"The table becomes the bridge to our cultures." Caryn Antonini

My dear friend, Caryn Antonini is a culinary ambassador who reminds us that food is what connects us around a global table. Influenced by her father and worldwide travels, Caryn has launched Cultivated by Caryn, a podcast and radio show to share her love of cooking, dining and bridging cultures. She also did a TedX Talk about the Language of Food.

After being introduced by our mutual friends, Max Tucci and Jennifer English, Caryn and I met in person last summer while we were both in the South of France. We explored the outdoor food markets in Saint Tropez, dined at the historic Cafe Senequier and met again in Palm Beach for a Kitchen Chat and a lunch at Cafe Boulud at The Brazilian Court with my friend, Nancy Davis, founder of Race to Erase MS.

Caryn and I are both honoring our late fathers who made the world a little smaller through their global palates.

To learn more and get Karen's recipe for Springerle Cookies visit https://www.KitchenChat.info

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Emmy Award Winning Actor and Daytime TV's favorite villain, Thaao Penghlis, recently released his cookbook: "Seducing Celebrities One Meal at a Time." This Australian-born Renaissance Man has traveled the world and hosted memorable dinner parties in his Hollywood Hills home with high profile celebrities. While this cookbook imagines the perfect meals for celebrities he has met, his actress friend Doris Roberts once wrote a thank you note praising his meticulous detail to the ambiance, food, and presentation.

Kourabiedes literally changed his life. While Thaao was working as an apprentice at an art gallery in Manhattan, Jacqueline Kennedy knocked on the door. The gallery owner was out to lunch so Thaao invited then Mrs. Kennedy to have some tea and kourabiedes which he had baked. How ironic that the son of Greek immigrants would serve Greek wedding cookies to the future Mrs. Onassis. Of course the featured entree that Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis inspired was Thaao's Moussaka. recipe. He shares his delicious touches to this Greek dish including shiitake mushrooms and peeling the eggplants to remove any bitterness. Thaao also highlights delightful stories about other celebrities during our Kitchen Chat.

Thaao hosts a podcast called "Thaao Penghlis' Lost Treasures," a thrilling detective story-style exploration of Greece's greatest contribution to the world's literature, the poet Homer.

Here is Thaao's great wisdom for life and success.

1. Never allow people to be the leaders of your life or tell you what's next. I believe you plant your own seeds and trust.
2.  
3. If someone's not opening the door, it's meant that you look elsewhere. Don't let them be your dominant in the ways they've taken you away from something. Out create them.
4.  
5. Make your life great. Don't shortchange it. Don't let people dismiss you. If they do it means that you have just been blessed by someone who has let you go onto another side of your track.
6.  
7. Be the cause and not the effect.

Enjoy the great recipes and stories in Seducing Celebrities One Meal at a Time.

Savor the day!

For more Celebrity Chef interviews and recipes visit Kitchenchat.info 

Celebrity Chef Dave White recently released his first cookbook "Salted:A Recipe Book with a Story to Tell." This new book spotlights 50 of his favorite recipes and adventurous travels (photos included) around the world.

Before he was the chef on Bravo's "Below Deck Mediterranean," Chef White cooked in some of the finest kitchens in London and Paris and was a top competitor skier. In the book's endorsement, Captain Sandy Yawn writes that Chef White "was the best chef on Below Deck Med." With mountaintops and valleys in his life, Chef White shares how cooking saved him. He is a big advocate for mental health and openly speaks about his own challenges. 

Having grown up near London, Chef White has a passion for Fish N Chips and hopes to one day open a restaurant. Meanwhile, he continues his culinary adventures on land and sea.

Here are Chef Dave's top tips for the home chef:

1. When you are cooking, it needs to be fun. I never write lists when I go shopping. See what's fresh and organic and what they brought in that morning. Then create something around that ingredient. 
2. Season fish and meat treating them both the same. Let it set out for an hour before you cook it. 
3. Bread doesn't have to be complicated. Just get good flour, all purpose and some quick yeast. Put it together in one pot, warm water, rest and a tiny bit of sugar. Don't overthink. Let it proof once and just bake it at a high heat. It really isn't that complicated. 
4. A bonus tip from Chef Dave White is to use Maldon Sea Salt from Cornwall.

What is your favorite salt?

Be sure and visit Kitchenchat.info for more celebrity chefs and recipes.

Savor the Day!

Monica Rothgery, former COO of KFC US, part of Yum Brands, shares inspiring lessons about excellence along with surprising insights into fast food kitchens. Monica's recent book, "Lessons from the Drive-Thru: Real Life Wisdom for Frontline Leaders" goes beyond optimal team management practices and provides great advice for everyone who is pursuing excellence in their lives.

A great tip to attract and retain loyal employees and to create an environment where team members feel valued is to invest both monetary and relationship capital. Engagement is essential. Take the time to learn about your team members and always show respect. The team members impact the customer experience. Monica's advice to optimize customer service is to not overreact or take things personally. She taught her team members to respond to a frustrated customer by saying: "That shouldn't have happened. Let me fix it for you." That validating response can help diffuse emotions. Her customer service tip can be applied in many home or business life situations. She emphasized that frontline management greatly impacts people, not only the team members but also the customers. Many first jobs are at fast food restaurants. Management needs to realize that they have the power to positively change lives.

You may be surprised to learn about the time and effort KFC and Yum Brands take to innovate new flavors and offerings.  The Food Innovation Team even studies trends in fine dining as part of their innovation and creation approach. Chicken and Waffles and Nashville Hot are examples of this practice.

Bottom line, Monica encourages everyone to increase the top line of life, i.e. finding and doing the things that bring joy.   She recommends writing down what depletes you and what brings you joy and fulfillment and to focus always on the joy.  Monica reminds us that abundance follows joy.

Savor the day!

Link to the book "Lessons from the Drive-Thru: Real Life Wisdom for Frontline Leaders", https://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Drive-Thru-Wisdom-Frontline-Leaders/dp/B0CWYWXRXL

Be sure and visit https//www.KitchenChat.info for more interesting interviews with top chefs and personalities and subscribe to the audio podcast on Apple.com https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/kitchen-chat-margaret-mcsweeney/id447185040

#FrontlineLeaders #customerservice  #teammanagement  #employeeengagement  #fastfoodsecrets #kfc  #joyfulliving  #lifelessons  #leadershiptips

Kitchen Chat Host and Founder Margaret McSweeney is joind by Executive Pastry Chef Riccardo Menicucci for "A Taste of Luxury, History and Hospitality at Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel".

The Beverly Wilshire is a sweet destination, especially during Oscars Week. This year's amenities included a film projector made of Valrhona Manjari, a luxury chocolate, in addition to a thoughtfully designed and braided croissant representing the team of talented people required to create a film. And of course it was topped with gold!

Beverly Wilshire, a Four Seasons Hotel, has a long history within the entertainment industry. This luxury hotel opened in Beverly Hills in January of 1928. The Beatles even held their first press conference in the Champagne Room.

Here are Chef Meniccui's three top tips for the home pastry chef:

1. When you make pastry cream, you don't need to boil your milk. It's very important. Otherwise you cook the proteins of your milk and it tastes different.
2. Always mix your dry ingredients with a whisk so you don't have chunks of flour in your mix. Don't ever feel afraid to leave your comfort zone.
3. There is no losing or winning, only trying.

Beverly Wilshire is one of my favorite hotels in the Los Angeles area to stay and to host events. This historic place provides a taste of luxury at every turn, and their staff is professional and always willing to accommodate and personalize your experience. The BLVD staff even printed customized keepsake menus just hours before a pre-Taste Awards party that I hosed to honor my friend, Lisa-Renee Ramirez, Emmy-Award winning executive producer, director and creator for Allen Media Group.

Thank you, Beverly Wilshire and Chef Menicucci for this Kitchen Chat along with the photos you provided.

Thank you, foodie friends! What are some of your favorite destinations? Savor the day!

Be sure and visit https//www.KitchenChat.info and subscribe to the Kitchen Chat audio podcast on Apple.com, https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/kitchen-chat-margaret-mcsweeney/id447185040

As we await the beautiful produce that will soon be arriving at our Farmer’s Markets, I thought it would be a good time to celebrate Spring with this encore piece featuring Alice Waters. Always remember to take a moment and Savor the Day!

Chef Alice Waters is a counterculture culinary hero who has helped pioneer the farm to table movement in the United States at her iconic restaurant Chez Panisse. At age four, she won a costume contest dressed as “Queen of the Garden” that featured produce from her parents’ Victory Garden. This win was just a mere glimpse into her future as an award winning chef, cookbook author, philanthropist, activist and advocate for sustainability and freshly grown produce.

Recently, Chef Alice Waters graciously greeted me at her Chez Panisse office in Berkeley. A lovely glass teapot sat atop the small round table. She had filled the teapot with her favorite recipe from the garden — fresh mint with hot water. We sipped and chatted about her latest book Coming to My Senses: The Making of A Counterculture Cook. She shared stories and lessons from her edible education including life changing moments in France when she discovered the incomparable tastes of the farmers markets, including les fraises des bois (strawberries from the woods). Chef Alice Waters brought back the literal and figurative seeds that would become the harvest of a delicious revolution. The actual seeds she planted in her backyard at Berkeley were the ingredients of a Mesclun Salad originating in Provence, France. Almost every dish at Chez Panisse has a little salad. Chef Waters explains, “A salad punctuates something that is rich and brings balance to the plate.”

Her favorite quotes include: “The destiny of nations depends upon the manner in which they were fed” Brillat-Savarin and “We are what we eat.” Chef Alice Waters explains that “When you eat fast food, you eat the values of the fast-food culture – that farming and cooking are drudgery. Food is something precious and should not be wasted.” Her passion for sharing this lesson with others, especially children, became the impetus of The Edible Schoolyard Project. Chef Waters emphasizes a key tenet to an edible education: “Don’t ever compromise the idea of sustainability. That’s the bottomline.”

"Latin American Cuisine is like a house. I see Mexico as the front door with all the dishes we are most familiar with. But once you open and walk through that door, you can see twenty other kitchens full of food, vibrancy and amazing ingredients." Sandra Gutierrez.

Sandra Gutierrez and I met in the White House Garden in 2015 during an International Association of Culinary Professionals conference. We have become dear friends throughout the years on our respective culinary journeys. Sandra has written four cookbooks and is an award-winning journalist. In 2019, her work was recognized as part of the permanent FOOD exhibition at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. On September 15, 2021, in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, Sandra was honored by the Smithsonian Institute as a Woman to Know and one of seven Latinas Who Shaped American Culture.

Sandra Gutierrez is known as The Julia Child of Latin American Cuisine. Just as Julia brought authentic French recipes to the home cooks in America, Sandra has brought authentic recipes from Latin America to the homes cooks in America. Further uniting them in culinary history, Julia and Sandra even share the same publisher, Knopf. Sandra's new book, "Latinisimo: Home Recipes from the Twenty-One Countries of Latin America" is the book she has had in her heart for thirty years. 

During our Kitchen Chat, Sandra provides insights into and recipes reflecting the cultural fusion through food across Latin America. She begins in her grandmother's kitchen in Guatemala and takes us on a delicious journey of shared ingredients that are prepared in ways that reflect the uniqueness of each country throughout Latin America. Sandra explains how the recipe for Lomo Saltado, the national stir-fry of Peru, depicts cultural culinary fusion with ingredients from Inca (potatoes and tomatoes) beef tenderloin (loco) brought by Europeans and soy sauce (sillao) from Asia.

On a side note, I especially enjoyed the Brazilian recipes in Sandra's cookbook. During my graduation school days, I actually lived in Rio de Janiero and enjoyed eating the fejoida and other delicious meals there. As the Brazilians so beautifully say, "Aproveite" which is my life's tagline to Savor the Day. Enjoy this delicious journey with Sandra Gutierrez in her latest book, LATINISIMO and discover the flavors of Latin America.

“Everything changes. The only thing that remains immovable across the centuries and fixes the character of a people is cooking.” Victor Hugo

The Cathedral de Notre Dame holds a special place of legacy for Chef Florian V. Hugo and for me. Chef Florian is the great great great great great-grandson of the literary maestro Victor Hugo, author of Hunchback of Notre Dame, Les Miserables and many other great works. He is an accomplished French chef who has lived and worked in New York City for two decades and he is author of “Les Contemplations Gourmandes” a biographical cookbook inspired by his forefather, Victor Hugo. Our mutual friend, Rita Jammet, Chief Bubble Officer and a founder of La Caravelle Champagne, introduced Chef Florian and me. Rita knows of my deep connection to Notre Dame.

Notre Dame was the last place my father visited in Paris before he passed away in the Charles de Gaulle Airport. His colleague who was traveling with him said they walked through Notre Dame for an hour, and that my father lit a candle and said a prayer of forgiveness and blessing for someone who had wronged him in a business deal.

During this Kitchen Chat, Chef Florian and I discuss Notre Dame and how this majestic cathedral reflects an important lesson and inspiration to rebuild and restore when we encounter unexpected challenges in life, both from a professional and personal perspective. It is exciting that Notre Dame will be reopening later this year. Michel Picaud, president of Friends of Notre Dame de Paris has worked hard to fundraise across the globe to help restore this important place. If you are interested in helping restore and preserve this place of history, here is a link to donate.

Chef Florian also discusses the journey of writing “Les Contemplations Gourmandes”as a way to honor Victor Hugo and to get to know his forefather through their mutual love for food. He used letters, writings and menus of dishes that Victor Hugo loved, and Chef Florian created the delicious recipes. What a special delight to see a photo of Victor Hugo’s “potager” kitchen garden in Guernsey where he was exiled after standing up to Napoleon. Chef Florian featured a handwritten note from Victor Hugo in 1860 that reads, “Aujourd’hui pour la 2 fois de l’annee, nous avons mange de nos asperges,” which roughly translated means: “Today for the second time this year, we ate our asparagus”. Chef Florian recounts how he has read so many books by great people about Victor Hugo and his life; however, he felt that he got to know his ancestor on a personal level through this book. 

On a personal note, my culinary journey with Kitchen Chat has helped me get to know and understand my father through conversations about food and sitting at the table to share meals with some wonderful people in the industry. It was a true honor to meet and befriend Chef Florian Hugo.

"Savor the Day" is the tagline of my life. It's a reminder to find and live your joy while connecting with family and friends. The multi-talented Wyatt Russell exemplifies how to "Savor the Day" and savor the sip with his approach to life and work. In addition to his athletic and acting careers, Wyatt is an entrepreneur as co-founder of Lake Hour, a line of ready to drink Sparkling Cocktails evoking the fond memories of “real leisure” and “sit-back-and-sip” camaraderie of a day on the lake with family and friends. We had a fun Kitchen Chat at the finale of the fifth annual Pr%%f Awards at The Palms in Las Vegas. Congratulations to Lake Hour for winning a double gold award at the Pr%%f Awards! I had a great time being one of the judges at the 2023 Pr%%f Awards.

For Wyatt, a remote lake in Canada was the special gathering place for family time and inspiration. World-class hockey talent was what brought the family to Canada in the summers, when Wyatt was just 10, to support his passion and gift. Wyatt co-founded and launched Lake Hour in 2023 with friend and film producer, Richard Peete. They became great friends when their wives introduced them to each other. During a family vacation and while in a hot tub, Wyatt and Rich created the idea of Lake Hour which features a sparkling and fresh cocktail to capture the flavor and special memories and stories of being at a lake with family and friends. To avoid the fake sugar taste of many ready-to- drink cocktails, Wyatt and Rich chose to use premium vodka and 100% blanco tequila as the base of the drinks and only 3.4 grams of raw cane sugar. The flavors include Honeysuckle Ginger with vodka, Peach Jasmine with vodka, Rosemary Yuzu with vodka and Watermelon Cucumber with tequila and are available right now in markets across the US include Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Oklahoma. Please always remember to drink responsibly and only if you are 21 years or older.

As many of you know, Wyatt is starring in the popular Apple TV's Monarch: Legacy of Monsters with his father, Kurt Russell. How exciting that Kitchen Chat had the first media interview about this show!

What are some of your favorite memories and stories at a lake?

Savor the Day and Savor the sip!

Visit the KitchenChat home page at Kitchenchat.info

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"Find a great need in a near edge and act upon it to make a difference" as my father always encouraged. This has proven to be a powerful recipe for action, especially for Nancy Brinker, a three-time Ambassador and New York Times best-selling author, and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient. She launched two impactful charitable organizations from her kitchen table. Nancy is regarded as the leader of the global breast cancer movement. Her journey began with promise to her dying sister, Susan G. Komen that she would do everything possible to end the shame, fear and hopelessness caused by this disease.

Since 1982, Susan G Komen Foundation has invested nearly $1.1 billion in breast cancer research. The second charity that Nancy recently founded is the Promise Fund of Florida, which helps ensure that every woman, regardless of her circumstances has access to life-saving cancer resources. She was shocked to discover that 80,000 women ages 18-65 in Palm Beach County do not have health insurance coverage, and 30% of breast cancers are at an advanced stage when diagnosed.

Kitchen Chat was honored to sit with Nancy at this very kitchen table where she started The Promise Fund of Florida to discuss an issue that is important to both of us. Nancy and I are breast cancer survivors.

Nancy Brinker and I met at Women's Entrepreneurship Day Organization (WEDO) event at the United Nations where she was being honored by Wendy Diamond, the founder of the WEDO. During our Kitchen Chat, Nancy and I of course bonded over our love and appreciation of food. She shared highlights from her favorite meals as U.S. Ambassador to Hungary along with her appreciation of her late husband's accomplishments as a pioneer within the restaurant industry. Norman Brinker was the founder of Steak and Ale and CEO of Brinker International which owns Chili's Grill and Bar, Romano's Macaroni Grill and Maggiano's Little Italy. He is credited for revolutionizing the casual-dining restaurants in the United States.

In a full circle, "hugs from heaven" moment, Nancy invited me to join her for the Women of Distinction awards luncheon in Palm Beach which is hosted by Palm Beach Atlantic University. She of course is a past honoree. What she didn't realize is that when my father was president of Palm Beach Atlantic University over thirty years ago, he actually helped create this concept of honoring women in the community.

Please help support the Promise Fund of Florida and make an impact for women to have access to life-saving cancer resources. Thank you, Nancy Brinker for finding "a great need in a near edge and acting upon it to make a huge difference."

Savor the day!

Be sure and visit https://www.kitchenchat.info