Dan Pashman is one of those increasingly rare people who always wanted to be in radio. His career began at the turn of the millennium as a producer and reporter for NPR, Air America, and SiriusXM. But after years of layoffs—six of them in under a decade—and an industry in steady contraction, Pashman found himself at a crossroads, just as podcasting was quietly emerging as a new frontier.
In 2010, he created The Sporkful, a show he describes as being “for eaters, not foodies.” With a decade of false starts behind him and a young family in front of him, Pashman saw the podcast as his last real shot at the career he’d imagined. Long obsessed with food, he finally had a platform to shine a light on something he cared about deeply and personally.
Built on curiosity, humor, and an almost comical level of rigor, The Sporkful began as a place to obsess over everyday details—ice cubes, grilled cheese, cereal milk—and slowly evolved into something much larger. Over time, the show grew into a platform for exploring culture, identity, business, and human connection, using food as the point of entry.
That evolution reached a turning point when Pashman embarked on a multi-year, deeply personal experiment: inventing a brand-new pasta shape called cascatelli. The project became a narrative podcast series, an award-winning creative risk, and eventually a real product on grocery store shelves.
Part of what makes The Sporkful work so well is Pashman’s willingness to let his personal point of view lead the way. He embodies the idea that embracing individuality is often what allows a creative project to resonate more universally. The podcast also coincided with the moment food became popular culture, and whether by instinct or timing, Dan arrived just as food was on the way up.
Along the way, The Sporkful opened doors to other opportunities, including Pashman’s Cooking Channel segment You’re Eating It Wrong and two cookbooks.
Here Pashman talks about creative obsession, building a sustainable podcast business, the tension between audio and video in today’s media landscape, integrating advertising without losing listener trust, and what he sees as one of the secrets to his success: "Never underestimate the power of desperation," he says.
It’s a candid, process-oriented look at how a modern creative career actually gets built, one forkful at a time.
