Copper & Heat Radio

We’re taking a brief break from our second season to introduce you to the other project that the Copper & Heat team has been working on. It’s called The Makers - a four part mini-series brought to you by ChefsFeed in paid partnership with Maker’s Mark bourbon. In each episode of The Makers, we talk with chefs about their one-of-a-kind approaches to their craft.  In this episode, Chefs Gabe Erales,...

In the second episode on tipping, Katy digs deeper into a different question: if the money coming into the restaurant industry is a pie, who has access to that pie and who is controlling how that pie is drawn? Turns out, there’s a lot of money being spent every year to keep wages low and to keep the tipped minimum wage at $2.13. Surprise! The tipping system is incredibly complicated and contentiou...

Why do servers and food runners in the front of the house make so much more money than the cooks? Why do they get to keep all the tips?  When Katy was working in fine dining kitchens, the cooks were asking these questions a lot. It just did not seem fair that servers were making as much as 3x more than cooks because of the tips they were bringing in. And it sent her down a long path. Turns out, th...

Fernay McPherson is the chef and owner of Minnie Bell’s Soul Movement in Emeryville, California. In this episode, she shows me around the Fillmore District of San Francisco - her home and the place her family has lived for three generations. She’s been trying for years, with the help of the business incubator La Cocina, to open a restaurant in the neighborhood that was once a cultural hub for Afri...

Jenny Goodman and Alex McCrery founded Tilit , a chef and restaurant industry workwear brand, in 2012, and they’re killing it. But before they had a successful workwear brand they opened a restaurant in Brooklyn called Goods - and it closed in 6 months. We talk with Jenny and Alex in this episode about what happened to Goods, what they learned through the experience, and how they’ve used that expe...

Katy spends some time reflecting on the last year - and shares some of our favorite podcasts for you to listen to. We share a few clips from those shows in this episode and the links to the full episodes (plus some extras) are below.  Long Distance Radio is a documentary podcast about stories in the Filipino diaspora. Hosted and produced by Paola Mardo and Patrick Epino.  Featured in this episode:...

What happens when tech startups backed by venture capital create food delivery apps, and a whole new system, that is relied on by restaurant folks across the U.S.? We chat with the folks at Homeroom To Go - the takeout-only location of the popular Oakland, CA mac and cheese restaurant - about how these apps have affected their business. David Yaffe-Bellany, business reporter from the New York Time...

In this Family Meal we hear from Luis Aldana, kitchen manager at Homeroom in Oakland, California. Luis talks about being proud of his team on a day when they were short-staffed and very busy.  Share your thoughts and stories at copperandheat.com/share-your-story Can't wait to hear from you!

In this episode, we’re headed to Los Angeles to talk with Chef Teresa Montaño about her experience opening two restaurants and trying to find staff in a time when there aren't enough cooks and there's a crackdown at the border - two overwhelming issues that overlap and make life hard for chefs and restaurant owners. David Yaffey-Bellany, reporter for the New York Times business desk, joins us to b...

In this episode of Family Meal, we hear from Ray Delucci, a cook and host of the podcast Line Cook Thoughts. He shares his experiences with making financial decisions in his cook career and thoughts on staging. Plus, Katy was on Line Cook Thoughts this last week and she and Ray have a great conversations. Check out that interview on the Line Cook Thoughts feed.

In this first episode of our second season, we’re going to Boise, Idaho, to talk with the team at Kin Restaurant. In a small city that’s growing and changing rapidly, what does a small, fine-dining, tasting menu restaurant do to not only educate diners on the value of good food, but also educate their employees about the value of themselves as restaurant workers.   More info:  Kin Restaurant: http...

The business of running a restaurant is incredibly complicated. There are systems in place that owners, chefs, and cooks have to learn to navigate, often while operating on razor-thin profit margins.  From questioning long-standing traditions like the tipping system, to adapting to new trends like the explosion of food delivery apps, each episode of Overhead tells the story of a restaurant approac...

In this episode of Copper & Heat Family Meal we hear from Meagan Stout, Chef de Cuisine at Madeready Libations & Liberations in Nashville. In this Family Meal, she talks about her experiences as a black woman navigating wage negotiation and confronting HR about making less than an inferior. Thank you so much for sharing your stories Meagan!  It’s your turn to share your stories about money...

Welcome to the first ever Copper & Heat Family Meal, the mini episodes for you, our listeners, to share your stories. Help us as we ramp up for season 2 by taking our listener survey here.  Take out your phone, record a voice memo and send it to hello@copperandheat.com .  For season 2, we want to hear about your experiences with money. Here’s a couple ideas, but feel free to tell us any wild story...

It’s been a wild few months for us at Copper & Heat! Back in April we won a James Beard Broadcast Media Award and we’re still reeling. In this episode, Katy talks to Geraldine DeRuiter, another James Beard Media winner, about some of the complicated feelings that come along with winning an award, being in the spotlight, and how we keep creating.   There’s a couple of Geraldine’s blog posts tha...

This is the last episode in the Be A Girl season. Over the last 7 episodes, we’ve talked about a lot of the challenges facing women working in restaurant kitchens - from the hierarchical structure of the kitchen, to the stereotypical view of women’s cooking. Though there aren’t any clear-cut solutions we ask: What has changed? How are those changes affecting people in the industry? Where do we go...

This episode is an excerpt from The View From The Kitchen panel event hosted by the New York Times and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in the summer of 2018. Kim Severson, a New York Times correspondent that was on the team that broke the #MeToo stories in the food industry, has a conversation with Chef Reem Assil, Chef Dominique Crenn and Chef Tanya Holland about issues facing the food industry. ...

In this episode, Katy sits down with Chef David Kinch, the chef-owner of Manresa Restaurant, a 3-star Michelin restaurant in Los Gatos, California. They discuss everything from work-life balance to the media’s role in bringing more equity to fine dining.    

What makes a Chef? What’s the difference between a home cook and a professional one? Why is cooking at home seen as work for women and cooking professionally seen as work for men? How do food media and awards reinforce these stereotypes?    A segment of the episode focuses on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. To learn more about the list and the controversial Best Female Chef award, check out...

What kind of pressures do cooks face to always be at work? How do you find balance while working in kitchens? Why is being a mother seen as the biggest barrier for women working in the industry? What options exist for people who want to have a better work-life balance, but still want to work in interesting restaurants?  

What kind of strength does it take to make it in a kitchen? Why is it that weakness is gendered as female (“stop being a little girl”)? How does the pressure to be tough affect cooks? How do cooks and chefs deal with that pressure? We talk about stress, anxiety, and depression in this episode. For those struggling, The Chefs With Issues Facebook Community and Website are wonderful and have helped...

How does traditional masculinity affect the culture of a restaurant kitchen? As a woman, how do you gain respect? Why are women cooks so rare? How do traditional gender roles play out? Why is the burden on women to change to fit into the culture, rather than the other way around?    We talk a lot about my experience as a woman in kitchens, but there’s a lot more to the gender conversation.  Here a...

Why are restaurant kitchens organized the way they are? What is a kitchen brigade? What does a typical day of a cook look like? How does someone move up the ranks? And what do women do to work their way up the ranks in a kitchen?    Some of the stats:  Women make up a little over 50% of students graduating culinary schools  Women make-up over 50% of total foodservice employees  Somewhere between 3...

Copper & Heat explores the unspoken rules and traditions of the kitchen. Our first season, Be A Girl, follows host Katy Osuna's experience as a woman working in kitchens of fine dining, Michelin-star, restaurants.