This week we're off to Santa Fe for a visit at a destination restaurant that never lost its heart. After 20 years Café Pasqual still shines, the food is still dynamite, and the service is still a hoot. Our guide is the woman who makes it all happen: restaurateur Katharine Kagel. She shares a seasonal recipe—Sugar Pumpkins Filled with Vegetable Stew in Chipotle Cream Sauce—from her book, Cooking with Café Pasqual's: Recipes from Santa Fe's Renowned Corner Café.
This week it's everything sushi—the things you didn't know you need to know, like what should not be in your soy sauce, and the big clue to whether the sushi maker is a master or not. Our guide is Dave Lowry, author of The Connoisseur's Guide to Sushi: Everything You Need to Know About Sushi Varieties and Accompaniments, Etiquette and Dining Tips and More. It's burgoo and mutton barbecue for Jane and Michael Stern. They're dining at George's in Owensboro, Kentucky.
Food historian John T. Edge joins us this week with a dissertation on the little ring of dough that became a patriot, a movie star, and stirred up some good old American ingenuity. The recipe for Zingerman's Roadhouse Donuts is from John's new book, Donuts: An American Passion.
It's back-to-school time and the question facing every parent in America: the lunch box issue. How do you pack healthy food that the kids will actually eat? Consumer rights warrior and mom Marion Nestle has answers. Marion's new book is What to Eat: An Aisle-by-Aisle Guide to Savvy Food Choices and Good Eating.
This week we're grilling with all-American ingenuity, or what our guest, Dan Huntley, calls "contraption cooking." It's all about a special league of cooks who have cobbled together brilliant and often wacky cooking rigs. Dan leaves us his recipe forPyro's Burnt Endsfrom his bookExtreme Barbecue: Smokin'Rigs and Real Good Recipes.
We're off to Italy this week with Italian food and culture authority Fred Plotkin. He takes us to the luscious and evocative region of Marche, an area little known to Americans where the charm rivals Tuscany but you aren't likely to run into your neighbor. The recipe for Scampi al Prosciutto is from Fred's book, Italy for the Gourmet Traveler.
This week it's the wonder and biology of honey and the bees that make it. Journalist and beekeeper Holley Bishop, a woman who fell for bees the way one might fall for a puppy, tells the story. Holley is the author of Robbing the Bees: A Biography of Honey, the Sweet Liquid Gold that Seduced the World. Her Berry Striped Pops are the perfect icy snack for these dog days of summer.