Jeni's Ice Cream, Eleven Madison Park serving meat, Food52 Scammer, Raf's in NYC & more!

I Know You Didn't Ask with Megan O'Donnell

Megan O'Donnell

Society & Culture

3.9 • 709 Ratings

🗓️ 21 August 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week’s food news is serving russian dinner party, mini cocktails, and corporate scams!!! First up, I’m giving a deep bow to Raf’s for the Cheeky Cocktail—a $10 mini cocktail that somehow the New York Times completely missed. FAKE NEWSSSSS. I also give full love to their tarragon pickle mayo burger, which was nothing short of life-changing.

Then we dig into Eleven Madison Park’s chose to serve meat & fish again. After four years of all-vegan menus (and charging steakhouse prices for vegetables), chef Daniel Humm is admitting reality: people want duck, lobster, and oysters with their $365 tasting menus—and the wine sales to match. We unpack the hype, the hypocrisy, and whether sitting at the bar for $225 is the move.

Also on the menu: Food52’s $270k scandal—an exec stealing designer clothes, Botox, and Delta flights with the company card like a true scammer.

Plus: Putin’s canceled surf & turf at the White House, the mystery of Halibut Olympia, and why Jeni’s ice cream war with the NY Times over “cream cheese” doesn't really have merit.

From vegan Michelin drama to food-media grifts, this episode is stacked.

Pour yourself a cheeky cocktail and let’s get into it.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Love this podcast?
0:01.7	Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature.
0:05.4	It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment.
0:09.1	Just click the link in the show description to support now.
0:16.1	Welcome to I Know You Didn't Ask, the unapologetic, unfiltered, and slightly unhinged podcast you didn't know you needed. I'm your host, Megyn O'Donnell, pop culture obsessive, professional oversharer, and the host of your new favorite five-day-a-week fix for celebrity gossip, reality TV chaos, books, food news, beauty tips, and of course, navigating your life in your 30s. I know you didn't ask,
0:38.3	but I'm telling you anyways. Sit back, grab a drink, and enjoy the show. Welcome to I Know You
0:44.6	Didn't Ask. I'm your host, Megyn O'Donnell, and today is a passion project of mine. We are talking
0:48.9	food people. Today is food news. So this is where I'm going to be bringing up random articles and things that I've
0:55.9	been hearing about in the food world, little things I've been noticing across menus and
1:00.2	restaurants that I've been going to. So I'm super inspired by a podcast that unfortunately
1:05.4	hasn't been putting out episodes that much lately. I think it's because the female co-host,
1:09.6	Juliet Lippman, just had a baby, so I'm
1:11.7	wondering if they're on some type of maternity leave. But regardless, Juliet Lippman and Javid
1:17.1	Jacoby host a podcast called Ringer Food, and it's on the Ringer Network, and it was basically
1:24.3	just like food news, and they would talk about like what's going on in the industry. Granted,
1:36.9	they were more talking about like when you read an article that's like a hot dog truck, it tipped over in Philadelphia and 2.7 million hot dogs were on the highway.
1:39.5	That's a little bit more of what they were talking about.
1:45.1	I'm obviously talking about more of like the salacious underbelly of the food world.
1:50.8	And I think we just first and foremost need to talk about such a groundbreaking concept that I had never seen before.
1:52.8	And I'm truly hoping to see again.
1:56.6	I'm hoping to start this episode with planting a seed in your brains.
2:00.8	And if you work at a restaurant or, you know, know, a beverage manager at another restaurant,
	...

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