Get ready to Connect With Food and meet the 2025 inductees into the Omaha Hospitality Hall of Fame Doug Case, Andy Reetz, Chad Hartmann, Jim Major, Loren Koch, and Mike Kelley. Brian O'Malley, the Associate Dean of MCC Institute for the Culinary Arts, and I talked with the inductees in MCC's studio to bring you the voices and the stories behind this years group of honored individuals.

Please listen, like, and share and as always Connect With Food! 

Chef Garrett Kasper brought an amazing menu revamp and food focused overhaul to Timbers At Lied Lodge. I was given the opportunity to try the food at this Nebraska City gem and then had a wonderful conversation outdoors overlooking the tree line in the distance. 

Taking the time to make the drive from wherever you are will yield excellently plated dishes with flavors both familiar and exciting. 

Please listen in to Chef's story and our conversation as we Connect With Food.

My heavens get ready, we have a multi-topping hand tossed artisan episode for you. I was fortunate to attend International Pizza Expo 2025 in March and through this was able to connect, learn, have fun, and recap in Vegas to bring expo to you.

Additionally I was able to interview Eidref Laxa of the What's Good Dough podcast who competed this year at Expo and is just an all around nice person to slice it up with. This episode also features a new segment from Danell Taylor aka the Omaha Fattie as he reports in from a new opening of Wild Chicken.

Hang onto your fork, listen if you’re hungry, and get ready to connect with food!

Brady Hess of Lazy Buffalo BBQ located 3924 1/2 Farnam St in Omaha, a half you say? Well it’s a small place, but there are plenty of seats next door where you take your BBQ at Scriptown brewing, but anyway. At the time of this conversation Lazy Buffalo is right about 1 year old and longtime listeners will remember Brady’s voice as we have followed his food journey from 2021 and now have caught up to present day where he now has his own brick and mortar serving up his food his way from dill potato salad to a stacked sandwich named after his father, Alan Earl.    

Hang onto your fork listen if you’re hungry and get ready to connect with food!

The doors unlocked at Bohemian Gardens after hours to allow Chef Jamil Bah Traore and Chef Fatima El Qasby to teach you and I all about North African Dolma. Chef Jamil and I have been talking about cooking together for a while and the timing was just right as the House of Bah’s upcoming Indigo Table event at Bohemian gardens is coming up April 26th and 27th and this dish is a candidate for the plate.  Listen in on how to get this recipe so you can give it a try!

House of Bah Foundation is a non-profit providing a path for immigrant chefs to establish their footing in Omaha and more than that is making far from Omaha flavors familiar to our city’s palate.    

Hang onto your fork listen if you’re hungry and get ready to connect with food!

2025 James Beard Nominee David Utterback of Yoshitomo is on the mic! Heart, craft, attention to detail, David shows all of this on the plates he serves. He’s also a busy guy, ya know running three restaurants, traveling to Japan to keep up to date and learn from other Chefs, bringing in the top tier seafood to Nebraska, oh and also cooking to benefit charity.

Dave took time out from his day to talk with me about all of these things after we had a chance to connect at the Foodbank for the Heartland Celebrity Chef Gala.  We talk Japanese steel, core memories, and also what he might like to do with those big sushi boats….so

Hang onto your fork, then set it down we’re talking sushi, keep listening if you’re hungry and connect with food!

Art and Soup March 9th, 2025! How does food help? It nourishes the heart, mind, and body. Art has its impact to the senses and mind as well. Combine the two and you get Art and Soup!

This is the "VNA’s 28th annual event supporting nursing services in domestic violence shelters, homeless shelters, and maternity homes.” On the show is Carole Patrick who heads up Art and Soup and Chef Brian O'Malley of MCC who leads the culinary side of the roughly 20 restaurants that bring soup for a cause that the public can experience.

Oh, I bug Chef for some cooking tips while we’re at it. Hang onto your fork, listen if you’re hungry, and connect with food!

If you’re a person that knows me well then you know that a cup of coffee is not far from my hand. We have great coffee shops around our area and I am thankful for small shops from Hawaii to Lebanon right back to Omaha.

Our guest is Autumn Pruitt owner of Hardy coffee which of course started as a bakery….. um what, yep bakery to coffee, cake to cup, and on the show we will talk about all of those things. Pour yourself a cup of whatever delicious you dig and then...

Hang onto your fork and get ready to connect with food!

There is a lot packed in this episode, get ready to get an overview of Rotisserie Urban Bistro from chicken to empanada, saffron rice, plantains and more. We are going to talk about one of my favorite cookbooks and two of my preferred recipes therein.

I’m going to get personal * GASP * with my cooking journey and I would love to hear about yours as well and we will close out our show with a quick note regarding an event at MCC Institute for the Culinary Arts that resulted in an award winning Chef and a heartfelt evening of family. 

Hang onto your fork listen if you’re hungry and connect with food!

It's a new season and with a new season comes growth and as you know farmers make things grow. Growing is what Tim Fonfara of Omaha Urban Farmer does be that in the outdoors in his city surrounded ¾ acres or inside where microgreens pop up all year.

We're checking in on how the farm weathered the …um...weather. We talk a bit about how a person would get going on growing these greens and I learn about the difference between microgreens and sprouts and taste some carrot and cilantro micros on the mic. 

Hang onto your fork stay , listen if you’re hungry, and connect with food!