Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Radio Best of 2025: World's Worst Restaurant Review, Talking Stomachs and Favorite Calls
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Dec 26, 2025 
Join Lydia Bastianich, an acclaimed Italian-American chef and culinary educator, as she answers listener questions and shares her secrets for making St. Joseph's pie. Adam Gopnik, a staff writer at The New Yorker, joins to discuss his top food book picks of the year. They dive into fascinating topics, including the idea of the stomach as a thinking organ and the thriving culinary culture found in Southern gas stations. Listeners can also enjoy memorable cooking success stories from callers and tips from culinary experts.
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Merciless Review That Became Famous
- Pete Wells described a bewildering meal at Guy Fieri's Times Square restaurant as a series of unanswered questions.
- His review used that confusion to convey the dining experience rather than just list shortcomings.
Turning Firing Into A Food-Truck Break
- Roy Choi told how starting a Kogi food truck followed getting fired during the 2008 crash and having almost no savings.
- He said being at rock bottom let him take the risk that launched his career.
Gut As A Semi-Independent Mind
- Elsa Richardson connected historical ideas about dispersed bodily intelligence to modern gut-brain research.
- She suggested the gut might act as a semi-independent