The Splendid Table

Listen on:  Apple Podcasts | Stitcher |  Google Podcasts  | Spotify |  Pandora May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and this week we’re devoting the entire hour to personal stories about how food and the food industry can impact our mental health. Restaurateur David McMillan, of Joe Beef in Montreal, talks candidly about his challenge with sobriety in the restaurant world and how it changed the w...

Listen on:  Apple Podcasts | Stitcher |  Google Podcasts  | Spotify |  Pandora So often, conversations regarding healthy eating go straight to health matters below the neck - things like weight management, heart health, managing cholesterol and diabetes.  But some doctors believe that we should be focused on feeding what’s above the neck – our brains.  Dr. Drew Ramsey calls himself a nutritional p...

Listen on:  Apple Podcasts | Stitcher |  Google Podcasts  | Spotify |  Pandora The food scene in Philadelphia is booming and we’re taking you there for an event recorded live at WHYY. Francis Lam talks to three of the people at the forefront of the culinary scene in Philly: award-winning chef and writer Michael Solomonov of Zahav, chef Eli Kulp from Fork and High Street on Market, and Malaysian ch...

Listen on:  Apple Podcasts | Stitcher |  Google Podcasts  | Spotify |  Pandora Chetna Makan is a trained fashion designer, who was born in Jabalpur, India. As a contestant on The Great British Bake Off, she baked her way right into the semifinals and charmed the world with her enthusiastic approach to Indian baking and cooking. The latest of her three cookbooks is called Chetna’s Healthy Indian: E...

Listen on:  Apple Podcasts | Stitcher |  Google Podcasts  | Spotify |  Pandora We’re spending the hour with one of America’s rising chefs, Kwame Onwuachi of Washington DC’s Kith/Kin. His new memoir is Notes From a Young Black Chef . Francis Lam and Kwame talk about growing up and exploring food from all over the world, cutting his culinary teeth on an oil spill responder ship, and the layers of jo...

Listen on:  Apple Podcasts | Stitcher |  Google Podcasts  | Spotify |  Pandora We're traveling to eat this week, and looking at foods that have gone through international transformations. We hear from Dr. Lucy Long, director and founder of the Center for Food and Culture, about the difference between being a food tourist and a food pilgrim, and why it's important to consider cultural responsibilit...

Listen on:  Apple Podcasts | Stitcher |  Google Podcasts  | Spotify |  Pandora It's estimated that in the United States we waste up to 40 percent of our entire food supply; that equals out to about 150,000 tons of food being wasted each day. And food waste isn’t just an American problem, it’s a global epidemic. Mads Refslund and Tama Matsuoka Wong are doing their best to combat the issue by using...

Listen on:  Apple Podcasts | Stitcher |  Google Podcasts  | Spotify |  Pandora This week, human rights advocate and award-winning food writer Yasmin Khan takes us inside the kitchens of Palestine, where she spent months talking to cooks for her book Zaitoun. We dive deep into the diversity of Nigerian food and cooking techniques with Philadelphia chef Shola Olunyolo. We are introduced to frozen bu...

Listen on:  Apple Podcasts | Stitcher |  Google Podcasts  | Spotify |  Pandora Splendid Table Selects is our podcast that highlights conversations that make us better, more worldly cooks. In this episode we hear from Kian Lam Kho, a self-described tech geek who transformed himself into a chef and food writer. Kho’s Red Cook blog features authentic Chinese recipes from his native Singapore. His fir...

Listen on:  Apple Podcasts | Stitcher |  Google Podcasts  | Spotify |  Pandora This is Splendid Table Selects, our mini-podcast about the stuff that makes us better cooks and eaters. There’s nothing better than a properly cooked scallop, but they have a reputation for being temperamental and hard to cook. And sourcing the right scallop is as important as how it is cooked. Molly Birnbaum and her co...

For all the bad news in our world today, we're happy to report there is some good news on the food front. In this episode, we consider some of the positive things that are happening. In her book, Big Chicken, journalist Maryn McKenna says the chicken industry is largely to blame for our enormous overuse of and exposure to antibiotics. But, as she explains to Francis Lam, she's found real reasons f...

Listen on:  Apple Podcasts | Stitcher |  Google Podcasts  | Spotify |  Pandora Welcome to Splendid Table Selects, our podcast that features interviews that make us think more about the food we love to eat and cook. Our guest this episode is Andrea Nguyen, best-selling cookbook author and expert on Vietnamese cooking. Nguyen says, in the past, cooking Vietnamese food in America meant multiple shopp...

Listen on:  Apple Podcasts | Stitcher |  Google Podcasts  | Spotify |  Pandora In this episode, we're looking at food and identity. Francis Lam talks with Jenna Wortham and Wesley Morris, the duo behind the podcast Still Processing, about how social media is changing the way we look at and enjoy food. America’s Test Kitchen takes on the latest culinary cult, the Instant Pot. ATK's Hannah Crowley p...

Listen on:  Apple Podcasts | Stitcher |  Google Podcasts  | Spotify |  Pandora Our Splendid Table Selects podcast spotlights conversations that inspire us to cook in creative ways. Mandy Aftel is an artisan perfumer with a deep knowledge of natural essential oils. Her book  Fragrant: The Secret Life of Scent , co-authored by chef Daniel Patterson, features scent-crafting skills and perfume ingredi...

Bon Appetit’s Editor-in-Chief Adam Rapoport joins us with a rather intense take on sandwich making, our Dinner Party Download pals Brendan Francis Newnam and Rico Gagliano help us throw a dinner party, Anya Von Bremzen talks to Melissa Clark about the home restaurants of Cuba, America’s Test Kitchen teaches us how to make a veggie broth concentrate, and Doc Willoughby on country-style pork ribs. F...

How important are sauces in the world of food? In French kitchens, the most respected cook is the saucier – the person who makes the sauces. You can’t have tacos without salsa. And, Beyoncé keeps hot sauce in her bag. So, obviously, sauces are essential. But what is a sauce? And how did we start making them? Maryann Tebben is a food historian, the head of the Center for Food Studies at Bard Colleg...

This is a show about restaurants, but not necessarily about the chef. It's about the lives of kitchen workers, their triumphs and troubles, and the extended family they often find on the line. We talk to Amy Thielen, author of Give a Girl a Knife, about what life was like for her working in some of the great kitchens in NYC. In 'Chefs With Issues,' Kat Kinsman offers a place for kitchen and servic...

Welcome to Splendid Table Selects, our podcast on the stuff that makes us better cooks and eaters. It's January. It’s cold. It’s dark. You may find yourself fighting off a case of the sniffles, along with those eight pounds you gained over the holidays. Do not despair. We’ve got something to make your cold winter world a little more colorful – and it’s soup.  But, not just ordinary soup; we’re tal...

We're going back in time, to the 1970’s and the beginning of the American restaurant revolution.  It was a time when young, talented chefs started opening restaurants that didn’t feel bound to tradition. It was when cooking first became cool, and writer Andrew Friedman says the energy at that time was palpable. Friedman runs a website about chefs called Toqueland  and wrote the book  Chefs, Drugs,...

No matter what you celebrate – or where – one thing we all have in common this time of year is that we gather with family and friends to celebrate the season. And food is central to those celebrations. It’s in that spirit that we turned to Jack Bishop, the Chief Creative Officer at America’s Test Kitchen and part of the team behind the new travel and food book Tasting Italy: A Culinary Journey , t...

Host Francis Lam talks to chef Samin Nosrat about the four elements you need to understand to make your cooking sing. She is the author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking. Emily Kaiser Thelin brings us the story of legendary food writer Paula Wolfert and her struggle with memory. Thelin is the author of the new biography Unforgettable: The Bold Flavors of Paula Wolfer...

In our show’s home state of Minnesota, holiday cookie baking is a knock-down, drag-out competition thanks in part to the food section of the Star Tribune. Fifteen years ago, Rick Nelson, the paper’s restaurant writer, suggested that they have a little holiday cookie contest for readers. 3,500 recipes later, Rick and Lee Dean, the paper’s food editor, picked 150 of the very best for The Great Minne...

Francis Lam talks to chef Sean Sherman, author of The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen, about the diverse elements of modern Native American cuisine in North America. Contributor Shauna Sever talks to Dorie Greenspan about the ingredient she has built her career around, butter. Tucker Shaw of Cook’s Country from America’s Test Kitchen comes to the defense of pumpkin pie spice, just in the nick of t...

Francis Lam hosts the 2018 edition of our popular Thanksgiving call-in show. Francis fields two hours of calls from listeners and is joined by guests Dorie Greenspan, Pati Jinich, Samin Nosrat and Lynne Rossetto Kasper. Looking for something specific from the show? See this page for a full rundown of questions and topics from this year's phone calls. Broadcast dates for this episode: November 22,...

We all know that the starring role of the Thanksgiving feast belongs to the turkey, but the side dishes are just as important. While traditional sides bring a classic feel to the meal, sometimes it’s refreshing to shake up your routine. With that in mind, Managing Producer Sally Swift talked with our dear friend Lynne Rossetto Kasper. Lynne always has a long list of wonderful ideas for adding new...