Lunch Therapy

You may remember Luke Matheny from the 2011 Academy Awards, when he won for Best Live Action Short and said: "Uh, I should've gotten a haircut." Since then, Luke's gone on to direct ten episodes of Marc Maron's Maron and to be the showrunner of Gortimer Gibbon's Life on Normal Street. Today's session is a surprisingly emotional one: we cover the night of the Oscars, why he thinks cheesesteaks are the most delicious of all meals, his relationship to authority, rushing his son to the emergency room after giving him peanut butter. We also talk about why you need rules before you can improvise (in both burgers and filmmaking), his love of pancakes as a kid, why he smiles big when he talks about sweet food, his grandmother's Pennsylvania Dutch Pot Pie, and learning that the person who he thought was his grandfather wasn't really his grandfather. 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

Ben Mims is a cooking columnist for the L.A. Times, a cookbook author (Air Fry Every Day), the former Test Kitchen Director of Lucky Peach magazine, and a former food editor at both Saveur and Food & Wine. In today's session, we cover Ben's childhood in Mississippi, his unwillingness to mix sweet and savory, why he loathes lettuce, and how he went to culinary school to become a food writer. We also discuss the link between his coming out and his distaste for pork tenderloin, the hazing he endured at Jean-Georges and Perry Street, whether or not he has OCD, and how he comes up with his recipes. 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

Rachel Shukert is one of the funniest writers I know -- she's written books, plays, recaps of Smash for Vulture -- and now she's an accomplished TV writer, having worked on shows like GLOW and the upcoming Babysitter's Club, for which she was the showrunner. Today's session (which came after her real therapy session) covers Rachel's ambivalence towards cooking, her butcher grandfather and vegetarian parents, her two year-old's attitude towards food ("Eating, yuck!"), and what it was like growing up Jewish in Omaha, Nebraska. We also talk about her eating disorder in college, how meat helped her overcome it, what she craved when she was pregnant (a sandwich from DaVinci's in Lincoln), her Lithuanian grandmother, and how she makes her savory kugel. 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

Zach Brooks is the founder of Midtown Lunch, an iconic food blog that helped people working in midtown Manhattan find a decent place to eat back in the early aughts. Since then, he's hosted the super successful podcast "Food is the New Rock" and become the general manager of Smorgasburg L.A. During today's session, we find out why asking about his lunch is "too dark," what the meal was that inspired him to start his blog, and why he thinks the late, great Jonathan Gold hated him. We also cover "authenticity," his parents' divorce, cooking for his children, and why L.A. beats New York as the better lunch city. 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

Punam Patel is the Emmy-nominated co-star of Netflix's "Special" -- she's also appeared on "Kevin From Work" and "I Feel Bad" -- and on today's Lunch Therapy she declares, right out of the gate: "I am food." Hear all about her two-part lunch (three-part, if you include the apple cider doughnut), her trip to Spain, her exercise lunches vs. her no-exercise lunches, and her dad's famous meat curry that she can no longer eat (she's a pescatarian). We also talk about her dieting up through her thirties, arbitrary standards of beauty, what it's like dealing with that in Hollywood, and what it means to be a Brown Butter Jew (will somebody make the t-shirt?). 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

James Rich grew up on a cider farm in Somerset, England, so it shouldn't be a surprise that he just wrote a cookbook called "Apple: Recipes from the Orchard." In today's session, James talks about getting engaged to his fiancé Pip in Palm Springs, how Yotam Ottolenghi was involved in their initial meeting, and why he's not eligible to go on The Great British Baking Show. We also get into the various breeds of apples, how cider is actually made, leaving Somerset for Barcelona and London, and how his feelings have changed regarding where he's from. 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

Karley Sciortino is the hilarious creator of the blog Slutever, which is now a TV show in its second season on Vice; she's also the sex and dating columnist for Vogue Magazine. On today's episode, we talk about the relationship between food and sex, how Karley differentiated from her food-loving family, and the journey she's gone on with her body image (it involves TJ Maxx and TCBY). We also cover her time living as a freegan in a London squat, why she refuses to eat tongue, and the most surprising thing she's encountered involving food and sex (it made me fall out of my chair laughing). 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

Remember the name Lewaa Nasserdeen: if he's not running Hollywood in ten years, I'll tear up my lunch therapy license! I met Lewaa when we were both staff writers on ABC's The Real O'Neals and since then he's been a writer/co-producer on Netflix's Daredevil, starred in his own pilot, acted on NCIS: New Orleans, and gotten an overall deal at Skydance TV (where's he developing all kinds of original content). In today's session, we talk about growing up Lebanese in Alberta, Canada, where his mother — a professional pastry chef — showed love through food and the ripple effects that had for Lewaa later in life. We get into body image, developing a sense of humor as a defense mechanism, the first time he brought a boyfriend to his mother's house for dinner, and why he wouldn't dare try to recreate his mother's food in his own 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

You've been smitten with her since the early 2000s, and today Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen is my patient on Lunch Therapy. We talk everything from her efforts to recreate the brown bread she ate in Ireland, whether or not she's the heir to Ina Garten, and how her German-Jewish mother found salt and pepper to be "edgy." We also cover her brief career as an art therapist, what it means to have a food blog in 2019, and how she deals with people feeling like they know her. 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

Mark Harris is the celebrated author of Pictures at the Revolution and Five Came Back, as well as a journalist for The New York Times, The Guardian, and Vanity Fair (for which he's covering the Oscars this year). In today's session, Mark talks about whether great food can rise to the level of great art, the truth about his typical day-to-day lunch journey, his favorite cookbooks, his favorite recipes, and how he and his husband (Angels in America playwright Tony Kushner) offer feedback when the other one cooks. Mark also waxes lyrical on his love for sandwiches -- sandwiches that know no bounds (Chinese food on a sandwich!) -- as well as the elements that truly make a sandwich great. 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