This Week's Episode

Hosted by Lynne Rossetto Kasper

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Andrea's Turnip Soup - Andrea Reusing's Key 3, Claudia Kolker on monthly rice, Elaine Sciolino on peas, Sandor Katz on kombucha.

Lynne Rossetto Kasper

Lynne Rossetto Kasper has won numerous awards as host of "The Splendid Table," including two James Beard Foundation Awards (1998, 2008) for Best National Radio Show on Food, three Clarion Awards (2007, 2008, 2009) from Women in Communication and a Gracie Allen Award in 2000 for Best Syndicated Talk Show. Lynne is a respected authority on food, having published three bestselling books: The Splendid Table, The Italian Country Table and The Splendid Table's How To Eat Supper, which was co-authored with producer Sally Swift in 2008. Lynne's syndicated column, "How To Eat Supper," appears in 700 newspapers. "The Splendid Table" can be heard on more than 200 public radio stations nationwide.

Content By This Author

Strawberries in Raspberry Sauce with Thick Crème Fraîche

Summer Fruit Pizza with Rosemary & Basil

Chickpea-Couscous Salad with Lemon and Fresh Mint

You can eat a pea pod after all

Elaine Sciolino, the former Paris bureau chief for The New York Times who writes the “Letter From Paris” for the paper’s dining section, chronicled the pea’s special place in French culture and cuisine.

Monthly rice: Prioritize family with homemade meals delivered

Claudia Kolker, author of The Immigrant Advantage: What We Can Learn from Newcomers to America about Health, Happiness, and Hope, studied monthly rice, a subscription meal-delivery service that is a cheap, healthy alternative to eating alone.

How to make kombucha, the mother of fermented drinks

Sandor Katz lives to ferment; it’s his life’s work. The author of The Art of Fermentation shares how to make kombucha at home.

Chicken breast again? Sources of inspiration from Ted Allen

Are you cooking and eating the same thing, night after night? Ted Allen, the host of “Chopped” on the Food Network, has a parade of new ideas marching past him everyday. He shares where he finds inspiration in the kitchen.

Exploiting the taste bud: The industrial science behind creating irresistible food

Michael Moss, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for The New York Times and author of Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, looks at the industrial science behind creating irresistible food.

Spring Chive Linguine

Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day. But here's how to celebrate anyway

Do you want a great party, complete with music, dancing, piñatas and incredible food? Go to a Cinco de Mayo fiesta -- or throw one yourself. Pati Jinich, an expert in all things Mexican and host of “Pati's Mexican Table,” gives some guidance and inspiration.

The future of agriculture: Frozen in a vault in Svalbard, Norway?

More than 740,000 seed samples are stowed away in a mountain on an island above the Arctic Circle. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault might be saving the future of agriculture, one frozen seed at a time.

How to feed 10,000 people from food grown on 3 acres in the city

Will Allen, creator of Growing Power Inc. and author of The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People and Communities, feeds 10,000 people a year from a three-acre farm in the poorest part of Milwaukee.

Quark: It's easy to make this two-ingredient cheese at home

Quark is a fresh, creamy-style cheese. Noelle Carter of the Los Angeles Times explains how anyone can make it at home in 2 days.

Sweet Avocado-Green Chili Ice Cream

The spoon: Used by every human culture in the world

Have you ever wondered about the history of cutlery? Bee Wilson, author of Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat, discusses the past of the spoon, which is used by every human culture in the world.

Actor Wendell Pierce brings grocery stores to New Orleans

Wendell Pierce is an actor and Tony Award-winning producer. He is also the founder of a new grocery store chain, Sterling Farms, which he hopes will provide fresh food and produce to underserved New Orleans-area residents.

Michael Pollan: Cooking for yourself is the real independence

Psychologically and socially, cooking is good for you and your family -- not to mention the health benefits. But it’s also a political act, according to food writer Michael Pollan, author of Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation.

Infuse umami into vegetables by steeping them in dashi

Ohitashi -- steeping vegetables in dashi -- is a way of infusing umami and flavor into vegetables without overwhelming them. Harris Salat of The Japanese Food Report explains the simple Japanese technique.

Greece: A sommelier's dream

Greek wines are often high quality, unique, and a good value says Tara Q. Thomas, executive editor at Wine & Spirits Magazine and author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Wine Basics.

Classic Pizza Margherita

Meet the cookbook ghostwriter behind busy chefs' best sellers

JJ Goode is one of the busiest ghosts in the business -- that is he does the actual cookbook writing for busy chefs.

Conflict Kitchen serves cuisine, conversation from U.S. foes

Conflict Kitchen, a Pittsburgh-based restaurant, serves more than just takeout from around the world -- it also dishes up enlightenment about international conflicts.

There's more than one way to cook an egg. Dave Arnold has 11

Dave Arnold, director of culinary technology at The International Culinary Center in New York, experimented with cooking eggs at specific temperatures in a circulating water bath. The result? Eggs that can be elastic, creamy or melting

Barking up the right tree: Foraging from bark to blossom

Learn about spring foraging from Hank Shaw, former chef, full-time writer and forager, and author of Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast.

Saliva the superhero: The science behind how we eat

Mary Roach, author of Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, shares what she discovered about the science of how we eat: saliva's superpowers, our second set of nostrils, and how we use our ears and nose to taste food.

Artisan varieties make plain table salt a four-letter word

Mark Bitterman, author of Salted: A Manifesto on the World’s Most Essential Mineral, has discovered the natural diversity of a seasoning that is often taken for granted: salt.

Listen, don't look, to your artichoke: The squeak says it all

Russ Parsons, author of How to Pick a Peach: The Search for Flavor from Farm to Table, shares the ABCs of artichokes -- from how to “squeak” them to test for freshness to how to harness the compound that makes them taste so sweet.

Why don't we say 'bon appetit' (or anything at all) in America?

Bethanne Patrick, author of An Uncommon History of Common Courtesy, has chronicled how man has civilized himself through manners, aka rules of engagement, at the table and elsewhere

China's dark tea: Ancient yet largely unknown to Americans

Even after thousands of years being brewed by a major portion of the world, there are still new things to discover about tea. Tea merchant Bill Waddington recently discovered one of Western China’s hidden secrets: dark tea.

L.A. hot dog vendors go beyond New York, Chicago styles

The dog has come to Tinseltown. Jessica Gelt’s story about the city’s hot dog renaissance, “It’s a dog town,” appeared in the Los Angeles Times.