This week it's a newspaper that gets it. America is food obsessed as never before, yet newspapers across the country are slashing their food sections down to a few recipe columns off the wire amid a mass of ads. And forget local coverage. An exception is the San Francisco Chronicle food & dining page. Executive food and wine editor Michael Bauer joins us to talk the plight of the food page. The recipe for Pomegranate and Spice-Braised Pork comes from the Chronicle.
We're taking a look at Zinfandel, the mystery grape swathed in controversy, its origins lost in the mists of time. Wine historian Charles Sullivan, author of Zinfandel: A History of a Grape and Its Wine, joins us to unravel its questionable past.
This week we're creating spaces for entertaining. It's not about remodeling, it's about working with what you already have. Our guest is architect Sarah Susanka, whose latest book is Home by Design: Transforming Your House Into a Home.
This week it's a look at Antonin Carême, the world's first celebrity chef. Abandoned by his family at age nine to starve on the streets of Paris, Carême overcame impossible odds to achieve wealth, fame and an unheard of independence. In the process he reshaped French cuisine. His biographer Ian Kelly, author of Cooking for Kings, tells the story. Carême's recipe for Orange Flower and Pink Champagne Jelly takes us back to the 19th century when he cooked for kings.
Indian food expert Madhur Jaffrey joins us this week with the tale of how curry turned global. It's all about India's caste system and Britain's lust for empire. Madhur shares her recipe for Cilantro Chicken from her latest book, From Curries to Kebabs: Recipes from the Indian Spice Trail.
This week, our guest Trevor Corson, author of The Secret Life of Lobsters, takes a new look at endangered sea life. It's story of underwater feminism, renegade scientists, and amorous crustaceans!
We're talking living and eating in the south of France with none other than Patricia Wells, restaurant critic for the International Herald Tribune and the most prominent American authority on French food today. Patricia's new book, The Provence Cookbook, is the latest addition to her roster of titles about cooking, traveling and eating in Paris and France. She leaves us her recipe for Fresh White Beans with Garlic and Light Basil Sauce, and recommends a visit to Le Bistrot du Paradou.
Peter Mayle, author of A Year in Provence, joins us this week with a send-up of France's latest wine craze. It's all about the scams and hype that have us sniffing our wines for traces of impertinence and pencil shavings! Peter's new novel is A Good Year.
This week it's the story of a life-altering sweet tooth. Our guest, Steve Almond, author of Candyfreak, has lived his entire life for candy and surely knows more about candy history than Mars and Hershey combined. The Sterns are choosing between democracy and dictatorship at Hallo Berlin, a sausage cart on the streets of New York.
Funny and frank journalist Linda Ellerbee joins us this week to talk travel, eating, and the meaning of life. She shares a recipe for Mama's Rescued Fudge Pie from Take Big Bites: Adventures Around the World and Across the Table, her recently published memoirs.