We chat with Ted Allen about the soaring success of Queer Eye and Chopped, his life behind the scenes and embarrassing encounters with Martha Stewart. Plus, we explore the new German cooking with Meike Peters; Adam Gopnik discusses the role of turkey in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”; and we whip up an apple cake.

This episode is brought to you by King Arthur Flour, Ferguson and Master Class.

Questions in this Episode

My husband and I host family for a holiday dinner every year and we always serve white Bolognese. This year we are near doubling the guest count from previous years and we are expecting 20 people. What’s the best way to execute this?

What do I do with a winter melon? We were given one and have no idea how to use it.

I am trying to make a challah bread that will form strands of bread when pulled apart as opposed to a bread that has a fine cake-like crumb. All the recipes I've tried result in a fine-textured bread, but not the long strands that I remember from the challah we bought from the bakery when I was a child. Any ideas on what I should do?

Last year, I bought a copy of Luisa Weiss' Classic German Baking. There is one part of the book that I'm not so happy with, and that's her recipes for Christmas Stollen—mostly because it's not there. She explains in her book that she tried numerous recipes for traditional Stollen and just couldn't get it right—primarily because of the amount of butter required for the bread, making it difficult to get a good rise. I'd love to try making it for myself instead of buying it prepackaged from the import store but is it really that impossible?