Special Sauce with Ed Levine Serious Eats

I find myself wishing this podcast was more like the website; more educational. The host seems to find ways to talk about his struggles with starting and running Serious Eats in every episode, which becomes predictable and a little grating.

Ed, the host, always seems to make the podcast about himself, and seems to find himself more amusing than what he really is. It constantly refers to his struggles starting Serious Eats or how he was a horrible employee. Also, his referring to knowing famous chefs or having eaten at famous restaurants feels more like name dropping than conversational. Five stars for when someone other than Ed is talking. One for when Ed is talking.

Ed, if you read this, congrats on your success. But please make the podcast less about you.

I’d hope the new 2.0 version would improve things, but it’s only gotten worse.
•Ed still interrupts his guests and drones on about “when I started Serious Eats...”
•The volume is still too low
•It’s very NYC-centric
•The ask Kenji segment isn’t organized: it’s just Kenji rattling off way too much info way too fast without staying on point
•Recycled video content doesn’t translate well for radio, plus I’d rather have new content
•Ed’s new voiceovers are done in the most high pitched condescending voice
•Sasha Marx’s voice isn’t radio friendly
•More Stella Parks and Daniel Gritzer are what’s needed
•Most of the guests are great