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What's the TEA? with Jeremy Salamon (Second Generation)

• Jason Blitman, Jeremy Salamon • Season 3 • Episode 12

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In this new series What’s the TEA? host Jason Blitman gets the inside scoop on new books–authors are tasked with describing their books with 3 words using the letters T, E, and A. This episode features chef and restaurateur Jeremy Salamon talking to Jason about his cookbook, Second Generation.

Jeremy Salamon is the James Beard–nominated chef and owner of the beloved Agi’s Counter in Brooklyn, a 2022 pick for Bon Appetit's Best New Restaurants list and a 2023 Michelin Bib Gourmand award recipient. He began his career working under celebrated chefs in restaurants such as Locanda Verde, Prune, Buvette, and Via Carota, before becoming the executive chef of Manhattan restaurants the Eddy and Wallflower. He’s been recognized by publications such as the New York Times, Food & Wine, Forbes, The New Yorker, Eater, Travel + Leisure, the Infatuation, and more. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his partner, Michael, and their cat, Sage. This is his first cookbook.

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Gaze reading, where the greats drop by. Trendy authors tell us all the who, what, and why. Anyone can listen, cause we're spoiler free. Gaze reading. From poets and stars, to book club picks. Where the curious minds can get their fix. So you say you're not gay, well that's okay. There's something for everyone. Gaze reading. You Hello and welcome to gazers. I was reading what's the T. I am here today with restaurant. Tour chef Jeremy Solomon talking to me about. His new book, second generation. If you are new to gaze reading, you can like, and subscribe. Wherever you get your podcasts, you can follow us over on Instagram. At gaze reading. And you can find the link to our YouTube. Channel where you can watch this conversation in the show notes or. In our link tree over on Instagram. And without further ado here is tea time with Jeremy Solomon. Solomon.

Jason Blitman:

we're here to talk about. Your book, Second Generation, and you're here to join me for tea. And I have my tea prop too. I have to turn, I should turn it this way because this is where it looks cool. Cause

Jeremy Salamon:

Oh, that's a,

Jason Blitman:

a Jonathan Adler tea cup, but

Jeremy Salamon:

Wait, if you have your tmoc, then I gotta get my tmoc. This one says, welcome to the fabulous fifties. Sorry, I got a whole bunch of old mugs from Etsy when we opened up Augie, so this is an Etsy purchase.

Jason Blitman:

what you use to serve at Aggies.

Jeremy Salamon:

Oh yeah, everyone gets their coffee in something

Jason Blitman:

Obsessed. Yes. Okay. Jeremy, tell me what's the tea. Tell me about your book. Do you have your T? Do you have your T E A?

Jeremy Salamon:

I've had, okay, so I've had my coffee, but I do have my tea as well

Jason Blitman:

Me too.

Jeremy Salamon:

yeah. So my coffee, oh yeah, definitely. I'll be double fisting here. Yeah, my cookbook came out, oh my god almost a month ago. It'll be a month this coming week. Thank you. Yeah, it's been a whirlwind. It feels like it's been forever in the works, so about, I don't know, maybe this started six years ago? Five, six years ago? Oh wow, yeah, I started writing a manuscript, I was told I didn't have enough Instagram followers, because that's the society we live in, and yeah, so I shelved it, and I said screw that, I'll open up a restaurant, which was always the plan. So I opened up a restaurant right in that weird time of 2021, and then I got a call the week I opened up. Augie's counter, which is my restaurant. And I spoke to a, an agent, a book agent who happened to be sitting across from a friend of mine at a COVID wedding. And my friend was like, Hey, my my friend's got a cookbook. You should check it out. And so then that just took off and here we are.

Jason Blitman:

Do you So I have three words to describe your book using the letters T E N A. Do you have three letters, three words to describe your book using the letters T E N A?

Jeremy Salamon:

I love an acronym but this one was tough for me, but I'll but yeah. Okay. So, uh, Tantalizing easy and well, I couldn't figure out the last one, but I was going to say, but it kind of Ryan rides the easy train, I guess it's like accessible, but these all sound like. Sounds like very dirty tangible, and inaccessible, but

Jason Blitman:

Gays reading.

Jeremy Salamon:

Gaze read it, yeah. So those would be, that would, that's how I would describe my

Jason Blitman:

It's so funny hearing the stress that this causes people.

Jeremy Salamon:

Yeah, I was thinking about it on the subway grocery store, and I was just like, yeah, I don't know, this

Jason Blitman:

I would say traditional eating and Aggies.

Jeremy Salamon:

That is really appropriate, very good, so kudos to you, but seems but you do this is

Jason Blitman:

This is my thing. It's fine. Since I, you can have it. You can have my traditional eating Aggies. How would you unpack that for your book? So this is You, the subtitle, it's called Second Generation Hungarian and Jewish Classics Reimagine for the Modern Table. What does that mean to you?

Jeremy Salamon:

Fully loaded question. So Aggies so my restaurant is, it's inspired by my grandmother, both grandmothers, I would say. And so there's this like Eastern European pulse that runs through it, but it is it's inspired by. So there's, we take like an ingredient or maybe a recipe, like an older recipe, and then we stretch it. until it's not stretched anymore. And it, we go to the farmer's market, three to four days a week. And there's this kind of young approach and perspective that that comes through. So It's definitely it's a different version of this cuisine that I think it's a wrap for being, like meat heavy and sauce heavy and no vegetables and brown and beige. So it was really important to me at the restaurant and the book, and for the book to be this like vibrant Colorful, but also like rich For the book and for the diner. Cause I wanted to change the narrative. I wanted to open people's minds to something different when it comes to Eastern European and Hungarian cuisine. Yeah.

Jason Blitman:

I made the Radish Soup and Selina dumplings. the cookbook. I have so many questions. What made, for the listeners, the semolina dumplings look like matzo balls? What makes them dumplings versus a cousin of matzo balls? Like, why don't we call matzo balls dumplings? I guess is maybe the real question.

Jeremy Salamon:

I guess that's a great question. There's probably some like loaded history answer there, which I'm not privy to.

Jason Blitman:

One of our ancestors is cause we didn't have to carry the matzah on our back through the desert, right? So we want to give it the claim it deserves.

Jeremy Salamon:

right. And also just like, Why, like, why, I don't know. It's just like, why not matzo dumpling? Why matzo balls? There's so much room. There's so many things you could do with that. And there, I feel like in modern pop culture, like matzo balls has really taken, has really gone through a journey, but in Hungarian and Eastern European cuisine, everything just translates into dumplings. So that's the, I don't know, I guess that's why I called it

Jason Blitman:

I was into it, but I was like, Oh, it's a version of, I, I had to do it twice because I messed up the first time. And the first time I did it, they were much denser and a lot more like a matzo ball or depending on if you like eat a dense matzo ball, that's how it

Jeremy Salamon:

Got it It does take I make them every single day here at the restaurant. So we have got it down to a tee. I think it takes one or two times to get into the swing of it.

Jason Blitman:

It was an easy thing

Jeremy Salamon:

but once you, yeah, it's a good, like it took some time to figure out the recipe because they would always come out. Really dense or they'd sink. So getting like the specific, if you do follow the recipe to the tea and wait the six minutes for it to boil and you do make it like a pot of shoe where you're like the bottom of the pan gets dry. And if you really do follow this recipe, it

Jason Blitman:

I was the problem. It's me. Hi. Because I was, I like let the water boil too long prior to adding the semolina, and so in turn there wasn't enough water. So there wasn't as much dough. That was a me thing. And then I did it again. I was like, stupid. Should I should just do it the right way? And then it was totally fine.

Jeremy Salamon:

It also is very like temperamental because and also I know the water, it like can't be boiling and it's gotta be like little bubbles or else it's like the boilage will break apart your dumpling. So there's,

Jason Blitman:

Yes. But it was like, nah, again, it was a me thing. And I, upon completion was very proud.

Jeremy Salamon:

I'm glad that

Jason Blitman:

And it was delicious. I'll DM you the photos that I took.

Jeremy Salamon:

Yes, please. It's so nerve wracking when. It's I knew that when the book would come out, obviously people would cook from it, hence the cookbook. I don't think I really wrapped my head around That until I've started receiving messages and emails and like photos of people cooking from the book, and it is a completely new experience. It's one thing to have people come into your restaurant and eat your food that you've made and like for them to be replicating it at home. Is a. It's a. really nice feeling. It's just a very surreal like, you know,

Jason Blitman:

well like If you tasted my dumplings the first time you'd have been so frustrated because that's not, that wasn't your intention. Do you know what I mean? So it's like hard to put something out into the world and be like, wait, no, that wasn't, oh, you're not going to like it. But if you followed what I said, then you would have liked it.

Jeremy Salamon:

you followed what I said? No I was there too. I was there when I was testing it. Like I, I went through those kind of those failures as well, not that they're failures,

Jason Blitman:

So you, so this is second generation and you have, what can you tell the people about what's next? You have a new restaurant opening. Can you share? Is there anything to share?

Jeremy Salamon:

Oh gosh. Yes. So it's in Red Hook. It's called PITS. P I T apostrophe S. That was my nickname growing up. It was the name my father gave me and

Jason Blitman:

can't no. You cannot just keep going. How why did he call you pants? Where did that come from?

Jeremy Salamon:

So the like ugly story is that it's,

Jason Blitman:

Huh.

Jeremy Salamon:

just armpits. I think it was like what my father thought was like an endearing name, like Pits for his child. And when we found the location which was in Red Hook has this Red Hook is not an armpit, I'm just saying that out loud, that's not what I'm referring to right now. I think it's this really cool town that feels like, there's a little bit of grunge to it But in this like hip way and it's a little quirky and artsy and I felt like pits at least the way that I'm imagining this restaurant. that. So like my boyfriend, Michael and I will go around now and we'll just be like, that's pits. And and we sound insane because we're the only people that know what we're talking

Jason Blitman:

Reclaimed the ugliness and you're like, no, it's it's hipster. It's interesting. It's like a little off the beaten path. That's pits. When I think of Red Hook, I think of Ikea. I think of, there's a really cool art gallery and I think of a great place to get a key lime pie. Those are the three things that come to mind when I think of Red Hook.

Jeremy Salamon:

Which are great, like definitions

Jason Blitman:

And pits. That key line by is

Jeremy Salamon:

And I feel. I feel like pits could be the new brat and that's, it's oh, it's

Jason Blitman:

So food wise, what can people expect?

Jeremy Salamon:

yeah. So food wise, it's going to be, it's going to lean away from the Eastern European narrative of Aggies counter. And it'll be more like this eclectic, quirky American bistro. There's really no. set cuisine per se, but I did grow up spending my summers in North Carolina and like in the mountains and I have a mentor that's from there. So there is this like Southern.

Jason Blitman:

Sure. Sure.

Jeremy Salamon:

that I've always wanted to explore. So very excited about that.

Jason Blitman:

I, and that's the pits. What, when, do we have a timeline? Fall?

Jeremy Salamon:

Yeah. I think probably

Jason Blitman:

was going to say it is fall.

Jeremy Salamon:

week of, Yeah, we were aiming for November, but restaurant openings are always a moving target. So probably first week of December.

Jason Blitman:

I like feel like what, just for the sake of, I want to tell people a little bit more about your book that we have. If someone is I'm nervous, where should I start? What would you say to them?

Jeremy Salamon:

I'm nervous, and where should I start? Yeah, I think a great place to begin is either, is actually the soup section. You did it right. I think that's a fun place to be. There's the chilled soups, so there's like the chilled borscht and the chilled sorrel soup, which are really refreshing and interesting to make for a crowd on a hot summer day or when spring starts. The no kedli soup with a lot of dill is like the most umptuous kind of chicken brothy soup that's great for fall weather. Yeah, umptuous. And no kedli is a lot of fun to make. You could scrape the dough through a grated pan and you can do it with, a friend or your partner or family and it's just yeah. So I think the soup section and soups are pretty like, Definitive of Hungarian cuisine, so I feel like that's a good place to

Jason Blitman:

And I have to ask before I let you go, what is that, what tattoo is that on your arm?

Jeremy Salamon:

This is a beet. It's a heartbeat. I really love beets, and so it's like an anatomical heart with like beet

Jason Blitman:

And a pun. Man, that is terrific. Jeremy Solomon, congrats on Second Generation. I can't wait for folks to check it out. Enjoy the rest of your tea and your coffee and your water.

Jeremy Salamon:

Yes. Yes. I pee a lot.

Jason Blitman:

Great, thank you. And that's the pits. Or not the pits, that's pits. Not to be confused with the pits, which is a bad thing. Great. Thanks for joining

Jeremy Salamon:

Yes.

Jason Blitman:

Have a great rest of your day.

Jeremy Salamon:

for having me.

Jeremy. Thank you so much for being here. Everyone makes sure to. Check out his new book. Second generation. And I'll see you all next.

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