growing up, you're always like, yeah, I want my team to be the ones that go ahead and win it.
So there's a lot of pressure and you're kind of like, okay, what are we going to do?
Julie, what are England matches like for you these days?
I don't get as stressed as Aiden, but I definitely feel a kinship.
My husband and now my kids are British.
I want them to win and to do well.
Actually, I grew up kind of on the periphery of sports.
Like no one in my immediate family was big in sports.
There just wasn't a lot of like sports culture.
And then I met Aiden and he had this huge love for Leeds and football.
And it's been really fun to be part of a big fandom and have our schedule work around Leeds games and England games.
It's funny.
I thought your first reaction when you got asked that question was just going to be loud.
It is loud, but I'm, you say that, but like, I've embraced the loud.
I take a cowbell now to sporting events.
Thank you again to the sponsor of today's segment, Miralax.
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