This was my second conversation with Anya von Bremzen—author of Desk Book Club selection Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking, National Dish, and many more books—and I believe I’ll be referencing it as much as I reference our first. We certainly have different perspectives—I don’t and would never use AI as a research tool, as I like the writer’s fingerprint on their sources—but I find them to be complementary and generative when put into contact.

There are a lot of gems in this conversation for writers, too, that are the intellectual equivalent of Jemima Kirke’s famous “you might be thinking about yourselves too much” meme: She reiterated the significance of the pullback for me, the importance of context, and letting a story stand on its own. Her books are rigorous but pleasurable collective food histories, and there is so much to learn from how she approaches them. Above is a preview; after the paywall, members can access the full video and text transcript.