Let's Get Real

By Heritage Radio NetworkSociety & Culture Arts

Let's Get Real episodes

May 03, 2016 Episode 154: I’m Not Licking MY Fingers…
Today, an ALL-NEW episode of Let's Get Real!
Yes, it's a new show, after a long break to develop the new weekly Heritage Radio Network News show, of which I'm the co-anchor!
But I'm back, this week with tales of finger-lickin' weirdness. On today's show I revisit my invitation to the BIG Kentucky Fried Chicken event where I was taken way, way down the Foodiness rabbit hole, to the place where the chicken is fried, the slaw is sweet, and @RachelDratch gets hired to demo breading. Yes, Debbie Downer herself showed me, and a bunch of other journalists, how it's done at KFC. Totally surreal. Want to hear about it? Tune in.
Oh and don't forget, if you don't want to eat sh*t...
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33 min
March 29, 2016 Episode 153: Cod Worms
I like to write, and I like to talk into a microphone. And I also like to talk in front of a live audience, I’ve discovered. Teaching all those years gave me the confidence to stand up in front of a group and tell a story, even if that story was about kitchen sanitation or pork butchering.
I have a lot of stories, after being in this crazy industry for over 20 years, and I wanted to turn them into something entertaining and live, much like this very show, but in front of a live audience. So, eight weeks ago I signed up for a class called Flying Solo at the PIT, the People’s Improv Theater, where I turned some of those stories into a live, ten-minute show. The plan is to develop it into a longer piece, and perform it at a festival or two, or who knows? Could lead to some other fun and interesting stuff.
Anyway, we performed our class show on Saturday, and it went better than I ever anticipated. We started as a class of nine, but five people dropped out, so we were a tight group of four, and I loved every single other show too. I’m going to post the video of the whole show on the LGR Facebook page, and I hope you’ll watch them all. Mine’s the only one about food, but the others are funny, sad, touching and beautiful.Oh, and the show is called “Cod Worms”
Here’s a little teaser…
Cod. They’re bottom feeders. Yeah, codfish? The state symbol of Massachusetts? They’re bottom feeders. They vacuum up the crap on the ocean floor, and pick up worms, tiny, thin bright-red worms, which eat into the cod’s flesh and live there. The worms are harmless to the cod, and harmless, but gross, to the people who eat the cod. But when you serve the cod, you have to pluck out all the worms with fish tweezers before you cook it. I’ll tell you a little secret though. If you miss a worm, and then you cook the fish, the heat makes them wriggle to the surface, so you can grab ‘em before it hits the table, a perfect slab of snowy-white fish. Life does gives you second chances. For the last 23 years, I’ve plucked cod worms...
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25 min
March 22, 2016 Episode 152: To Everything There Is a Season, and a Dry, Crumbly Cookie to Match
On this week's episode of Let's Get Real, Erica celebrates the eve of the joyous holiday of Purim, aka "The Jewish Halloween." Among many other reasons, this holiday is exciting because it heralds the coming of spring! Also this week was National Slurpee Day, when 7-Eleven invited customers to bring in their container of choice for a free fill-up – whether it was a cup, an oil drum, or even an inflatable kiddie pool.
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31 min
March 15, 2016 Episode 151: Go West, Young Man, But Don't Forget to Bring Your Insulin
On this week's episode of Let's Get Real, Erica waxes nostalgic about the classic film Annie Hall, and its derisive depiction of California health food restaurants in the 1970s. Before arugula and Whole Foods were invented, California pioneered the health and organic food craze, which has become ubiquitous in today's society. However, it seems the glimmering, shimmering bubble of The Golden State may have burst, according to some new statistics which indicate that 55% of the adult population in California are diabetic or pre-diabetic. Could hyper-processed foods and new drugs pushed by Big Food and Big Pharma, respectively, be to blame for this self-perpetuating cycle of unhealth?
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35 min
March 01, 2016 Episode 150: We’re 150, But We Don’t Look a Day Over 100!
On this 15oth episode of Let’s Get Real, host Erica Wides opens with a revelation she had about cooking while swimming, before diving into the problem of fish ingesting plastic refuse such as microbeads while feeding, and the merits of sunblock versus face wash. Finally, she lays out the three “planks of her platform” that have sustained the show through 150 episodes.
“You know, life is just full of conundrums and hypocrisy, and we all just have to learn to deal with it. That’s part of getting older and being 150.” [24:50] – Erica Wides

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33 min
February 23, 2016 Episode 149: One of These Things Does Not Belong
On this week’s Let’s Get Real, the theme is “one of these things does not belong.” Chef Erica Wides reminisces about the darker, grittier days of Sesame Street, expresses bewilderment at the new McDonald’s chicken-and-pancake sandwich, and reveals her current favorite food item: the Okinowan sweet potato.
“Once Guiliani and Elmo took over Sesame Street, the whole scene changed.” [8:20] – Erica Wides

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33 min
February 16, 2016 Episode 148: In Space, No One Can Hear You Pickling
Can you make make pickles in space? Can you rely on your dreams to write your shows? Do you get gloomy in February? All this and more this week on Lets Get Real. Chef Erica Wides discusses growing vegetables in The Martian, literally dreaming of future shows, and the possibility of pickling on foreign planets.
“If Matt Damon had grown a lot of vegetables, he would have had to preserve them… maybe he could have made pickles on Mars.” [20:00] – Erica Wides

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28 min
February 09, 2016 Episode 147: A Holiday Card Against Humanity
Today is February 9, 2016. We are now 39 days into the year. At the end of this week, on the 14th of February, the “holiday” season, will be officially over. The end, Done. Until…of course, Easter rolls around. Then we begin the next round of sugar-gorging, present shopping, holiday madness. Because people buy Easter presents now, apparently! It’s a thing. Hey! Let’s celebrate the crucifixion and mythological resurrecting of a Jew, by buying each other new X-boxes or pink Uggs! I know, let’s fill the Uggs with plastic grass and jelly beans! YES! I saw it on Pinterest! And then, let’s throw AWAY the Uggs, because they are seriously the ugliest footwear ever and I know because I lived through the 70’s and nobody over the age of four should be wearing squishy booties, ok?
The holidays begin with Halloween, fly through thanksgiving, then it’s your December holiday of choice that requires a huge cash outlay and much eating of red and green baked goods, despite which December holiday you choose…Ok, maybe your baked goods were white and blue, the official Hanukka colors. Whatevs. Then it peaks out at New Year’s eve in a heave of exhaustion, gives us a short breather to pretend to dry out and get in shape, then revs back up again in a blaze of red and pink feelings of inadequacy and misery in mid-February…And then, just when you’re speaking to your spouse or partner again after they give you a new sports bra for Valentine’s day, and you think it’s safe to go back outside again without the assault of the holiday-industrial complex in your face at every turn, things slow down again just long enough for the snow to melt, the sun to return, the taxes to get done…it’s Easter, or, for my peeps, Passover or what I call Spring Thanksgiving, since my seders are really just about getting out the nice napkins and having friends over for a big meal with my handmade matzo.
But somehow, Passover hasn’t yet been turned into a gifting or carding holiday, the way other formerly non-gifty-cardy holidays like Halloween have become, but I’m sure, somewhere, in a secret underground secure location, in Hallmark’s Kansas City HQ, someone is working on Passover cards and gifts. Maybe they already exist? Are there Passover cards? I haven’t been in a Hallmark store since the 90’s…are there still Hallmark stores? All of ‘em. Halloween, V-day, Easter, let alone Xmas and Hanukkah, have become cardy-gifty-candy-orgy spend-fests. Kids get Easter presents now, not just plastic baskets with a few milk chocolate bunnies and some Brach’s jelly beans like we did, when I was a kid. Oh wait, no we didn’t…
But Valentine’s day?…Here we go again. I know what you’re thinking. Is she going to simultaneously drone and rage on about cookie-dough filled Crossonuts or brownie batter filled Englullers (that’s an English muffin-cruller mashup that I just invented, btw)? Is she? Am I? Well, do you want me too? I mean, after five years, and five Valentine’s days, do you really want to hear that all again? Even I’m sick of myself, and I’m my biggest fan! But, If you really, really, want me too….
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36 min
February 02, 2016 Episode 146: What’s On Your Plate?
Erica Wides is back for a brand new episode of _ Let’s Get Real _ with her good friend Kristin Wartman; Let’s Get Real’s resident nutrition guru and food policy wonk! She has her own little office down here in the ‪#‎Foodiness‬ Fallout Shelter, where she sits and works on her forthcoming book “Formerly Known as Food”, and then her and Erica hang out and eat grass-fed burgers. Today they are “discussing” the new ‪#‎USDA‬ food guide “ ‪#‎MyPlate‬” recommendations.
“The idea we can eat 12 tablesoppons of sugar a day and be healthy is ridiculous.” [11:00]
“When we have high levels of insulin circulating in the body, it affects the brain.” [26:00]
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39 min
January 05, 2016 Episode 145: You Can’t Make Soup Dumplings with Blue Raspberry Flavored Jello…
From Erica Wides:
So I had to go to Whole Foods a few days ago, to buy unflavored gelatin. You know, like Knox gelatin in the little packets? I needed it for a private cooking class I was teaching, the clients wanted to make soup dumplings, those Chinese dumplings that are filled with ground pork and cabbage and also scalding hot soup stock. To make the soupy filling you make a strong chicken stock and add gelatin to it, or use a lot of extra bones to get the gelatin out that way, but we were using boxed stock. I don’t get paid enough to make homemade stock for clients, so don’t judge the box. You then chill the gelatinized stock ‘til it…well, gelatinizes, then dice it up and mix it into the filling, before filling and folding the dumplings. Then, when you cook them, tada! Soup inside! Incidentally, making stock is one of the best, simplest and most classical way of using up food and preventing waste, and for the record, I am a HUGE advocate of making your own stock, ok? I do it at home, but when I’m only getting paid for the 2.5 hours at a client’s house…well, then it’s boxed stock city for me. Don’t judge. That’s my job.
Why I am telling you this? Well, because I had to go to Whole Foods because it was on the way to the client’s house, and my stupid upscale local grocery didn’t have Knox gelatin, let alone any other gelatin, not even a selection of Jello, not that I could’ve used that. You can’t make soup dumplings anyway with blue raspberry flavored Jello. But the simplest, most basic of kitchen and pantry staples? Nope. Oh, they had 16 types of gluten-free crackers, and 7 brands of cold-pressed juices and 12 local ice creams and 18 organic baby-food options–but no plain ol’ Knox gelatin. Yup, 7 kinds of organic gluten-free flour, artisan baking powder, 6 different vintages of chocolate chips, but no Knox. So much of the “more”, not enough of the basics. I’d like to open a store that sells the 20 basic necessities for cooking at home. And that’s it. Like a Portlandia store, “two girls, two shirts!” or, “the cup and spoon store.” Twenty Cooking Basics. That’s it. And nothing gluten-free.
And my crappy regular mainstream supermarket is almost a mile walk away, as this is the new Brooklyn where on my once formerly desolate block there are now TWO custom bridal shops and TWO custom perfumers and a doggy day care and a store that just sells international soccer team jerseys, but you have to walk a mile to find a stupid packet of Knox gelatin.
What, does nobody gelatinize things anymore? Are we so impatient that we just leave our liquids fluid, have our short attention spans removed out ability to wait for gelatinization? Is it easier and requires less effort to drink liquids vs. the effort and dexterity involved in spooning a gel into our over-fed gaping maws? Or does the fact that gelatin is made from boiled, strained and rendered pig skin, hooves and bones factor in? I doubt it; this is Brooklyn. You could probably offer a restaurant dish titled “rendered pork skins, hoofs and bones, parsley stem coulis and apple core essence” on any menu around here and charge $28 bucks for it. And you’d CLEAN UP! But try to find a little box o’ Knox…well, you’d better put on your Fitbit cause there’s gonna be some walking involved.
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35 min

About Let's Get Real

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On Let’s Get Real Chef Erica Wides walks you down the aisles of the surreal world of food, serving up a heaping dose of reality by separating the food from the foodiness so you can forage, hunt,…