The Splendid Table

This week's guest claims that without fruits we'd still be swinging from trees eating bugs. Fruit-obsessed journalist Adam Leith Gollner joins us for a look at the fruit leggers and their stories as told in his book The Fruit Hunters: The Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce and Obsession. The Sterns experience a religious moment at the church of heavenly barbecue - Louie Mueller's in Taylor, Texas. Wine maverick Joshua Wesson talks cool wines for steamy days, and food scientist Harold McGee, author of On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, explains what's really going on with those color-enhanced steaks in the meat case.
Broadcast dates for this episode:

• July 26, 2008 (originally aired)
• July 25, 2009 (rebroadcast)

This week we're celebrating the Fourth of July and the start of high summer. Gourmet magazine's John Willoughby talks smoke roasting, a much-ignored technique worthy of revival for its easy and succulent results. John's latest book, Grill It!: Recipes, Techniques, Tools, co-authored with fellow grilling guru Chris Schlesinger, is hot off the press. The Sterns feast on only-in-America fried clams and onion rings at Champlin's Seafood Deck in Narragansett, Rhode Island. Sally Schneider, author of The Improvisational Cook, has ideas for summer coleslaw. Gary Nabhan, co-author of Renewing America's Food Traditions, looks at America's endangered foods, and David Rosengarten, creator of The Rosengarten Report newsletter, talks burger bliss.
Broadcast dates for this episode:

• June 28, 2008 (originally aired)
• July 4, 2009 (rebroadcast)

All those people talking about a wine's "terroir", meaning the place the grapes come from. Can we really taste it? We get the scientific last word from Harold McGee author of the seminal On Food and Cooking. Jane and Michael Stern are at Woodyard Bar-B-Que in Kansas City, KS, and novelist Nicole Mones tell us about the time in Chinese culinary history which she used as a framework for her latest novel, The Last Chinese Chef.
Broadcast dates for this episode:

• June 2, 2007 (originally aired)
• May 24, 2008 (rebroadcast)
• June 27, 2009 (rebroadcast)

This week it's the seeds and bark that changed the planet. We're talking spices, the stuff of wonderment and avarice in the medieval world with Paul Freedman, author of Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination. It's a St. Augustine, Florida special for Jane and Michael Stern at Saltwater Cowboy's. We talk with Peter Shafer, our Gastrosexual for the month of June. Tea purist Bill Waddington, proprietor of St. Paul's TeaSource, has summer in a glass iced teas for the lazy at heart, and culinary improv artist Sally Schneider has a brief on the wallflower of the farm stand the beet.
Broadcast dates for this episode:

• July 12, 2008 (originally aired)
• June 20, 2009 (rebroadcast)

This week it's the making of a wine merchant with Neal Rosenthal, one of the wine world's most respected importers. We'll hear the story of how he learned his craft and much more. His book is Reflections of a Wine Merchant.
It's world class chili with the Sterns at Joe Roger's Chili Parlor in Springfield, Illinois; and we're eating on the cheap abroad with Anya Von Bremzen. Dan Buettner, author of The Blue Zones, has secrets for flourishing well into our tenth decade, and we'll hear about a new kind of eatery in Denver named So All May Eat.
Broadcast dates for this episode:

• June 21, 2008 (originally aired)
• June 6, 2009 (rebroadcast)

This week it's a look at the American kitchen—from the sanitized scientific outpost of yesteryear to today's family-oriented center of cherry cabinets, granite countertops and culinary toys galore. Our guest is Steven Gdula, author of The Warmest Room in the House: How the Kitchen Became the Heart of the Twentieth-Century American Home. Who but the Sterns would have found a snack cake worth a journey? It's the Twinkie of Michael's dreams at Bette's Oceanview Diner in Berkeley, California.
Wine expert Joshua Wesson is back and he's talking Grüner Veltliner, the centerpiece of Austria's wine industry. Greg Patent tells how he tracked the great recipes of America's immigrant families while researching his latest book A Baker's Odyssey. He shares a recipe for Fatayar, a Lebanese lamb and onion pie.
Professor of German Chris Wickham fills us in on Food in the Arts, a symposium of academics from around the world at the University of Texas at San Antonio. We'll hear the story of New Orleans jazz man Kermit Ruffins and his band called the BBQ Swingers, and Lynne shares the seafood websites that keep her in the loop about environmental and health concerns and fish that's okay to eat.
Broadcast dates for this episode:

• February 23, 2008 (originally aired)
• May 30, 2009 (rebroadcast)

This week it's a look at the noodle foursome that's the heart of Japan's beloved noodle cuisine: udon, somen, soba and ramen. Our guide is Chef Takashi Yagihashi, author of Takashi's Noodles. He talks noodle cooking, noodle etiquette, and the Japanese way with noodles that may even outflank Italy.
Jane and Michael Stern are forking into some of the most sublime banana cream pie anywhere at Betty's Pies on Minnesota's North Shore.
Indian food expert Raghavan Iyer has the fastest, lustiest breads you'll ever make. Forget the oven; for this quick bread you need to fire up your grill. Raghavan's latest book is 660 Curries: The Gateway to Indian Cooking.
American Public Media commentator and dad John Moe tells of a little experiment in dinner table politics. Parents of picky little eaters will want to tune in!
Brendan Newnam takes an off-center approach to the dinner party and it all starts with a joke. Then poet Nikki Giovanni reads her poem "So Enchanted with You" from her book Bicycles: Love Poems.
Broadcast dates for this episode:

• May 23, 2009

This week, it's a fashionista in the kitchen. We'll talk with designer Isaac Mizrahi, who has some strong opinions about cookbooks and some "issues" with entertaining.
For the Sterns it's the cream of the cremas (and pastries) at Crema in Portland, Oregon. Produce maven Russ Parsons talks how to find the ever-elusive great strawberry, Lettie Teague is back with new trends in house wines, we'll play a new round of Stump the Cook with celebrity stump master Christopher Kimball, and Richard Wiles has a shoppers guide for avoiding pesticides in produce.
Broadcast dates for this episode:

• June 7, 2008 (originally aired)
• May 16, 2009 (rebroadcast)

This week we're looking at the wine cork controversy with journalist George Tabor, author of To Cork or Not to Cork: Tradition, Romance, Science and the Bottle for the Wine Bottle. Jane and Michael Stern are taking us to upstate NY to raise our "hot dog consciousness" at Ted's in Tonawanda, NY, and the Wine Spectator's Matt Kramer introduces us to his favorite white wine, reisling.
 
Broadcast dates for this episode:

• May 31, 2008 (originally aired)
• May 9, 2009 (rebroadcast)

Today we are learning how to build a curry with award-winning teacher Raghavan Iyer, author of 660 Curries. Jane and Michael Stern have found pecan pie worth the trip at the Texas Pie Company in Kyle, TX. Joshua Wesson brings us wines for the picnic basket and we look the misunderstandings behind MSG with The New York Time's Julia Moskin.
Broadcast dates for this episode:

• May 18, 2008 (originally aired)
• April 18, 2009 (rebroadcast)