Affogato bout it 🤌🏾

That’s that me espresso and gelato

First things first, some exciting news: Samin Nosrat and Austin Kleon are going to be joining me on stage as my conversation partners for my album release shows in San Francisco, CA, and Austin, TX, respectively.

Samin is, of course, my co-host on Home Cooking, and the best-selling author of Salt Fat Acid Heat and Good Things. So much of our friendship has been spent giving each other pep talks through our individual work, so she knows all about the long journey I’ve had to get back to making music. We’ve had a lot of phone conversations about this album while I was going through it, and I’m looking forward to talking about it once it’s finally out.

Austin is the best-selling author of some incredibly influential books about creativity: Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work!, Keep Going, and Don’t Call It Art, as well as an artist himself. He’s been taking apart the creative process and been engaged in it, and sharing wisdom from what he’s found. I highly recommend his newsletter, too. I’ve gotten so much practical advice from his writing, and I hope it’s not too presumptuous of me to think of him as a kindred spirit.

More incredible guest moderators to be announced very soon. In the meantime, you can get tickets to the shows here.

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Last week, I was in New York for On Air Fest, the podcast festival. My events were so fun, but what might have been the highlight for me was a brief quest that I got pulled into. During a lunch break, I ran into Dan Pashman, host of the wonderful, award-winning food podcast The Sporkful. We’ve been on each other’s podcasts, but the festival was our first time meeting in person. In that moment, in the hallway of the hotel lobby, Dan had a look of urgency.

“What are you up to?” I asked. He told me he had 45 minutes until his next event, and he was on a mission to try the acclaimed soft serve from Cafe Panna in that time. Did I want to join him?

I had never heard of Cafe Panna. I didn’t know where it was. It was 36º F out. Obviously—obviously—I was in.

From my lucky place on the peripheries of the food world, I’ve gotten to be around chefs, bakers, restaurateurs, food writers, and others who know a lot about great food. And I’ve learned that if someone in their position is excited about eating something, you should probably follow along.

Plus, a constant goal of mine is to experience new things, but it’s so easy to give in to the inertial power of familiar things, of routine, of old favorites. I try to create little adventures for myself, but it takes forethought and planning and research. What a gift to suddenly stumble into someone else’s adventure.

Dan, myself, and a small company that materialized around our impromptu field trip set off from northern North Williamsburg all the way to southern Greenpoint (about a 5 minute walk). The cold weather was our friend, because apparently Caffe Panna usually has an enormous line, but we walked up and put our orders in immediately. Dan, as promised, went for the soft serve. But a description on the menu caught my eye: Affogato means “drowned” in Italian, as in our creamy soft serve gelato is drowned by a double shot of freshly pulled espresso.

Last summer, the New York Times published an article about a study that found drinking coffee was linked to healthy aging outcomes. Somehow, reading that article broke my decades-long eschewal of caffeine. My wife is a coffee lover who makes a pot of drip coffee with a Chemex every morning, and I started having a small cup with her. One thing I hadn’t considered until now: by bringing coffee into my life for its health benefits, the door was now also open to coffee-based desserts. And this: cold gelato melting in hot espresso, but not too quickly…oh my god.

Fine, I’m late to the game on coffee, on affogatos, and it turns out, even specifically the affogato at Cafe Panna. I don’t care! I am changed! And it feels great.

I’ll admit part of my excitement for going on tour this spring is the chance to discover new foods in new places. If you have any recommendations for food adventures for me to stumble into in any of the cities, please let me know. (Leave it in the comments so others can, too.)

A concert and conversation with Hrishikesh Hirway and special guests, in celebration of the upcoming album In the Last Hour of Light:

4.22 - Austin, TX - 3TEN | tickets
5.14 - Los Angeles, CA - Pacific Electric | tickets
5.16 - San Francisco, CA | tickets
5.27 - Nashville, TN - Analog at Hutton Hotel | tickets
5.30 - Chicago, IL - Lincoln Hal | tickets
6.7 - Seattle, WA - Triple Door | tickets
6.11 - Cambridge, MA - Sinclair | tickets
6.13 - New York, NY - LPR | tickets

You can pre-order the album here.

Thanks!
Hrishikesh

iridescent gold vinyl!