Paula Wolfert, the culinary scholar and author who brought cassoulet, roast garlic and confit to America, joins us to talk about the updating of her groundbreaking classic, The Cooking of Southwest France. Her recipe for Chicken Breasts in Garlic Wine comes from the area around Agen, located halfway between Bordeaux and Toulouse.
Britain's beloved columnist Nigel Slater joins us this week to reflect on cooking at home. He talks a kinder, gentler English Christmas and shares his Christmas Day Roast Goose, Juniper Sauce and Apple and Lemon Purée from his latest book, The Kitchen Diaries: A Year in the Kitchen with Nigel Slater.
This week our guest, Andrea Nguyen, takes us to Vietnam for a look at the culture and lore behind a cuisine that began 4,000 years ago with a prince from the sea. Andrea leaves us her recipe for Chicken and Cellophane Noodle Soup from her gorgeous book, Into the Vietnamese Kitchen: Treasured Foodways, Modern Flavors.
This week novelist and wine critic Jay McInerney joins us to talk "wine characters" he loves. From the brilliant to the beguiling to the outrageous, it's a look at those folks who are making wine fascinating right now. Jay's latest book is A Hedonist in the Wine Cellar: Adventures in Wine.
Award-winning chef Susanna Foo shook up the traditionalists at her Philadelphia restaurant by marrying international cooking techniques and American ingredients. The result is delicious food that's fresh, light and approachable while staying true to Chinese culinary traditions. An example is Mandarin Potato Salad with Cellophane Noodles from her new book, Susanna Foo Fresh Inspiration: New Approaches to Chinese Cuisine.
Lynne is here when you need her the most, just a phone call or e-mail away. Don't miss one of the liveliest call-ins of the year. It's Thanksgiving triage at its best. Guests include Chris Kimball of Cook's Illustrated magazine and PBS's America's Test Kitchen, our regular wine wit Joshua Wesson, Seattle Chef Tom Douglas and many more.
Thanksgiving opens the season for hospitality. Between now and January we'll carve turkeys, swap cookies, light candles and be terribly social. There's no better guide to the art of hospitality than restaurateur Danny Meyer. Every night for twenty years he's entertained guests at his eleven eateries in New York City. He joins us with tips to get us through the season with style and grace. Danny's new book is Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business.
At 29, our guest Julie Powell was stuck in a mind numbing job and feeling defeated, aimless and depressed. In one eureka (some would say deranged) moment she decided that her salvation may lie in cooking her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She set out on August 25, 2002; a year later she emerged, battered but with her psyche intact and her soul renewed. Her book, Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes and 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, is the chronicle of her journey as well as a tribute to Julia. Julia Child's Leek and Potato Soup is a classic.
This week it's a French moment back in 1976 that turned the tide for California wine. Our guest is former Time magazine correspondent George Taber, author of Judgment of Paris. He reports on that moment when the earth moved in the Napa Valley. The Sterns are eating at Harmon's Lunch, a monomaniacal luncheonette in Falmouth, Maine with a two-item menu; and Lynne reports on her own "Sterns' moment" at Polehna's Meat Market in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
This week it's bliss and total control for coffee lovers. We're talking home coffee roasting with Kenneth Davids, author of Home Coffee Roasting: Romance and Revival. He has tips and sources for home coffee roasters for the truly java obsessed.
Why would a successful New York magazine editor willingly take six months off to become a slave in a restaurant kitchen? Our guest, Bill Buford, editor of The New Yorker, answers that question in Heat: An Amateur's Adventures As Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany.
This week it's an often-overlooked gem that food snobs never take seriously: the great American peanut. Our guest, food writer Wendell Brock, takes us back to his roots in Georgia's peanut country for a look at the caviar of goobers. His fiery Chile Peanuts take bar snacks to a new level.
This week it's the classic summer place: Martha's Vineyard. It always tempts vacationers to stay, and some move in. Our guest, Vineyard native and local chef, Tina Miller, talks what it's like to live there, the people who make the island what it is, how they live off the land and sea, and how a renaissance turn of mind is essential. The recipe for Lobster and Sweet Corn Fritters, the very essence of summer, comes from Tina's book, Vineyard Harvest: A Year of Good Food on Martha's Vineyard.
Have you ever wondered what food pros want to eat when they travel? Gourmet magazine's John Willoughby says it's street food. He joins us this week with his picks of the cities with prime eats, along with safety tips for eating from street food carts. A recipe for Watermelon with Fennel Salt comes from the May 2005 issue of Gourmet.
This week it's a look at one woman's dream job: buy a French farmhouse, renovate, and pay for it by opening a cooking school. Our guest, Susan Herrmann Loomis, is living the dream and the reality. Susan's recipe for Melon and Lime Parfait is just right for summer. It's from her latest book, Cooking at Home on Rue Tatin.
We're looking at six mind-altering potables and their impact on human evolution with our guest Tom Standage, author of A History of the World in Six Glasses. For the Sterns, it's homemade root beer and hints of frivolity at Mug 'n' Bun in Indianapolis.
This week it's a look at life and death in haute cuisine. Guest Rudolph Chelminski takes us into the world of French restaurant culture, where one star can literally change lives. His book, The Perfectionist: Life and Death in Haute Cuisine, tracks the life and suicide of master chef Bernard Loiseau, who committed suicide in 2003 when he heard rumors that his restaurant would lose its ranking in a leading dining guide.
We're talking Korean food this week with Cecilia Hae-Jin Lee, author of Eating Korean, From Barbecue to Kimchi, Recipes from My Home. Korean cuisine is bold and spicy, and served in a way that lets you play with all kinds of flavor combinations. Cecilia gives us the essentials. Her recipe for Spicy Pork Ribs gets us grilling.
Award-winning chef Frank Stitt put Alabama on the gastronomic map with his mecca of great eating, Highlands Bar and Grill in Birmingham. He joins us this week to talk the return of the South's culinary glory days, a renaissance in which he plays a major role. The recipe for Miss Verba's Pimiento Cheese is from his new book, Frank Stitt's Southern Table: Recipes and Gracious Traditions from Highlands Bar and Grill.
This week Lizzie Collingham, author of Curry: A Tale of Cook's and Conquerors, joins us for a look at the history of India through its curries. She says the most popular ones each tell a different story of a significant outside influence. It's a fascinating take on how a world-class cuisine came into being. The recipe for Vindaloo is from Lizzie's book.
John T. Edge, Southern food and culture historian and director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, joins us this week and he's talking fried chicken. His recipe for Sweet Tea Fried Chicken is from his book Fried Chicken, An American Story.
This week it's all things Italian but not in Italy. Instead of heading east to Rome, we're going south to Buenos Aires where the descendants of two million Italians have settled. Food writer Rich Lang is our guide.
We'll go inside the dairy with Soyoung Scanlon, California's new star cheese maker who has celebrity chefs kissing the hem of her apron. She follows the milk and her mood, not the market, at her Andante Dairy in Santa Rosa and it shows in her cheeses.
This week it's Cuban Miami with Glenn, Raul, and Jorge. The "Three Guys from Miami" love to eat, they love their town, and they give us advice on where and what to eat, including airport food worth the trip. The recipe for Roast Pork is from their book Three Guys from Miami Cook Cuban: 100 Great Cuban Recipes with a Touch of Miami Spice.
If you've always suspected that taste goes beyond science's big four of sweet, sour, salt and bitter your instincts are right. This week we're looking at umami. It's what food types call the "fifth taste." Our guest, David Kasabian, tells us how to use this wunderkind to make everything we eat taste better. Coq au Vin Nouveau, from The Fifth Taste: Cooking with Umami by David and Anna Kasabian, demonstrates the principle.
Joe Queenan, that quirky observer of the human comedy, takes us his England this week. It's a place of people driven by good-natured insanity, where home cooking thrives, and the steak and kidney pie requires a pneumatic drill. His book is Queenan Country: A Reluctant Anglophile's Pilgrimage to the Mother Country.
This week we take a look at the new kitchen science that has haute restaurant chefs rethinking everything, taking foods apart and putting them back together in ways we can't imagine. The instigator is our guest, chemist Hervé This, author of Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor (Arts and Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History.) The Sterns report from Eddie's Supper Club in Great Falls, Montana, where the secret marinade is key to their renowned steaks. Then Lynne shares her Guide to Marinades, including several delicious recipes.
This week it's a look at a new way to buy wine and it has everything to do with knowing the importers and distributors. Neal Rosenthal of Rosenthal Wine Merchant joins us to talk wine importers and who to look for on the label. The Sterns are eating herring "cremated" and "sunnyside up" at Cypress Grill in Jamesville, NC. David Rosengarten brings order and tranquility to that baffling liquid: sake. He shares his recipe for Salted Seaweed Salad with Lemon and Freshly Grated Ginger from his latest book, David Rosengarten Entertains. John Willoughby of Gourmet magazine has ideas for what to do between meals in London. For starters, there's cooking classes, shopping, and a secret garden. The New York Times gardening columnist Ann Raver has new veggies for us to try and shares her picks of the best seed sources. We'll check in with Rick Field, the inventive pickle maker behind Rick's Picks, and Lynne takes your calls.
We're off to Australia where it's summer now and the food scene is hot. Aussie star chef Bill Granger tells us where and what to eat in Sydney. His book, Bill's Open Kitchen, is full of uncomplicated and tantalizing recipes like a Glazed Duck with Pear and Rocket Salad. Before taking off for some retail therapy at the Kittery outlets, Jane and Michael Stern fuel up with the Clam-O-Rama at the Maine Diner in Wells.
Chinese food authority Grace Young joins us this week with the story of China's famous pot and shares tips on how to achieve the perfect stir-fry. She leaves us a recipe for Chinese Broccoli with Ginger Sauce from her new book, The Breath of a Wok: Unlocking the Spirit of Chinese Wok Cooking Through Recipes and Lore.
This week our guest is Barbara Kafka, one of the masterful cooks in the food profession. When Barbara digs into a subject she takes no prisoners. She's created her own short list of cookbook classics with titles like Roasting, Soup, and Microwave Gourmet, and each one is a complete education. Now, she has ideas for bringing more veggies into our lives with her new book, Vegetable Love. She leaves us her recipes for Parsnip Ice Cream and Greek Island Potatoes.
San Francisco wine merchant and importer Kermit Lynch joins us this week with the story of how he entered the wine world through the back door and ended up a leader in the exquisite and the little known. His new book is Inspiring Thirst: Vintage Selections from the Kermit Lynch Wine Brochure.