The Splendid Table: Conversations & Recipes For Curious Cooks & Eaters

Historian John T. Edge take a look back at one of America's great food treasures, Craig Claiborne, the Sterns share their pick of great public markets on both coasts and wine writer Paul Lukacs from Wine Review Online introduces to the wines of Priorat.Broadcast dates for this episode:August 29, 2009

This week it's the domestic goddess of the British Isles, TV star and author Nigella Lawson talking those oh-so-evocative summer fruit dishes of England - from fools to flummeries to an unusual take on raspberry jam. Nigella's latest book is Nigella Express. It's burnt ends sandwiches at LC's Bar-B-Q in Kansas City, Missouri for Jane and Michael Stern. Wine wizard Joshua Wesson says we need to be putting a chill on some of those reds. He'll tell us which ones. Chad Ward, author of An Edge in the Kitchen: The Ultimate Guide to Kitchen Knives, has advice for getting the best knives for your money, and Dave Broom has some surprises from the World Whisky Awards.Broadcast dates for this episode:August 23, 2008 (originally aired)August 22, 2009 (rebroadcast)

This week we're meeting one of the pioneers in America's artisan cheese movement, our very own Steve Jenkins author of The Food Life: Inside the World of Food with the Grocer Extraordinaire at Fairway. Jane and Michael Stern are at Halibut in Portland, OR and we look at the Southern way with picnics, with Jean Anderson author of A Love Affair with Southern Cooking: Recipes and Recollections.Broadcast dates for this episode:August 16, 2008 (originally aired)August 8, 2009 (rebroadcast)

This week's guest claims that without fruits we'd still be swinging from trees eating bugs. Fruit-obsessed journalist Adam Leith Gollner joins us for a look at the fruit leggers and their stories as told in his book The Fruit Hunters: The Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce and Obsession. The Sterns experience a religious moment at the church of heavenly barbecue - Louie Mueller's in Taylor, Texas. Wine maverick Joshua Wesson talks cool wines for steamy days, and food scientist Harold McGee, author of On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, explains what's really going on with those color-enhanced steaks in the meat case.Broadcast dates for this episode:July 26, 2008 (originally aired)July 25, 2009 (rebroadcast)

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.Broadcast dates for this episode:June 28, 2008 (originally aired)July 4, 2009 (rebroadcast)

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.Broadcast dates for this episode:June 2, 2007 (originally aired)May 24, 2008 (rebroadcast)June 27, 2009 (rebroadcast)

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.Broadcast dates for this episode:July 12, 2008 (originally aired)June 20, 2009 (rebroadcast)

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.It's world class chili with the Sterns at Joe Roger's Chili Parlor in Springfield, Illinois; and we're eating on the cheap abroad with Anya Von Bremzen. Dan Buettner, author of The Blue Zones, has secrets for flourishing well into our tenth decade, and we'll hear about a new kind of eatery in Denver named So All May Eat.Broadcast dates for this episode:June 21, 2008 (originally aired)June 6, 2009 (rebroadcast)

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.Wine expert Joshua Wesson is back and he's talking Grüner Veltliner, the centerpiece of Austria's wine industry. Greg Patent tells how he tracked the great recipes of America's immigrant families while researching his latest book A Baker's Odyssey. He shares a recipe for Fatayar, a Lebanese lamb and onion pie.Professor of German Chris Wickham fills us in on Food in the Arts, a symposium of academics from around the world at the University of Texas at San Antonio. We'll hear the story of New Orleans jazz man Kermit Ruffins and his band called the BBQ Swingers, and Lynne shares the seafood websites that keep her in the loop about environmental and health concerns and fish that's okay to eat.Broadcast dates for this episode:February 23, 2008 (originally aired)May 30, 2009 (rebroadcast)

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.Jane and Michael Stern are forking into some of the most sublime banana cream pie anywhere at Betty's Pies on Minnesota's North Shore.Indian food expert Raghavan Iyer has the fastest, lustiest breads you'll ever make. Forget the oven; for this quick bread you need to fire up your grill. Raghavan's latest book is 660 Curries: The Gateway to Indian Cooking.American Public Media commentator and dad John Moe tells of a little experiment in dinner table politics. Parents of picky little eaters will want to tune in!Brendan Newnam takes an off-center approach to the dinner party and it all starts with a joke. Then poet Nikki Giovanni reads her poem "So Enchanted with You" from her book Bicycles: Love Poems.Broadcast dates for this episode:May 23, 2009