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

Our guest this week is Padma Lakshmi, host of TV's reality show, "Top Chef." Her famous line is "please pack your knives and go." Padma packed her knives, cooked her way around the world, then came home to write her new book Tangy Tart Hot Sweet: A World of Recipes for Every Day. Her food, including Two Hens Laughing, is some of the most alluring to come along in some time.Great smoked fish lured Jane and Michael Stern to Duluth, Minnesota (in the winter, no less) and the Northern Waters Smokehaus. Also in Duluth, the Damiano Center is feeding hundreds of folks every day with perfectly good food that stores, restaurants and farmers throw away. It's the kind of good-news story we love.Zoe Francois and Jeff Hertzberg stop by to tell us how we can make our own artisan bread in five minutes a day (no kidding). Five-Minute Artisan Bread is from their book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery that Revolutionizes Home Baking.Christopher Kimball of Cook's Illustrated fame is back for another round of Stump the Cook, and David Wallechinsky, author of The New Book of Lists, reveals the one he claims isn't yet complete.Broadcast dates for this episode:December 15, 2007 (originally aired)December 27, 2008 (rebroadcast)

Broadcast dates for this episode:December 13, 2008

This week it's the story behind the wine world's most revered and feared critic. One bad review from him can take a wine down. He's Robert Parker, Jr. and his power is both rare and absolute. We'll find out what shapes and informs his legendary palate. Look for the 7th and latest edition of his classic Parker's Wine Buyer's Guide in bookstores now.Who but the Sterns would go for apple pancakes with potato pancakes on the side? They're at the Northside Grill in Ann Arbor, Michigan.Christopher Kimball of America's Test Kitchen stops by with this year's crop of top kitchen gadgets just in time for holiday gifting.Food scientist to the pros and award-winning author Shirley Corriher is back and she's talking cookie control - what we need to know for successful baking that no one else tells us. Her wonderful book, BakeWise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking, is hot off the press.Tea merchant Bill Waddington shares some interesting tea customs, and Hillary Carlip (www.hillarycarlip.com), author of A la Carte: The Secret Lives of Grocery Shoppers, lets us in on an unusual kind of culinary collectible.Broadcast dates for this episode:December 6, 2008

This week it's a cooking lesson with a virtuoso. Violinist Joshua Bell has received every accolade imaginable in his career, including a Grammy for his stunning performance in the soundtrack of the Academy Award-winning film The Red Violin. Now he's creating his first home and he wants to learn to cook. He and Lynne met up at the stove in his New York City kitchen where Tagliatelle with Caramelized Oranges   Almonds was the lesson of the day.The Sterns are in Cleveland where they're eating Wiener Schnitzel and Dobos Torte at Balaton. Sally Schneider, author of The Improvisational Cook, returns with a cold weather cooking technique you will love.Food scientist Harold McGee, author of the seminal On Food and Cooking, explains those ever more confounding scientific contortions coming out of restaurant kitchens these days. And We'll hear from the United States Oyster Shucking Champion.Broadcast dates for this episode:November 10, 2007 (originally aired)November 29, 2008 (rebroadcast)

This week it's Jeff Henderson, "Chef Jeff" of the Chef Jeff project on The Food Network, Jane and Michael Stern are at Enstrom's Toffee in Grand Junction, CO. And we visit with Dorie Greenspan author of Baking, From My Home to Yours, and Gourmet magazine's John Willoughby.Broadcast dates for this episode:November 22, 2008

This week we have a homage to all things porcine, and the story of family life in a rural French village from French chef Stéphane Reynaud, author of Pork & Sons, Jane and Michael Stern have found the "krunkest" fish in Nashville at Eastside Fish, and Kim Marcus of The Wine Spectator brings us up to date on the wines of Portugal.Broadcast dates for this episode:November 3, 2007 (originally aired)October 25, 2008 (rebroadcast)

This weeks it's the intersection of food and international relations with Chris Fair, author of Cuisines of the Axis of Evil and Other Irritating States: A Dinner Party Approach to International Relations. Jane and Michael Stern are eating cream puffs at Butler's Donuts in Somerset, MA and Gourmet Magazine's John Willoughby brings us their picks of America's legendary restaurants.Broadcast dates for this episode:October 18, 2008

This week we peek at the fantasy life of a house in Tuscany with Michael Tucker, author of Living in a Foreign Language, A Memoir of Food, Wine and Love. Sally Schneider author of A New Way to Cook gives us a fresh take on pears, and Seattle chef Tom Douglas explains the trials and tribulations of becoming a "gentleman" farmer.Broadcast dates for this episode:October 3, 2007 (originally aired)October 11, 2008 (rebroadcast)

This week we talk to journalist Julia Flynn Siler author of The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty. Jane and Michael Stern are at Kumback Lunch in Perry, OK. David Rosengarten looks at the origins of ramen noodles. And for an interpretation of an epicurean's take on happiness we turn to philosopher and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht, author of The Happiness Myth: Why What We Think is Right is Wrong.Broadcast dates for this episode:September 8, 2007 (originally aired)September 27, 2008 (rebroadcast)

We're looking at global seed banks with journalist John Seabrook, author of The New Yorker article, Sowing For the Apocalypse. Jane and Michael Stern are at Short Sugar's BBQ in Reidsville, NC, wine wit Joshua Wesson takes us to Italy's premier wine event, Vin Italy, and Jill Carle, co-author of College Cooking: Feed Yourself and Your Friends, has ideas for breaking out of the popcorn and noodle cup rut.Broadcast dates for this episode:September 15, 2007 (originally aired)September 6, 2008 (rebroadcast)