The Splendid Table

Dan Buettner, author of Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way, tells us about the significance of the shared meal among the world's happiest people. Jane and Michael Stern are tracking down the very best in deli rye and we talk to Dana Bowen about celebrating Easter in Sicily.
Broadcast dates for this episode:

• April 23, 2011 (originally aired)
• April 18, 2014 (rebroadcast)

We’re heading to India for this week’s Key 3 with Raghavan Iyer, author of the best-selling 660 Curries. Bee Wilson, author of Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat, brings the stories from our tabletops.
Broadcast dates for this episode:

• April 27, 2013 (originally aired)
• April 11, 2014 (rebroadcast)

This week it’s a look at saliva with America’s funniest science writer, Mary Roach, author of Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Trail. The Sterns are at the Blue Scorcher Bakery Café in Astoria, Ore., and we learn which salts are really worth the money with salt merchant Mark Bitterman, author of Salted: A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral.
Broadcast dates for this episode:

• April 6, 2013 (originally aired)
• March 28, 2014 (rebroadcast)

Greg Engert's profiling system divides beer into seven categories. Award-winning writer and cook Deborah Madison is here with the missing puzzle piece for vegetable cooking -- the plants themselves -- with her book Vegetable Literacy. We turn to the duo from The Perennial Plate, an online documentary series dedicated to socially responsible and adventurous eating.
Broadcast dates for this episode:

• March 23, 2013 (originally aired)
• March 14, 2014 (rebroadcast)

Jeffrey Hertzberg, the best-selling co-author of The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, joins us with the newest take on bread making for the home cook, we look at Muslim-Chinese cuisine with Jason Wang of New York City's Xi'an Famous Foods, we head to Tallahassee, Fla., with the Sterns to Olean's Cafe for first-rate soul food and hear about how vegetarians are taking on the congressional lunchroom.
Broadcast dates for this episode:

• March 7, 2014

We're talking to Smithsonian paleoanthropologist Briana Pobiner about the origins of meat-eating. Food scientist Harold McGee explains the nuances of rice wine vinegar, and we get the lowdown on real Southern cooking in Chicago with Garden & Gun magazine’s Julia Reed.
Broadcast dates for this episode:

• March 9, 2013 (originally aired)
• February 28, 2014 (rebroadcast)

We're looking at legendary gourmand and politician Winston Churchill with Cita Stelzer, author of Dinner with Churchill: Policy-Making at the Dinner Table. And Jane and Michael Stern join us with tales from eating on the road; this time, it's the Stockholm Pie Company in Stockholm, Wis.
Broadcast dates for this episode:

• February 23, 2013 (originally aired)
• February 14, 2014 (rebroadcast)

Nigella Lawson joins us this week with her new book Nigellissima: Easy Italian-Inspired Recipes. And we meet up with Joe Warwick, who has compiled a guide of chefs' favorite restaurants worldwide, Where Chefs Eat.
Broadcast dates for this episode:

• February 9, 2013 (originally aired)
• January 31, 2014 (rebroadcast)

This week journalist Anne Applebaum, author of The Polish Country House Kitchen, joins us with tales of food and life in Poland, and we head to Kansas City for an Austrian-Germanic take on the cocktail with the bartender from Grunauer.
Broadcast dates for this episode:

• January 26, 2013 (originally aired)
• January 17, 2014 (rebroadcast)

We talk with Britain's exuberant gastronaut Stefan Gates about his BBC documentary on bug-eating called Alien Nation. New York City restaurateur Eddie Huang of BaoHaus explains the art of the Asian bun. His memoir is Fresh Off the Boat. And chef Charles Phan of San Francisco’s The Slanted Door gives us a primer on the Vietnamese noodle soup pho. His latest book is Vietnamese Home Cooking.
Broadcast dates for this episode:

• January 5, 2013 (originally aired)
• January 3, 2014 (rebroadcast)