The Splendid Table

This week, The Splendid Table presents unique perspectives on Thanksgiving. We begin with Indian-inspired dishes for your holiday feast. Francis Lam talks with Chef Vikram Sunderam and David Hagedorn, co-authors of the best-selling Rasika: Flavors of India . Contributor Melissa Clark visits with Emma Christensen, author of Modern Cider . Christensen explains the simple steps for making your own ha...

Since the holidays are synonymous with entertaining, you may already be thinking about the wine you’ll undoubtedly need to purchase between now and the end of the year. With that in mind, we’ve called in an expert to help you choose unique wines that will impress your guests and hosts without busting your budget. Madeline Puckette is a sommelier, the author of the expansive wine guide Wine Folly:...

Francis Lam is in the kitchen with cookbook author and Top Chef judge Gail Simmons to learn about her Key 3, the three go-to dishes she just can't do without - including the perfect fried egg sandwich. Chef, writer and photographer Michael Harlan Turkell traveled the world in search for unique vinegars for his new book, Acid Trip. He talks with Shauna Sever about his experiences, and discusses the...

Welcome to Splendid Table Selects, our podcast featuring interviews we find particularly interesting or helpful. This episode, we're talking about hard cider. The alcoholic beverage made from fermented apple juice was popular with early Americans because it was easy to make and was safer to drink than water. Over the years, hard cider became less popular as people began to favor beer, wine, and sp...

Pastry chef Stella Parks, best-selling author of BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts, talks with Francis Lam about the origins of our favorite classic desserts. She shares the history of and her decadent recipe for red velvet cake. (Spoiler alert: there's red wine in it!) SAVEUR writer Leslie Pariseau takes us to India for a grand religious pilgrimage centered around a sweetened rice dish as devot...

Here's the situation. You’ve got friends coming over for beers after work. You get home, and there it is. Your beer. On the floor of the garage, not in your fridge. And you can’t find your bottle opener. Have no fear; the King of Beer Hacks is here! Ben Robinson is the author of Beer Hacks: 101 Tips, Tricks, and Projects . He shared a handful of his favorite hacks with Managing Producer Sally Swif...

In this episode of The Splendid Table, we are looking at food from faraway places with host Francis Lam. Top Chef contender chef Sheldon Simeon talks cooking the home food of Hawaii. Francis recalls a trip to the remote Faroe Islands and the efforts of chef Leif Sørensen to bring fine dining to an area known traditionally for a subsistence diet. Contributor Melissa Clark explores the rise of Briti...

Splendid Table Selects is our sister podcast that features interviews that focus on intriguing topics. This episode, we look at the science behind wine headaches. If you're a person that doesn't get wine headaches, count yourself lucky. For those that do suffer them, some of us at The Splendid Table feel your pain - literally. Dr. Nadia Berenstein is a researcher who writes about science, technolo...

This week, we devote our entire show the wonderfully multifaceted food of the Philippines. Amy Besa, author of the award-winning Memories of Philippine Kitchens tells us about the unusual mix of Spanish, Chinese, Mexican, and American influences on Filipino food. Francis Lam goes into the home kitchen of chef King Phojanakong and his mother Emma for a lesson in the delicious seafood sinigang stew....

As the end of summer draws near, we're making our final efforts to savor the flavors of the season from our gardens and farmers market. For some help we turned to Marisa McClellan, the food preservationist extraordinaire who runs the blog Food in Jars and has written three books on preserving. She talked with our contributor Shauna Sever about some simple ways to take last days of summer produce a...

Francis Lam talks to Caleb Harper, Director of the Open Agriculture Initiative at MIT Media Lab who believes that to feed the world, we need to fully embrace indoor urban farming. Rachel Khong takes us around the world to explore how different cultures prepare and eat eggs. America’s Test Kitchen puts grill tongs to the test. Patrick Comiskey explains the wonderful wines and storied past of the Am...

Welcome to Splendid Table Selects, our mini-podcast where we serve up one interview that’s taught us something new, inspired us, or just made us better cooks. As we near the end of summertime, we have two things on our mind: watermelon and tomatoes. Thankfully, Vivian Howard is right there with us. Vivian is a terrific chef, author of a best-selling cookbook Deep Run Roots , and the star of the PB...

Welcome to Splendid Table Selects, our bite-sized podcast and a place where we share conversations that taught us something new, really inspired us, or just made us better cooks. Ilene Rosen has been making salads professionally for decades and recently published her first cookbook on the subject, Saladish . Rosen's theory in the book is that by bringing together a wide range of ingredients that e...

Chef Jenn Louis joins Francis Lam with her latest work, The Book of Greens, to talk about the wide range of flavor and uses for greens in the kitchen. Sally Swift talks with Omar Allibhoy about making Spanish sauces to spice up your meals. Sally also asked Allibhoy about the secret to amazing Spanish paella. He was happy to share some advice, as well as a recipe and instructional video. Francis ge...

Welcome to Splendid Table Selects, our mini podcast where we share the interviews that inspired us, or just made us more curious eaters. In this Selects, we look at the global phenomenon of Thai rolled ice cream, also known as stir-fried ice cream. This style of ice cream is not simply pulled from frozen buckets by the scoop, instead its liquid base is poured onto a frozen pan and then chopped, mi...

Host Francis Lam looks at one of the relatively unexplored cuisines -- Ghanaian -- with Zoe Adjonyoh, author of Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen. Doc Willoughby from America’s Test Kitchen shares some new thoughts on charcoal grilling. Contributor Joe Yonan has a guide to homemade ice cream with pastry chef Dana Cree; her new book is Hello, My Name is Ice Cream. Field reporter Daniella Cheslow takes us to a un...

In the United States, many people choose ‘happy hour’ as a way to unwind after a hectic day at work. A routine that involves heading to a lively bar with pals, and ordering cheap drinks and food within a small window of time.  However, in Italy this end of day ritual is called aperitivo, and no offense to all of the happy hour frolickers, but it tends to be a bit more civilized. Our contributor Sh...

Host Francis Lam meets up with restaurateur and activist Andy Shallal to talk about how he makes choices, from the decor to the menu, to make a restaurant that appeals to both black and white diners. We meet Jorge Muñoz Zapata, aka The Angel of Queens; since 2004, he has been feeding people on the same corner in Queens every night, funded only by food donations and money from his own pocket. Step...

Welcome to Splendid Table Selects, our mini podcast where we share the interviews that inspired us or just made us better cooks. In this Selects, we visit with Steven Raichlen, the master of the grill and smoker, and author of many cookbooks including The Barbecue! Bible and Project Smoke . Most of us think of smokers as being almost exclusively used for cuts of meat like brisket, ribs, and pork s...

We have unexpected stories from the South when host Francis Lam talks to historian John T. Edge about the "back to the land" movement and migration of San Francisco hippies to the rural South, where they became farmers in the 1960-1970s. Edge is the author of The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South. Hanna Raskin, food editor and critic for The Post and Courier, collaborates with t...

As the world continues to cope with the emotional shock felt since learning last week of the death of Anthony Bourdain, we at The Splendid Table wanted to offer a tribute to Tony. We produced this special episode in which we hear from both host Francis Lam and retired host Lynne Rossetto Kasper, who'd interviewed Tony many times over the years. The show also features a special interview from our a...

Welcome to Splendid Table Selects, our mini-podcast where we share the interviews that inspired us or just made us better cooks. A lot of people consider Philadelphia home of the cheesesteak. That is obviously not wrong, but there's an impressive vegan scene happening in the city as well in large part because of Kate Jacoby and Rich Landau. They're the owners of three restaurants in the city: Wiz...

Welcome to Splendid Table Selects, our mini-podcast where we feature great discussions about the joy of making and sharing good food. This episode of Selects features an appetizing conversation with The New York Times food writer and cookbook author Melissa Clark about cooking from the bounty of vegetables and herbs available in the springtime. She talks with Managing Producer Sally Swift about th...

Host Francis Lam pulls apart some common food myths with Doc Willoughby from America’s Test Kitchen. We learn about the Scandinavian idea of hygge and how this concept of coziness influences the region's food with Copenhagen chef and writer Trine Hahnemann. Contributor Melissa Clark talks to Desmond Tan and Kate Leahy about Burmese cuisine and the tea-eating culture of Myanmar. And Ole G. Mouritse...

Welcome to Splendid Table Selects, our mini-podcast where we feature great discussions about the joy of making and sharing good food. This episode of Selects features a lovely conversation between the legendary Patti LaBelle and our contributor Shauna Sever. We all know Miss LaBelle is an iconic singer, but what you might not know is that she is nearly as passionate about cooking as she is about m...