To this restaurateur—Union Square Café, Shake Shack—hospitality is as important as food. “Hospitality exists when you feel like someone did something for you, not something to you.“ He’s not talking just restaurants. Food as metaphor, food as food. Produced with the Municipal Art Society. Continue reading »
Category Archives: Food
297: Roy Steiner
Working on the food initiative at the Rockefeller Foundation convinced him that, “You can’t shift people’s diets if you can’t make it delicious. Food is not just fuel.” A conversation at the New York Baha’i Center about health, hedonism, and social justice. Music: Stephanie Jenkins Continue reading »
Episode 202: Gail Simmons
Food should not be comforting. “That’s the goal of an easy chair,” says food writer Gail Simmons, a judge on Top Chef, quoting her mentor, Jeffrey Steingarten. The culinary arts, like any other, should be challenging. Which breaks the heart of my mashed potatoes even as it raises another question: is cooking really an … Continue reading »
Episode 127: Frank Bruni
He is an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, having been the paper’s Rome bureau chief, White House correspondent, restaurant critic, and more. During our conversation at JCC Manhattan, he describes meeting two long-time idols: one was a bit of a let down, one was entirely satisfying. Hear what happens when youthful dreams … Continue reading »
Episode 114: Mark Bittman
It is his core belief that food affects not only our personal but our political health, a principle he has expressed through cook books, cooking shows, and an op-ed column in the New York Times. During our conversation at JCC Manhattan, he cooked chili for the entire audience. Of course he didn’t. But he did … Continue reading »
Episode 91: Marc Murphy
Much enjoyed for his appearances as a judge on the Food Network program “Chopped,” chef Marc Murphy has cooked at Le Miraville in Paris, Louis XV in Monte Carlo and Le Cirque in New York and is now the chef and owner of Landmarc among other restaurants. During our conversation, he proposed lowering the … Continue reading »
Episode 87: Mimi Sheraton
During her tenure as food critic for the New York Times, she ate as many as four restaurant meals per day. But not in the same sitting. That would have been silly. She once tasted all 1,196 products in Bloomingdale’s food department – not a bar bet, an article. And a darn fine one. We … Continue reading »
Episode 83: Andrew Tarlow
According to Bon Appétit, Andrew Tarlow invented Brooklyn, and you don’t want to argue with Bon Appétit: some enemies you do not need. Plus, it’s true that with the restaurants Diner, Marlow & Sons, and Roman’s, among his many enterprises, he is a titan of Brooklyn food. Yet what drew me to him was not … Continue reading »
Episode 79: Ruth Reichl
For years Ruth Reichl worked in disguise, accumulating a bigger wig collection than Diana Ross. Her photo was said to command big money — nothing to do with the Witness Protection Program, everything to do with her power as a restaurant critic: chefs were anxious to know she was at their table. And that’s only … Continue reading »
Episode 30: Calvin Trillin
A contributor to the New Yorker for fifty years, he is particularly admired for his writing about food and crime, a combination we leave to more subtle minds to untangle. He is the winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor for his collection, Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin: Forty Years of Funny Stuff. On … Continue reading »
Episode 3: Michael Pollan
He is celebrated for his writing about the American diet, crystalized into his mantra: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” I assumed he’d revere Thoreau, but he declared, “Much of my work and my life has been an argument with Thoreau.” You think you know a guy (who you’ve never met). A re-edited version … Continue reading »