KQED's Forum

In an age of YouTube cooking tutorials and celebrity cookbooks, “Joy of Cooking” remains one of America's most widely read cookbooks — and it just received another update. First self-published by Irma Rombauer in 1931, this year Rombauer’s great-grandson John Becker and his wife Megan Scott became the latest family members to revise the book, adding 600 new recipes and thousands of updates. We'll talk to Becker and Scott about carrying on the "Joy of Cooking" tradition, how they embraced today's diverse dietary trends and more global palates and, of course, recipes.

As President Trump assailed immigrants as criminals and cracked down on border crossings, the Trump Organization employed scores of undocumented workers at its clubs and golf courses, some for more than a decade. That's according to a year-long Washington Post investigation, which found that undocumented immigrants worked for at least 11 Trump properties as maids, bellhops, cooks and caddies. We'll talk to the Washington Post's Joshua Partlow about what his team uncovered.

From the Ghostship warehouse fire in Oakland that devastated the Bay Area arts scene, to a crop of local films hitting the national stage, the Bay Area has seen enormous ups and downs in the past 10 years. The decade brought the dramatic rise and disappointing fall of local sports empires, the shuttering of newspapers and the growth of a music industry. It was also a decade marked by communities fighting to preserve a place and culture in the face of inequality. As we near the end of the 2010s, we discuss KQED Art's "Our Turbulent Decade" project.

According to journalist Adam Minter, we're experiencing a global "crisis of stuff." Americans discard more than 100 billion pounds of unwanted items annually, from electronics to textiles to furniture. Meanwhile, demand for our castoffs is shrinking: Twenty years ago, China was a major importer of used clothing.  Now it's a major exporter. We talk to Minter about what he calls "the rising tide of unwanted secondhand" and what we can do to stem it. His new book is "Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale."

The House Judiciary Committee held its first impeachment inquiry hearing on Wednesday with testimony from four law professors. The three legal scholars brought forward by Democrats testified that President Trump committed a clear abuse of power when he asked the Ukrainian president to investigate a political rival. But the law professor called to witness by Republicans said that the Democrats have fallen short of making a case and are attempting to lower the constitutional standards for impeachment. Forum discusses the highly partisan hearing.

In the past 10 years, Elena Ferrante's quartet of books, the Neapolitan Novels, so captivated readers that many swarmed Naples, Italy, searching for mentioned sites. Colson Whitehead's "The Underground Railroad" sparked deep conversations on slavery nationwide. Some books of the past decade will stick with us for years, others will drift out of our memories. As we enter the final days of the decade, Forum reflects on its best and most beloved books.

In 2016, nearly 81 percent of white evangelical voters cast their ballots for Donald Trump. Since taking office, President Trump has made policy decisions — like banning transgender military service, defunding Planned Parenthood and naming Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court — that appear to have strengthened that support. Today, 82 percent of white evangelicals say they would vote for Trump again, with 99 percent opposing impeachment. That's all according to a new article by Rolling Stone senior writer Alex Morris, who was raised in a conservative Christian family. We'll discuss her story and look at what's behind the evangelicals' unwavering support for Trump.

Iran's security forces have killed at least 208 people since mid-November, when protests broke out against the government's decision to raise gasoline prices by a minimum of 50 percent. That's according to an Amnesty International report issued Monday, which was corroborated by other rights groups. We'll discuss the current political and humanitarian situation in Iran.

While gentrification may seem like a new phenomenon, efforts to combat it have a long history in the United States. WNYC senior editor Matthew Schuerman's new book, “Newcomers: Gentrification and its Discontents,” delves into that history and examines struggles with gentrification in San Francisco, New York City and Chicago from the 1950s to today. Schuerman argues that if we hadn't abandoned certain federal policies in the 1970s, we could have curbed some of today's most stark displacements. We’ll talk with Schuerman about his research of San Francisco’s Mission District and consider ways policymakers can approach the issue of gentrification going forward.

On Jan. 1, state taxes are going up for cannabis businesses, shaking an industry that is already struggling with high regulatory costs and a thriving illegal market. This hour, Forum tackles the latest cannabis news — the increased taxes, the legal battles between the state and counties that have banned cannabis deliveries and the recent FDA warnings to CBD businesses over health concerns and false advertising.