from kCRW i'm evan klyman and you're listening to good food another year another turkey by the time you're

my age you can't quite believe how many you've made are you ready for thanksgiving well we're in

the home stretch just five more days until the big day it's become an annual tradition of the show to invite a

friend to co-pilot this episode. And this year, I'm very happy to have one of the smartest people I know,

Ariel Johnson, by my side. Hi. Hi. Ariel is a flavor scientist. Yes, that is an actual job.

Some of you may know her as the founder of Noma's fermentation lab.

And others will know her as the author of the indispensable book, Flavarama,

A Guide to Unlocking the Art and Science of Flavor.

And we're especially grateful to have Ariel here because she's joining us

from Istanbul, where she happens to be speaking at a conference about, well, flavor. Thanks for

having me on. I'm so glad I could join. And I'm sorry that I seem to have picked something up on

the plane over and lost my voice a little bit. But, hey would a flight be like without like some nasal issues at the end?

I think it's a tradeoff for the carbon footprint, honestly.

Good point. So what is your relationship to Thanksgiving? Do you love it? Do you loathe?

Are you somewhere in between?

Well, I would say that my strengths are not so much in the home economics side of it, even though I appreciate that a lot.

So I have definitely been known in my family to be the one to make a very detailed spreadsheet about exactly when things need to be timed and go in, because like if you're going to do it, you should do it properly. And that makes me popular with some

people, unpopular with others. So yeah, I'm kind of looking forward to a more relaxing Thanksgiving,

possibly not a spreadsheeted one, but it can be a great canvas for

pretending that you run a restaurant and yelling at your family.

I love that.

Do you bring your flavor scientist hat to your own Thanksgiving meal, or do you just lean on

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