Lunch Therapy

Broti Gupta is way too accomplished for someone her age. Not only has she written for television (Speechless, Friends from College); she's also written for The New Yorker AND The New York Times. In today's lunch therapy session, we talk all about cooking for her boyfriend (and vice-versa), Mark Wahlberg's weird schedule, her mother teaching her recipes over FaceTime, and her need to please authori...

Kate Berlant is one of the funniest comedians out there -- you've seen her in "Search Party," "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," "Sorry to Bother You" -- and she's the co-host of the hilarious podcast POOG. In today's session, we learn all about Kate's quarantine malaise, her dinner party anxieties, her linguine with clams, and where she sat in the school cafeteria. We also hear about her tendency t...

He's the quintessential New York food writer and he's here to talk about the quintessential New York Lunch. Ed Levine, the founder of Serious Eats and author of Serious Eater (as well as New York Eats and Pizza: A Slice of Heaven) opens up in today's session about losing his parents at a young age, how restaurants took on a familial role for him, how his parents' communism affected his food writin...

Time Out New York once said of Isaac Oliver: "If David Sedaris and Fran Lebowitz had a baby who wrote about subways, theater patrons, and b*******s, he might be a lot like Isaac Oliver." The author of the hilarious book of essays, Intimacy Idiot, artist-in-residence at Joe's Pub, and television writer (High Maintenance, GLOW) joins us this week and boy is he in need of some serious lunch therapy....

Soleil Ho is the James Beard award-nominated food critic for the San Francisco Chronicle and one of the most important voices currently working today in food. In today's Lunch Therapy session, we talk about reviewing restaurants during Covid, what's fair game and what isn't, the food that her mother made for her growing up in New York, how she channels her anxiety into writing, how Ruth Reichl hel...

Tucker Shaw wears many hats: he's executive editor of Cook's Country Magazine, the former food critic for The Denver Post, the author of Everything I Ate, and, in a former life, a young adult novelist. In today's session, Tucker talks about his grandparents who were subsistence farmers in Maine, how he's coping in quarantine living above a Russian grocery, cooking from books in junior high school,...

Karina Longworth is the creator and host of one of the most popular and beloved podcasts out there, "You Must Remember This," which focuses on the secret and forgotten history of early twentieth-century Hollywood. In today's session, Karina talks about growing up in Studio City in the 1980s, her obsession with old movies from a young age, her mother cooking her way through Bon Appetit Magazine, ta...

Marco Canora is a true superstar chef: he's a James Beard Award winner (Best Chef New York), a celebrated cookbook author ("Salt To Taste," "A Good Food Day"), the chef/owner of one of New York's best restaurants, Hearth, and purveyor of the best broth in the country with his company Brodo. On Today's Lunch Therapy, we talk about his Tuscan mother's cooking, learning through osmosis, why real-worl...

Molly Stevens has always been one of my favorite cookbook authors. Her cookbook "All About Braising" remains a desert island disc for me (that's a reference to another podcast) and her new cookbook "All About Dinner" is full of the kinds of recipes everyone should be making now to comfort themselves and their families. With mandatory social distancing, I was super disappointed that Molly's book to...

Bricia Lopez is the co-owner of Guelaguetza, one of L.A.'s most beloved Oaxacan restaurants (a favorite of the late, Pulitzer Prize-winning food writer, Jonathan Gold) and the co-author of Oaxaca: Home Cooking from the Heart of Mexico. In today's session (recorded two weeks ago, before mandatory social distancing), Lopez talks about growing up in a restaurant, her family's journey from Oaxaca to L...

"Fergus Henderson is the most influential chef of the last two decades, even though you have likely never heard of him." That's a quote from the late Anthony Bourdain and it helps put into perspective the craziness of today's episode of Lunch Therapy: one of the world's greatest chefs, Fergus Henderson, and his business partner, Trevor Gulliver, came to my apartment and let me ask them about their...

Esther Tseng is a food writer in L.A. -- she writes for The L.A. Times, Food & Wine, Eater -- with a surprising secret: she works a normal nine-to-five job in retail finance. In today's session, we talk about her childhood in New Berlin, Wisconsin, her parents moving here from Taiwan, the Taiwanese food that her mother made at home (including delicious-sounding Bah Tzang), her being embarrassed by...

It's not every day that a rock star becomes a therapist and then eats lunch and comes on a podcast to analyze it, but that's precisely what happens in today's episode of Lunch Therapy with former Grizzly Bear front man, Ed Droste. Learn why Ed decided to give up the not-so-glamorous life of a musician, the kind of food he ate on the road, how he dealt with reviews and Tweets, how he got over his s...

I'm pinching myself, because Ruth Reichl -- former editor-in-chief of Gourmet Magazine, author of countless books (including "Tender at the Bone," "Comfort Me with Apples," "Garlic and Sapphires," and "Save Me The Plums), and the former food critic for both the L.A. Times and The New York Times -- is my patient today on Lunch Therapy. We cover her childhood in Greenwich Village, growing up with a...

Jen Agg has been called "the most influential restaurateur in Toronto" -- she currently owns Grey Gardens, Rhum Corner, Le Swan, and Bar Vendetta -- and her book, "I Hear She's A Real B***h," was praised by Anthony Bourdain as: "A terrific, beautifully written, frank, and funny memoir." During today's session, Jen talks about her attention to detail, dealing with prickly customers, what it felt li...

As The Carpetbagger for The New York Times, Kyle Buchanan covers the awards season with profiles of nominated actors (including recent ones of Brad Pitt, Adam Driver, and Renée Zellweger) and in-depth analysis of the movie industry's biggest nights. He also happens to be our neighbor (our dogs are best friends) and in today's session, Kyle makes himself vulnerable in a way he never has before: by...

Nik Sharma is the award-winning author of the cookbook "Season," the creator of the pioneering food blog A Brown Table, and a regular recipe columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle. In today's session, Nik talks about his recent move to L.A., how the food scene here compares to the food scene in San Francisco, growing up in India, his early interest in science, how science impacts his cooking, a...

Turn on your TV and there's a good chance you'll see Barrett Foa: he's been playing Eric Beale on NCIS: Los Angeles for eleven years. In addition to that, Barrett's been on Broadway (Avenue Q! Spelling Bee!) and he most recently played Prior Walter in Angels in America at the St. Louis Rep. In today's session, Barrett describes "The Foa Philosophy," talks about growing up in New York City, learnin...

Susan Feniger is a force to be reckoned with in the food world. Along with her business partner Mary Sue Milliken, Feniger has received countless awards (including the prestigious Julia Child Award and the Jonathan Gold Award), opened several legendary restaurants (including The Border Grill), co-hosted one of the first Food Network shows (Too Hot Tamales), appeared on Top Chef Masters, and author...

Buckle your seatbelts: for the first Lunch Therapy recorded in 2020, I decided to switch things around with an actual psychologist, Dr. Deanie Eichenstein, who puts my lunch under the microscope. Learn all about my pre-med years and my decision to go to law school, how I got from there to being a writer (meeting Craig in the process), and how choosing my lunch is often a question of shifting ident...

You may remember Luke Matheny from the 2011 Academy Awards, when he won for Best Live Action Short and said: "Uh, I should've gotten a haircut." Since then, Luke's gone on to direct ten episodes of Marc Maron's Maron and to be the showrunner of Gortimer Gibbon's Life on Normal Street. Today's session is a surprisingly emotional one: we cover the night of the Oscars, why he thinks cheesesteaks are...

Ben Mims is a cooking columnist for the L.A. Times, a cookbook author (Air Fry Every Day), the former Test Kitchen Director of Lucky Peach magazine, and a former food editor at both Saveur and Food & Wine. In today's session, we cover Ben's childhood in Mississippi, his unwillingness to mix sweet and savory, why he loathes lettuce, and how he went to culinary school to become a food writer. We als...

Rachel Shukert is one of the funniest writers I know -- she's written books, plays, recaps of Smash for Vulture -- and now she's an accomplished TV writer, having worked on shows like GLOW and the upcoming Babysitter's Club, for which she was the showrunner. Today's session (which came after her real therapy session) covers Rachel's ambivalence towards cooking, her butcher grandfather and vegetari...

Zach Brooks is the founder of Midtown Lunch, an iconic food blog that helped people working in midtown Manhattan find a decent place to eat back in the early aughts. Since then, he's hosted the super successful podcast "Food is the New Rock" and become the general manager of Smorgasburg L.A. During today's session, we find out why asking about his lunch is "too dark," what the meal was that inspir...

Punam Patel is the Emmy-nominated co-star of Netflix's "Special" -- she's also appeared on "Kevin From Work" and "I Feel Bad" -- and on today's Lunch Therapy she declares, right out of the gate: "I am food." Hear all about her two-part lunch (three-part, if you include the apple cider doughnut), her trip to Spain, her exercise lunches vs. her no-exercise lunches, and her dad's famous meat curry th...