What s the difference between God and a Goddess The former is everywhere and the latter is in one place at a time, right NOLA Food Goddess Lori Gaudin comes mighty close to challenging that definition. Ray and Margo do their best to list all Lorin s culinary exploits from blogs to cookbooks, podcasts, TV shows, social media, and radio programs, but the list of achievements pales like vanilla against the colorful conversation about Lorin s life. From disparate childhood influences to daring early forays into love and food, from the Paris of South, New Orleans, to the real deal Parisian cooking school, from omnivore eating to the tyranny of Celiac disease and her attendant blog about it, My Stupid Stomach, Lorin Gaudin s fearless tell all defines what makes a Goddess. Kim Ranjbar and Lorin have been buddies since their early post Katrina experiences threw them together. Kim tells the story behind her wildly popular column Weekend Cheat Sheet, in which she chronicles her weekly indulgences in her one day a week deviating from her diet. Kim s prolific NOLA food footprint is quickly catching up to Lorin s, with a regular column in Where Y at, her Suck The Heads blog, and her tell it like tastes NOLA Food Porn. On the other side of the table, Chris Kehoe and Mary Ross produce and direct Midnight Menu 1.

Chef Richard Papier still remembers when Mexican food in New Orleans meant Taco Bell. And he s not that old. Chef Richard is changing how we experience Mexican dishes with authentic recipes from Mexico steeped in his fine dining training working alongside Emeril, Susan Spicer, Nathaniel Zymet, Donald Link and Guillermo Peters. Chef Richard s new Uptown restaurant on Magazine Street is a few thousand giant steps up from Nacho Mama s, the space it now occupies. Arana Taqueria y Cantina is the real deal Yucatan soaked flavors paired with the only imported Mexican craft beer in town and a range of fine tequilas. If you think the leap from Nacho Mama s to Arana is about the most incomparable comparison you could imagine, how about this one the leap from Cairo, Egypt to Ocean Springs, Mississippi. That s the trajectory Cal Zayed s life took. Cal is Arana s front of house face and a tequila sophisticate who turns drinking tequila into an art form. Cal can take you on a flight with the finest tequilas from Mexico or have you climb a tequila ladder from ground to kissing the sky. Just don t ask him about "angry grapes" raisins or how those dancing raisins from the TV ads back in the day terrorized him as a child and haunt him still. Chef Richard s and Cal s complementary pasts, tastes, humor and passion make for a lively night out, whether it s at Arana or here on Midnight Menu 1.

Bar B Q ain t what it used to be when dad threw a few ribs and chickens on the grill, pretty much forgot about it while he got loaded on crappy beer and we all had to pray mom s potato salad was edible before we were forced to accompany it with various forms of carbon which we just knew would give us all cancer. Well, we survived. And just as well because we ve lived long enough to learn to bar b q right thanks to the pride of Mid City, Colleen Rush. Colleen wrote the 10 commandments of bar b q, Low and Slow, and now she s back with the new testament, Low and Slow 2. Colleen s 1 is legendary NOLA writer and blogger, Deborah "Big Red" Cotton. Big Red is the world authority on second lines and street parades. Believe it or not, despite the century plus history of parading and Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs in New Orelans, nobody had thought to provide a centralilzed resource for all that info till Big Red came along. As she says to Ray and Margo, if nothing else it ties up traffic for 4 hours on a Saturday, wouldn t you think people would like to know about that Apparently they do, and that s why Big Red is so big. Check out the fabulous new NOLA Brewing Tap Room. It s truly awesome. These crappy photos don t begin to do it justice.

Many things in life are not as simple as they appear. That goes for sausage. And hogshead cheese. And hearts, bellies, snouts, stomachs and every part of an animal you could butcher that ends up in a meat product or on a smoker. Chris Roos aka The Rooster is a meat broker. A meat middle man whose company Holton Meats

If it's fresh, lives in La and you can throw it in the back of a truck it's at Peche

If you re the type of New Orleanian who "goes out" meaning you spend time in bars or music clubs and tend to see the same couple of hundred faces, some of whom you know by name and some of whom you just recognize Joe Armitage is a fellow traveler. Joe has been working in restaurants around New Orleans for, by his own reckoning, 30 years. And he s only 43. For about the same amount of time he s been playing in bands around town. So if you go out there s a fair chance you know Joe. Most recently you would ve known him as the manager of Sammich, the uniquely New Orleans take on a sandwich shop on Maple Street. Hopefully you enjoyed eating at Sammich and talking to Joe prior to reading this because, if you didn t know already, as of this week Sammich is no more. Joe s looking at his next incarnation as a swing of the pendulum back to the music side of his life. It might have been food and it might have been music that brought Joe and his plus one Aron Lambert together lo those 30 years ago when they were both starting out on a shared parallel food and music track. Aron s family owns and operates Preservation Hall and Aron plays in the vaunted NOLA royalty that is the Treme Brass Band.

If you want to know what really goes on at Stein s Deli, Bouligny, Bellocq, Cellar Door, and you want the answer from a chef to the age old question "Do chefs spit in people s food " this show might have everything you re looking for. Then again, everything in this conversation could be a total lie. It s hard to tell. When mixologist, maitre D and film maker Mike Yusko one of our favorite all time guests asked Midnight Menu 1 if he could shoot a scene for his upcoming movie on our show we readily agreed. What follows is Mike shows up with his sidekick, acclaimed chef Wayne Corbett, and buddy Guy Lyman from Guy Lyman Gallery, a neighbor to Bouligny Tavern. The show starts with Mike explaining he s shooting a movie about guys shooting a movie and this scene on Midnight Menu 1 is the characters in the movie appearing on Midnight Menu 1. Except Mike and Wayne and Guy who calls himself Gary in the movie are actually on Midnight Menu 1 in real life as well as in the movie about guys making a movie.

Domenica link1 Chef Alon Shaya explains how an Israeli living in New Orleans fell in love with Italy and Italian food and why cooking it is a way of life. His surprise 1 is the real deal. link1 http www.domenicarestaurant.com

Meredith Timberlake brings along 40 pounds of Haydel s Bakery King Cake to share with Margo and Ray on Midnight Menu 1. In an "only in New Orleans" way of life, Meredith works off her day job king cake by being a cross fit trainer and a power weight lifter. Meredith s 1, Cornell Landry, started out owning restaurants and cooking. When he discovered he could write children s books Cornell left the restaurant business but didn t entirely leave food out of his stories. Cornell is the author of the Bead Dog books, inspired by the Haydel s Bakery bead dog, and also of local kids favorite, Goodnight NOLA. Meredith tells a wide range of tales on this show including growing up around the world from Alabama to Guatanamo, and Cornell tells some wild stories about chauffering actress Faye Dunaway which he groups under the title "Driving Miss Crazy."