Special Sauce With Ed Levine

The last Special Sauce I recorded in a studio before the coronavirus pandemic hit was with the multi-talented chef, opera singer, and restaurateur Alexander Smalls. He was just about to publish his new book, Meals, Music, and Muses: Recipes From My African American Kitchen. It was March 11th, and after an hour-long interview I found myself in awe of Alexander. We hugged in the green room at the studio as we said goodbye, and that was in fact the last hug I have received from anyone besides my wife since. It was an extraordinary interview, befitting an extraordinary man, who I think is the only person in the world to have won a Tony, a Grammy, and a James Beard Award. But now, three months later, given what's transpired in the interim, we thought it was time to check in with the remarkable Mr. Smalls. We were very confident that he would have a lot to say about our current state of affairs. And as you're about to hear, he most certainly did. But before you hear all that, we decided to include a big chunk of o