Copper & Heat Radio – Details, episodes & analysis

In this live podcast recorded at the Cookbook Fest in Napa, California, Copper & Heat Radio host Katy chats with Bricia Lopez and Brandon Skier. 

The two authors share their backgrounds, discuss their newly published cookbooks, and reflect on their personal journeys in the food industry. They delve into the nuances of restaurant versus home cooking, the significance of the chef title, and the challenges of translating professional culinary techniques for home cooks on paper.

Guests:

Bricia Lopez

Instagram   |   Website  | Her books, Asada  & Oaxaca

Brandon Skier

Instagram   |   TikTok  |  His book, Make It Fancy

In the last year, Boise was featured in two vastly different pieces of food news. First Chef Kris Komori of KIN brought home the first Boise James Beard Award. This same year, In N Out opened its first of four locations in the Boise area. 

In this episode, Katy discusses the rapidly changing restaurant industry in Boise, Idaho, recorded live at the Treefort Music Fest in March 2024. Katy and a panel of expert guests explore how the city's food identity has evolved with an influx of new residents and rising tensions over real estate and cultural shifts. The panel included local restaurateurs and industry advocates, who share their insights on the current state of Boise’s food scene, the workforce challenges, and the potential implications of Boise’s rapid growth. The episode also addresses the difficult questions raised by a local restaurateur about fostering true community and supporting independent restaurants amidst increasing competition from larger hospitality groups and real estate investors.

Guests:

Remi McManus from KIN Restaurant

Katie Baker from FARE Idaho

Dr. Amanda Ashley from Boise State University

Reno Rodriguez from the Hotel Renegade/Geronimo Hospitality Group

Audience question from Cal Elliot of Little Pearl and The Avery

Today's episode is from our friends over at The Sporkful. 

Zahra Tabatabai’s parents grew up in an Iran that would be unrecognizable today. “The pictures I see of my family in Iran in the sixties and seventies, they're in bikinis at the beach, drinking beer,” she says. Now, after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, women are legally required to wear hijabs and alcohol is banned. A few years ago, Zahra became interested in the long history of beer brewing in Iran — a tradition that included her own grandfather. She began brewing her own beer, experimenting with traditional Iranian ingredients like sumac, black lime, and barberries. Now she’s using her company, Back Home Beer, to change the narrative about Iranian people and culture. And one day, she hopes to bring her beer to Iran without fear. Nowruz Mobarak!

The Sporkful production team includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Nora Ritchie, Tracey Samuelson, and Jared O'Connell.

We have a guest episode this week from our friends at Opening Soon. 

In this season of Opening Soon, we’re undertaking a project we’ve been wanting to do for years. In The Build, we’re going to follow one chef’s journey to open a brand new restaurant as it’s happening. From the moment that they signed the lease until the doors are actually open, you’ll get to witness the emotional highs and the lows, how things go well, how things get delayed; all in real time.  

In this episode, we meet the subject of our series, hear a bit about their food journey so far, and get a sneak peek at what’s coming this season.

Less than $2. That’s how much the Santa Ana Unified school district can afford to spend on one student’s lunch each day. The $14 billion budget of the National School Lunch program stretches thin, and school nutrition workers are often the target of kids’ complaints. Reporter Jessica Terrell explores the cultural figure of “the lunch lady,” and how students and workers lose when bureaucrats focus on cost over care.

This episode includes an annotated transcript with links to sources used in the reporting. This podcast was created by editors at The Counter and produced by LWC Studios. It is made possible by grants from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  

When Katy was working in the Bay Area in her early 20s, she would have given the Michelin Guide 3 stars, because those were the restaurants she felt like she had to work to learn about the most innovative and interesting food. How has that changed?

In this last episode of our fourth season, Katy and Rachel dig into the history, the data, and the money behind the Michelin Guide in the U.S. with help from Krishnendu Ray (professor at NYU) and Beth Forrest (professor at the CIA). By the end of the research, Katy and Rachel had very different ratings for the Guide than what their 24-year-old selves would have given it. What about you?

Guests:

Beth Forrest

Her faculty bio and books

Krishnendu Ray

His book  | His faculty bio

Articles mentioned and other resources:

• Florida’s Tourism Board Will Pay Michelin $150,000 to Rate the State’s Restaurants
• Why California Paid Michelin Guide $600,000 to Cover Los Angeles Again
• The Inspection Process
• Michelin Scatters Stars on New York (2005)
• The Fed-Up Chef
• The Untold Truth Of The Michelin Guide
• The High Price of a Michelin Guide: South Korea, Singapore, and Thailand have spent millions to get their own Red guides
• The History of the Michelin Guide
• How Restaurants Get MIchelin Stars: A Brief History of the Michelin Guide
• The Secret Life of an Anonymous Michelin Restaurant Inspector
• Confessions of a Michelin Inspector

Telly Justice and Mike Sheats worked together at Five & Ten in Athens Ga., where Justice worked her way up to chef de cuisine and Sheats was an AM chef. Once they started their own projects, the chefs knew that the strict brigade system, codified by Georges-Auguste Escoffier more than a hundred years ago, wouldn’t be the right fit for their businesses. “In the kitchens that Mike and I came up in, there was not much room for challenging anything,” said Justice. For both Justice and Sheats, the rigidity of the structure left no room for mistakes and little room for being themselves. 

Telly is now chef/co-owner of HAGS, a small tasting menu restaurant in New York City “by Queer people for all people,” and Mike, with his wife Shyretha, runs The Plate Sale, a pop-up inspired by community events like plate sales, barbecues, and fish fries in his hometown of Athens. 

This conversation was recorded as a chef-to-chef conversation for the Plate Magazine print edition. You can read an edited version of this conversation (and see some awesome pictures!) in their magazine here. But a less edited version of the conversation is here for your listening pleasure. 

Guests: 

Telly Justice

HAGS  | HAGS Instagram

Press: 

• When ‘Sir’ and ‘Ma’am’ Miss the Mark: Restaurants Rethink Gender’s Role in Service
• HAGS Will Be Queer First, and a Restaurant Second
• A First Look at HAGS, New York’s Revolutionary New Queer Fine Dining

Mike Sheats

The Plate Sale  |  The Crowdfunding Campaign  |  Instagram  |  Email 

Press: 

• Honoring the History of the Plate Sale
• An inside look at The Plate Sale
• Meet Shyretha and Michael Sheats: Founders of The Plate Sale

Resources:

• Understanding Anti-Intellectualism in the U.S. by Studio ATAO
• Anti-Intellectualism int he Restaurant Industry: Why an equitable future requires overhauling the brigade system
• An Investigation in Culinary Life and Professional Identity in Practice during Internship 
• Escoffier Kitchen Brigade System Then and Now
• “OUI, CHEF!” A Sociohistorical Analysis of Organizational Culture in the American Fine Dining Kitchen Brigade and its Effects on Health from 1903 to 2019
• Why is anti-intellectualism so popular in kitchens?

The United States is the top producer of corn in the world, yet only 40% of that corn is destined for someone’s plate. The industrialization of corn in the Americas is a story of colonization, appropriation, and capitalism. But there are also stories of people finding ways to celebrate biodiversity, culture, and history through great corn products. 

In this episode, we talk with Pedro Ferbel-Azcarate and Wendy Downing, 2 of 3 co-owners of Three Sisters Nixtamal, an organic and traditional masa maker. We also talk with Angel Medina, co-owner of Repùblica and Co, a Mexican-forward restaurant group. 

Guests: 

Pedro Ferbel-Azcarate & Wendy Downing

Three Sisters  |  Instagram

Angel Medina

Repùblica & Co  |  Instagram  

Resources: 

To read more about what we talked about in this episode: 

• Keepers of the Corn: Despite economic pressures, Oaxaca remains a stronghold of Mexico’s wondrous criollo, or native, corn varieties
• How Mexico’s iconic flatbread went industrial and lost its flavor
• The Tortilla Cartel
• United in Tradition as Peoples of the Corn
• The history of the world according to corn - TEDTalk by Chris A. Kniesly
• Corn: Origin, History, Technology, and Production
• How Indigenous Seed Savers Safeguard Agricultural and Spiritual Tradition

Welcome to the Copper & Heat audio tasting menu. This 6-course experience takes you through dishes from pivotal points in the history of the modern tasting menu. 

Vote for us in the first inaugural Signal Awards! We were nominated for a Signal Award in the Food & drink category, and we need your help! Vote for us for the Listener’s Choice Award at the link above. 

Guests:

Beth Forrest

Her faculty bio and books

Sam Yamashita

His piece on the Japanese Turn  |  His books  | His faculty bio

Krishnendu Ray

His book  | His faculty bio

The courses:

1. The restaurant by Mathurin Roze de Chantoiseau
2. Hassun from Hyotei in Kyoto
3. Rouge en ècaille de pomme de terre by Paul Bocuse
4. Sukiyaki
5. Toro and caviar by Masa Takayama
6. Nixtamalized butternut squash en tacha from Lenga Madre in New Orleans

The articles mentioned in this episode: 

• 'Tasting’' Menu: A Good Idea Sours by Mimi Sheraton in the New York Times
• Nibbled to Death: Tasting Menus Can Be Too Much of a Good Thing by Pete Wells in the New York Times
• The New Generation of Tasting Menus Won’t Test Your Patience (or Your Wallet) by Brett Anderson in the New York Times

More resources:

• The Japanese Origins of Modern Fine Dining by Meghan McCarron (2017)
• The Never-Ending Pivot: Amid the Omicron Surge, Restaurants Have Turned to Tasting Menus by Jeremy Repanich (2022)
• The death of the tasting menu by George Reynolds (2022)
• The Backlash Against the 'Tyranny' of Tasting Menus by Amy McKeever (2013)
• The Not-So-New Nouvelle Cuisine by Mimi Sheraton (1979)
• Celebrating the Ringmaster of the Restaurant Circus by Florence Fabricant (2014)
• How America’s First 3 Star Michelin Sushi Chef Serves His Fish on Eater’s YouTube (2015)

Is culinary school worth the investment in terms of money and time? 

This is a question posed by hundreds of thousands of people as they enter the culinary field. Is it worth spending the money to go to culinary school when I can just work my way up in the industry? 

Culinary schools have long been more of a trade school to train potential cooks in the culinary field. However, in the ‘90s, the Culinary Institute of America put in a concerted effort to professionalize the career of chef, and therefore give more value to their school, by educating their students on more than just technical skills. 

But as the systemic and cultural pitfalls of the restaurant industry have become more apparent in recent years, people are leaving the industry in droves, and even fewer are looking to enter. So as more culinary schools close their doors, how do educational institutions answer the question - is culinary school worth it?

Guests: 

Krishnendu Ray

His book  | His faculty bio

Beth Forrest

Her faculty bio

Hanalei Souza

Her website  |  Instagram  |  Her book

Annika Altura

Instagram 

Kiah Fuller

Her website  |  Instagram 

Resources: 

To read more about what we talked about in this episode: 

• Pros & Cons & Thoughts: Is Going to Culinary School Worth It?
• A Fast, Frugal Track to a Cook’s Career? Community College
• Culinary school enrollment drops even as need soars at restaurants
• Does Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan Extend to Culinary School Students?
• Three Charts That Show Why Culinary School Is Not Worth It
• Is Culinary School Still Worth It? Four Chefs Weigh In
• Culinary School: The Pros and Cons of Culinary Education