Lunch Therapy

Broti Gupta is way too accomplished for someone her age. Not only has she written for television (Speechless, Friends from College); she's also written for The New Yorker AND The New York Times. In today's lunch therapy session, we talk all about cooking for her boyfriend (and vice-versa), Mark Wahlberg's weird schedule, her mother teaching her recipes over FaceTime, and her need to please authority figures. We also cover Patti LuPone, growing up Indian in Kentucky, her love for cumin, cooking for her parents, and how hot it is in Southern India. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amateurgourmet.substack.com/subscribe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kate Berlant is one of the funniest comedians out there -- you've seen her in "Search Party," "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," "Sorry to Bother You" -- and she's the co-host of the hilarious podcast POOG. In today's session, we learn all about Kate's quarantine malaise, her dinner party anxieties, her linguine with clams, and where she sat in the school cafeteria. We also hear about her tendency to lean on yams, her recipe for a lycheetini, get a tour of her mother's kitchen, and how her screen name was almost CaperHottie. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amateurgourmet.substack.com/subscribe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

He's the quintessential New York food writer and he's here to talk about the quintessential New York Lunch. Ed Levine, the founder of Serious Eats and author of Serious Eater (as well as New York Eats and Pizza: A Slice of Heaven) opens up in today's session about losing his parents at a young age, how restaurants took on a familial role for him, how his parents' communism affected his food writing, and the way these formative experiences shaped his psychology and career later in life. We also talk about the future of food media, the best bagels and bialys, Katz's pastrami, our grandmothers' pickles, Nathan's, and how he roasts a chicken. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amateurgourmet.substack.com/subscribe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Time Out New York once said of Isaac Oliver: "If David Sedaris and Fran Lebowitz had a baby who wrote about subways, theater patrons, and b*******s, he might be a lot like Isaac Oliver." The author of the hilarious book of essays, Intimacy Idiot, artist-in-residence at Joe's Pub, and television writer (High Maintenance, GLOW) joins us this week and boy is he in need of some serious lunch therapy. Find out why Isaac eats lunch at 5 o'clock, how he likes to be bossed around by Ottolenghi recipes ("he's got me up to my elbows in harissa!"), why his parents helped him choose a porn to watch on Christmas (!), his relationship to Baltimore crabs, and why he's terrified of cooking for others. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amateurgourmet.substack.com/subscribe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Soleil Ho is the James Beard award-nominated food critic for the San Francisco Chronicle and one of the most important voices currently working today in food. In today's Lunch Therapy session, we talk about reviewing restaurants during Covid, what's fair game and what isn't, the food that her mother made for her growing up in New York, how she channels her anxiety into writing, how Ruth Reichl helped her overcome her fears about publishing reviews, how she sees her job as an opportunity to correct chefs' bad behavior, and what she puts on her avocado toast. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amateurgourmet.substack.com/subscribe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tucker Shaw wears many hats: he's executive editor of Cook's Country Magazine, the former food critic for The Denver Post, the author of Everything I Ate, and, in a former life, a young adult novelist. In today's session, Tucker talks about his grandparents who were subsistence farmers in Maine, how he's coping in quarantine living above a Russian grocery, cooking from books in junior high school, and the night he saw me at Marie's Crisis. We also cover him getting tapped to be a professional food critic, how scary it was to write his first review, educating himself on wine lists (etc.), and moving to Boston to start work at America's Test Kitchen. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amateurgourmet.substack.com/subscribe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Karina Longworth is the creator and host of one of the most popular and beloved podcasts out there, "You Must Remember This," which focuses on the secret and forgotten history of early twentieth-century Hollywood. In today's session, Karina talks about growing up in Studio City in the 1980s, her obsession with old movies from a young age, her mother cooking her way through Bon Appetit Magazine, taking over the cooking duties after her mother's death, and trying to recreate the chocolate mousse pie from the December 1981 edition. We also cover bodies as commodities in Hollywood, going to art school, going to premieres with her husband, Knives Out & Star Wars director Rian Johnson, her love for soup and soft foods, and what Jay-Z and Beyonce ate at the Chateau Marmont. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amateurgourmet.substack.com/subscribe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marco Canora is a true superstar chef: he's a James Beard Award winner (Best Chef New York), a celebrated cookbook author ("Salt To Taste," "A Good Food Day"), the chef/owner of one of New York's best restaurants, Hearth, and purveyor of the best broth in the country with his company Brodo. On Today's Lunch Therapy, we talk about his Tuscan mother's cooking, learning through osmosis, why real-world experience is more important than culinary school, and his early job making prepared foods at Dean & Deluca in SoHo. Then we talk the early days of Gramercy Tavern with Tom Colicchio, helping to open Craft (where the kitchen saw heavy-hitters like David Chang and Damon Wise), having his fish reviewed in The New York Times by Ruth Reichl, going out on his own to open his own restaurant, and how Hearth's identity continues to change with the times. PLUS: my friend Jonathan Parks-Ramage talks about learning how to cook in the Corona crisis during today's intro. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amateurgourmet.substack.com/subscribe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Molly Stevens has always been one of my favorite cookbook authors. Her cookbook "All About Braising" remains a desert island disc for me (that's a reference to another podcast) and her new cookbook "All About Dinner" is full of the kinds of recipes everyone should be making now to comfort themselves and their families. With mandatory social distancing, I was super disappointed that Molly's book tour was postponed and that she wouldn't be able to come to Lunch Therapy headquarters in person; but then I hit upon an idea: what if we used FaceTime? So in today's first-ever FaceTime Lunch Therapy session, Molly and I talk about her growing up in Buffalo, being the third of four children, seeking solace in the kitchen, her love for technique, and how she wound up in Vermont. We also cover her literary ambitions, how a food career crept up on her, working at Anne Willan's cooking school in France, realizing that a career in food could be meaningful, and how she got into publishing her own cookbooks. PLUS: as a bonus, my parents make a cameo from Boca in today's intro. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amateurgourmet.substack.com/subscribe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bricia Lopez is the co-owner of Guelaguetza, one of L.A.'s most beloved Oaxacan restaurants (a favorite of the late, Pulitzer Prize-winning food writer, Jonathan Gold) and the co-author of Oaxaca: Home Cooking from the Heart of Mexico. In today's session (recorded two weeks ago, before mandatory social distancing), Lopez talks about growing up in a restaurant, her family's journey from Oaxaca to L.A., sharing a single bedroom in her aunt's house with six of her family members (her parents and her three siblings), and why that was ultimately a positive experience. We also cover her obsession with Saved By The Bell and Full House, meeting Mario Lopez in real life, not being allowed to get sick as a kid, how McDonald's was the ultimate status symbol, and why yellow mole holds a special place in her heart. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amateurgourmet.substack.com/subscribe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices