Editor's note: It's time to meet another one of our stellar interns. Say hey-llo to Lauren!

Name: Lauren McInnes
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Occupation: Student
Website/Twitter: The Daily Berlunch

Guilty pleasures? I don't usually even like snack foods, but I've had this weird obsession with Popcorners (basically a hybrid of popcorn and chips) ever since I tried them on a plane. I really do think they are the best innovation in snacks in the past decade. I like them so much that I sometimes comment on their Facebook page. Also, Haribo gummy bears.

Describe your perfect meal. It might be at this place right near my hometown in Massachusetts called The Market. It's a tiny restaurant right on the ocean where all food is local and the menu changes daily. It'd be some sort of beautiful salad, oysters, fresh fish caught that morning, and housemade pasta, with a cheese platter for dessert.

What food won't you eat? Mayonnaise and overcooked pasta.

Favorite food person? Ruth Reichl is a goddess among women. When I was younger my mom gave me two of her books, Tender at the Boneand Garlic and Sapphires, which really made an impact on me.

When did you first realize you were a serious eater? I have a vivid memory of going over to my great Aunt Alba's house when I around 7 years old to make gnocchi with my Italian grandmother and aunts. We spent all day in her tiny kitchen gathered around a wooden board piled high with potatoes and turned them into the most incredible little pillows. I couldn't get over it. That's the first time I remember being completely in awe of an eating experience.

What do your family and friends think of your food obsessions? I was raised to be food-obsessed, growing up in a family that tends to skip the sight seeing when we go on vacation in order to eat out 3-4 times per day. My friends roll their eyes when I feel the need to take a picture/instagram of everything I eat at restaurants, but they definitely enjoy eating my concoctions.

Favorite food sites or blogs? For restaurant recommendations in New York I trust the site Immaculate Infatuation unconditionally. For recipes, I check out Smitten Kitchen or Steamy Kitchen, and for food porn Gojee is very cool visually.

Everyone has a go-to person they call for restaurant recommendations. Who's yours? I'd like to think that I'm that person for most of my friends, but the truth is when I really need a good recommendation I go to my friend Christine, who is basically a born and bred New Yorker and always seems to know the perfect place to bring your picky grandparents or that friend who has a gluten allergy and wants to eat on an outdoor patio.

What is your favorite meal of the day and where do you get it? I've always been a huge fan of lunch, which I think is one of the least appreciated meals. I'm a sandwich fanatic, but one of my favorite (non-sandwich) lunch spots in New York is Pho Bang, where you can get a giant bowl of perfect pho for 5 bucks.

Do you ever cook? What's the best dish you make? I cook all the time. One of my favorite things to make is risotto. Some people think it's tedious to make, but I find the stirring process kind of therapeutic.

Name: Ari Rudess
Location: Manhattan
Occupation: Student at Wesleyan University
Website/Twitter: wesstuffed.com

Guilty pleasures? I never feel bad about eating really, really good desserts, like handcrafted ice cream or homemade baked goods, but I do feel bad about eating Marshmallow Fluff straight out of the jar. I also love it.

Describe your perfect meal. The other day I had a near perfect meal. It was teriyaki salmon over ginger scallion noodles (the Momofuku recipe, of course), served with mashed cauliflower and roasted radishes in a honey-soy glaze. The only thing that could've made it better would've been a heaping bowl of salted caramel ice cream for dessert.

What food won't you eat? I have a fairly significant phobia of sardines.

Favorite food person? Ruth Reichl. She's such an eloquent writer and her food descriptions are spot on. I love her book Garlic and Sapphires.

When did you first realize you were a serious eater? 'Twas the year 2001. I was at a tiny seafood restaurant in Martha's Vineyard with my mother and my sister. At the time, I really, really wanted my family to get a dog. I had also just discovered a serious passion for New England clam chowder. It was at that restaurant that my two obsessions collided and I declared that our future dog would be named after this delicious soup. Chowder the dog came home with us a month later, and chowder the food has remained a love of mine even to this day.

What do your family and friends think of your food obsessions? I think that my food obsession is hereditary. My great grandmothers were amazing cooks, my aunt and uncle are professional chefs, and my mother was the person who inspired my love of finding great restaurants everywhere in the world. As far as my friends are concerned, most of them share my love of food. It works out really well. I never have to worry about shocking my friends or family when I jump for joy that the local Whole Foods just started selling a new artisanal yogurt.

Favorite food sites or blogs? Serious Eats, The Daily Meal, Eater, Food 52, and 101 Cookbooks, and Sprouted Kitchen.

Everyone has a go-to person they call for restaurant recommendations. Who's yours? I usually rely on blogs for restaurant recommendations, and SE is my go-to!

What is your favorite meal of the day and where do you get it? I love breakfast. It seems like there's an infinite amount of choices! Whether you want something sweet, salty, big, or small, there's probably a breakfast food out there that will fit your requirements. The only thing better than breakfast is brunch, because then you add all the lunch foods to the mix as well. I like getting it at Egg in Brooklyn. You really can't go wrong at that place.

Do you ever cook? What's the best dish you make? I am a TERRIBLE cook. I've been known to set the fire alarm off at least five times trying to sautée vegetables, and to literally burn soup to smithereens, but I'm hoping that will change this summer! I got Mark Bittman's cookbook How to Cook Everything and I'm going to document all my attempts at culinary success on my blog.

Name: Linnea Zielinski
Location: Manhattan
Occupation: Grad Student, Food Writer Wannabe
Website/Twitter: @linneaviktoria

Guilty pleasures? Earl Grey ice cream from Van Leeuwen with fresh whipped cream, black sesame seed chocolate chip cookies, double espressos.

Describe your perfect meal. I have some favorite dishes, but my perfect meal is trying a new place with a lot of people so we can sample just about everything on the menu. Savoring two bites of an array of dishes beats even my guilty pleasure meals any day.

What food won't you eat? I'm half Swedish, but even I won't touch lutfisk.

Favorite food person? Marcus Samuelsson. I haven't gotten my hands on Yes, Chef yet, but I think he's extremely business savvy. I love that he fully embraces both Swedish and Ethiopian culture, puts care into embodying them in his food, and introduces them to his diners with confidence and pride.

When did you first realize you were a serious eater? Growing up in a Swedish house, I was raised on gravlax, marzipan, triple cream brie, and fresh whipped cream. I never stood a chance. Every time our family made the trip from downstate Illinois to Chicago, we brought a cooler so we could stock up on Swedish pastries from Swedish Bakery in Andersonville.

What do your family and friends think of your food obsessions? Everyone I know has been reaping the benefits of my baking experiments for years. I'm pretty sure they're excited I've moved from the oven to the stove and love cooking for a crowd.

Favorite food sites or blogs? Besides Serious Eats: Joy the Baker, A Sweet Spoonful, Lottie + Doof, Food & Wine, Vegan Yum Yum, Gastronomica, Delish, and Food52.

Everyone has a go-to person they call for restaurant recommendations. Who's yours? If I want good sushi I ask my friend, Paige, a food anthropologist. Otherwise it largely depends on what neighborhood I'm looking at going to or type of cuisine I'm craving—everyone has their specialized insider knowledge.

What is your favorite meal of the day and where do you get it? Breakfast, hands down. I'm grumpy without it. If I'm not cooking it for myself, I can usually be found at OatMeals diving into their Balsamic, Fig, and Gorgonzola Cheese Oatmeal or something a little more luxurious from Jack's Wife Freda when I have the time.

Do you ever cook? What's the best dish you make? Even though my kitchen is nowhere near the size for it, I love cooking and do so as often as possible. I make a spicy shakshuka and love making extravagant breakfasts like Brie and Balsamic Sautéed Apple French Toast Sandwiches. Some days I only know one or two ingredients I want to use, so I just make the rest up as I go along.

Name: Craig Cavallo
Location: Brooklyn
Occupation: Waiter/food writer
Website/Twitter: digestny.com/@digestny

Guilty pleasures? I've been known to think outside the bun.

Describe your perfect meal. Anyone that involves friends and wine.

What food won't you eat? Durian! I tried and tried. I think Jeffery Steingarten said if you eat something nine times your body acclimates to it, but I had to call it quits at three. #weirdestfruitever

Favorite food person? David Chang for his incessant creativity and Danny Bowien for his inspired approach to food and the free beer at Mission Chinese.

When did you first realize you were a serious eater? Shortly after I moved to the city in 2005. Food was always central to my upbringing, so when I was wide eyed and anxious in a new city, I found myself feeling at home at dinner tables around town.

What do your family and friends think of your food obsessions? Have you ever seen that TV show Intervention?...

Favorite food sites or blogs? I have a pretty standard routine: Serious Eats, Eater, Grub Street, and Diner's Journal.

Everyone has a go-to person they call for restaurant recommendations. Who's yours? My full-time job is in a restaurant, so I'm surrounded by people who are always talking about new places. I keep a few restaurants on my radar, and when a coworker mentions one of them I put it at the top of my list.

What is your favorite meal of the day and where do you get it? Dinner. I love being able to commit X amount of time to nothing but eating and drinking. I love the satisfaction of having every part of a meal click when you go out to eat. That happened most recently at The Pines, Buvette, and The Marrow.

Do you ever cook? What's the best dish you make? I love to cook. For me, braises are the most rewarding thing to make, but I've been told my bucatini all'amatriciana is pretty good.

Name: Lily Wong
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Occupation: Artist/printmaker, novice food blogger
Website/Twitter: ieat19meals.blogspot.com, lilylilywongwong.com

Guilty pleasures? Eating in bed and eating cheese (I'm lactose intolerant). I also love peanut butter and pickle sandwiches. I used to be so embarrassed about this, but a few months ago there was an article in the New York Times about it, and now I don't feel so alone.

Describe your perfect meal. This is a hard question. I want to eat everything. I guess it would involve my mom's Korean cooking, a cheeseburger, oysters, and grits. But not all together.

What food won't you eat? Jelly beans, black licorice, chicken feet, and fruit cake. I once was in a pasta eating contest and ate too much pesto. It was the worst day of my life. I can still eat it, but now I proceed with caution.

What would you like to try but haven't yet? A French dip sandwich from Brennan and Carr, Rocky Mountain oysters. I have to go to Pok Pok.

Favorite food person? Anthony Bourdain, Mark Bittman. They're so dreamy.

When did you first realize you were a serious eater? It probably all started in my 8th grade computer class. I would finish my assignments really fast so that I could make Powerpoint slideshows of food pictures while everyone else was playing Neopets.

What do your family and friends think of your food obsessions? My parents think it's kind of funny. Most of my friends will try anything with me. They let me be bossy and tell them what to eat for lunch or where their parents should take them for dinner.

Favorite food sites or blogs? I love Tastespotting. I check it more than my email and social media accounts. When the website temporarily went down, I actually cried. The first food website I started obsessing over is a Livejournal community called Picturing Food. At the time the Internet wasn't as saturated with food pictures and I was googling and saving pictures of things I wanted to eat, so when I came across Picturing Food I was totally hooked on it. It'll always have a super special place in my browsing history.

Everyone has a go-to person they call for restaurant recommendations. Who's yours? My friend Melissa grew up in New York, so when I moved here, she was my go-to person. Plus she's just as obsessed as I am. Now she and I always email each other links to places we want to eat.

And what's the best recommendation she's ever given you? Hmm, it's kind of hard to pick just one. The last place we went to together was Szechuan Gourmet, which was really great. We got the pork dumplings in chili oil and the mapo tofu and saved the leftovers for lunch, but they never made it to the next day.

What is your favorite meal of the day and where do you get it? Definitely lunch. When I worked in the Flatiron District, I liked getting ingredients from the Union Square Farmer's Market and putting a lunch together, which mostly means I ate a lot of bread, butter, and arugula. And duck prosciutto. Ideally, all my friends and I would live in Flushing, and every day we would have hand-pulled noodles for lunch at the Golden Mall and/or dosas the Ganesh Temple Canteen.

Do you ever cook? What's the best dish you make? I eat better than I cook, but I do go through phases where I cook a lot. Then I get lazy and eat a lot of pita bread. This phase went on for a particularly long time after I discovered the amazing tzatziki at Mediterranean Foods II in Astoria and ate nothing else. I like to try out a bunch of different dishes, so I haven't gotten around to perfecting any one thing in particular, except maybe turkey. I guess that's kind of boring, but this one Thanksgiving, my friend and I brined a turkey in Guinness beer. It totally ruled.

Name: Paul Cline
Location: Los Angeles, CA (for the next two weeks), then the open road, and finally NYC.
Occupation: Web Developer for Serious Eats
Twitter: @paulandrewcline

Guilty pleasures? A fountain Coke and fries from McDonald's. Cat videos and animated gifs.

Describe your perfect meal. Good company is all that's required for my perfect meal. Something simple, good pizza and better friends. Maybe the number of slices divides evenly between the number of friends.

What food won't you eat? Yogurt. Hard boiled eggs.

Favorite food person? Favorite to have a drink with? Anthony Bourdain. I'd bank on him having the best stories. To cook with? Probably Alton Brown; I like the scientific approach he takes...plus, cooking is always better with a couple of bad puns mixed in.

When did you first realize you were a serious eater? It's a recent revelation for me; as a kid I think I subsisted entirely on starch and sugar. About 5 years ago, after reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, I started to really think about what I was eating. I tend to "learn by doing", so the outlet for my curiosity was cooking.

What do your family and friends think of your food obsessions? I think they're mostly pleased with the frequency in which I'm willing to cook pizza.

Favorite food sites or blogs? Mostly LA-centric stuff: Eater LA, Squid Ink/LA Weekly, Street Gourmet LA, Los Angeles Times and Jonathan Gold. Before I travel, I usually dig through the relevant Chowhound forums.

Who's your go-to person for restaurant recommendations? I tend to rely almost exclusively on the web. Jonathan Gold's archives are a pretty valuable resource to help you navigate LA. I'm looking forward to tapping the vast resources of the Serious Eats office in New York.

What is your favorite meal of the day and where do you get it? Brunch. What's not to like? It's a grown up excuse to drink at breakfast! I'm partial to any spot with bottomless mimosas, but there's a spot in Newport Beach, Sabatino's, that does pigs-in-a-blanket using their housemade sausage and pancakes. It's waaaay too much food, but I'm ordering it anyway.

Do you ever cook? What's the best dish you make? Yep! I cook breakfast regularly, usually by scrambling whatever vegetables (or other random leftovers) I can find in the fridge in a skillet with a couple of eggs.

[Photograph: Robyn Lee]

Name: Tiffany Tay
Location: New York, NY
Occupation: Tax consultant meets pastry cook
Website/Twitter: tothet2.wordpress.com

Guilty pleasures? Anything high in carbs/sugar. And Taiwanese shaved ice with adzuki red beans, mung beans, peanuts and taro chunks. Warning: I will finish the entire bowl no matter how full I get.

Describe your perfect meal. Oooh, that's hard. All I can say is whatever I'm craving at the time but done really, really well. Followed by some Taiwanese shaved ice.

What food won't you eat? I'm up for trying most things, though maybe not some insects/innards.

What would you like to try but haven't yet? Pok Pok, Mission Chinese, more of Tartine Bakery's menu, Kim Boyce's Bakeshop, Macrina Bakery, street food in Thailand/Vietnam/Taiwan.

Favorite food person? Right now, it's Chuck Hughes. I gravitate towards non-U.S. chefs since they often offer new perspectives on food that I don't usually see. His enthusiasm is downright infectious. Plus, his savory and sweet dishes always look so delicious on the small screen.

When did you first realize you were a serious eater? When I asked my friends what they wanted to eat for dinner, and they looked at me funny. We hadn't finished lunch yet.

What do your family and friends think of your food obsessions? They all want to be taste testers. The parents think I should go get a proper job.

Favorite food sites or blogs? A lot. Daily: Serious Eats and The Kitchn daily. Every few days: Tastespotting. Weekly: 101cookbooks, Smitten Kitchen, David Lebovitz, Sprouted Kitchen, Homesick Texan, Green Kitchen Stories...and more, but these are the main ones.

Everyone has a go-to person they call for restaurant recommendations. Who's yours? My ex-pastry chef and his fiance. I'm always in awe of just how much knowledge they retain on what's new in the food industry.

And what's the best recommendation they've ever given you? Mmm...I actually haven't gotten around to following up on a lot of their recommendations (because of cash flow, not because they don't sound good). Though, I suspect the one on dining at the bar of Del Posto and ordering the dessert tasting would be the best one thus far.

What is your favorite meal of the day and where do you get it? That's easy. Breakfast! I'd eat breakfast any time of the day. Usually at home, usually carb-focused (like cereal, granola, a bread I made or a runny egg over crusty bread). If not at home, you'll find me in line at a favorite bakery in whatever neighborhood I happen to be.

Do you ever cook? Just about every day. I get an itchy whisking hand if I don't cook or bake something for awhile.

What's the best dish you make? No such thing as best dish. Only the most scrumptious, inspired dish of the moment.

[Photograph: Max Falkowitz]

As far as I'm concerned, there's no better one-stop shop for spices in this country than the Milwaukee- and Chicago-based Spice House. This second-generation family business sells some of the best spices around, and no matter how far my explorations into the world of spices took me, the Spice House always had what I was looking for. No, scratch that, they had three kinds of what I was looking for.

What goes into running a small business that sells to the top chefs in Chicago and home cooks around the country? I talked with Patty Erd, the store's current owner, to find out.

How did you get started in this business? This is my family business. My parents started it in 1957. My siblings and I all went to college to do other things, because it's not that attractive to just follow in your parents' footsteps as a merchant. But then we got a little bit older, and a little bit wiser, and we saw the beauty of this whole concept, and I thank them every day that I have this way to make a living, because I really love what we do.

What brought them to spices? My dad used to sell coffee, tea, and spices to different restaurants, and he would go deliver them, as a second job. The restaurants eventually told him, "there's good coffee merchants out there, and there's good tea merchants out there, but we really need more spices, so could you focus on that?" So that's what he did. Maybe if he had focused on the coffee part of the business we'd be Starbucks. We're not, but we're doing okay. There's a lot of coffee competition out there, but nowhere near as much spice competition.

So far as I know, the only other company working in your space on a national level is Penzey's. Penzey's is actually my brother's company. But there are more popping up now all over the place, so our competition is actually getting a lot more fierce.

What's different about your operation? We actually process the spices on premises at one of our stores, and there are small grinders in each one of our basements. Someone grinds cinnamon in each store about once a week, and when a man returns from grinding cinnamon for three hours, that's the best he'll ever smell. But the next day that same man might have to grind cumin or black pepper. When he gets on the train to go home, he always gets his own seat.

What are your most popular products? We sell single spices and lots of blends, to regular cooks and to major chefs in Chicago. The blends are our most popular. We have a unique niche in Chicago, a series of blends named after ethnic neighborhoods; I can only imagine what we could do with New York blends! So that's been a lot of fun for us, and those ethnic blends are one of our signature calling cards.

Everyone seems to think great spices have to be expensive, but yours are often cheaper than supermarket brands. How do you price your products? We don't really know why the big spice companies and grocery stores need to charge that much. Our pricing is based on what we pay, with a certain mark-up for labor and costs. Maybe the big companies and the grocery store have very very high costs, but you don't need to sell a bottle of cardamom for $15; in our store you can get half an ounce for $1.50. We're not in this to become spice millionaires. We want to be really accessible to everyone.

How do you find the spices that you sell? Probably 80% of our products come from farmers that band together. If you go to India, there's 200,000 turmeric farmers. Their products often go to a central place, which is then sent over here by a packager, and then we get it through a spice importer. We also deal with a lot of niche and boutique farmers in items that are not commercially produced—we're lucky to have connections for them.

For example, we know a man in California; his mother has a vanilla plantation in Tahiti, but it can only produce a limited amount of beans, and they're very very expensive. We have a really great connection with that farm, and we'll get maybe 20 pounds of Tahitian vanilla beans a month. That doesn't work for a larger company like my brother's, but it works for us.

If you could sit the country down for a lesson on spices and teach us one thing, what would it be? That cinnamon isn't just cinnamon. People know now that apples aren't just apples—there are lots of variations. It's the same way with spices. Also: ground spices have a shelf life, generally speaking one year. Beyond that, they won't make you sick, but they'll have lost their essential oils. Whole spices are a different story. You can keep them for years and years.

What's the strangest thing that happened in your stores? We had our first Spice House marriage. As a small business owner you sort of forget that you can have some impact on people's lives, but two of our employees fell in love, and they're going to have a baby. If it's a girl, they might name her Saffron!

Once we had the great fortune to have Julia Child visit our shop in Milwaukee. She just jumped into things feet first. We had this cinnamon that came from Vietnam, a long log, real thick, and hard as a baseball bat. The trade doors had just opened from Vietnam when she came in, and we were really excited to show her this bark, and then give her a taste in powder form. She took the bark out of my hand and took a giant bite out of it. My whole family was there, because it was a very auspicious occasion, and we all collectively sucked in our breath, and asked, "Do you want to spit that out?" But she kept chewing and chewing and chewing, and 10 minutes later she had chewed it enough to swallow it. She was just so gracious, and she said something like, "Oh my dear, you're absolutely right, this is a delightful cinnamon, thank you for sharing this with me!" She signed the rest of that bark; it's one of my prized possessions.

About the author: Max Falkowitz is the editor of Serious Eats: New York. You can follow him on Twitter at @maxfalkowitz.

Name: Gracie Dulik
Location: Palo Alto, CA / Durham, NC / New York, NY
Occupation: Student at Duke University
Website/Twitter: @graciedulik

Guilty pleasures? I can't resist a classic grilled American cheese sandwich on white bread. Also in the running are salt and vinegar flavored potato chips, microwave popcorn and hot dogs grilled until they are just about burnt. And I have an unhealthy love affair with butter.

Describe your perfect meal. Something fried. Bacon. Avocado. Steak. Melted cheese. Sriracha. Runny egg yolk. Crusty sourdough bread. Butter. Molten dark chocolate.

What food won't you eat? I am very particular about the textures of my food, so things that are too weirdly slimy generally gross me out. I have a hard time eating Jello or most puddings and some fruits and vegetables that get mushy when they are cooked (like eggplant, yuck).

Favorite food person? Anthony Bourdain, because he is absolutely fearless and eats some things I don't think I could ever have the stomach for myself. I'll have to look past his feud with Paula Deen because I continue to admire her undying penchant for deep-frying whenever possible.

When did you first realize you were a serious eater? It was an evolving process, probably beginning with large family meals at our favorite dim sum restaurant in San Francisco and continuing onto my youthful habit of eating four In-N-Out burgers at a time.

What do your family and friends think of your food obsessions? My family is big on eating and cooking so they are used to my fetishes. Many of my friends do not understand my particular food cravings that must be satisfied ASAP, but it usually ends up benefiting them when they come along for the ride.

Favorite food sites or blogs (besides SE)? Anywhere I can waste a significant amount of time looking at pictures of delicious food. Food Porn Daily never disappoints (that's why I set it as my Internet homepage).

Who's your go-to person when you need restaurant recommendations? Depends on the city I'm in, but I can usually always trust my mom to point me in the right direction. She is an amazing home cook and totally approves of my quest to secure the best possible meal.

What is your favorite meal of the day and where do you get it? It is a tough choice, but I keep coming back to breakfast. It can have so many variations: salty, sweet, meaty, bagel-y. At school in Durham, North Carolina I love Foster's Market for home-style Southern brunch, while at home in Palo Alto you can't beat the Creamery Fountain & Grill for classic diner hashbrowns.

Do you ever cook? What's the best dish you make? I would classify myself as a relatively beginner cook, but eager to get better. I am extremely biased towards my own scrambled eggs.

Name: Aaron Arizpe
Location: New York City
Occupation: Server Captain / Freelance Writer
Website/Twitter: pocketfork.com / @pocketfork

Guilty pleasures? What does that even mean? I don't associate food with guilt, only pleasure!

Describe your perfect meal. Company that makes me smile. Champagne that doesn't end. Great bread, crusty and hot. Pim's butter. Tiny courses, lots of them. Mostly vegetables. Some excellent cheese before the desserts. A meal that tells a story.

What food won't you eat? Subway. I can't think of a more repugnant stench than the one that wafts out of their doors.

Favorite food person? David Kinch of Manresa in Los Gatos, CA: orchestrator of meals like the one described in question 2, and object of my immense respect and admiration.

David Kinch's "Into the vegetable garden..." [Photograph: Aaron Arizpe]

When did you first realize you were a serious eater? When I learned an entire language—Italian—just because I had a great plate of pasta and wanted to find another one.

What do your family and friends think of your food obsessions? Friends have come and gone because of them, but my family is stuck with me—suckers! Just kidding. I think people dig my insanity.

Favorite food sites or blogs? Mainly I follow the exploits of similarly sick-minded blogger buddies of mine like Chuck, Bruno, John, Laurent, Felix, Ali and Trine. I also enjoy an Italian site not unlike Serious Eats called Dissapore.

Everyone has a go-to person they call for restaurant recommendations. Who's yours? Bonjwing Lee. He's been everywhere. And he takes beautiful pictures of it all.

What is your favorite meal of the day and where do you get it? Let's call it lunch. Sure, it happens around 1 a.m., but that's usually my second meal of the day and I'm ravenous for it after a night at work. I go all over the place but a few regular spots in my rotation are the halal cart on 53rd & 6th, Casellula, Ramen Sanshiro, and The Spotted Pig (see headshot above). For me and my motley crew of colleagues, the places that say they are open "late" are just deceitful flirts. They don't really mean it.

Do you ever cook? What's the best dish you make? I find great joy in cooking for others but generally don't cook for myself. The best dish I make is probably one of the simplest: spaghetti alla carbonara. Just don't ask me how many yolks I use.

It's time to meet another new SE intern, Hayley! Originally from South Carolina but studying in Scotland, Hayley will be with us all summer at the office. She's already helped us alphabetize our cookbook library (phew), organize taste tests, and shared tasty snapshots from her travels. You'll be seeing many more posts from Hayley, but in the meantime, learn more about her, check out her blog bakingthebook.blogspot.com, and say hello! —The Mgmt.

Name: Hayley Daen
Location: NYC this summer
Occupation: Student at St. Andrews
Website/Twitter: bakingthebook.blogspot.com

Guilty pleasures? Dry cereal straight out of the box and pork scratchings.

Describe your perfect meal. Hmm, can't really say I've had a perfect meal, but the meal I'd most like to recreate was one I had while in Dubrovnik, Croatia. After my brother and I finished kayaking in the Adriatic Sea, our tour guides served up freshly caught fish, grilled and drizzled with fresh lemon juice, a pinch of salt, and a bit of pepper. Alongside the deliciously fresh fish, they gave us miniature potatoes, cut into wedges and tossed in butter, a few tiny tomatoes cut in half topped with a sprinkle of sea salt, and a shot glass full of homemade limoncello.

What food won't you eat? As trite as it sounds, there isn't anything I would point-blank refuse to eat; however, cherries and avocado are unlikely to appear on my plate.

What would you like to try but haven't yet? I would love to have a real, authentic bowl of ramen, in Japan, of course.

Favorite food person? That's tough. I love Donna Hay's books, but Nathalie Dupree is a blast to work with.

When did you first realize you were a serious eater? Probably when I was in Oaxaca around age 10; I noticed that the other members of my family weren't quite as happy to munch on fried grasshoppers as I was.

What do your family and friends think of your food obsessions? They are thrilled. They get to benefit from all of my kitchen experiments! Though I'm sure some of them would complain of my contributions to their waistlines.

Favorite food sites or blogs (besides SE, of course)? Is it wrong to say my own? (only because I enjoy writing and baking so much). I also frequently drool over the recipes and photos on Tartelette and A Chow Life.

Everyone has a go-to person they call for restaurant recommendations. Who's yours? It really depends where I am. In New York, I always ask my friend Lizzy, but I often get recommendations from blogs and guidebooks.

And what's the best recommendation she's ever given you? My favorite place Lizzy recommended is Kittichai—amazing Thai food and a wonderful atmosphere.

Hayley's caramelized onion tart! Get the recipe »

What is your favorite meal of the day and where do you get it? High tea! That's a meal, right? The best place for it is The Old Course Hotel in St. Andrews, Scotland.

Do you ever cook? What's the best dish you make? I'm always cooking. I would say my best is this caramelized onion tart. Always tasty, and you can even make it with store-bought pastry crust if you're short on time. (No one will ever know.)

Partners, cookbook authors, and goat fanatics, Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough. [Photograph: Marcus Nilsson]

Mark Scarbrough likes to refer to himself and his husband/business partner Bruce Weinstein as the hardest working food writers you've never heard of. The syndicated food columnists have been in the business for over a decade and have authored over 20 cookbooks, including the bestselling Ultimate Cookbook series.

The first time I encountered a Weinstein and Scarbrough cookbook was last year when I got Ham: An Obsession with the Hindquarter, which was recently nominated for a James Beard award. Immediately, I fell in love.

Nobody is really writing cookbooks like these two. Part field research report, part cookbook, and part personal food memoir, Weinstein and Scarbrough's cookbooks are approachable, delectable, and hilarious.

This year alone the pair have three cookbooks coming out, the first of which was Goat: Milk, Meat, and Cheese which will be our Cook the Book this week.

Goat is actually the most widely eaten meat across the globe and in this book, the pair share recipes for everything from schwarma to goat cheese sheet cake with maple-goat cheese frosting. Recently, we talked to Scarbrough about how Goat came to be and his approach to meat eating.

From left: Goat book cover, and pan-roasted goat chops with blackberries and sage. [Photograph: Marcus Nilsson]

Your cookbook writing style is very unique. Was it hard to get publishers on board with it? It was very hard to get published at first. Harper Collins was our first publisher and at the time, no one was interested in having any voice in cookbooks. It was the 1990s and books were supposed to compete with the internet; the writing was flat, straightforward, the whole point was just to dispense as much information as possible. Slowly, we began to deviate from the model.

What was the new model? Bruce is a trained chef and he does the cooking. I do the writing. The writing got snappier and snarkier and publishers began to love it. I don't like all of the finger-shaking in cookbooks and a cookbook about goat can get pretentious and condescending very quickly, so we take it back to reality and make people laugh. The end of the book ends with a story about f---ing goats, how great is that?

How did you and Weinstein meet and begin working together? I was in New York and doing some food writing for a website. While on an assignment about piano bars, I was logging into chatrooms and talking to people about NYC piano bars, which is where I encountered Bruce. We chatted for hours and decided to meet the next day at The Guggenheim. It moved pretty fast from there. Bruce had already published a book about cocktails, so we slowly decided to collaborate on books. He quit his job in advertising, I quit my job in teaching, and we've been together for sixteen years and married for four.

Tell me about how the Goat cookbook came to be. The idea for the book actually got sold during a photo shoot for Ham. I told our editor Luisa Weiss that I'd wanted to do a goat cookbook for years and she jumped on the idea. A contract was signed just a few weeks later. It seemed like the right time. Goat meat is tasty, sustainable, lean, and despite being eaten all over the world, it's a cottage industry and it's a very clean meat to eat.

Has working on cookbooks put you more in touch with your food? Definitely. There's a story in Ham about how we have to drive our pig to slaughter and how painful it was. I have a rancher friend who told me that it hurts every time he has to drive a cow to slaughter. When everything is so mechanized and food comes cellophane-wrapped, you forget how tough it's supposed to be to kill an animal. It should be hard and I'm not being romantic about it, I grew up on a farm and I know how things go.

Is the answer to eat less meat? I eat a lot less meat than I used to. Before, I wouldn't eat meat unless I knew where it came from, now I won't eat meat unless I can shake hands with the person who raised the animal. That's the rule I have in my own home, but I won't be a snob about it if someone invites me to dinner. If my mom invites us over for roast that she's purchased at Safeway, I'm going to eat it. Safeway would actually be an improvement for my mom.

"I'm not joking when I say that I eat a Chipotle vegetarian burrito every single day."

Nate Appleman competing on Food Network's "Chopped All-Stars." [Photograph: Food Network]

Some of you became familiar with chef Nate Appleman during his intense stint on The Next Iron Chef. Appleman was known for his nose-to-tail style of cooking, not to mention being ultra competitive. Quite a bit has changed since his appearance on the show. He's now focusing on vegetarian food and recently made a career move that's left many scratching their heads.

Named a Rising Star Chef by the James Beard Foundation and a Food & Wine magazine Best New Chef, Appleman has worked in critically acclaimed kitchens in California and New York but recently took a job working for the chain Chipotle Mexican Grill and currently can be seen working the line at its Manhattan test kitchen in Chelsea.

Appleman broke from burrito-making for a bit to chat with us about his new job and upcoming appearance on Chopped All-Stars this Sunday, March 20.

Chiptole's napkins walk you through the burrito-eating process. [Photograph: Robyn Lee]

What exactly is your new gig with Chipotle?

I can't get into too many specifics, but I'm doing research development. I've been with the company three months and am currently working the line at the Chelsea location, making burritos.

What has the reaction from people in the culinary industry been like?

To be honest, I don't really care. I did this for me and for the people who eat Chipotle's food. I believe in the company and their practices. I didn't do this for other chefs or food people, this isn't a PR thing. It is; however, the craziest thing I've ever done in my life. It's also sort of my way out of the spotlight. I'm not bashing the celebrity thing. I'm a part of it, but I was getting a little overwhelmed.

Why do you think more fast food chains haven't followed suit with natural, organic ingredients?

Most people start chains to make money. Steve Ells started Chipotle as a restaurant and turned it into a chain. Quality wise, things have only gotten better for Chipotle since restaurant number one because the company now has more resources. This model can be used elsewhere, but each Chipotle is independently run. Many fast food places are franchised and Chipotle isn't, which allows them to have more control over the quality of the food they're putting out.

Before joining Chipotle, had you ever cooked Mexican food before?

I'd never cooked Mexican food. We're not serving authentic regional food. We're just scratching the surface of what Mexican food is, but the food is light, crisp, and refreshing.

What's your usual order?

I'm not joking when I say that I eat a Chipotle vegetarian burrito every single day. It's rice, black beans, peppers, onions, and guacamole. I'm thinking a lot about vegetarian food these days, which is kind of funny when you consider what I'm known for. Right now I'm experimenting with something called Garden Blend for Chipotle, which is a soy and protein combo. I'm going for vegetarian food more often and now it's my goal to only eat very good meat, which means eating it much more rarely than I used to. I'm treating meat as something special.

When can we expect to see some of your Chipotle creations?

I'm running a special this week at the Chelsea location; it's a chicken and pork chorizo I developed. I think it tastes really good and it fits into our system, meaning that it will hold up well on the line. Working in this industry doesn't present a lot of constraints necessarily, but you have to take more into account when developing recipes and thankfully, my mindset has always been total carcass utilization. I don't know if people know this, but Chipotle's don't have freezers. Chipotle is the first restaurant I've worked in since I started at 14 that doesn't have a freezer. I've really found a home at Chipotle. I know a lot of people think it's crazy, but I feel like I've landed on a great thing here and I'm really excited about the food.

How'd you get involved with Chopped All-Stars?

I'd only seen one episode because my friend Amanda (Freitag) was a judge. I was happy to do it for charity, but the ingredients were so weird and you don't really have time to think. You start cooking and then think of your dish.

Has your focus in the kitchen changed since having a son?

My focus is constantly changing and still evolving now. I did start making more conscious decisions about where my son and I ate. When I was living in California, there were amazing taquerias, but you never know the source of the ingredients. That's when I started going to Chipotle with my son. It was organic, natural food that I could trust.

Have you gotten used to all the media attention?

I treat media as just another aspect of my job. I'm finally at a point in my life where work doesn't consume me; what I do doesn't define who I am. It still feels weird getting out of a taxi with my son and have strangers come up and talk to me. When I see Rosario Dawson in the East Village do I want to walk up to her and ask her to have my children? Yes. But would I actually approach her? No. Celebrity is a weird thing. I don't know how very famous people do it.

Bastianich making pasta at Eataly. [Photograph: Arion Doerr]

PBS has been producing a stellar lineup of cooking shows for years and chef-restaurateur-cookbook-author Lidia Bastianich has been at the helm of the network's food programming. The host of the Emmy-nominated television series Lidia's Italy, Lidia's Family Table, Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen, Lidia's Italian Table, and La Cucina di Lidia (phew!), Bastianich has been teaching Americans how to cook authentic, regional Italian cuisine for 12 years, and doesn't have plans to stop.

Bastianich's story epitomizes the American Dream. As a child, her family fled the communist government of Pola, Istria (now Pula, Croatia) for a refugee camp in Trieste, Italy, where her parents worked as the hired help of a wealthy family for two years before they were able to emigrate to the U.S. when Bastianich was 12.

Now at age 64, Bastianich and her family (including son Joe Bastianich) have a culinary empire, with four acclaimed New York City restaurants including Felidia, Becco, Esca, and Del Posto, as well as the Italian market hall Eataly, which she opened with her son Joe, Mario Batali, and Oscar Farinetti. There's also Lidia's in Pittsburgh and Kansas City.

While doing press for this short film she's working on, Bastianich spoke to us about her career, how Italian food in America has changed over the years, and what she'd do if PBS lost funding.

When your family opened their first restaurant in Queens in 1971, did you ever dream you'd get this far? Never in a million years. If you would have told me then, I would have laughed at you. Sometimes even now when I read something about myself or see myself on television I think, "who is this person they're talking about!?" As immigrants, we've been very blessed and lucky. We saw opportunities along the way and took them, then continued working hard until we ended up where we are today.

You've really been able to pass on your passion for food to your children and grandchildren. What's the key to raising children who love and respect food?
You have to lead by example. If you're like me, food is a medium for communication. It's an expression of love and affection. By cooking with your kids, you can help them understand that food is a powerful tool in connecting human beings.

How has Italian cooking in America changed over the course of your career? When I first came here, Italian food wasn't anything I recognized. I didn't know what Italian American food was; we never ate it at home. It was the food of immigrants who came here and made use of the ingredients they had. Traditional ingredients were scarce. When our first restaurant opened we couldn't find Arborio rice. We couldn't even make a decent risotto. Now you can find anything.

With PBS' funding hanging in the balance, do you think you could keep your show's format and high standards on another network? That's difficult to say. My message is my message and it wouldn't be my show if it didn't feel genuine, so I'm not sure if it's so much the platform as it is the intention behind it. I obviously hope PBS doesn't lose funding. I would have difficulty not doing what I do the way that I've always done it.

When are you the happiest while working? When I'm connecting with people. I love receiving e-mails from children telling me that they're watching the show. When we're filming I sometimes look into the camera and wonder who's out there, who will be watching.

Ice sculptor and star of Food Network's new show Ice Brigade, Randy Finch. [Photograph: Food Network]

Randy Finch may wield chisels, chippers, and chainsaws like a seasoned pro, but before becoming a renowned ice sculptor, he was a young Michigan chef in awe of the sculptures created by Master Chef Dan Hugelier at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids. Eventually Finch would get to apprentice under Hugelier, which is where he met Derek Maxfield, a man who would become his lifelong friend and business partner.

Fast-forward 20 years and Finch and Maxfield are now experts in their field. They are the co-owners of the successful Grand Rapids-based company Ice Sculptures Ltd. and they're the subject of the new Food Network show Ice Brigade, which follows the two men and their team of ice artists as they make life-sized, interactive sculptures using traditional methods and cutting-edge technology.

Just a few days before Ice Brigade premiered on March 3, Finch chatted with us about the art of ice sculpting and his creative process.

What attracted you to the culinary arts? I was first attracted to the artistic side. As a kid I was interested in design and the way things looked, but I didn't think it would take me anywhere. My dad used to make fun of me for playing with my food, but I understood that you eat with your eyes first. You don't get a second chance to make a first impression.

Was it difficult making the shift from chef to ice sculptor? My knowledge as a chef really helped. I've always been an ice sculptor at heart and I just seemed to be in the right place at the right time. Because I was a chef, I could build ice sculptures specifically geared towards chefs and because of my knowledge, I could break with tradition while breaking ice.

Tell me about your design process. Where do your ideas come from? Sometimes I wake up screaming in the middle of the night and have to start sketching immediately. Other times we turn to the client and their needs first, then the sparks start flying and for whatever reason we say, "How do we make this as difficult as possible?" We're always trying to push the envelope. This year we made a fully-functioning carousel out of ice and a sushi station that featured a dry ice grill. Basically we have a lot of fun and we do things we would have gotten kicked out of high school for. I feel like I haven't worked a day in 20 years.

Finch sculpting life-sized chess pieces. [Photograph: Food Network]

Is there anything special about the ice you work with? The ice is manufactured to get density down. Traditionally, crystal clear ice is used and it freezes from the bottom to the top to get all of the impurities out. In the U.S., crystal clear ice is the preference, but in other countries white ice is used and I think it has more character and depth. A lot of what we do comes from experimenting with the ice and expanding on pre-conceived notions of what an ice sculpture is.

We're always deconstructing why things are done the way they're done and the Food Network has really allowed us to blow things up. Sometimes it's very stressful to be creating things no one else has. You're literally writing the how-to manual while trying to please clients and meet a deadline.

What do you hope people learn about your craft when they watch Ice Brigade? Ice sculpting is a rare art form and I hope that comes across. If you spark up a chainsaw and start hacking away at a block of ice, you might as well be handing out money because that's how many people will check out a live demonstration—but it's about more than that. Ice sculptures aren't just for Academy Awards afterparties. I want people to see the creative process, how sculptures are made, the tools we use, and I want them to get to know our diverse crew. We may not always get along, but at the end of the day we respect each other and have fun and if viewers see even half of what I see in these people, they'll fall in love with them.

Finch and the Ice Brigade crew. [Photograph: Food Network]