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806: Lydia Pang Argues “Stinky” Is a Great Thing

July 13, 2026

Lydia Pang is a creative director and the author of Eat Bitter: A Story About Guts, and Food. It’s a memoir that connects to the Chinese cultural concept of 吃苦 (chi ku), “eating bitterness” or being resilient, to her own life, with each chapter rooted in a recipe. Today on the show, we chat about how the book began as a zine in 2020, being inspired by her Hakka-Welsh heritage, and more. And it’s the return of Three Things, where Aliza and Matt discuss what’s interesting in the food world, in...

805: Real Talk About Drinks Writing and Trend-Chasing Bars with Echo Lake’s Chloe Frechette 

July 11, 2026

Chloe Frechette spent nearly a decade as executive editor at Punch, the James Beard Award–winning drinks media brand, writing seriously about cocktails and the culture around them. Then she did what most drinks writers most certainly do not do: she opened a bar. Echo Lake and Undercurrent, her two-story rum destination in Williamsburg with partner Paul McGee, opened this spring—one a breezy daiquiri bar, the other an intimate den of rare and vintage spirits. In this episode, I speak with Chlo...

804: Toby Maloney Made Half a Million Cocktails. Emma Janzen Was Taking Notes.

July 10, 2026

Bartender and author Toby Maloney has made somewhere north of half a million cocktails over thirty-plus years, from Milk & Honey and Pegu Club to the Violet Hour in Chicago and the Elbow Room in Vancouver, Washington. His new book with coauthor and drinks journalist Emma Janzen, The Classic Cocktail Sessions, is a deep-dive master class on 61 classic drinks: not their histories but their inner workings. In this episode, we talk about the daiquiri that changed Toby’s life and the difference be...