Money or alter all I wanted to do was go on working all these incredible chefs restaurants and then at some point you end up on your own place and it's hard to do you know it's a little odd if you call someone off and said you mind if I come hang out for awaking you're in the kitchen so this travels sort of allows you to do that to experience things and I think that's the most beautiful thing about being a chef you never stop learning you eyes get that opportunity to grow and see something different and then experiment with the yeah it's what I've always lived it's funny when I think about Australians as a people I think about them as a globe trotting people you know because they're so far away that when Australians travel they tend to go for a long time it's true where the ultimate catch surface and you know if you if you and Ellen l.z. They've usually got a visitor in town from somewhere back in time because we were 14 hours from the west coasts in the us and that's about as close as it gets to the I was close to Southeast Asia but Europe and America and stuff it's a long why so when we travel way we do it for a good good amount of time so did you start travelling young I did finish my apprenticeship we do like a 4 year apprenticeship in Australia which is constant working with school in between you get to school age weight but it's a good way to do an apprenticeship because you put in all of the knowledge that you learn in a classroom into practice and I finished that apprenticeship and you know worked with a lot of European chefs in Melbourne and all of them said the same thing you know if you're going to be any good you've got to go work in Europe literally the day I passed my apprenticeship I packed my bags and I left for off a London model is your Michelin starred restaurant in Beverly Hills congratulations thank you very much it's really into men and the tasting menu experience is also intimate and used to offer rotating menus focused on a single ingredient which a lot of us live like it's character. It's artichoke But then last year you started focusing on regions of the world why did you shift Well look we've done nearly fully is the sink. Gradient menus and it was a menu a month so it was a really intense period of my life thinking you know doing close to 50 menus in a short period of time was driving his 10 course menus and one ingredient had to feature in every cause for it to sort of exist so you're constantly thinking and constantly trading which I loved and adored but at the same time 4 years on we sort of I think is a tame got to the place where the Spock had left us you know we weren't as excited about what the ingredients were going to be for the next year and I thought well if wish a line like that then the guests soon will to said before we ruin it let's change it you know and involve it into something different and as we sat down and sort of spoke about what we thought was special about mall and one thing that we all really adored was the wine pairing that the one same would do each month around the food with even go into a place where I would sort of say Just give me a wine that you want to face and I'll credit dish around sort of reverse engineering as opposed to the chef makes the dish and the winds have to scurry around and find a one that sits it so we spoke more and more about wine regions and you know there's such incredible parts of the world usually a wine raging his strong to me around them of course in their art and craft of making a wine is an incredible part of what we do as a profession and I thought what if we replaced the ingredient with the wine region and of course it's a stupid idea that you could never afford to do in the table which is sour excited by a novel as said you know as a chef you real task is to keep your team happy because if you keep the tame happy and motivated they do an incredible job and I looked at it and I thought I can't walk away from it now you know that so excited about it so we have to do it we decided to pack our bags and take not the entire team guy but you know 4 or 5 of us you know usually to each region so then of course we had to swap them we couldn't do a menu each month so we did phoria and yeah they guess of loft you know you sort of I guess if we're doing the menu around Burgundy or Tuscany is the next one we're doing you know people can come in. And do the parrot enticed a variety of Tuscan wines and learn so much about the microclimates and the different varietals that are made within that region and then of course we interpret the region into a menu so that's lots of fun and it seems a perfect entree into a field trip right this 6 part series that's pretty marrying on p.b.s. This weekend where you and your team at Mudd visit several different regions of the world and then bring those insights back to the restaurant when did you start thinking about the concept we started talking about what we were going to do developing the menu and how hard it would be to do it you know you're going to go to a place and I didn't want to go to a place and learn some of the familiar dishes and just come back and repeat them I want to go and really try and interpret it we try and take into consideration the music and the history and the attitudes and the culture and of course the ingredients in the wines but try and sort of really put a finger on what was interesting to us about that region and as I was explaining it to a buddy of mine who's this incredible cinematographer he's like This is an amazing idea for a t.v. Show and I was like really he's like just let me come and share it so he literally came and shot the 1st one with one other person and it was tame of 2 and there was that that was really a ha yeah which has turned into an episodic believed all of it ever on its side there's no way that that could but you know they sort of just fly on the wall style followed us around and turns out that dive go on who's the director of photography is just pray and Woods throw a drawing up in the air and capture the rage in the most magical way and you know he was really taken with the different types of story we made a good chase producer and then of course we made a winemaker and we made a chef to take his mushroom far gene and so he sort of just followed us around it was he was really taken with it and said you know this is a show I'm promising you so he kept together a little 3 or 4 minute clip from a trip and I saw it and I was like wow I think he's wrong I So that was it we started a production company and very best you know we do it on a very small by. But because he's so talented as are the rest of the guys it should it looks really beautiful on yes because the episode I saw you visit the Australian outback Yeah Kimberley and I have to say that it led me away because the whole thing where you're visiting with this community of Aboriginal elders and you allow them to speak about their place and their culture to us I found it very very powerful not to mention the fact that how gorgeous is that place is the sensational I mean as a papal the Aboriginal people main so much to me and there's such a beautiful rice group community of people that when you're around them you sort of you're inspired in a way that is it's almost impossible to explain that I can't really you know you seemed like so deeply chilled in that episode like you were just there right like when a place just grabs you yeah that show dogs we were with Brian and Bonnie the 2 guys that sort of community leaders now those of that little area the Bowery people and they talk about their ancestors and for the most part their ancestors have existed on that land on that stretch of beach for the last 40 or 50000 years and they talk about the good old days as if it was a generation of God What they're actually talking about is thousands of years ago and the knowledge that they've built up around the land in the spirit we were talking about Bush talking right food that they just get from the bush and you what you do this walk through the bush with his guys and they start talking about the type of fish that are in the Iesha and they said well when this tree blooms you know that the whiles chasing the mackerel so the fish will be nice and fatty because the whiles are coming in and the migrations happened they have an understanding of their country as they describe it in a way that I just it's baffles me if the world were as tuned. And to the cycles of the earth right that's there we would not be having this situation that we have now your sever I talked a bit about the fishing experience you had where they put the fish to sleep yeah isn't that crazy crazy so we were talking about going to space fish and go up into a river and that's how I mean look there's a big crowd on this river so we've got to be careful indicted on all sides how do you manage that you know like to take the kids to take the old fellow was is it safe and they said well the old fellows didn't really come into the river because the crux is Sethos the old fellows will go out fishing in the tide pools and I said right as I had to explain that to me how they do it and I said well they take a ridge that has a property that takes the oxygen out of the water so they grind up that root on a rock and then they flush it into the Rock pole and any fish that are hiding under the rocks in the rock pool they'll just flood out and I'm like want I said you've got to share He says sure enough we go down to a problem they do and these fish are literally just flooding to the surface after having this root pumped in the Bunya drip which I had trouble pronouncing And I'm like killed the fish and they're like nah nah it's just takes the oxygen out so they'll just sort of gallons of this like trying coral you know they'll stop moving the flood to the surface he pick them up and them in a light and I stuff like that around again and I'm like it's just unbelievable fishing you know of a sane and hunting and gathering in gradients and foods thousands of years the knowledge again is just such a crazy I'm sure there's going to be more episodes are they all going to drop at once or is there going to be a typical p.b.s. Style hours week by week you have to actually wait you've got to like yeah that's the school way of doing it isn't it yes that's going to be wait by waken we're going to have the 1st 6 are going to and now and we've already started the next season actually we shot one in raw and then we were just in Sonoma. There on Monday with my friend Elizabeth I have to wait till next season your life isn't so good on this I sorry I should say I Sing Brother y.o.i. . Makes me. Curtis. I've been talking with a. New show distributed by American Public Television is called. The break a visit from. Her job has also taken her all over the world specifically 6 continents for months talking with restaurant critic. Return. Thank you so much. It was in February of this year and on to Lewis who's the editor in chief of Food and Wine and said that he wanted to get on a call with me and the editor in chief of travel would also be on this call I had no idea what it was about I thought maybe that it was an assignment I'm a freelancer so that was good for me and they called and explained what they wanted to do and asked if I might be able to do it it was not something that I thought that I could do initially honestly because it required me to kind of blow up my whole life for months and put my regular gig on hold which is with the New York Times in Australia and didn't know if they would be up for it and just didn't know if I could leave my family for that long and all of those things so I took a couple of days to think about it and make a lot of phone calls in finally figured out that I could do it but it was shocking I think I was in shock this couple of days after I got that call one of the things that I find fascinating about this assignment you had is that you didn't do it alone right and the list of colleagues who helped you put together a list so you could build and I 10 or is an unbelievable list it's like a dream panel in a way it really is and that is mainly thanks to food and wine and travel and the reputation that they have and the work that those editors did reaching out to the right people I mean and it really is an internationalist which I'm really happy about it's a very diverse list and some of them were people that I you know said if I'm going to do this I absolutely need to ask these people and you could probably tell who is hard if you look at it about l.a. People so Bill a spazz and Chad Colby were both people that I specifically said Ok I don't know anybody who knows these regions of the world better than these people but it was also Alex out a lot. I mean it was just Sophie peak just a great sort of one of those if you wanted to have a last dinner party who would you invite kind of like one of those lists Absolutely absolutely and one thing also that I find really interesting and intriguing is that there are no rankings or numbers the restaurants are listed alphabetically so you say in your article what this list celebrates is craziness and culture not rankings and numbers talk a little bit about that the way that it was described to me on that 1st call was really if you are going to a city a country it's the place that you want to tell all of your friends all you have to go eat here and quite often that isn't the fancy restaurant sometimes it is but the way that I've kind of been describing it to people is you might travel to Copenhagen just to go eat at Noma that is a thing that many international travelers do you probably aren't going to Mumbai unnecessarily to eat at a fancy restaurant that's not necessarily the reason why should go there there's so much culture and food culture in so many cities and countries in the world that are not based on that kind of very high end culture and so I think that the idea that we were looking for places that spoke to the soul of those locations and I wanted to make sure that if you went and sat in any of these restaurants you would really feel like you were in that place and that made some locations difficult to be frank but I think it was the right way to go about it and you spoke very openly about how the assignment affected you physically and so the fact that you had to land like in Cusco and have altitude sickness and like in a couple of hours get in a car and drive somewhere to eat I mean many of us would have just said now yeah yeah I mean I think that. It's funny some people see this and say oh my God that's a dream job how can I be your assistant next time and some people I think more the professional leaders that I know or understand how crazy that is to try to do when I was only in most countries for 24 hours but that's the thing that makes it a job right I mean but it also gives a different kind of focus to your writing because for a place to reveal itself to you when you're that impaired Yes and I do think that that was the beauty and the magic of this assignment for me was that I was exhausted I was existentially not hungry. And yet there was still moments of kind of pure joy and it was that kind of pure joy that's like very specific to travel for me way you just in the place and it's not necessarily familiar but it's revealed itself to you through a beautiful bite of food or a beautiful meal and that still gets me in my own city occasionally but that feeling is still pure magic So there's a place on the list that's actually the 1st one on the list because it begins with a letter and a and you opted to do it alphabetically elf on c.n.n. In the haka Yeah which reading list for me was the most problematic because I was just it's the kind of place where in a way you don't want to deliver the demi monde on world of international eaters to this sort of pristine lovely family space and well haka right that was certainly a concern of mine I also didn't want to be so paternalistic that I was deciding that this chef wasn't you know ready for that he is somebody who has worked in really really well known restaurants in walk and in Mexico City so he understands the type of. Fame that there is out there in the chef world and that is his ambition I don't think he wants to remain unnoticed in his mom's house. Forever which is where the restaurants based but it is the one restaurant on the list because it's so undiscovered and because it's just in a neighborhood in a house that I did feel a responsibility to make sure that it was something that he did want even if I probably couldn't express exactly how much it would change their life and that business but I did my best I reached out to him and said I want to include you on this list but I'm worried that it is going to change things for you in a way that you might not even be able to really anticipate and he said thank you but this is an incredible honor and I and I want it and again he's an ambitious guy who wants that kind of recognition So tell us a bit about that place oh it's so beautiful so it's not in proper the city it's quite near the airport in this neighborhood and the house is down a dirt road like the cab driver who took me so confused about where we're going you know there's loose dogs everywhere and whatever you make a reservation usually through Instagram or whatsapp and just speak directly with the chef he serves breakfast most days and then a 5 course lunch and his mother is also very involved in the business so she does more of the traditional stuff she makes all of the tea is on it's right in the kitchen where you sit and eat but his food is incredibly refined and would not be out of place in any fine dining restaurant I think anywhere in the world but there's a lot of locals who come in eat there and buy their tortillas from the mother and he's a really young guy but I think I do think that he's like one of these guys who's you know next superstar What a singular experience for you to have that experience before the blow up yeah yeah so perhaps this is. Unfair but I'm going to ask you anyway so while you're on this odyssey was there a place where you got to and you just said you know what I'm just going to stay an extra day oh yeah I mean well every week because I just didn't want to get out of plane but Slovenia was really the one that got me partly because I didn't know what I was getting myself into like this trip was so intense and I was in a new country almost every day and quite frankly like I knew my schedule but I was not thinking what is Slovenia going to be like What is the airport going to be like you know any of that so I just showed up in a couple of countries kind of completely unprepared for what it might be in a way that you never would if you were traveling on your own and got to the airport and couldn't get a cab to take me to the hotel that I was staying at because it was 2 hours away so that made sense so then I had to rent a car which I hadn't planned on doing and I ended up just driving over these mountains and Sylvania is the most rageous leave you to feel place that I've ever seen and I had no concept of it before that I hadn't thought about it it was just kind of this revealing itself to me as I'm driving over these mountains and it was springtime in those little flowers everywhere and you know these old stone beautiful towns clinging to the side of mountains and it's like Alpine fairy land there did that restaurant make the cut yes that's He said Franco a restaurant in a shop that's been featured on chefs table yes yeah so there's that yes. Is there anything you'd really like to share I was very adamant that we get something from l.a. On this list and I came back more than once because the 1st time around I wasn't sure that I had found something and what did you find I ended up going with and NACA which is not that surprising for me the last thing I did for l.a. Weekly before I left was the best restaurants in l.a. And I named and not to the best restaurant in l.a. At that point in time but that was a few years ago so. So there was definitely things that had opened since then that we considered but going back there and having that experience again I mean it's just such a beautiful experience and when I started thinking about it such an amazing expression of what makes l.a. So special as a food city there's a lot of ways you could go with that but to me having somebody who has roots in Japanese culture but is such a Southern California girl Nikki the chef there and bring so much of that to it as well is a really beautiful distillation of what makes Los Angeles so fantastic and of course now home for you is Melbourne Yes So it's not surprising that you found something in Melbourne to put on the last Yeah and we considered really a lot of things in Australia I think Australia got more nominations that it should have given you know how big it is of population compared to other parts of the world the reason I chose Atika is that I think it expresses a stray and it has such a sense of place that is not a restaurant that could be anywhere else in the world bansuri the chef there is really dedicated to using native ingredients native ingredients in Australia these days it's a bit of a trend and so what's happening is people are taking these ingredients that have been used by the indigenous people of Australia for thousands of years and kind of throwing them on top of Asian food all that kind of thing and been is really committed to seeking out knowledge that comes along with those ingredients and also making sure that when you're eating that food you understand who's knowledge that is so that's really important to me but the 1st time I ate there was quite emotional for me and as an Australian person I think that was part of why but Ruth Reichl said the same thing when she nominated it that eating there is an emotional experience Well it's so lovely to just get to see you face to face you know something that very few people are going to do and I'm grateful that you were the person to take on this task nothing. You so much that's special Rodel a scale the affair columnist for The New York Times and former restaurant predict the l.a. Weekly we've been talking about her experience traveling the world to find the world's 30 best restaurants for Travel and Leisure and food and wine magazines. Now we turn to l.a. Restaurant critic Bill Addison who recently returned from his own overseas trip Good morning Bill good morning haven't you had this incredible think Nation in love and I did have an incredible vacation and I know that it's you know a cliche for food writers to gallop all to far flung locations but this was just a really special trip for me because I went with my best friend who is Lebanese and her family who I've known for about a decade I've been curious about the foods of love and on all my career as a critic but especially after knowing Kathleen and her family so well and how different the home cooking is from the restaurant cooking which is something I think that you probably think about a lot what were some of the highlights that you could describe for us a great entree into Lebanese food culture is breakfast you don't hear about that as much in the Lebanese American restaurant culture it's incredible there and the place to go is to see it's an institution it is this one was and fellow cooking often with pots and pans and both hands at once Beshear O'Dell who is the critic at the l.a. Weekly for so many years and one of my dearest friends did a big massive project for food and wine where she named 30 of the best restaurants in the world and I was so excited because like the week after I came back I saw that she had been to Al Susi the thing to order there is Fox day which is a. Evan is making happy faces everyone she knows make me Fatah Evan or let's go find it good here I don't know how to see it so I know the Syrian version tell it the Lebanese version as it was spiced chick peas with yogurt crisped pita and pine nuts probably pretty similar right the borders are so close to one another it's so comforting it's yes it sounds simple but the textures are so right the creamy yogurt the kind of mid bite of the chick peas in the crunch of the pita and pine nuts it was so good the fool is also a big thing there which is another there fool as fava beans but like the dried that have been simmered with just a little bit of cumin thrown in and then the whole mess with the lamb in the center of it and pickles and olives and right now this is all breakfast this is practice they Rudy's are used to this I guess and they also stay out really late those folks know how to party like this is how our roles there was one place the owners Lebanese but the bars called a nice he makes really great southern American cocktails they're not exclusively like that if you want. You can get that there are rockets like. Yeah exactly thank you yeah the licorice flavored spirit that you add water to and it turns cloudy but he makes an incredible Virk are a and he's a really charming guy so you should go see him did she you have any particularly amazing home to hers I honestly didn't because Kelly and her family knew that I was interested in eating out but I had something did bridge the gap between home cooking and restaurant cooking some new friends Nadine Touma and Savina artists who run a publishing house called Dar on both sides they took me to a tiny town in the mountains of Lebannon it really goes down as one of the great days of my life the town is. Called must search through for d.m. Me on Instagram if you want to tales I'll give them to you the name translated from Arabic as Cedars Rest House and the woman we just were we just called her she. She just cooked for us she made this incredible dish called coauthor Ma and it was preserved lamb and she opened the jar and scoops out some lamb meat with like the oil it was preserved and heats that up and then breaks in exile slowly one at a time and cooks them just until their poached and scoops them out and then goes and makes my or money quiche the flat red that is just a signature of Lebanese cooking and she spread one with Zach Dar was so good and another with a type of cheese that had been blended with tomatoes and then she just brought it all out and we had the feast of pickles and fresh vegetables that the Lebanese are always chewing on and herbs and green onions and case scenario everybody's listening to this and this thinking well that's fine yes so where can we go to get our fix after listening to this Ok I am doing a deep dive search I would say the best that I have found so far is hi it's kitchen in North Hollywood I've been a lot of places and it's fine it's good but hi it's has that soul that I'm looking for the couple who owned this split and the wife opened a new place called Mona's kitchen in Tarzana so I'm heading there soon there's also a place in South Bay that a new friend recommended to me called ply is pita and the food is good but what you do is you ask for the daily special and that is like the mother in law the Lebanese mother in law cooking like the high. Home cooking and just basically serving you that one dish Wow And it's like things I got when I went I'm sorry I'm just going to butcher the name so much that I'm not can pronounce it but it's Mallow Malou greens that show up a lot in the eastern Mediterranean simmered with chicken is just really comforting and right wow thank you so much for the treat it was a treat to share thank you I've been I've been talking with l a Times restaurant critic Phil Addison about his recent travels to Lebanon for a link to his article is a. Dot com slash. Coming up we turn. To the local I'm talking with Houston Chef Chris Sheppard about learning to cook in a way that's rooted in where we live it's a great conversation don't go anywhere. Support for comes from u.c.l.a. Center for the art of performance presenting some Lindy West on Sunday October 13th . Sameem is a food columnist author of salt fat acid heat and star of the Netflix series of the same name Lindy West is an opinion writer and author of the memoir shrill notes from a loud woman adapted into a series for Hulu they will discuss food and the challenges of women in the 21st century tickets on sale and kept at u.c.l.a. . This is a test of the Emergency Alert System. This is a test of the emergency alert system in an actual emergency the traditional 2 tone E.B.'s alert signal would have been heard followed by official safety instructions this concludes our weekly test of the Emergency Alert System and 89.9. We're back on case here it is good food I'm Evan Kleiman earlier this year the James Beard Foundation announced its nominations from a location that might have raised a few eyebrows It wasn't New York Chicago or San Francisco it was Houston Texas if you've never visited Houston you might be surprised at similarities to l.a. With a population of 2300000 it's being called the most diverse city in the u.s. There isn't enough Nick majority and one in 4 residents were born in another country it's a mixture of cultures that shape the city's palate in some truly unique ways you're going to cook some nice food but don't just cook the food go out and learn from people and learn not just food but life Chris Shepherd is a chef and restaurant tour who truly embodies Houston's ethos and his restaurant you'd be preserved in the Montrose district ingredients like fish oil and Tamar and make regular appearances on the menu I wanted to talk to him about what it means to cook going away that's rooted in where we live he's written a book about it called cook like a local I was born and rascal but I grew up in Tulsa Oklahoma and moved down to Houston to go to school in 95 and then really just kind of learn the city from there you know it took me a long time to truly understand it because it is big it's really spread out so it just it takes time to start to venture into these other neighborhoods and start to understand that you know as a young cookie you do as much as you can but you try to work you go to school at same time so it's a lot of time and then once I finally saw it I was like whoa we need to talk about this more and more we need to be a part of this more and more and so that was really kind of the idea what strikes me in terms of that the name of your new about correct like in a local I think it's really interesting that often in the killing or a World War when we say local we're referring to and gradients but there's this whole other local as in the Locals the people who make up the community yeah for the longest time it's what we started to do you know they we were cooking locally we were sourcing all of our product locally and then it kind of dawned on me expressive only open up the restaurant that like. Locally doesn't actually mean the product I mean it's a good part of it but it's it's how do you take the influences of where you're at and the people around you learn from them and then shares them and kind of show than to put everybody on a pedestal It took me too much time to realize that that was the best way to go about life some years ago when you were opening underbelly. Of Vietnamese restaurant Why did you decide to do that and what did you gain from that experience I was asked to go to a restaurant actually in fairly and right outside of Houston and I fell in love with it you know I went with a journalist and she was like I need you to see this I fell in love with the people it was a can I come back here and hang out with you and you know talk to your mom and learn in a 6 Absolutely and just the openness and willingness to show me and to talk me through things and it was really kind of funny because it was like me talking about food and then in turn talking to me about business it was pretty fun it made me start to learn that you know what I need to do this at a lot of places so it was you know doing that a small bit of his restaurant and you know the Thai restaurant that I go into all the time to market there was a grocery store I would basically go there to buy product and I would eat you know every time I was in and finally Laurence I was like Hey can I just come hang out with the crew and they're like. No. That sounds fair and then you know that some of the end of the you know I mean hang out with the crew again. You know there's no Ok in that it's like it's very small back there and like I understand it I'm not trying to open a Thai restaurant I just want to see how this goes down and they were like Yes or 2 days was like Ok so I went back there the 1st day and it was really kind of awkward and just kind of let me standing in the corner and you know for that is going to be like why are you here and then finally as I'll do anything else until your shrimp of a pill you're going to your cream pies whatever you want so they can understand and then the next morning I showed up at donuts and I don't know that it's are the key because a bit point it was like What do you want to know we'll show you everything and so it was it was kind of fun and then you know who do that it's like an Indian restaurant a Korean place you know assess one restaurant and so it was just kind of like me understanding more not so much the food but the people so let me ask you this all of these folks that let you into their culinary lives and worked around you while you were looking like a fly on the wall did they ever come into the restaurant Yeah they come in all the time to actually you know I would say to Jacqueline it's a contact like it's probably one of our best guess they celebrate birthdays and it's family now we've become a part of everything and we've done that together and that's the beauty of it is that we've taken the time to not just talk about food but to talk about life and seeing a.j. Get married and you know seeing his kids grow up in it and that's what it should be . Talk to me about Houston's distinctive geography and the approach to city planning or or not the zoning laws and how it informs that the way people eat and shopping cart there's distrust everywhere there's not really for sale like you would talk about Vietnamese food I mean it's everywhere it would be in the other cities pizza joints or burger shops or whatever that's been me and thought shops everywhere in the city you know it's just broken out into so many different areas you know it's like $680.00 something plus square miles of just like people in you know there's not really like this is this section this is a section this is a section of the Mexican Salvadoran communities are everywhere I mean there is per se Asian town which is Bel Air which is like 6 miles of just Vietnamese Chinese Korean is starting to be popular there too but the Korean part of town is up on I 10 which is another little area of the city like that's on Long point which I think is probably the most diverse like 6 mile stretch that you can go down because you can start off and there's there's held against you which is based on only food from hell doggo and then right next to it is a tight spot right across the street from not as a Vietnamese restaurant it's beautiful to see how integrated as a city we can be you suggest ingredients as an entry point that you've used to diversify your car King So let's start with fish sauce because it's everywhere in Houston right it's it is it's everywhere do you know her favorite brand I used Red Boat specifically my better half and I lindsay we had a opportunity to vacation a couple years ago and I said she said would you want to go and I said I don't I think we should go to Vietnam she said what I said I want to learn more about Houston. And she was like that's smart let's go and whatever other it was called those are going to come by and see red. Course we'd love to have you and so it was just a small short flight to food court Island to see you know the production of everything and see in a sea of teal boats there's one little red boat. Like we talked to you know the owner of the company for a long time as like the people think you're crazy for what you're doing who's like absolutely and then I like it now support it because it was there's no fillers there's no colorings there's no it is what it is and so I fell in love with that tell me a way that you use fish sauce in your cooking. Was surprising to you I think it's a good pace for almost everything like not everything but it gives you that hidden sodium mommy characteristic I hate to say things like that but you know it think when people you know with the book especially like what recipe that I'm like Page 38 page 38 so it's an herb marinated grilled chicken right so it's a period so Montreaux and green onion and garlic and honey and chilies and lime juice but fish sauce and you manage the chicken then you girl the chicken right super super easy and it's not. Like fish sauce in your face where it's like you would use it it's not mom or like a dipping sauce it's it's there but it does something to the chicken that gets people to kind of graft their head around what fish sauce is about you you mentioned at the beginning of our conversation that your I never ask a boy so you've obviously had a long relationship with corn you know hurrying up shocking it is being it a lot of it can you talk about what you refer to as the shame dungeon because I feel like I have also as a pipe maker been relegated to that same space that cornstarch creates you know as a cook like you talk about core stars of people just look at you like cross-eyed like what he's doing why would you put corn starch in anything that's like no no it has it's place in life for coding of things it works amazingly well we use dishes with rice for corn starch and just kind of dredge chicken and then fright it's absolutely perfect a lot of the things just like tightening up a little bit of sauces like tomato food it's perfect there is no other substitute for that really for those style of dishes like quick cooking walks it's perfect so with all the talk about appropriation in the space what are some of the more egregious examples that we would want to keep away from for me how I how I feel about that is among a Nascar race I hate to use this analogy but if you and I can really do is any kind of race if we can all push together to be better then we when it's highlighting and supporting and loving people not just telling their story but telling the story with them and hanging out and understanding becoming part of a friend in the family and that's kind of how you approach things it's not me doing things it's all of us doing things together it's what we say at the restaurant you know preserving what underbelly the very beginning as I want to our food to be that the gateway. For people to go on experience these things on their own and enjoy their lives we have photos on the wall of right now it's it's on the website but there's 50 that kind of tell you like you like this no go get this that's so genius So like if you like this from my menu now go eat that because I'm never going to put that on the menu like a balmy but I'm going to put flavors that reminds you of these things are checkers into is 50 different places in the city right that inspire us on a daily basis this restaurant does this this restaurant does this go talk to this person do this and then at the bottom of it it's I thank you so much for coming in today we really appreciate it we would like to have you back but we don't you know we blithely request that you go visit at least one of these places before you do so it's kind of like a road map to our city and so when people come back and they're like look I've been here I've been here I've been here I've been here been here been here I've been here have a did this and it's I met this person they came to me that's understanding where you're at and that's the cook like a local I mean you can do that in any city in the country if you just want to. Shepherd is the chef owner of Underbelly have to tally He's the 2014 James Beard Award winner for best chef at Southwest and this summer was named best chef in the world by their proper port His book is cook like a local. After the break we're continuing our focus on local food ways here in Southern California there's an upcoming symposium you should know about Stay with us here be monsters is a podcast about. It's about a lot. It's about faith and doubt. Love and loneliness. Optimism and grief. It's a podcast about the things upright notes the things that we can't get out of. Here Be Monsters case here W.'s podcast about the unknown new episodes out now listen where ever you get your podcasts. We're back on case here and good food I'm Evan Kleiman many of you are familiar with Southern Foodways Alliance the organization that documents and celebrates food culture in the American south with amazing programs some publications I've long wished that we had something like that here and I'm happy to say that now we do it's called Southern California food ways project Professor Oliver Wang is one of the project's organizers He's here with me now to talk about. That takes place a week from now so why do it why create this organization we have a bunch of really skilled writers exploring this subject anyway right now I think it's this speaks to your point Evan is that one of the things that the Southern Foodways Alliance has done so beautifully over the 2 decades they've been around is to bring together all of these different parties and forces and communities that are centered on food but maybe from different angles so writers scholars restaurant tours farmers food justice advocates and so forth and to find kind of a big tent approach to bringing all these folks into conversation with each other as a way of exploring this relationship between food and food culture in the food industry in a local region whether it's the south or in this case Southern California which I think we can both agree is is already plenty complex enough to warrant that kind of focus so we actually have our 1st symposium coming up on October 11th and 12th at the archery museum can you talk a bit about what's going to be happening there so this is going to be a d.n.a. Half going to have a keynote speaker in conversation with one of our fine journalist friends and when it will be interviewing Tony Tipton Martin and this is on Friday night and I think some folks in l.a. Should certainly be familiar with Tony's work she used to be the nutrition writer at the l.a. Times and is about to release a really incredible compilation of restaurants gathered from bout 200 years worth of after. In American cookbooks and so they'll be talking both about the history behind the project but I think also engaging with the conversation about Who stories get to be told one of the things I should have mentioned is that the symposium theme this year is on The People's History of food in Southern California and so part of what we're trying to focus on are those stories that perhaps don't get told as much or get left out of the so-called official histories what happens on the 12th on Saturday will be a lineup of 7 speakers and we're trying to capture as broad as possible a cross-section of our different Los Angeles communities and so that's going to include talk to Maria owner Carlos Sakata coming up from the Orange County Frank Shong the Los Angeles Times columnist who's been writing a lot about the intersections between food and community will be one of our other speakers indigenous food way scholar Claudia Serato is going to be another one of them and so the goal here is really to have people representing different aspects of the many different food communities we have here in Southern California offering tidbits of thought you can describe the mysteries of the moon is perhaps that will then lead into larger conversations among the folks attending and I should just say that some of the meals during the conference are going to be really interesting we have a group of people from the Thai community development organization that group of women putting together a lunch and then a new arrival Syrian family who's being represented by Marius list will be doing a dinner the only way you can join in those meals is to register for a symposium correct this will be at the Autry Museum in their auditorium and it seems like a very good partnership in terms of the institution that's dedicated to the history of the West and a project that we're putting on here that is very much delving into one aspect of that history which is how do we eat and how do we share our meals That was California State University Long Beach Professor Oliver Wang talking about the new organization the Southern California food waste project for. Slash. And you'll find a link there. This is with the market I'm here. In Kiev and I spotted you in the middle of the market carrying something I have never seen before describe what's in your arms right now. Maybe about a foot of the base and 4 inches on top it's a multiple layers to it it's. What you do. Towards the big if you like layers of. Becomes a point. And you can slice a paper however I'm still. New to me as well I tell you. However I'm still experimenting figured out. There's a flavor profile that's like. It's almost like. Crunchy like. Flavor and I can't get over and so I taste now it's like. You're expecting it so I want to figure out. Obviously I say. But still. Try couple different techniques and figure out how to use it and maybe it doesn't work so what's the difference between. You know how. Just I'm assuming the kid. You know they do all the work for you and then. There's different levels of quality and you know this bad heart's a bomb than this bomb I always like it was a nice sustainable thing to palm that Bluefin tuna these are the big. Book where I learned is that what was not sustainable was that people just palm trees and just beautiful. And then there's a big environmental impact of that that's not good form and practice but he grows them just for this so that's why sustainable the plants a palm tree to cut down that's that's that's a business plan so let's talk about the good hearts upon that's canned I assume they can and they actually have a little acid hopefully no preservatives but they do all the work for you so I'm going a long way and it's clearly more expensive as well but it's a farmer's market and that's something that Stephen offers and you know it's I need to support these guys too also it's fun for me I guess this would be. Like well what's what is. Sort of the hearts of what's going on there and that's money that's what I'm doing today is taking the weird stuff and making it tasty a beautiful city idea is to slice it and then do what with the Buddha's hand so the Buddhist And another thing that's not easily prepared and it takes all technique the Buddha has no juice to it's all the flavor and I best describe it as like those merino Italian ices a yellow ones the lemon ones I know there's at the top of it on the very bottom there's like the sugar settles the bottom and. It's so fragrant in that amazing lemon flavor However it's all pitted or sort of bitter So what I do is I slice a paper thin and then I Blanche it then I cook it and vinegar with lots of sugar in it so it's kind of like simple syrup even agree. That's great so so my slice of paper you can kind of like almost like sushi gender and I apply like that so at what point in your menu is this dish going to appear is this like a dessert palate. Cleanser I've been going with this dish actually we. Came here last we got ours abominable as head and I rolled out last week and I'm doing a local yellowtail What is that. And with. But I can use the bottom of the tops but I want to figure out the bottom that's my mission today that's one thing my gears today is that's my little puzzle and I'm Ok with it failing to do it it doesn't work out that's Ok my cooks learned something I learned other guests out there listening can learn so you can help me out here show me what's attractive because it's like they grow all of their gross and so-so and figure out how to leech out of the bitterness so there's a technique. That I can find a measure of I mean I'm Googling all wrong but. You know. The way you describe it sounds delicious to me and it's fun to hear about your experimentation thank you so much you're welcome that was Kevin me in Cali on Melrose he is experimenting with some hearts of Palm here at the Santa Monica farmers market. Right now is that magical time of year at the farmer's market where some are butts up against the fall and it also happens to coincide with the big season and Margarita Smith of mad creek ranch in Santa Paula is one of the purveyors of figs here at the Farmer's Market Margarita tell us how many varieties of figs you're growing as of right now we are growing about 12 or it is a different figs some green skin with like you know super dark purple color on the inside. There's the Adriatic there's the lighter figs all the difference with the skin textures some are super cheap. And brown sugar and are they all meant for different applications or they all sort of just for eating out of hand I mean obviously all. Right but yet Brown Turkey is really awesome for grilling just because it's a firmer texture and holds up really well it's not overpoweringly sweet so if you add other stuff say you want to do like a honey glaze on it and roast. That way it's delicious and then the other figs that are less we if you actually apply them to savory dish and roast them in the oven with say like chicken pork or whatever vegetables you want to do that's another way to do it there is one fig called the Celeste fig it's one of the tiniest figs but the inside is like already pure jam and just falls apart like super smooth butter like that that is probably like eating by itself is my favorite I know I remember the 1st time I tasted that your stand it's a very special thing so give us a sense of how figs grow because they are fascinating fruit they are very fascinating and it's so it starts with the the bud the flower of it and then each begets pollinated by a wasp sometimes a wasp when they pollinate they go into the cavity and they naturally just get stuck there or die in that sense but by the time that you eat it it's already decomposed enough that it would just it's the same idea of like compost and it all the materials and proteins being broken down and all you're getting is nutrients out of it and when you talk about the wasp it's a very specific fig wasp right yes I can't remember the specific name of it right now but it's. That isn't indigenous to here obviously but yeah it just helps pollinates the figs and would you happen to know where where to Figs come from what part of the world originally from the Middle East because there actually is so turns out with us and the direction that we were going to maybe like 6 years ago with California drought and having more drought tolerant crops I guess is a good way of putting it we decided to put more figs because they're very drought tolerant and they survive with like little water and one of the last times I spoke to you actually right after the fires a few years ago have you guys been able to rebuild your farm for the most part although orchards planted again which is really nice there are all those super young trees we planted more apricot stone fruit and things like that and more lemons because turns out lemons are much better fire retardant than off cause you still deal with some stuff with insurance and waiting for the bar. How much longer will you have. I would say maybe 3 to 4 weeks. Thank you so much. She and her parents. You're listening to Casey r.w. Next time on All Things Considered a mysterious illness has stricken some children with weakened limbs and even paralysis what a new scientific paper says it's being caused by how British protesters are using unconventional means to call out their government's inaction on climate change and the Supreme Court hears arguments on whether l.g.b. T.q. People are protected by the Fed from Job discrimination plus local news weather and traffic it's All Things Considered from n.p.r. And k.c. Or w a Monday edition starts at 3. You are listening to members supported k.c. . Los Angeles. Santa Barbara. Indio Palm Springs Casey ru Oxnard Inter. Community service of Santa Monica College and n.p.r. For southern California. 78 degrees now in downtown l.a. Coming up to n.p.r. News. Live from n.p.r. News in Washington I'm Barbara Kline the Trump administration says it will deny visas to would be immigrants who don't have health insurance or can't prove they can pay for medical care N.P.R.'s Dan Charles reports the new requirement is supposed to take effect in a month according to a presidential proclamation most people who are applying for immigrant visas at u.s. Consulates abroad will have to show they're covered by health insurance or have enough money to cover what the proclamation calls reasonably foreseeable medical costs the requirement does not apply to refugees people applying for asylum or the children of u.s. Citizens according to the White House the new policy supposed to keep immigrants from imposing financial burdens on the American health care system the trumpet ministration has previously announced other policies aimed at limiting immigration by people who use public benefits immigrant rights advocates are challenging those policies in court Dan Charles n.p.r. News New York City police say for homeless people were beaten to death early this morning David 1st of member station. Reports a suspect is in custody police responded to a 911 call early Saturday reporting an assault in Manhattan's Chinatown neighborhood Deputy Chief Inspector Michael Ball the Sano said they found several homeless men who were likely sleeping when they were attacked with a lead pipe the motive appears to be right now just a random attacks it doesn't then you know one was targeted by race age hey that of that nature one victim remains in critical condition a 24 year old suspect is in custody he is also believed to be homeless police.