This year it's Thanksgiving big time with Judy Rodgers, one of America's most gifted chefs and author of The Zuni Café Cookbook. Judy's Thanksgiving Menu is modern but homey, and includes a turkey roasting technique designed to free up precious oven space and an interesting stuffing idea.
The kitchen of tomorrow is on scientists' drawing boards today at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, and we love what they're cooking up. Are you ready for a kitchen table that cleans itself and a coffeemaker in your car? We are! How about dial-a-smell that sends the tantalizing scent of tonight's dinner wafting over the telephone line to family and friends? It's the new kitchen science, and we've got the scoop.
Award-winning journalist Russ Parsons, food editor of the Los Angeles Times, joins us to explain what goes into making a leading newspaper food section and shares three simple tips to make life in the kitchen easier. His new book, How to Read a French Fry, explores the science behind basic cooking techniques and includes recipes, such as his Seafood Rice Salad, that illustrate cooking principles.
We're eating out in America with Ruth Reichl, editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine. Ruth will talk about what's driving chefs these days, how our eating habits are changing, and where in the entire country she would eat if given only two choices and they couldn't be famous restaurants. Gourmet's October 2002 issue is all about restaurants—from big-city, upscale, and grand to local, down-home, and cozy.
This week Gina Gallo, a third-generation member and first female winemaker in the famed Gallo family, joins us with tales of Ernest and Julio and growing up in the family business.
Hints of fall are in the air, we want to get back into the kitchen and cook, and Sally Schneider, author of A New Way to Cook, is going with us. Sally's healthy, lusty food is what we want to eat right now, and her sensational Fall Menu for A Splendid Table is the best inspiration we know.
"We journey to Vietnam this week with our guide Mai Pham, author of Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table. We'll hear about street life, street food, and home cooking as she tells of a country at peace for the first time in a century and of a cuisine that's perhaps the freshest and brightest in all of Southeast Asia. We can't wait to try Mai's recipe for Lemongrass Beef on Cool Noodles.
We're talking with scholar, explorer, and beer anthropologist Alan Eames, author of The Secret Life of Beer. Alan has tracked down beers in Amazon jungles and Egyptian temples, and survived being held at gunpoint by guerrillas in his quest to discover beer's origins. He believes it's at the heart of nearly every culture and he claims beer is, and always was, about women! Jane and Michael Stern have found cheeseburger heaven in upstate Connecticut. Minimalist cook Mark Bittman has had a life-changing experience with chickpeas. He stops by to tell all and give us his recipe for Chickpea Soup with Sausage.
This week we're taking a look at farmers' markets with award-winning author Deborah Madison, whose latest book is Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America's Farmers' Markets. Deborah traveled America to determine if local markets can save the vanishing family farm and whether farmers can even make a living selling their harvest at these markets. She leaves us with a menu and recipes for a Late Summer Vegetarian Feast, just the thing right now to take advantage of summer's bounty.
It's a real variety show this week with controversies over apes with Dr. Frans de Waal, one of the world's leading primatologists and author of The Ape and the Sushi Master. Dr. de Waal theorizes that apes are more like us than we think, and it's demonstrated in how they deal with food.