Show 247, November 11, 2017: Show Preview with Co-Host Andy Harris

Now a salivating preview of this Saturday’s ample show. It’s not, with profuse apologies, for dieters. If we’re successful we will always leave you incredibly hungry and thirsty. In our case, upon careful reflection, that’s probably a pretty good thing…

Executive Chef Jason Fullilove is back in a real restaurant space, Barbara Jean Los Angeles, with elevated American Soul Food. He’s a bit hidden on the back patio of Melrose Avenue’s Melrose Umbrella Co. It’s dinner nightly and Brunch on Weekends. We’ll catch up with the peripatetic Chef Jason.

Food and travel journalist Robyn Eckhardt brings dishes from Istanbul and eastern Turkey to the home cook in ISTANBUL AND BEYOND: EXPLORING TURKEY’S DIVERSE CUISINES. With over 150 recipes, stories about places, people and ingredients, and lush on-location photography, ISTANBUL AND BEYOND takes readers on an unforgettable culinary journey from Turkey’s cosmopolitan cultural capital to its lesser known eastern regions. Food and travel journalist Robyn Eckhardt, now based in Italy, is our guest.

We’ve actively followed (since 2014,) and reported on, Team USA in their long pursuit of winning a place on the medals stand for the biannual Bocuse d’Or International Culinary Competition. Team USA 2015 headed by Chef Philip Tessier took the Silver Medal (just missing the Gold) and Team USA 2017 headed by Chef Mathew Peters earned the Gold in 2017, an incredible first for Team USA. Team USA 2019 was just selected in a fierce competition on Thursday, Nov. 9th at The Venetian Resort in Las Vegas. We’ll talk to the winning chef, Matthew Kirkley of COI, San Francisco, who will now train with his Commis (Mimi Chen, Line Cook, COI) for the next year, and then helm Team USA 2019 in Lyon. Also in on the conversation is Chef Robert Sulatycky, Head Coach, Team USA 2019.

Executive Chef Todd Sicolo supervises all of the varied dining options at the new InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown Hotel at Wilshire Grand Center with 889 rooms. This is all located on the top floors of the tallest building West of Chicago. Dining options range from Spire 73, a rooftop lounge with breathtaking views, to La Boucherie on 71, an elegant steakhouse with a French accent. Chef Todd is our guest.

Stressed about preparing the Thanksgiving feast for your extended family? Pause…Take a breath…Chef Andrew Gruel to the rescue. Chef Andrew offers his practical chef’s tips for a stress-free, Thanksgiving celebration.

It’s typically a conundrum in selecting the wines for the Thanksgiving feast that really pair well with all the diverse trimmings. You can’t always please all palates but you give it a go. Our resident wine expert, Kyle Meyer of Wine Exchange, joins us with his informed perspective. Cheers!

All of this and heaping helpings of extra deliciousness on this week’s show!

Show 247, November 11, 2017: Travel Journalist Robyn Eckhardt, Istanbul and Beyond: Exploring Turkey’s Diverse Cuisines Part One

Robyn EckhardtFood and travel journalist Robyn Eckhardt brings dishes from Istanbul and eastern Turkey to the home cook in ISTANBUL AND BEYOND: EXPLORING TURKEY’S DIVERSE CUISINES. With over 125 recipes, stories about places, people and ingredients, and lush on-location photography, ISTANBUL AND BEYOND takes readers on an unforgettable culinary journey from Turkey’s cosmopolitan cultural capital to its lesser known eastern regions.

The culmination of Eckhardt and photographer David Hagerman‘s (Robyn’s husband) two-decade-long passion for Turkey, its people and its food, and the result of over sixteen months of research in Istanbul and eastern Turkey, ISTANBUL AND BEYOND takes readers beyond kebab, doner, and baklava to introduce the dishes of Turkey’s distinct regional cuisines. From the Mediterranean province of Hatay to the Black Sea, and from north-central Anatolia to provinces bordering Georgia, Armenia, Iran and Iraq, Eckhardt has assembled a broad collection of dishes – many of which will be new even to those familiar with Turkish food – that are sure to entice readers into the kitchen.

Robyn Eckhardt is an American food and travel journalist specializing in Asia, Turkey and Europe. Her words and recipes have appeared in the New York Times, Saveur, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Food & Wine, Travel+Leisure and other publications. She is co-publisher, with photographer David Hagerman, of the award-winning food blog EatingAsia. After 20 years in Asia she recently moved to Piemonte, Italy, where she lives with her husband, photographer David Hagerman, and a small menagerie of cats and dogs.

Food and travel journalist Robyn Eckhardt is our guest.

Show 247, November 11, 2017: Travel Journalist Robyn Eckhardt, Istanbul and Beyond: Exploring Turkey’s Diverse Cuisines Part Two

Robyn Eckhardt“Turkey touches four bodies of water and shares borders with Bulgaria, Greece, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia…This results in not a nation united by one cuisine, but an array of culinary regions that make it one of the most gastronomically complex countries anywhere.” – Robyn Eckhardt

There is so much more to Turkish food than kebabs and baklava. Dishes like Green Olive Salad with Pomegranate Molasses, Kurdish-style Pot-Roasted Chicken & Onions, and Fava & Bulgar Stuffed Grape Leaves in Tomato Sauce prove just that. In Instanbul & Beyond – Exploring the Diverse Cuisines of Turkey, Robyn Eckhardt brings you the most extensive Turkish cookbook to date with a broad collection of 150 easy-to-follow recipes taken from the home cooks, farmers, fishermen, and bakers native to Turkey, all tested for the American home kitchen. Most of these recipes have never been published before in English.

Eckhardt and travel photographer husband, David Hagerman, have been collecting these recipes over the past twenty years and have traveled over 21,000 kilometers along the backroads of Turkey, documenting regional cuisines and life in the villages and cities, farms, and high pastures of the lesser-known provinces.

 

November 11: Jason Fullilove, Robyn Eckhardt, Team USA Bocuse D’Or, Todd Sicolo, Wine Exchange

Podcasts

Segment One: Show Preview with Co-Host Andy Harris
Segment Two: Executive Chef Jason Fullilove, Barbara Jean, Los Angeles
Segment Three: Travel Journalist Robyn Eckhardt, Istanbul and Beyond: Exploring Turkey’s Diverse Cuisines Part One
Segment Four: Travel Journalist Robyn Eckhardt, Istanbul and Beyond: Exploring Turkey’s Diverse Cuisines Part Two
Segment Five: Executive Chef Matthew Kirkley, COI, San Francisco & Chef Robert Sulatycky, Head Coach, Team USA 2019
Segment Six: Executive Chef Todd Sicolo, InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown Hotel
Segment Seven: Chef Andrew Gruel, Slapfish and Trade’s Two Birds & Butterleaf
Segment Eight: Kyle Meyer, Co-Proprietor, Wine Exchange, Santa Ana

Now a salivating preview of this Saturday’s ample show. It’s not, with profuse apologies, for dieters. If we’re successful we will always leave you incredibly hungry and thirsty. In our case, upon careful reflection, that’s probably a pretty good thing…

Executive Chef Jason Fullilove is back in a real restaurant space, Barbara Jean Los Angeles, with elevated American Soul Food. He’s a bit hidden on the back patio of Melrose Avenue’s Melrose Umbrella Co. It’s dinner nightly and Brunch on Weekends. We’ll catch up with the peripatetic Chef Jason.

Food and travel journalist Robyn Eckhardt brings dishes from Istanbul and eastern Turkey to the home cook in ISTANBUL AND BEYOND: EXPLORING TURKEY’S DIVERSE CUISINES. With over 150 recipes, stories about places, people and ingredients, and lush on-location photography, ISTANBUL AND BEYOND takes readers on an unforgettable culinary journey from Turkey’s cosmopolitan cultural capital to its lesser known eastern regions. Food and travel journalist Robyn Eckhardt, now based in Italy, is our guest.

We’ve actively followed (since 2014,) and reported on, Team USA in their long pursuit of winning a place on the medals stand for the biannual Bocuse d’Or International Culinary Competition. Team USA 2015 headed by Chef Philip Tessier took the Silver Medal (just missing the Gold) and Team USA 2017 headed by Chef Mathew Peters earned the Gold in 2017, an incredible first for Team USA. Team USA 2019 was just selected in a fierce competition on Thursday, Nov. 9th at The Palazzo Resort in Las Vegas. We’ll talk to the winning chef who will now train with his Commis for the next year, and then helm Team USA 2019 in Lyon.

Executive Chef Todd Sicolo supervises all of the varied dining options at the new InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown Hotel at Wilshire Grand with 889 rooms. This is all located on the top floors of the tallest building West of Chicago. Dining options range from Spire 73, a rooftop lounge with breathtaking views, to La Boucherie on 71, an elegant steakhouse with a French accent. Chef Todd is our guest.

Stressed about preparing the Thanksgiving feast for your extended family? Pause…Take a breath…Chef Andrew Gruel to the rescue. Chef Andrew offers his practical chef’s tips for a stress-free, Thanksgiving celebration.

It’s typically a conundrum in selecting the wines for the Thanksgiving feast that really pair well with all the diverse trimmings. You can’t always please all palates but you give it a go. Our resident wine expert, Kyle Meyer of Wine Exchange, joins us with his informed perspective. Cheers!

All of this and heaping helpings of extra deliciousness on this week’s show!

Jason FulliloveExecutive Chef Jason Fullilove is back in a real restaurant space, Barbara Jean Los Angeles with elevated American Soul Food. He’s a bit hidden on the back patio of Melrose Avenue’s Melrose Umbrella Co. It’s dinner nightly and Brunch on Weekends.

He also oversees the Bar Bites menu at the adjacent Melrose Umbrella Co.

“Barbara Jean Restaurant is a celebration of American Soul Food. A cuisine that is imbued with the many cultures that make up this vast and diverse country. With a focus on the roots of African American cooking, it’s nutritional foundation and original applications: meats | offal | ancient grains | vegetables | fermentation | with a modern flair a presentation.”

Chef Jason has been a regular fan favorite on the Los Angeles dining scene. He also helmed a dinner series called RED at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) that garnered national attention. At RED he created tasting menus and course meals directly inspired by current art exhibits, live readings and the films of Stanley Kubrick and Danny Boyle.

We’ll catch up with the peripatetic Chef Jason.

Robyn EckhardtFood and travel journalist Robyn Eckhardt brings dishes from Istanbul and eastern Turkey to the home cook in ISTANBUL AND BEYOND: EXPLORING TURKEY’S DIVERSE CUISINES. With over 125 recipes, stories about places, people and ingredients, and lush on-location photography, ISTANBUL AND BEYOND takes readers on an unforgettable culinary journey from Turkey’s cosmopolitan cultural capital to its lesser known eastern regions.

The culmination of Eckhardt and photographer David Hagerman’s two-decade-long passion for Turkey, its people and its food, and the result of over sixteen months of research in Istanbul and eastern Turkey, ISTANBUL AND BEYOND takes readers beyond kebab, doner, and baklava to introduce the dishes of Turkey’s distinct regional cuisines. From the Mediterranean province of Hatay to the Black Sea, and from north-central Anatolia to provinces bordering Georgia, Armenia, Iran and Iraq, Eckhardt has assembled a broad collection of dishes – many of which will be new even to those familiar with Turkish food – that are sure to entice readers into the kitchen.

Robyn Eckhardt is an American food and travel journalist specializing in Asia, Turkey and Europe. Her words and recipes have appeared in the New York Times, Saveur, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Food & Wine, Travel+Leisure and other publications. She is co-publisher, with photographer David Hagerman, of the award-winning food blog EatingAsia. After 20 years in Asia she recently moved to Piemonte, Italy, where she lives with her husband, photographer David Hagerman, and a small menagerie of cats and dogs.

Food and travel journalist Robyn Eckhardt is our guest.

“Turkey touches four bodies of water and shares borders with Bulgaria, Greece, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia…This results in not a nation united by one cuisine, but an array of culinary regions that make it one of the most gastronomically complex countries anywhere.” – Robyn Eckhardt

There is so much more to Turkish food than kebabs and baklava. Dishes like Green Olive Salad with Pomegranate Molasses, Kurdish-style Pot-Roasted Chicken & Onions, and Fava & Bulgar Stuffed Grape Leaves in Tomato Sauce prove just that. In Instanbul & Beyond – Exploring the Diverse Cuisines of Turkey, Robyn Eckhardt brings you the most extensive Turkish cookbook to date with a broad collection of 150 easy-to-follow recipes taken from the home cooks, farmers, fishermen, and bakers native to Turkey, all tested for the American home kitchen. Most of these recipes have never been published before in English.

Eckhardt and travel photographer husband, David Hagerman, have been collecting these recipes over the past twenty years and have traveled over 21,000 kilometers along the backroads of Turkey, documenting regional cuisines and life in the villages and cities, farms, and high pastures of the lesser-known provinces.

Matthew KirkleyWe’ve actively followed (since 2014,) and reported on, Team USA in their long pursuit of winning a place on the medals stand for the biannual Bocuse d’Or International Culinary Competition. Team USA 2015 headed by Chef Philip Tessier took the Silver Medal (just missing the Gold) and Team USA 2017 headed by Chef Mathew Peters earned the Gold in 2017, an incredible first for Team USA.

Team USA 2019 was just selected in a fierce competition on Thursday, Nov. 9th at The Palazzo Resort in Las Vegas. The three competing chef candidates are Ben Grupe, Elaia & Olio, St. Louis, MO; Jeffrey Hayashi, Mourad, San Francisco, CA; and Matthew Kirkley, COI, San Francisco, CA.

We’ll talk to the winning chef to head Team USA 2019 who will now train with his Commis for the next year, and then helm Team USA 2019 in Lyon.

The Ment’or Young Chef & Commis Competitions were held on November 8, 2017 in Las Vegas and featured five young chef teams and six Commis candidates who competed in the kitchen of University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The Winners from each competition will choose from a cash prize or the unique opportunity to train alongside Bocuse d’Or Team USA 2019.

Todd SicoloExecutive Chef Todd Sicolo supervises all of the varied dining options at the new InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown Hotel at Wilshire Grand with 889 rooms. This is all located on the top floors of the tallest building West of Chicago. Dining options range from Spire 73, a rooftop lounge with breathtaking views, to La Boucherie on 71, an elegant steakhouse with a French accent.

The dining options :
-Spire 73 – Perched atop InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown’s 73rd floor is Spire 73, the tallest open-air bar in the Western Hemisphere. This rooftop lounge offers breathtaking views of the entire City, chic fire pits, signature cocktails and a wide selection of whiskey. Culinary expressions are on the menu rivaling the view.

-La Boucherie on 71 – An elegant steakhouse with a French accent, featuring discreet, intimate private dining and VIP booths with floor to ceiling privacy screens that offer panoramic views of the L.A. skyline to accommodate discerning guests.

-Lobby Lounge – Located on the 70th floor of the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown, the Lobby Lounge offers guests an upscale lounge experience with a vodka bar at night, serving light snacks, burgers and sandwiches.

-Dekkadance – Located on the 69th floor, it offers a unique farm-to-fork international marketplace. It’s a well-thought-out, contemporary adaptation of the traditional buffet. Dekkadance is an eclectic dining experience for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner featuring interactive cooking stations where guests can consult the chefs and watch their selection being prepared. On the expansive menu are Mediterranean style pizzas, paninis and an impressive array of tempting desserts.

-Sora – Sora is an intimate sushi and omakase restaurant offering a refined menu of fresh cut sushi and prepared dishes presented on the unusual sky view conveyor belt. Also located on the 69th floor, Sora features an extensive selection of the finest Japanese whiskies.

Andrew and William GruelStressed about preparing the Thanksgiving feast for your extended family ? Pause…Take a breath…

Chef Andrew Gruel to the rescue. Chef Andrew offers his practical chef’s tips for a stress-free, Thanksgiving celebration.

 

Kyle Meyer of Wine ExchangeIt’s typically a conundrum in selecting the wines for the Thanksgiving feast that really pair well with all the diverse trimmings. You can’t always please all palates but you give it a go.

Don’t forget sparkling wines can carry throughout the meal. Strong fruit needs to be part of the equation, too. California calling…

Our upbeat resident wine expert, Kyle Meyer of Wine Exchange, joins us with his accessible, informed perspective. Cheers!

Podcasts

Segment One: Show Preview with Co-Host Andy Harris
Segment Two: Executive Chef Jason Fullilove, Barbara Jean, Los Angeles
Segment Three: Travel Journalist Robyn Eckhardt, Istanbul and Beyond: Exploring Turkey’s Diverse Cuisines Part One
Segment Four: Travel Journalist Robyn Eckhardt, Istanbul and Beyond: Exploring Turkey’s Diverse Cuisines Part Two
Segment Five: Executive Chef Matthew Kirkley, COI, San Francisco & Chef Robert Sulatycky, Head Coach, Team USA 2019
Segment Six: Executive Chef Todd Sicolo, InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown Hotel
Segment Seven: Chef Andrew Gruel, Slapfish and Trade’s Two Birds & Butterleaf
Segment Eight: Kyle Meyer, Co-Proprietor, Wine Exchange, Santa Ana