'Great Chefs' was a series of cooking shows and cookbooks that made over 700 episodes. Each episode was recorded entirely in a professional kitchen rather than a production studio, and each consisted of 3 segments— an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert. Each dish was made by a different chef and the whole thing was super straight-forward. No bells or whistles or fancy camerawork or anything. Just straight-up cooking. And the instructions were incredibly clear thanks to the voiceover work of the one and only Mary Lou Conroy. In her thick Louisiana accent, Mary Lou described everything the chefs were doing.

Watching 'Great Chefs' was Julia's cooking education.

She connected with Mary Lou Conroy, who is now 91 years old, to talk about the role of food in Mary Lou's life, her love of travel and reading, and what makes her excited during this chapter of her life.

There is also a shoutout to the MiNO Foundation (Made in New Orleans) and answers to listeners' questions about vegan cooking with responses from Timothy Pakron (Mississippi Vegan) and Jenné Claiborne (Sweet Potato Soul).

Follow-up links:

• 'Great Chefs' official website.
• Watch 'Great Chefs' on Amazon Prime.
• Eater: 'Great Chefs' is Amazon Prime's Best Kept Culinary Secret
• MiNO Foundation
• Jenné Claiborne: Sweet Potato Soul
• Timothy Pakron: Mississippi Vegan
• Oxo
• Julia Turshen

Lisa Gross, the founder of League of Kitchens, and Mab Abbasgholizadeh, one of their instructors, sit down with Julia and talk about the organization and its impact. The conversation covers a range of meaningful topics including activism, feminism, sexuality, identity, ideology, immigration, home, memory, trauma, healing, agency, cooking, and love. There are also answers to listeners' questions about cooking.

Follow-up links:

• For more about League of Kitchens and to sign up for one of their classes, head here.
• For more about Mab, head here.
• For more about Lisa, head here.
• For more about Julia Turshen, head here.
• For more about Oxo, who helped make this episode possible, head here.

You might know Elle Simone Scott from the PBS cooking show America’s Test Kitchen where she is a regular on-air contributor. You might know some of her other work without even realizing it— she has created beautiful food behind the scenes as a food stylist and culinary producer for the Food Network, Cooking Channel, and Bravo. In 2013 she incorporated SheChef, a networking organization for women chefs of color.

Elle’s career began in social work, and she and Julia talk about the impact that’s had on her work. They also talk honestly and openly about navigating burnout and more.

There are also answers to listeners' questions about cooking and a shoutout to Future Chefs.

Follow-up links:

• Elle Simone Scott
• Future Chefs
• For more about Oxo, head here
• Julia's Food & Wine interview with Elle
• Blooming Willow Coaching (Leslie A. Brown's business)
• Julia Turshen

Karen Akunowicz, named Best Chef: Northeast in 2018 by James Beard Foundation, is well-known from her stint on Bravo’s Top Chef, her time as Executive Chef at Myers + Chang in Boston, and from Myers + Chang at Home, the cookbook she co-authored with Joanne Chang. She owns and runs her new restaurant Fox & the Knife in Boston with her spouse, LJ Johnson, plus their poké shop, SloPoke.

Julia sat down with Karen and LJ to talk about their partnership in and out of their businesses and how they navigate things like talking about their relationship on television, work-life balance (whatever that is!), and more.

There are also answers to listeners' questions and a work about No Kid Hungry.

Follow-up links:

• For more about Oxo, head here.
• Karen Akunowicz
• Fox & the Knife
• SloPoke
• No Kid Hungry
• Julia's Turshen's Applesauce Cake with Cream Cheese + Honey Frosting
• The article Julia wrote for the Washington Post about cooking a big meal for a group with different dietary restrictions

The 3rd Season of Keep Calm and Cook On kicks off with Antoni Porowski from Netflix’s Queer Eye and author of the brand new cookbook Antoni in the Kitchen. He and Julia cover everything from imposter syndrome to throwing dinner parties to how to handle being an empathetic person.

One lucky listener is eligible to win a copy of Antoni’s new cookbook! To enter for a chance to win, leave a review of Keep Calm and Cook On on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, screenshot it, and send it to [email protected] or DM it on Instagram to @turshen. One submission will be randomly selected one to win a copy of Antoni’s wonderful new cookbook!

Follow-up links:

Listen to a live recording of the "Goodbye Food World, Hello City Hall" panel from the Eater Young Guns Summit with Shakirah Simley and Julia Turshen. The Summit was a day-long event put on by Eater that celebrated young talent in the restaurant industry and the issues that are important to them. The panel was a purposeful conversation with tangible ideas about all sorts of ways we can all use food to get involved in our communities.

Shakirah Simley lives by the motto: “If the personal is political, then there is nothing more personal or political than food.”

Whether you work in food or just like eating food, there’s something we can all do. Remember what Shakirah said: “Revolution and food have always been intertwined.” And there’s a way, many ways!, for all of us to be part of the revolution.

Below is the list of important reminders addressed in the episode. If you have other ideas or any other questions email [email protected].

Be in dialogue with your local representatives. Save their contact information and be in touch. To make sure you’re represented, it’s good to let them know what you care about.

Use food spaces to gather - to invite people and welcome them - and then inform these groups. Create comfortable spaces to have uncomfortable conversations. This can be your restaurant or your own kitchen table at home.

Fill out the census!

Do your homework. Know what’s going on in your local elections and sign up for any election alerts or any other community notices.

Remember the term “Community Benefits Agreement” when new businesses come into your neighborhood.

Check your power and privilege and how you came to possess those things and how you can shift those things.

Shop and eat locally.

Jia Tolentino is a staff writer for The New Yorker and her new book of essays, Trick Mirror, is about to come out in August. Before writing for The New Yorker, Jia worked as a deputy editor at Jezebel and a contributing editor at the Hairpin.

Jia and Julia talked about writing, real life versus online and print versus digital, how she learned to cook when she was in the Peace Corps., the role of cooking in her life now, a bit about her new book and her anticipation of it being out in the word.

There are also answers to listeners' questions and a shoutout to Make the Road NY.

Follow-up links:

Jocelyn Guest and Erika Nakamura are the butchers behind J&E SmallGoods, a newly launched quote-on-quote Mom & Mom Shop that makes mail-order hot dogs, kielbasa, and bratwurst. There are more meats are in the pipeline.

They have dedicated their careers to supporting local family farms that raise animals with big space, clean water, good feed and respect. They believe you shouldn’t have to support the industrial food supply just to enjoy hot dog.

Jocelyn and Erika are partners in both business and life, which is a bit of a running theme on this show. I’m referring to my conversations with Jody Williams and Rita Sodi who run Via Carota together in New York City, Mona Talbott and Kate Arding who run Talbott & Arding in Hudson New York, and the two couples on the bonus episode from Atlanta— Deborah VanTrece and Lorraine Lane from Twisted Soul Cookhouse and Pours and Virginia Willis, the cookbook author, and Lisa Ekus, the literary agent.

Like I was able to with each of those couples, I got to talk to Jocelyn and Erika about what drives them as business owners and what their work means to them as both individuals and as a couple.

Prior to starting J&E Small Goods, Jocelyn and Erika ran White Gold Butchers on the Upper West Side of New York and then moved north of New York City, not terribly far from where Grace and I live, had a daughter named Nina, and got to work building their new company.

They joined me, Nina too!, to talk about the genesis of their new company, life as new parents, sandwiches and much much more. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Follow-up links:

This episode features a conversation with Emmett Findley, the Manager of Communications at God’s Love We Deliver, and Craig Palmer, one of God’s Love We Deliver’s longtime clients.

God’s Love We Deliver is based in New York City and their mission is to improve the health and well-being of men, women and children living with HIV/AIDS, cancer and other serious illnesses by alleviating hunger and malnutrition. Everyday they prepare and deliver thousands of beautiful meals to people who, because of their illness, are unable to provide or prepare meals for themselves. They also offer nutrition education and counseling and all of their services are given free to clients without regard to income. God’s Love We Deliver believes so much that food is love and it is medicine.

Julia and Emmett reflect on the queer community and Julia talks to Craig about what it means to be on the receiving end of God's Love We Deliver's meals.

There are also answers to listeners' questions about food and cooking.

Follow-up links:

Julia talks all things cookbooks with Matt Sartwell, the managing partner of Kitchen Arts & Letters, a bookstore in New York City that specializes in food and drink. Matt came to Kitchen Arts & Letters more than twenty years ago after a career as a book editor. Kitchen Arts & Letters is a small shop but it holds over 12,000 titles that aren’t just cookbooks— they have books on the history of food and operation and technical manuals, plus tons of out-of-print books. They opened in 1983 and Julia Child, James Beard, and Laurie Colwin were among their early customers.

Julia also answers listeners' questions about food and cooking and gives a shoutout to the Ali Forney Center.

Follow-up links: