This week we're celebrating the Fourth of July and the start of high summer. Gourmet magazine's John Willoughby talks smoke roasting, a much-ignored technique worthy of revival for its easy and succulent results. John's latest book, Grill It!: Recipes, Techniques, Tools, co-authored with fellow grilling guru Chris Schlesinger, is hot off the press. The Sterns feast on only-in-America fried clams and onion rings at Champlin's Seafood Deck in Narragansett, Rhode Island. Sally Schneider, author of The Improvisational Cook, has ideas for summer coleslaw. Gary Nabhan, co-author of Renewing America's Food Traditions, looks at America's endangered foods, and David Rosengarten, creator of The Rosengarten Report newsletter, talks burger bliss.
All those people talking about a wine's "terroir", meaning the place the grapes come from. Can we really taste it? We get the scientific last word from Harold McGee author of the seminal On Food and Cooking. Jane and Michael Stern are at Woodyard Bar-B-Que in Kansas City, KS, and novelist Nicole Mones tell us about the time in Chinese culinary history which she used as a framework for her latest novel, The Last Chinese Chef.
This week it's the seeds and bark that changed the planet. We're talking spices, the stuff of wonderment and avarice in the medieval world with Paul Freedman, author of Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination. It's a St. Augustine, Florida special for Jane and Michael Stern at Saltwater Cowboy's. We talk with Peter Shafer, our Gastrosexual for the month of June. Tea purist Bill Waddington, proprietor of St. Paul's TeaSource, has summer in a glass iced teas for the lazy at heart, and culinary improv artist Sally Schneider has a brief on the wallflower of the farm stand the beet.
This week it's the making of a wine merchant with Neal Rosenthal, one of the wine world's most respected importers. We'll hear the story of how he learned his craft and much more. His book is Reflections of a Wine Merchant.
This week it's a look at the American kitchen—from the sanitized scientific outpost of yesteryear to today's family-oriented center of cherry cabinets, granite countertops and culinary toys galore. Our guest is Steven Gdula, author of The Warmest Room in the House: How the Kitchen Became the Heart of the Twentieth-Century American Home. Who but the Sterns would have found a snack cake worth a journey? It's the Twinkie of Michael's dreams at Bette's Oceanview Diner in Berkeley, California.
This week it's a look at the noodle foursome that's the heart of Japan's beloved noodle cuisine: udon, somen, soba and ramen. Our guide is Chef Takashi Yagihashi, author of Takashi's Noodles. He talks noodle cooking, noodle etiquette, and the Japanese way with noodles that may even outflank Italy.
This week, it's a fashionista in the kitchen. We'll talk with designer Isaac Mizrahi, who has some strong opinions about cookbooks and some "issues" with entertaining.
This week we're looking at the wine cork controversy with journalist George Tabor, author of To Cork or Not to Cork: Tradition, Romance, Science and the Bottle for the Wine Bottle. Jane and Michael Stern are taking us to upstate NY to raise our "hot dog consciousness" at Ted's in Tonawanda, NY, and the Wine Spectator's Matt Kramer introduces us to his favorite white wine, reisling.
Today we are learning how to build a curry with award-winning teacher Raghavan Iyer, author of 660 Curries. Jane and Michael Stern have found pecan pie worth the trip at the Texas Pie Company in Kyle, TX. Joshua Wesson brings us wines for the picnic basket and we look the misunderstandings behind MSG with The New York Time's Julia Moskin.
This week it's a look at the golden age of Islamic food and conquest with guest Charles Perry, historian of Arab cuisine. Mr. Perry authored the foreword to Medieval Cuisine of the Islamic World: A Concise History with 174 Recipes.