Hello and welcome to Table Talk, the Spectators Food and Drink podcast. I'm Olivia Potts.

And I'm Laura Prendergast. And today we are delighted to be joined by Molly Baz. Molly is an American

food writer, known for her work at Bon Appetit, where she was

senior food editor. Molly has accrued a cult following for her uncomplicated big flavor recipes,

and her first book, Cook This Book, teaches you how to be a smarter, faster, more creative cook.

Molly, welcome to table talk. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.

Molly, as listeners know, we always start this podcast with the same question, which is,

what are your earliest memories of food?

I wish I could say that I remember being like two years old and like eating yogurt or something

and having like a revelatory experience but I really

can't so I don't know what my earliest memories of food are but I can say that like I had a

light there was definitely like a light bulb moment for me there have been several throughout my

life and interestingly two of them both occurred in Italy on totally separate

occasions, but I recall being in Italy, like when I was like 18. And I was, of course, already

into food, but I went into this little trotteria in Orvieto and I had a

like large plate of truffled pasta and I I just remember being like collapsed on the floor

in all of how delicious it was. I think that was like one of the moments

where I was like, oh, I'm like really into food. This like does something to me. And it happened

in Italy again like a year or so later when I was studying abroad living with this woman,

Graciela in her homestay. And she would put just like the most delicious but simple and restrained food on the

table for dinner every night and and again I was just like this is like different than whatever

was happening when I grew up and is different than the food that I'm used to eating in America

...