Road Hungry

Today, I return to my conversation with Chef Lando of Enclave Cafe in San Diego. This is part two, so if you haven’t listened to last week’s episode, I recommend you start there. This was recorded in the spring at Lando’s brand new, 19-acre regenerative farm north of the city that she’d just bought to supply her restaurants and further her “food-as-medicine” mission. Enjoy part two of my conversation with Chef Lando as we finish kicking off the second season of Road Hungry.

Today, I talk with Lan Thai, known to most by her nom d’guerre “Chef Lando.” She was born the youngest of five in a Thai refugee camp at the end of the Vietnam War. When her family immigrated to the U.S. a year later, they bought a farm in Southern California where Lando was raised on the food they grew, and that her mother turned into daily feasts for her family.

Lando believes that good food isn’t just nourishing. When her mother was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in 2016, Lando knew she could help. She took the skills and values her mother raised her with on the farm, and began to cook. Using a combination of research into medicinal foods and a dogged stubbornness to try and save her mother’s life, she helped take a dim prognosis of two months for her mom to live and turned it into two years.

Now, Lando has set her sights on the rest of us, believing that what we eat and how we grow it is at the core of healing a sick planet and those of us who live on it.

Since 2019, she’s opened three locations of Enclave, her farm-to-fork cafes in and around San Diego, and she’s just purchased a 19-acre regenerative farm about an hour north of the city to supply them.

For Lando, food is medicine, food is art, and food is what’s going to save us all.

With this episode, I’m doing something I’ve never done before. When Lando and I talked, we really got into it, and our conversation went way longer than these usually do. Instead of trying to chop it down into a more digestible length, I decided instead to just cut it in half. So this is part one of my conversation with Lando. Part two will drop next week. Seems like a good way to kick off the second season of Road Hungry.

I imagine I might have some new listeners this week, and for that, I’m really grateful. Welcome to the road, and to today’s conversation with Chris Bianco, a guy that a lot of people consider the father of the artisan pizza movement in the United States. He’s got plenty of awards and accolades to back up that claim, including a current nomination for a James Beard Award as the Best Restauranteur in the country.

I’ve worked in restaurants a long time, and I know what I think makes a great restauranteur. Beyond offering great food and service, a person who’s really good at this game is someone who gives a genuine shit about the people they work with. You’ve heard me say it here before — restaurants at their best are hothouses where little misfit families form. Sometimes that’s a trauma response, where everyone bands together to make it through in spite of the hellish conditions and treatment. But when there’s real magic at a place, where everyone works together as a team, are there to support each other, that magic usually comes from the top. There’s a moment early in the upcoming conversation with Chris where you can hear for yourself exactly what I mean.

When I was in Phoenix a few months back, I went to Pizzeria Bianco on a random Tuesday just to say I’d gone. What I found, of course, was an outstanding pizza — like really great. But I also met staff who’ve worked there for a decade or more. If you know what you’re looking for, you can feel the family vibe in a restaurant, especially on a quiet weeknight. You can see them with their guard down a little, how they interact. Pizzeria Bianco — and Chris’s white table cloth restaurant Tratto, where I ate after we talked — pulse with that sense of family.

I didn’t think I’d get to talk to Chris. He’s got four restaurants in Phoenix, and it turns out another one on the way this Spring in LA (that I hope I’m still out here for when it opens). He has three young kids, and he, like every other restaurant owner out there, is still battling the effects of a stubborn pandemic that just won’t go away, no matter how much we all pretend it has. And he’s famous as fuck — people use superlatives like “legend” and “icon” when they talk about him. But Chris doesn’t go in for that sort of thing. He’s pretty egoless, a bit of a philosopher-chef who embraces easy humility.

The conversation you’ll hear in a few minutes is a bit of a high watermark for this fledgling little podcast, but not because of Chris’s notoriety. He offers himself up without guile or pretense, and we get into some of the territory I’m always hoping my guests will volunteer. He’s forthright and thoughtful, and more than anything, he’s exactly what he seems — a hardworking guy from the Bronx with a big heart and generous sensibility.

Chris Bianco started out in the back of a grocery store in 1988, and spent 20 straight years making every single pizza he ever sold. Despite all the laurels, Chris remains a canny Bronx guy whose priorities begin and end with his family and the people he works with. I hope you enjoy our conversation, and if you like what you hear, please please leave a rating and a review wherever you’re listening. If you’re new here, please follow and subscribe so you can hear all the great guests I’ve got coming up.

Today, I talk to chef Maria Mazon, owner of Boca Tacos in Tucson, AZ, and one of the final five competitors on the last season of Bravo’s Top Chef. About two weeks ago, she was named as a semifinalist for the 2022 James Beard Award for Best Chef Southwest, an honor that maybe she manifested in small part with a bit of the conversation you’re about to hear.

Maria is one of the greatest firsthand examples I’ve encountered of the power and efficacy of living life as your authentic self. She founded Boca Tacos in the wake of personal crisis. She was ending her marriage with the father of her son, not because she didn’t love him, but because being married to a man ran fundamentally against her nature. Up to then, she’d been living as the person she thought she should be, unwilling to admit to the world that she’s gay. As soon as she began living as the person she is, things changed drastically for her.

You can feel that honesty and singular authenticity in her food. She’s made a name for herself making tacos, but they are unlike any tacos you’ve ever had. She’s playful when it comes to the flavors she uses. She borrows ingredients from all kinds of other cuisines. And she’s always finding new ways to express herself with her food. As will become apparent in a few minutes, I adore Maria Mazon.

Maria Mazon grew up straddling the border between Sonora and Arizona, and by extension straddling the values and expectations of her Mexican Catholic upbringing, and the more generationally and culturally liberal communities she found herself part of in the States. She is the embodiment of balance between those two, someone who’s found happiness and success by being honest and unafraid in everything she does. Here we are talking in the little tiendita next to her restaurant where she’d just begun selling her homemade Sona Tortillas to the public.

The third installment of the Odd Duck Almanac, a multivolume cookbook project I spent most of last two years working on, was just released to the world. It’s the last in a trilogy featuring stories and recipes from the Odd Duck family of restaurants back in Austin, and I had the great privilege to write and oversee the last two books.

While working on it, I had the pleasure of getting to know Frida Silva-Carreira, the leader of the bakery program at Sour Duck Market on Austin’s East Side. At just 25 years old, she channeled her drive, ambition, and raw talent into this impressive leadership role. She’s featured in one of the main centerpieces of the book, telling her story, and sharing her recipes, including the recipe for her signature conchas.

The conversation you’re about to hear was originally released back in November as exclusive content for my Patreon subscribers. Now that I’ve suspended that subscription service for the time being, and the book is available, I thought this would be the perfect time to let the whole world hear from Frida. We talk about her upbringing in Monterrey, Mexico, Kentucky, and Ohio; how she made it up the ladder so quickly in some of Austin’s best restaurants; and her experience coming into awareness around her Mexican-American identity during the racial reckoning our country went through in the summer of 2020.

If you want to order a copy for yourself, head over to oddduckaustin.com/merch. The two volumes I wrote are both available there — the new Resilience Issue, and last year’s At Home Issue.

I first met Frida during the initial lockdown of 2020 when I was working on that first Almanac. I was granted special access to the bakery where she tried to teach me and my big awkward hands how to boule sourdough. Go to the Road Hungry Instagram to see a video of her doing it the right way. Here’s Frida SIlva-Carreira talking to me last summer at Sour Duck Market in Austin.

**While I was putting this episode together, the James Beard Awards semifinalists dropped, and Don, unsurprisingly, is a contender as one of the country's Best Bakers. Congrats, Don, and best of luck! You deserve it, friend!**

Today, I talk to baker Don Guerra, founder of the celebrated Barrio Bread in Tucson, AZ. Don’s bread is a truly post-colonial fusion of French sourdough technique using heritage grain lines that date back to their introduction in the Sonoran region by Catholic missionary, Father Kino in the 17th century. And it’s freakin’ delicious. He gave me a few samples after our conversation, and I sat in a parking lot and ate an entire loaf on its own, by myself, without shame.

For Don, his heritage is alive in the bread he bakes. He’s an Arizona native with Mexican indigenous roots on his father’s side, and European lineage on his mother’s. He’s made it his life’s work, not just to bake what Food & Wine magazine recently called the best bread in Arizona, but also to imbue his bread with the history and terroir of the region and his own life. Representation matters to him, and he’s proud to stand up as a baker of color and say, this life is for anyone who wants to work hard enough to have it.

Don, along with his longstanding farming partnerships, is responsible for bringing several wheat varietals back from the brink of extinction. He has an intimate relationship with his product at every stage. He’s involved in the growing, harvesting, and milling of the wheat with which he makes his signature flour blends. He also spends the better part of most days driving the Barrio Bread delivery truck, supplying restaurants and markets all over Tucson with the day’s spoils.

Don Guerra has the hands of an artist, the drive of a hustler, and the heart of a good teacher — which he was before he started his bakery. In fact, during my time in Tucson, I met, randomly, more than one person who was once a proud student of his. One night, Don and I had dinner together, and two of his now-grown students stopped at our seats to say hi. Connection to his community is more than a talking point for Don. It’s his deepest ethic, his way of life. I really enjoyed getting to know him, and I hope you will, too.

Today, I talk to Charleen Badman, chef and owner of the celebrated Scottsdale restaurant, FnB, and winner of the 2019 James Beard Award for Best Chef Southwest. Since COVID, the James Beard Foundation has suspended its awards, making Charleen the most recent recipient of the honor. When we spoke, it just so happened to be the 12th anniversary of the opening of FnB, an occasion she’d marked thus far by spending the morning in her prep kitchen on her day off making food for the next night’s service. This is to say, Charleen is always working. She’s never left her kitchen, and certainly hasn’t let the accolades for her food go to her head. Her soul is on the line, at the expo pass, and these days, on the dining room floor. She’s happiest at work, it seems, and it shows in the ever-changing menu at FnB.

The night before our conversation, I invited my new friend Silvana, the subject of my last episode, to join me for dinner at FnB. I think we ate almost everything on the menu that night. Charleen’s passion is for vegetables. She has a way of making them sing, bringing out what is naturally great about what’s fresh and local to the region. The most skilled cooks, in my opinion, know how to stay out of the way of their ingredients, especially if they’re as good as what Charleen is able to source.

On top of being one the country’s best chefs, Charleen is a dedicated gardener. Around the same time she opened FnB, she began working with local schools to build community gardens and promote nutrition with the students. Out of that effort was born the Blue Watermelon Project, a grassroots group of chefs, farmers, educators, and activists who fight for healthy, nutritious food in schools.

The Blue Watermelon Project’s 4th annual Feed the Future fundraiser will be held February 26th in Phoenix. Students from across Arizona will be there to taste their guests on their school lunch solutions that are delicious, healthy, and cost- and regulation-compliant. All ages are welcome, and there are fun activities for kids, too. Buy tickets or donate at the link on their Instagram profile, @bluewatermelonproject. Seriously, give them some cash if you can. They’re trying to save America one kid at a time.

I want to bring in a new year of this ongoing journey with a conversation unlike any I’ve had yet on this podcast. For many, the name Silvana Salicido Esparza is synonymous with the city of Phoenix. She’s been a force of nature there for two decades at the helm of her restaurant, Barrio Cafe. Her accolades, including a few fistfuls of James Beard nominations, are too numerous to list here. She’s the OG badass behind her comida chingona. She’s a pivotal champion of muralists and painters the city over. She’s a passionate lowrider enthusiast and restorationist. And she’s a forever curious traveler, ethnographer, writer, genealogist, and collector of misfit toys like me. I love this recording so much because, if you listen closely, you can actually hear the moment when we decide to be friends.

I think the word “icon” should be specifically reserved for people like Silvana. After I stopped tape on our interview, we spent the rest of the day talking. She showed me her amazing vintage cars, her handwritten family tree, and availed me with more astounding tales of her family and life. I hope I know her forever.

Today’s conversation is a really special one to me because I feel like it encapsulates so much of what I hoped this project could do — that is, to dive deep into what makes someone tick, to explore why they do what they do on a level that goes beyond practical concerns. Jieun Beth Kim isn’t someone I’d met before. But when we sat down to talk after she fed me the most delicious homemade Korean food, I feel like we found a connection that I hadn’t had before during one of these interviews.

Beth is the proprietor of Kimchi Rok, an artisan label of various homemade kimchis based on her mother’s recipe and technique. Honest to god, it’s some of the best kimchi I’ve ever had. That evening, she incorporated it into a beautiful fried rice dish, and served it as banchan alongside the rest of the feast. She’s been selling locally at Austin farmers’ markets since late 2020, but she’s about to scale into retail and probably take over the planet with it.

The other thing Beth is, though, is a brilliant visual artist. We spent a lot of time talking about her art, her process, and about the ideas and conceptions that inspire what she does. It’s in that exploration that I think I really found something I’ve been after since starting this project — a real window into the inner life of a wildly smart and talented person.

Jieun Beth Kim, along with her husband David, is the founder and proprietor of Kimchi Rok out of Austin, TX. You can see her artwork, including the works we reference in our talk, at her website, www.jieunbeth.com. She is the exhibit coordinator for Austin Central Library. And, she’s a hella good cook. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Today, we’re trying something a little different. Instead of talking to one interesting person, we’re going to speak with two — Kate Watters and her husband, Dr. Mike Knapp, proprietors of Wild Heart Farm in Rimrock, AZ. Kate is a trained botanist and master gardener, and Mike is a naturopath and holistic physician. I met them quite by accident — they listed their farm as a place where a transient camper like myself could post up for a few nights, and something about camping at an organic neighborhood farm felt like exactly the right choice for this project.

Beyond being wonderful hosts, they’re both great cooks and amazing musicians. We had dinner a few times while I was there, and on more than one occasion, they broke out their guitars and sang in beautiful two-part harmony while I plated our meals. Their farm is an amazing little oasis in the middle of the high desert. They have gardens full of food for themselves, and Kate makes her living growing and selling stunning flower arrangements for all kinds of events.

I came to stay with them because I needed a place to stage myself while I found a more permanent spot closer to Sedona. We recorded this conversation almost two months ago, and had dinner together that night. We went shopping in their garden for our ingredients. They made beautiful battered squash blossoms stuffed with queso fresco and herbs. I made a bright and spicy posole verde using their chilis and an herb called pepicha — strong like cilantro, but without the soapiness that apparently only I can taste. After dinner, we sat in the cool autumn evening and recorded this conversation. Forgive the audio here and there — like I said, this was an experiment, and I only have two mics, so they were sharing. If you’re a Patreon subscriber, be on the lookout for some bonus content from this episode where they take us on an audio tour of their gardens. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did.