But in the meantime, the TV landscape is hardly a desert. There are new shows about Iron Chef-quality sushi, José Andrés and his family touring Spain, a five-star luxury hotel’s fancy kitchen and so much more.

In no particular order, here are seven shows about food you might want to start watching tonight.

Searching for Soul Food, Hulu

There’s no tireder food trope than calling soul food simple. It’s a complicated cuisine with a history spanning generations and continents. Here to unravel it is Alisa Reynolds, a classically trained chef from L.A. on a quest to investigate the “trauma and drama” of soul food.

The results are more upbeat than that sounds, thanks to Reynolds’ effervescent personality and comedic timing. The first season starts in Mississippi, where we learn how slaves transformed “elevated pet food, the scraps” into scrumptious recipes that persist to this day. The show’s interspersed with interviews, animations and historical reenactments – we meet James Hemings, Thomas Jefferson’s ex-slave chef, who put French fries on the American menu. And things literally take off when Reynolds gets in a jet to hunt for international soul food such as pizza in Naples, jerk in Jamaica and native-Japanese fusion Nikkei in Peru.

Morimoto’s Sushi Master, Roku

Do you have what it takes to serve delicious sushi to the Iron Chef himself? That’s the challenge on this new show in which Masaharu Morimoto, writer and chef Kenji López-Alt and Top Chef’s Dakota Weiss judge the sushi mastery of contestants vying for a $25,000 prize. (Tip: When serving raw fish, remove the scales first.)

Knives fly and sweat pours as contestants butcher fish, season rice and arrange plates of oceanic delights, all under Morimoto’s clucking supervision. Viewers might pick up handy tips – like how to open a live urchin with scissors – or recipes for kelp-cured kampachi and chirashi with hay-smoked aji.

“Sushi Master” is a visual delight for those who love Japanese cuisine. At one point, a chef holds a fat hunk of fish to his cheek and announces, “I love ahi tuna!” After watching all the close-up shots of glistening, artfully cut sushi, you will, too.

Lessons in Chemistry, Apple TV+

Oh, the indignity of being a female chemist in the 1950s. When your male colleagues aren’t calling you “sweetie” or mistaking you for a secretary, they’re suggesting you drop your life’s work to enter a beauty pageant. But scientist Elizabeth Zott has another future in store – one in which she’ll use her knowledge of amino acids and the Maillard reaction to helm a TV-cooking show, in this adaptation of Bonnie Garmus’ popular 2022 novel.

To say that “Lessons in Chemistry” takes a turn after its initial setup is an extreme understatement. There’s a descending stairway of head-spinning twists — and to go any farther would be spoiler territory. Let’s just say, Brie Larson nails her character of a quirky savant fighting the patriarchy, one who at home puts 70-plus experimental trials into baking the perfect lasagna. Oh, and there’s also a tear-jerker episode told from the perspective of the family dog, played by B.J. Novak. (You read that right.)

The Great British Baking Show, Netflix

Now in its fourteenth season, “The Great British Baking Show” isn’t new. But it does have a new host this season – Alison Hammond. A presenter on the UK’s “This Morning,” Hammond is the first person of color to host or judge the show. She replaces former host and comedian Matt Lucas.

Judging by the first several episodes of the season aired so far, Hammond is a supportive and calming presence in the notoriously stressful bakers’ tent. She appears to have restored the show’s hallmark friendliness and warmth, which has been noticeably absent in recent seasons. Last season drew widespread criticism on points that ranged from non-baking challenges to tone-deaf episodes such as last year’s controversial “Mexico Week.” Showrunners have announced they’re dropping nation-themed episodes and going back to basics.

Three episodes in, the bakers — who include early leaders Tasha Stones, the show’s first deaf baker, and engineer Dan Cazador — have baked cakes shaped like animals, illusion biscuits and complex braided breads for their showstopper challenges.

Five Star Chef, Netflix

The Langham is a five-star luxury hotel in London and, by George, guests must have the fanciest of foodstuffs! Enter seven contestants vying for head chef at the hotel’s Palm Court restaurant – but first they must impress Michel Roux, a two Michelin-starred chef. He’s a stickler for classical technique and prone to ding a bad dish by lamenting, “It pains me.”

Sometimes, he’s right to be pained. Each chef has a unique vision for the restaurant, whether it be Caribbean, Nordic or “Theatrical Dining Experience.” The latter chef serves things like Bondage Lobster (with tied-up claws and seaweed blindfolds) accompanied by gesticulating circus performers, mortifying every judge at the table.

The show’s a bit like “Top Chef,” but the focus is luxury food. Americans will learn a lot about British food and dining traditions, and by the end might agree with one judge that “this is not a Battenberg!”

Restaurants at the End of the World, National Geographic/Disney+

Want to learn more about Kristen Kish, the new “Top Chef”‘ judge? Check out “Restaurants at the End of the World,” a four-part series hosted by Kish that’s part adventure travel and part culinary spotlight with all the gorgeous visuals you expect from NatGeo. Each episode highlights a different restaurant and the remarkable lengths their chefs must go to as they source local ingredients in very remote locations.

How remote? The restaurants include Panama’s Hacienda Mamecillo, a hike-up restaurant which sits high atop a mountain in a cloud forest. Svalbard’s Isfjord Radio is perched on an island in the Arctic reaches northwest of Norway. Maine’s Turner Farm sits in the middle of Penobscot Bay, reachable only by boat. And Brazil’s Sem Pressa is a boat.

Kish rappels down a waterfall in Panama to source fresh watercress and digs in Brazilian mangrove muck for sururu, a bivalve mollusk, to make the perfect seafood meal. In Svalbard, she snorkels in freezing water for sea urchins and snags fresh ice from a glacier, before getting to work in the chefs’ kitchen making reindeer tongue and melon appetizers and passion fruit-kimchi sorbet.

José Andrés and Family in Spain, Discovery Plus, Max and weekly on CNN

You may know José Andrés as the visionary chef who popularized Spanish cuisine in the U.S. through restaurants like Zaytinya (which is expected to open a location in Palo Alto in 2024), or perhaps as the philanthropist whose nonprofit World Central Kitchen provides meals to people amid global disasters.

What the six-part “José Andrés in Spain with Family” shows is that he’s also a pretty goofy dad, whose knowledge and enthusiasm for Spain and its food is infectious even to his toughest critics: his daughters. As he gushes over each bite at the world-class eateries the trio visits – many at establishments operated by his friends – Andrés’ adult daughters, Inés and Carlota, respond with the occasional good-natured eye roll or “OK, Dad,” although they’re clearly having fun, too.

Seeing how this family travels together is almost as inspirational as the meals themselves. The Andres family seems to float seamlessly from one stop to the next, powered by tapas and Cava.

Each episode highlights regional dishes, including Pastas del Consejo, cookies invented for a young prince at a royal bakery in Madrid; a fine-dining spread for the ages at Disfrutar, a restaurant by chefs who, like Andrés, previously worked at El Bulli; and a calcot (a vegetable that’s a mix between a spring onion and a leek) barbecue at a vineyard belonging to one of Andrés’ friends. Father and daughters also explore local nonfood traditions on their travels, from human tower-building in Catalonia to flamenco dancing in Andalusia.

This show might just make you want to eat your way through Spain alongside family, too.

Among 100 recipes for flavor bombs with names like The One & Only Hoagie and Crispy, Crunchy Brocc & Grains with So. Much. Mint., the cookbook provides this formula for a Pumpkin-Cannoli Cheesecake Cake.

“I like to think this version of the pervasive pumpkin bread is a major upgrade — it’s topped with a creamy ricotta cheesecake layer that tastes like the filling of a great Italian cannoli,” Baz writes. “My pumpkin cake (it’s a cake, let’s just admit it) doubles down on ginger — there’s both freshly grated ginger in the batter and crystallized ginger in the cheesecake filling, because why settle for just one expression of fall’s quintessential ingredient when you can have two?!”

Pumpkin-Cannoli Cheesecake Cake

Makes one 9-inch cake

INGREDIENTS

1 cup vegetable oil, plus more for the pan

1¼ cups raw, shelled pistachios (6 ounces)

1½ ounces crystallized ginger

1 orange

1 pound fresh whole-milk ricotta cheese

4 large eggs, divided use

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons sugar, divided use

2½ cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, divided use

2 tablespoons vanilla extract, divided use

2 teaspoons kosher salt, divided use

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground cardamom

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 (2-inch) piece fresh ginger

1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin puree

DIRECTIONS

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9-inch springform pan with vegetable oil. Line the bottom with a round of parchment paper cut to fit, if you’d like to more easily transfer the baked cake to a plate or cake stand to serve. Grease the parchment.

Make the cannoli cheesecake topping: Coarsely chop 1¼ cups raw, shelled pistachios. Set aside 2 handfuls for sprinkling later on. Transfer the remaining pistachios to a large bowl.

Finely chop 1½ ounces crystallized ginger (you should have 1/4 cup). Using a vegetable peeler, remove the zest of 1 orange in strips. Thinly slice them lengthwise. Now thinly slice the strips crosswise to finely chop.

Add the orange zest and crystallized ginger to the pistachios, along with 1 pound ricotta cheese, 2 large eggs, ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, 1 tablespoon vanilla extract and 1 teaspoon salt. Whisk vigorously until smooth. Set the ricotta mixture aside for now.

Make the batter: In a medium bowl, whisk together the remaining 2½ cups all-purpose flour, cinnamon, cardamom, baking powder, the remaining 1 teaspoon salt, freshly grated nutmeg and baking soda.

Finely grate enough of the 2-inch piece of fresh ginger to measure 1 heaping tablespoon. Add that to a large bowl, along with the remaining 2 large eggs, remaining 1½ cups sugar, the pumpkin puree and remaining 1 tablespoon vanilla extract. Whisk until smooth. Add 1 cup vegetable oil and whisk until incorporated. Add the dry ingredients in 2 batches, stirring just until no floury bits remain.

Assemble and bake: Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Add the ricotta mixture on top and spread it to the edges in an even layer. Scatter the reserved pistachios over the top.

Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake layer comes out clean, 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and let cool for at least 20 minutes. Run a knife around the edges of the springform pan to loosen it. Release the cake from the pan, place on a wire rack and let cool before slicing. Store any leftovers in the refrigerator — the cake’s great cold, too!

— From “More is More,” copyright © 2023 by Molly Baz. Photographs copyright © 2023 by PEDEN + MUNK. Illustrations copyright © 2023 Claire McCracken. Published by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Random House, $31.50.

The book is structured around the seasons, so in spring you’ll find Pan-Roasted Pork Chops with Spring Onion Gravy and a Shaved Spring Onion Salad, and in the summer a Grilled Lobster with Lime-Jalapeno Butter and Spicy Old Bay Corn on the Cob. For autumn, home cooks seeking a twist on Thanksgiving pumpkin pie might try out his decadent Chocolate Pumpkin Pie.

“If a flourless chocolate cake and a classic pumpkin pie had a love child, it would be this silky, sinful dessert,” writes Symon. “I made a version of it for Thanksgiving during the second season of (ABC’s) ‘The Chew,’ and it absolutely blew up on my social media pages. You can cheat a little by using a store-bought crust.”

Chocolate Pumpkin Pie

Makes one 9-inch pie

INGREDIENTS

1¼ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling

8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar

2 to 4 tablespoons ice-cold water

6 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped

3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

1 (15-ounce) can pure pumpkin

1 (12-ounce) can evaporated milk

3/4 cup packed light brown sugar

3 large eggs

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Pinch of ground cloves

DIRECTIONS

Make the pie crust: In a food processor, combine the flour, butter, salt and granulated sugar and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse sand with small marbles of butter remaining. Sprinkle in 2 tablespoons of ice water and pulse until crumbly and the dough holds together when squeezed. If the dough appears too dry, sprinkle in another tablespoon or two of cold water, being careful to not overmix the dough. Transfer the dough to a plastic bag, press into the shape of a disc and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to a 12-inch round. Carefully press the dough into a 9-inch pie pan. Trim the dough to leave a 1-inch overhang all around. Flute or fold under the excess dough. Fit a large piece of parchment paper into the pie shell and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Transfer to the oven and bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Leave the oven on but reduce the temperature to 325 degrees.

Make the filling: In the top of a double boiler set over medium-low heat, combine the semisweet chocolate, bittersweet chocolate and butter. Cook, stirring frequently, until melted and smooth. Remove from the heat.

In a large bowl, combine the pumpkin, evaporated milk, brown sugar, eggs, cornstarch, vanilla, cinnamon, ginger, salt, nutmeg and cloves and stir to combine. Fold in the melted chocolate.

Place the pie pan on a baking sheet, pour the filling into the pie crust, and bake until the filling is set, about 1 hour. Refrigerate until cooled completely before serving.

— From “Simply Symon Suppers,” copyright © 2023 by Michael Symon. Photographs copyright © 2023 by Ed Anderson. Published by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Random House, $35.

This year, instead of celebrating pumpkin season with a traditional pie, consider showcasing the iconic golden squash in one of these desserts, each sourced from a different cookbook coming out this fall from Molly Baz, Michael Symon and other noted food writers.

Hosting a fall brunch? Try wowing guests with a Pumpkin Bundt Cake topped with a maple cream glaze. It has all the traditional pumpkin-pie spices — cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and allspice — with a maple-mascarpone glaze that takes it over the top. The recipe hails from New York food writer Samantha Seneviratne, whose new cookbook, “Bake Smart: Sweets and Secrets from My Oven to Yours” ((Harvest, $35), hits bookstores on Nov. 7.

Looking for a show-stopping bake of the maximalist variety? Try the ambitious Pumpkin Cannoli Cheesecake Cake, which comes courtesy of Molly Baz, the former Bon Appetit food editor and online-video host whose first cookbook, 2021’s “Cook This Book,” rocketed up The New York Times’ best-seller list. She’s following that debut with another cookbook, “More Is More: Get Loose in the Kitchen” (publishing Oct. 10 from Clarkson Potter) that emphasizes her love of bold, bracing flavors — more garlic, more vinegar, more mortadella, more… well, basically everything.

“My pumpkin cake (it’s a cake, let’s just admit it) doubles down on ginger — there’s both freshly grated ginger in the batter and crystallized ginger in the cheesecake filling — because why settle for just one expression of fall’s quintessential ingredient when you can have two?!” Baz writes.

Want a decadent and chocolaty take on pumpkin pie? Look for inspiration from Michael Symon, the grinning, shiny-pated genie of so many reality-food shows. He and coauthor Douglas Trattner teamed up to write “Simply Symon Suppers” (Clarkson Potter, $35), a compendium of 165 recipes that includes a silky chocolate pumpkin pie recipe.

“If a flourless chocolate cake and a classic pumpkin pie had a love child, it would be this silky, sinful dessert,” writes Symon. “I made a version of it for Thanksgiving during the second season of (ABC’s) ‘The Chew,’ and it absolutely blew up on my social media pages. You can cheat a little by using a store-bought crust.”

For a more straightforward, travel-friendly bake, throw some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies in the oven. This recipe comes from Colleen Worthington, cofounder of Kneaders Bakery and Cafe, which has locations across Western states from Nevada to Colorado.

“(These cookies) are so good,” she says, “they just may become your tradition as well.”

Sons & Daughters is a one-starred Michelin restaurant in San Francisco that offers, in addition to its $225 tasting menu, a $95 beverage pairing. Sounds reasonable? Well, consider the nine beverages are all nonalcoholic.

Cured Mount Lassen trout might come with a coriander shrub with white and purple currants. Maine lobster is paired with lactic-fermented green strawberries, raw carrots and strawberry vinegar, and Umpqua Valley lamb has beetroot juice with blackberries smoked over applewood.

The spirits-free pairing is actually one of the less expensive options in the Bay Area. San Francisco’s Kiln offers pairings designed by a former lead sommelier at Atelier Crenn for $125, and Healdsburg’s SingleThread mixes another for $150 to accompany 10 courses of Michelin-starred cuisine.

Harrison Cheney, executive chef at Sons & Daughters, says he shouldn’t need to defend the price tag of his pairing — despite it having the buzz equivalent of a deep breath of mountain air.

“We’re lactic-fermenting gooseberries. We peel and wash and weigh and season them, then let them ferment for five days,” he says. “We’re juicing carrots and bringing them together in seasoning. There are a lot of processes, and they’re almost mini-courses in a way.”

Fancy nonalcoholic restaurant drinks is nothing new. It’s been at least a decade since Copenhagen’s Noma supposedly started the trend. But they’re reaching heights never before seen in fine dining. That goes triple in the food-obsessed Bay Area. If you don’t have a stonefruit-infused kombucha mocktail on the beverage menu, it’s almost like you don’t have a real menu at all.

“I think mocktails are a must-have on any beverage menu. I require two to four crafted, no-ABV cocktails on all of our menus,” says Dean Wendel, executive director of food and beverages for Concord Hospitality, which runs dozens of U.S. hotels, including The Exchange in Sacramento, California.

“These need to be well-thought out and curated to fit the guest. Gen Z is not a huge alcohol-consuming group, but they do want to socialize. You have to be able to offer them something intriguing to keep them there.”

Blossom & Root, a new fine-dining vegan restaurant in Danville, California, serves a sparkling “Mermaid” lemonade that turns Caribbean blue when mixed with spirulina syrup at the table. In the near future, it might have mocktails with dark-green ice cubes thanks to a healthy infusion of chlorophyll.

“We’re sort of moving toward a future right now where new generations aren’t really focused on drinking alcohol,” says general manager Carmelo Pullaro. “So we need to make some drinks for everyone that are enticing, flavorful and full of ingredients that normal alcoholic cocktails would have, and still make your mouth water and your mind go ‘Wow!’”

Being a vegan operation, mocktails help Blossom & Root avoid the pitfalls of the alcoholic-beverage industry. Warning: You might want to skip this part if you enjoy drinking wine.

“They’re still using old-world tactics. I know some wineries are using a fish bladder to filter the wine,” Pullaro says. “Then there are winemakers who use bone char to refine the wine. It’s actually quite hard to find wines that are vegan.”

Wildseed, a vegan restaurant in Palo Alto and San Francisco, carries an extensive menu of mocktails, including a N/Agroni with corn silk and smoked thyme and a Passion Sour with nonalcoholic rum, lime and a cloudlike topping.

“We use aquafaba, the chickpea liquid, which if done correctly in cocktails, gives it the fluffiness and soft texture of egg white,” says senior general manager Leilani Powers. “That’s one drink that’s intended for somebody who wants to feel like they’re drinking alcohol, but doesn’t want to feel the effect.”

These beverages aren’t just about accommodating different tastes, says Powers. They also make economic sense.

“More and more people are choosing healthy lifestyles and not to drink alcohol, so I do think it’s important to be flexible and change with the times,” she says. “That part of our beverage program is growing each year. I would say it’s now probably about 35% of our entire sales on the beverage side.”

As mocktails gain popularity, tastes have become more exacting. For a while you couldn’t make an authentic-tasting, no-alcohol Sazerac or Manhattan because a key ingredient, cocktail bitters, contains alcohol. Enter Ian and Carly Blessing, former French Laundry sommeliers who last year founded All the Bitter in Chico, California. It’s one of perhaps only three companies in the U.S. making nonalcoholic bitters – there’s one in New Orleans, another in Colorado – and business is booming.

“Nonalcoholic cocktail bitters were something the marketplace was in desperate need of,” says Ian Blessing. “We started off developing recipes in our home kitchen. Now we’re moving into a larger space in our own 3,000-square-foot facility, and we’re adding more tanks, more employees, everything.”

The tinctures are made from a base of vegetable glycerin, water and apple cider, and require many more raw botanicals and longer steeping times than traditional bitters.

“These products were probably always needed, but for whatever reason they just started to come around in the last couple of years,” he says. “And now that these options exist, it’s impossible to ignore. It’s no longer acceptable to offer a Shirley Temple or some muddled mint in a glass of pineapple juice and Sprite. That’s fine for your 7 year old, but I’m a 37-year-old grown man.”

Boozeless bitters — and NA wine and spirits alternatives — aren’t just for teetotalers. Eighty percent of people buying these alternatives still drink alcohol, says Blessing.

“They’re not sober,” he says. “They’re simply people who are trying to drink less, who are maybe pregnant, or aren’t drinking for Dry January or Sober October, or work tomorrow at 9 a.m., or are training for a marathon. There are a million reasons why you might want to continue your evening and want another beverage, but don’t want more alcohol.”

That thinking extends to the upper echelons of the brewing realm. Wendy and Felipe Bravo are the founders of the Fox Tale Fermentation Project in San Jose, California, which last year was named best new craft brewery in the country by Hop Culture magazine. Aside from brewing their regular beers, the Bravos mix a line of nonalcoholic Mock Tales using ingredients such as fermented blackberries, violets, damiana tea and nettle syrup.

“What I get from our customers is a lot of gratitude that we put so much intention into these drinks — that it’s not a second thought like, ‘Here’s a Topo Chico,’” says Wendy Bravo. “They don’t feel like they’re missing out on something. I think that’s the most important part of it — people feel like you care about them, and they still belong in this social situation whether or not they drink.”

The elixirs are popular at Fox Tale, contributing up to 15% of total sales. “Folks in their 20s sit with Mock Tales throughout the night and go through quite a few of them,” says Bravo.

Of course, all this prompts the question: If they’re not drinking, what are Gen Z kids doing for fun these days?

“Hah — getting high,” jokes Felipe Bravo.

“Bunch of legal weed,” laughs Wendy Bravo. “Who knows? But it is cool to see a lot of young folks coming in who are happy with not drinking. And it feels like that’s a very positive thing — it feels empowering.”

“There’s not a huge difference between clear and cloudy ice in taste or melting speed,” he says. “But aesthetically, it’s a gargantuan difference between ugly, cloudy, garbage ice and slick-and-glossy, diamond-style clear ice. You can eat filet mignon out of a ditch, or you can eat it off a plate at a fine-dining restaurant.”

English, a cocktail writer from San Francisco, was once a consumer of “garbage ice” – those home freezer tray cubes with fuzzy-white nebulae. But in 2009, he devised a homegrown technique to make ice as clear as a Siberian lake in winter. He basically employed an Igloo cooler to “directionally freeze” ice from the top down and force air bubbles and minerals to the bottom, where they are cut or poured off. English now travels the planet giving talks about ice and has an army of ice nerds on Instagram trying to top one another with spectacular frozen delights.

This May, English ventured out of the freezer and onto the coffee table with “The Ice Book: Cool Cubes, Clear Spheres and Other Chill Cocktail Crafts” (Red Lightning Books, $22). In it, he lays out his process for making clear ice, provides cocktail recipes like “Negroni Spagliato in a Clear Ice Punchbowl” and gives ideas for making your own beautiful ice with fruit, flowers and colorings such as beet powder and cuttlefish ink. There are also helpful tips. Never hold an ice pick at the back, don’t have your freezer too cold, and be careful what you forage: “A beautiful leaf you picked on a hike might look pretty when frozen into an ice cube, but it might also be poison oak.”

The world’s “preeminent cocktail ice scholar,” as the Guardian dubbed English, recently took the time to talk about his hard-H2O obsession, ice-making TikTok insanity and “mystery pillars” that can wreck your freezer, if you’re not careful (this interview was edited for brevity):

What attracts you to ice as a hobby?

I didn’t get into scrapbooking. I got into ice cubes. The good news is ice cubes aren’t permanent. You can make your little project and then drink it or water your plants with it. You haven’t wasted too much of your time or money and, most importantly, it doesn’t take up space when you’re finished. It just melts.

How much ice-making gear do you have?

I have an entire armoire full of stuff, including zillions of trays and cutting tools and ice picks and saws and insulated coolers and stuff to freeze inside of ice cubes, from novelty toys to Halloween decorations. I have ice-ball presses that squish a cube of ice into a sphere, about five different commercial, clear ice-producing trays, plus a whole lot of tools to pattern and bedazzle ice in various ways.

What’s your water bill like?

Luckily my landlord is paying that.

How many things did you try before coming up with your method in 2009?

I went systematically through some of the ways to make clear ice “in theory,” such as boiling water. I would freeze it and then let it melt and freeze it another time. It wasn’t getting any clearer. I tried boiled water, distilled water, even carbonated water just to see what would happen. It made cloudy ice, all the time – that’s what happened.

You’ve inspired thousands on social media to make their own perfectly clear ice. What’s that like?

I’ve been contacted more than five times this week alone, and it’s only Tuesday. People ask questions about their ice and why it’s not freezing clearly. I have people sending pictures of their “horrible, ugly ice” and it has one bubble in it. I’m like, “My dude, your ice is fine. The problem is you.”

There’s an Instagram tag for #cleariceweek which happens once a year now (in January). What’s blowing up on TikTok into utter insanity is ice-restocking videos, and people demonstrating basically my method from over a decade ago. It’s a whole genre with people pouring ice into 13 different containers in their freezers – coffee-flavored ice, ice infused with flowers, small sizes and big cubes and different colors.

In the book, you give tips on how to hold peelers and ice picks. Was that learned from hard experience?

I think most bartenders would agree the most dangerous equipment in the bar is the Y-peeler for citrus. It just wants to take a layer of skin right off your thumb if you’re not careful. I’ve done that only twice, because there’s a lot of blood when you do it, so I don’t make that mistake anymore. I’ve learned I’m not very handy, so for me to use an ice pick is taking a step toward my eventual death, but I’ve actually only poked myself in the hand just once.

Tell us about this strange phenomenon of the “mystery pillar”?

When you make ice cubes in a cooler system, often one cube pops up out of the tray and starts forming a pillar skyward. If you go out of town, that pillar can grow and pin into the ceiling of your freezer. In my case, I had to chop it off in the middle to extract it – I thought I was going to break my freezer.

What are your favorite cocktails to make?

For me, it’s the same thing as salad. I’ve never had an incredible salad I’ve made for myself, but when other people make a salad, they seem to be better. So I like to go out for cocktails and then drink simple drinks at home – but with the best ice in San Francisco.

According to a new ranking of 2023’s Best Places to Bike by the Boulder-based advocacy group PeopleForBikes, Minneapolis came in first for most cyclist-amenable major city, followed by San Francisco, out of nearly 1,500 cities in the U.S. For medium-sized cities, Davis in Yolo County — the home of the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame — ranked first, followed by Ankeny, Iowa, and Berkeley.

The rankings from PeopleForBikes are meant to reflect the quality of a city’s bicycle network. Six factors are taken into calculation: safe speed limits, protected lanes, reallocated space for biking and walking, intersection design, network connections and trusted data. Cities have also received numerical scores, which the group explains thusly:

“Each city receives a City Ratings score on a scale of 0-100. A low score (0-20) indicates a weak bike network, meaning the city lacks safe bikeways or there are gaps in the network. A high score (80-100) indicates that most common destinations are accessible by safe, comfortable bike routes that serve people of all ages and abilities. For larger cities, a score of 50 is the tipping point to becoming a great place to bike.”

Here are the top five best places to bike in 2023 from the large and medium-sized city categories. For the complete list check out the full ranking:

Large cities (population above 300,000)

1. Minneapolis (68 percent score)

2. San Francisco (63 percent score)

3. Seattle (62 percent score)

4. Philadelphia (57 percent score)

5. Portland, Ore. (56 percent score)

Medium cities (population 50,000-300,000)

1. Davis, Calif. (77 percent score)

2. Ankeny, Iowa (74 percent score)

3. Berkeley (72 percent score)

4. Boulder (68 percent score)

5. Corvallis, Ore. (63 percent score)

Yuki Burton and Omonivie Agboghidi can — on their unexpected but totally delightful run to the finale on Peacock’s “Baking It.” For those not in the know, “Baking It” is a reality show in which teams of bakers make complex treats to please a judging panel of wise grandmothers. It’s hosted by Maya Rudolph and Amy Poehler (Andy Samberg hosted in season one), and features episodes with themes like “Bake Your Fears,” “2 Sweet 2 Savory: Crustastrophe” and “Explosive Master Bakes” in which cakes literally explode.

Agboghidi and Burton, who live in Oakland and were sorority sisters at UC Berkeley, got pulled into the show when a casting director noticed Burton’s cakes on social media. (She runs a luxury buttercream-cake business called Barika Bakes.) Burton roped in Agboghidi, an emergency-medicine physician at the Wilma Chan Highland Hospital Campus, and taught her everything she knew about baking in a span of weeks.

“We came in with very low expectations,” says Agboghidi. “We had no plans to make it to the finals at all. At the end of every episode, we kind of looked at each other like, ‘How are we still here?’”

The duo recently chatted about their experiences on the latest season of “Baking It,” which ended in January, as well as about the Black baking community and how to make diners recoil in horror. (This interview was edited for brevity.)

Q: So, how’d you two meet?

Agboghidi: We both attended UC Berkeley as undergrads living in the African-American Theme Program and have been best friends ever since. I was the maid of honor at her wedding, and she has supported me through my medicine journey, and even flew out to Ohio when I graduated from med school with a cake on her lap.

Q: You’ve described filming the very first episode as stressful. Was there a lot of stress eating on set?

Burton: I wish. But with the food regulations, you’re not allowed to eat (the cake) after, because it’s been sitting out for so long.

Agboghidi: Sometimes I’d be so stressed out, I didn’t even want to taste the cake. And after filming and coming home, I did not want to see, look, stir, whisk or bake a cake. If anyone offered to bake me a cake, I was just like, “I’m out.”

Q: I hope that hasn’t ruined you for life?

Agboghidi: Oh no, it’s definitely faded away. I’m back on my cake diet.

Q: Is there a lot of pressure not to disappoint the grannies?

Burton: Absolutely. We hold them in high, high esteem, and they are just as cute if not cuter in real life. We wanted to impress them every time, and we took their feedback very seriously.

Agboghidi: That’s one thing I wish folks were able to see more of on the show. The fact that, yes, these are judgmental, judgy grandmas, but also they give a lot of insight and advice. Even after judging, they’d come up to us to talk and give learning points to use in the next challenge.

Q: Do you have a favorite granny?

Burton: Definitely GiGi. GiGi’s our girl – so warm and so kind but also critical in a loving way, like she wants you to improve and do your best. She just brought a different type of energy and flavor.

Q: At one point Omonivie broke out into song to time a bake so it wouldn’t burn. What inspired that move?

Agboghidi: People who know me are like, “That’s so you.” Ever since college, we always bust out in songs or remix songs we know – we’re just goofy like that. I think the only thing missing was a glass of wine, otherwise it was just like we’re at home.

Q: For the phobia challenge, you baked a cake that looked like a doctor’s coat and bled when it was cut, making the hosts go “Eww!” Tell us about that?

Agboghidi: I’m proud of that one, not just because we won, but also I was able to use that opportunity to address something important to my career and to a lot of minority communities when you talk about “white-coat syndrome.” (That’s when simply visiting a doctor’s office is enough to cause elevated blood pressure, a documented effect.) There’s just a lot of fear that people have toward doctors and healthcare, and I loved the opportunity to use our bake as a learning moment.

Q: Can you tell us about the Juneteenth cake you made for the finale?

Burton: We wanted to use this platform not just to share about our sisterhood and bond over the past 15 years, but also highlight our culture and pride in being Black women. I just love how detailed we were, that every single tier represented a different time period in African-American history. All the fondant details Omonivie did were handmade – little African drums, a silhouette of Harriet Tubman, and we had edible African-print fabric on the bottom.

Agboghidi: We were really excited to include all these different elements to represent this holiday of Juneteenth, which is the emancipation of enslaved peoples here in America, and do it in a very fun, creative and vibrant way. I hope we were able to make people hungry – hungry for cake but also to learn more about this holiday and ways they can celebrate it in their own communities.

Q: Do you think America needs more Black bakers?

Q: Are Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph good bakers?

Burton: We didn’t get to see any active baking, but they definitely were helpful with their humor in the kitchen and breaking up the stress and anxiety. But I feel like they would be quick learners, if they wanted to jump in and try and mix anything up.

Q: What was it like working with them?

Agboghidi: They’re absolutely hilarious. And hanging with them is like a reflection of us, like, “Oh, that’s where we’re going to be in another 5 or 10 years.” It’s cool to see another best-friend duo who has shared so much experience together and also works together, too.

Follow the bakers on Instagram at @BarikaBakes and @OmonivieMD. Barika Bakes is accepting custom orders for 2023 at barikabakes.com.

Weir’s latest sci-fi novel, “Project Hail Mary” (Ballantine Books, $29), is very much an apocalyptic story. It deals with an imminent climate disaster that threatens all of humanity. And if that sounds familiar, you’ve either been reading the news or you’ve stepped into a bookshop.

The past few years have seen an explosion of speculative fiction mirroring real-life emergencies, from the rise of fascism to environmental degradation to the toxic legacy of colonialism.

Why would authors want to dabble in apocalypse and dystopia, when the world is doom-filled as is? For Weir, a former Mountain View resident who lives in Chicago now, it boils down to the belief that society will eventually make things better.

“I’m a fairly optimistic person, at least when it comes to humanity. I think we’re a fairly cool species,” he says. “I think we can all agree that 2020 sucked, right? But I’d rather live through 2020 again than 1920. I don’t know about you, but none of my friends has died of typhoid fever. My Black friends can go into any business they want. I would rather live through the peak of the pandemic than the routine year of 1920 – although they had a pandemic just finishing up then, too.”

In “Project Hail Mary,” scientists notice that the sun is dimming at an alarming rate. The culprit is a weird space organism that imbibes the star’s energy in order to breed. Astronauts must venture forth and figure out what makes it tick. Fortunately, Weir has given his hero, Ryland Grace, some tools to battle Armageddon – he’s a former microbiologist from San Francisco, albeit a goofy one prone to making dad jokes. (Grace is partly based on the author himself; look for Ryan Gosling to play him in the movie version.)

The novel’s enemy is reminiscent of blue-green algae blooms, which are caused by pollution and warming waters and can extinguish life from vast marine zones. Weir wasn’t particularly inspired by such real-life concerns; he was more interested in structuring a book around a nifty, hypothetical space fuel. “I’m just a dork who for some reason gets to write about science stuff, and people like it,” he says. “For me, it’s just like, ‘Look at this cool science-y thing! Isn’t that cool? This is so cool.’”

Indeed, the novel has gotten the stamp of approval from science-y types the likes of Bill Gates who, in his typical expression of enthusiasm, dubbed it a “fun diversion.” Of course, not all speculative fiction offers such a romp. “The Confession of Copeland Cane” by Keenan Norris presents a near-future Oakland that’s a little too close to today’s urban dystopia.

“What I wanted to do is imagine forward some trend lines that are already present,” says Norris, who lives in San Leandro, “and think about their logical conclusions, particularly for those who are not so privileged, aren’t receiving the best education and who live in places with environmental harms.”

On his first birthday, the Black protagonist of “Confession” is automatically entered into California’s gang database. He spends time in the exclusive city-within-a-city known as Piedmont – sorry, “Piedmontagne” – which has its own private police force. After trying to sterilize black mold in his home with chemicals, he’s imprisoned for attempted arson and goes on the run. Tracking his movements is a powerful media corporation called the Sinclair Broadcast Group – whoops again, that’s “Soclear” – that was founded by Stephen Miller and signs off with “Sieg Heil.”

At one point, the hero falls into a sinkhole on Treasure Island and believes he’s irradiated. “It is left up to the reader to decide whether these are simply the maturations that a young man, given his circumstances, would go through,” says Norris, “or whether there’s something deeper related to the environment of Treasure Island, which both in the book and actual fact is a hazardous-waste site.”

“Confession” won the 2022 Northern California Book Award for fiction, putting it in a crowd of dystopian novels that have garnered critical acclaim this year — “Babel” by RF Kuang and “The City Inside” by Samit Basu among them. These works build upon a long literary tradition of imagining how much worse things could get. It’s a tradition some would argue dates back to the Bible or at least to Mary Shelley’s “The Last Man” and George Orwell’s “1984.” So why the genre’s enduring popularity?

There’s evidence that dystopian content triggers something powerful in the human brain. In a study published in 2018, researchers exposed people to “The Hunger Games” and “Divergent,” two YA series that feature heroes who rebel against totalitarian regimes. Afterward, those people were “more likely to believe that radical and even violent political action against a government perceived as unjust would be justified,” says Calvert Jones, one of the authors at the University of Maryland.

Young people connected especially vigorously with dystopian narratives. “A strong attraction here may be a need for agency against powerful forces, which characters like Katniss in the ‘Hunger Games’ or Tris in the ‘Divergent’ series showed,” says Jones. “When people feel relatively helpless against forces beyond their control – wars, economic distress, natural disasters, for example – that feeling of efficacy can be very compelling.”

Charlie Jane Anders is a sci-fi author in San Francisco who’s won the Hugo, Nebula and Theodore Sturgeon awards. Her latest trilogy is geared directly at this demographic. It’s a space opera about exploring far reaches and fighting quasi-fascists. (It’s been picked up for TV by Amazon and Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society.) The middle book, 2022’s “Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak,” opens in the “Age of Despair,” something kids today can probably relate to.

“I think young people are painfully aware at this point we’re living in a slow-motion compound apocalypse in which climate change, the collapse of unsustainable systems and our political dysfunction are leading to problems that will eventually cause damage on a scale that’s hard to comprehend,” Anders says.

The series’ universe has many clever technologies you can imagine breaking into our own world. Because it’s an advanced space community, home to many LGBTQ characters, people use an automatic translator to ensure they use correct gender pronouns. There’s a popular game called “WorstBestFriend” that pits the player against a virtual frenemy who passive-aggressively bullies them – self-destructive fun at its best.

The bad guys are called the Compassion, cynical doublespeak that could have been torn from today’s political playbook. They believe in the innate superiority of humanoids with two arms and legs over, say, a species with tentacles or a head in a different place.

“They don’t just go around trying to motivate people on anger. They really play on fear and uncertainty and chaos,” says Anders. “I think for a story for kids and teens about saving the galaxy, it’s good to explore the fact that the adults around you don’t always know what they’re doing.”

Anders hopes her books might inspire action for a future not so far, far away.

“People who grew up on stories like ‘The Hunger Games,’ we’re starting to see them believe they can fight against unfair regimes in real life,” she says. “And I really hope that they do. I hope everyone who grew up reading those books – and that’s a lot of people – all become adults who want to tear down oppressive systems.”

“It’s crazy – there’s plenty of activity. I was just in Tiburon and a humpback whale came right into Raccoon Strait (inside the Bay), a couple hundred feet away,” says Bill Keener, a cetacean research biologist at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito.

Abnormally cold waters have led to an abundance of krill and anchovies (so much so that fish have rained from the sky). Following the food and their massive appetites are humpback whales, pushing off the coast and sometimes through the Golden Gate. In fact, the Golden Gate Bridge right now is a decent place for whale-watching; if it doesn’t pan out, you’re at least likely to see some pinnipeds.

For folks who want to head out to observe the whales, here are some of Keener’s favorite spots. To maximize your chances, “binoculars are a must,” says Keener. Also, try to head out at high tide or when the tides are strongly incoming; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) predicts those.

“I think they use the flooding tide or incoming tide to ride in toward the coast farther and often use outgoing tides on the way out,” says Keener.

Finally, when you spot a whale don’t forget to report it to the Marine Mammal Center for its research.

Pacifica

“I can tell you that recently the Pacifica (Municipal) Pier has been good,” says Keener.

The pier is open daily from 4 a.m. to 10 p.m. Find more information at www.cityofpacifica.org/?navid=346.

Fort Funston

This park, which is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, offers great views. Head for “a cliff where the hang-glider port is, in very southern San Francisco,” says Keener.

Open daily. Find park details at www.nps.gov/goga.

Lands End

Lands End, which is also part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, is “a very good spot,” Keener says. “It looks out onto the Golden Gate area.”

Open daily. Find details at www.nps.gov/goga.

Marin Headlands

Point Bonita is another Keener favorite for whale watching. This National Park land is open daily. The Point Bonita lighthouse is open from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. Friday-Monday, but the best vantage points are from the nearby trails; www.nps.gov/goga/pobo.htm.

Point Reyes

“Point Reyes is always good because it’s so far out in the ocean, you can get humpback whales,” Keener says. “From January to May, you get gray whales, as well.”

The Point Reyes National Seashore is open daily. Find maps and more information at www.nps.gov/pore.

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