Carla Lalli Music has spent years working in many facets of food, from restaurant-managing to editorial work, to teaching. Today she is a James Beard Award-winning author, podcast host, and host of her popular youtube cooking series, Carla’s Cooking Show. Listen in for an episode chock-full of recipes and tips, along with tales from the culinary and publishing worlds. We begin with her tried and true, go-to soup that she found herself revisiting during the pandemic, and all across the years with its many iterations, and get into food memories---from her childhood and through college. We discuss how she thinks about meal prep; tips for new home cooks and cooking in college, where and how to get the best culinary training, what she learned about chefs, cooking and restaurants during her time at Bon Appetit magazine, working for Martha Stewart, cookbooks, cookbook writing, her process behind recipe naming, and how she learned to write for the home cook. She shares what it’s like when she’s recipe-developing, and her vision for her distinct visual branding. We talk about the importance of good on-set vibes for creating and making, and the secret sauce that makes her cookbooks ones that the home cook reserves a permanent place for on their counters. We discuss personal influences, and Carla shares some insight into food writer and television cook Nigella Lawson, including why Nigella loves her work. We got the media maven’s take on why cooking content has exploded online, and we talk the many ways in which people make cooking videos. Carla breaks down Borderline Salty, the podcast she shares with fellow cook and author, Rick Martinez , their relationship, how they met, and why they complement one another. We wrap with the lessons found in learning, going and getting what’s next, what she’s cooking next, and a must-have list of her most favorite things.