If you eat breakfast in Brooklyn you have probably eaten at Ciao, Gloria. Italian baking and lots more. Renato Poliafito’s 5th book, Dolci! American Baking with an Italian Accent is out and it makes you want to bake and eat everything. We talk to Renato about baking, Italian food, and so much more. Listen, it’s on Tip of the Tongue.

There are many influences on New Orleans cuisine. It is constantly changing and adapting to all of the delicious things being brought to the city. One of those influences that has been in New Orleans since the late 70s is Vietnamese. And there are mutiple generations of people who have Vietnamese jeritage in the city cooking and eating and sharing their food. Listen to Chef Nini Nguyen as we talk about Vietnamese food, changes made by local cuisines and traditions, and the difference that generations make.

Her book, Đặc Biệt, which means “to be special” definitely describes the book itself as well as its contents. Listen to our conversation about Đặc Biệt.

Are you ready for an opera about macaroni and cheese? Will we recognize ourselves in an opera about a cooking contest with contestants representing America and the different versions of macaroni and cheese that can be found all over the country? Listen to the conversation with conductor, Josh Slater, and General Manager of the New Orleans Opera, about the opera, The Cook-Off. It is performed at the Southern Food & Beverage Museum in New Orleans.

Joshua Anand Slater is an Indian-American conductor and composer, known equally for his work in new music and for “rich, full-throated” interpretations of established repertoire. Equally at home in the concert hall and the theater, his most recent opera credits in the 2024 season include the Toronto Premiere of the Pulitzer Prize winning Angel’s Bone and jumping in to lead the piano vocal workshop for Des Moines Metro Opera’s world premiere of American Apollo.

Librettist Lila Palmer is deeply committed to expanding the perspective of stories on operatic stages. Her advocacy for arts across the public sphere has led to ground-breaking collaborations with active-duty female military personnel (Dead Equal), healthcare professionals and patients (The Jewel Merchants), and several heritage spaces, including The Museum of London, The London Transport Museum, and Trebah Gardens. Her operatic work has recently been recognized with an Edinburgh Fringe Lustrum Award, and she was honored to be named an Aix-en-Provence Festival Women in Opera Professional Artist. In art song repertoire, This Be Her Verse, her song cycle with Kathleen Tagg for soprano Golda Schultz, earned critical acclaim for international premieres in Canada, Scotland, Switzerland, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Hailed by Opera News as “a new repertoire staple,” the work’s Alpha Classics album was named one of The Times 10 Best Classical Records of 2022.

The world of food is very broad, and it seems that Jessica Carbone has worked in every part of it. She has worked in restaurants, edited cookbooks, studied it at Harvard, consulted to the entertainment industry, worked in magazines, and worked at the Smithsonian.

She has survived it all with a broad and deep understanding of the field. And she has the ability to look at it all from the ground and from the sky. Listen. It’s on Tip of the Tongue.

Are you intrigued? There is more about Jessica.

If you want more, read about her work at Saveur Magazine.

Jessica and I talk about her work with Judith Jones. For more information listen to this podcast with Sara Franklin, she wrote The Editor, a biography of Judith Jones.

This is a reprise of my interview with Paul Freedman about his book Why Food Matters. We talked in 2021, shortly have the book came out. As we approach Thanksgiving, a holiday about gratitude that uses food and communal eating as its primary symbol - move over symbolic turkey - I thought that it would be interesting to hear Paul Freedman discuss this book about so many of the reasons that food represents everything about life.

Yale University Press, the publisher, has this to say about the book,

"Why does food matter? Historically, food has not always been considered a serious subject on par with, for instance, a performance art like opera or a humanities discipline like philosophy. Necessity, ubiquity, and repetition contribute to the apparent banality of food, but these attributes don’t capture food’s emotional and cultural range, from the quotidian to the exquisite. In this short, passionate book, Paul Freedman makes the case for food’s vital importance, stressing its crucial role in the evolution of human identity and human civilizations. Freedman presents a highly readable and illuminating account of food’s unique role in our lives. It is a way to express community and celebration, but it can also be divisive. This wide-ranging book is a must-read for food lovers and all those interested in how cultures and identities are formed and maintained."

There are lots of baking books out there. And even though I have considered myself baking averse, I am trying to bake my way out of this affliction. Reading and cooking out of Pan y Dulce by Bryan Ford has been excellent therapy. Listen as Bryan and I talk about New Orleans and its food culture - which I am happy to say we both love - as well as Bryan’s journey to baking and his current journey. And, of course, we talk about his new book, Pan y Dulce: The Latin American Baking Book. Listen. It’s on TIp of the Tongue.

Women in the South have been both frugal and extravagant in their baking, but it is usually delicious. Morgan Bolling has edited a terrific new book - When Southern Women Cook - with an introduction by the James Beard Foundation award-winning Toni Tipton Martin, published by America’s Test Kitchen. You will be intrigued, excited, and itching to get into the kitchen.

Besides 300 recipes, the book is stuffed with little essays about people and foods from the south, written be people who know. It is great read as well as easy to cook from.

All we have to do now is make sure that other regions have such a wonderful book to represent them.

The Poor Boy Festival in New Orleans celebrates all of the cultural quirks of New Orleans, including the culinary ones. I was asked to moderate a panel with Winston Ho and Miss Linda Greene, aka, The Yaka Mein Lady. Unfortunately Miss Linda was unable to attend, so Winston and I waltzed our way around yaka mein and a few other very New Orleans topics.

It seems that Winston has found yaka mein in African-American communities around the country. Yaka mein was available in Chinese restaurants, although now it usually is not. It took place outside, so the sound quality isn’t perfect, and Winston powered through and really didn’t need any prompts from me. It is still worth the listen, especially if you care about yaka mein.

Winston Ho