Radio MOFAD

The podcast for The Museum of Food and Drink

Radio MOFAD is a arts podcast hosted by Bernadettecura, with 6 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Bernadettecura hosts Radio MOFAD, a arts show with 6 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

• 

  Episode #6

  Cocktails Are Culture: Nelson German & Andréa Lawson Gray on “Caribbean Cocktails”

  Jun 20, 202643 min

  We chat with Nelson and Andréa about their new book, stoop life, and the Copacabana. The Museum of Food and Drink MOFAD https://www.mofad.org/ Wed June 24, 2026: Nelson German and Andréa Lawson Gray in conversation with Tonya Hopkins, aka The Food (& Drinks!) Griot , exploring rum, sugar, and the histories that shape Caribbean flavor. https://mofad.ticketing.veevartapp.com/tickets/view/list/sugarcane-to-glass-rum-and-the-making-of-caribbean-flavor Nelson German https://chefnelsongerman.com/about/?section=bio Andréa Lawson Gray https://www.andrealawsongray.com/ Caribbean Cocktails: Drinks and Bites from the Afro-Latino Diaspora https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/783034/caribbean-cocktails-by-nelson-german-and-andrea-lawson-gray/ Kitchen Arts & Letters https://www.kitchenartsandletters.com/ Claudette Zepeda https://chefclaudettezepeda.com/ Cooking the Borderlands: Spice and Smoke Between Mexico and the States https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/737900/cooking-the-borderlands-by-claudette-zepeda/ Kim Vallejo She Wolf Bakery https://www.shewolfbakery.com/ June Russell Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming https://www.glynwood.org/ ABC Kitchens https://www.abckitchensdumbo.com/ Transcript 0:00 Ivan De Luce (ID): Welcome to RadioMOFAD, the podcast from the Museum of Food and Drink. Hey Bernadette, how's it going? Bernadette Cura (BC): It's so good, because today was the ticker tape parade for the Knicks. ID: Yes, go Knicks! BC: We did do a little promotion where anyone who had their Knicks gear on this past weekend and today too because of the ticker tape parade could come in and enjoy the museum for free. And we did get a bunch of people come in that couldn't get near the parade even though they got there at eight or nine o'clock which seemed reasonable at the time, but apparently was too late and they're real fans and you know they didn't get to get anywhere near and we got to show them a little bit of New York with our street food exhibition. ID: And they looked great and some people even made their own Knicks gear. It was incredible. BC: oh my gosh yes, that guy with the long tunic. And I'm glad also that they were able to see it because we're going to be finishing up here on June 28th. ID: Yes, the last day of Street Food City is June 28th, Sunday uh and 01:00 And it's very bittersweet, but we're going to uh move on to bigger and better things. It was a great run since last December to now. BC: And so many great um programs too, including the last two that we had with Kim Vallejo from She-Wolf Bakery. ID: We also had the event with Claudette Zepeda the week before that. Yeah. BC: The one with Claudette was very spirited. Claudette in general is very spirited. ID: Like many chefs. BC: If it's the Legal instant coffee that we talked about in the last one, like she's caffeinated to the gills, I'm not sure. ID: She was hopped up. BC: But what's funny is that we gave, since Ivan and I weren't able to be there, we gave her a little gift bag saying we wished we were here. And I gave her little packets of Legal in there to make coffee if she didn't bring her own. ID: And remind her of home. BC: Yeah, but it turns out that it wasn't instant stuff I gave her. It was like coffee that you had to brew. So if she tried to make a cup of coffee 01:59 with our coffee grounds in her hotel room. She... ID: Be a bit crunchy. BC: be a crunchy cup of coffee. And the funny thing also, and this relates to Kim, because Kim uh told us about those amazing brownies, which we tasted with Owen in the museum. we talked about it during last episode of this podcast. I made some brownies with like a recipe that I love, and I put the Lagal coffee that I was gonna give to Claudette. I kept a packet for myself so I could put it in the brownies. And the texture was really interesting and I thought it was all because I used whole grain spelt flour, but it turns out it was crunchy because they were coffee grounds and not instant coffee at all. So like from Claudette to Kim, uh there was some funny business going on in my kitchen related to those programs. ID: Yeah, I mean watch out she wolf. We've got a new brownie in town. BC: And it's got coffee grounds in it. ID: Yeah, and and you know you home bakers if you need a little 02:59 If you a little texture, just throw in some coffee grounds. Maybe a few beans. Why not? Do a rough chop of those beans. Throw them in. Get a nice crunchy topping. BC: The event with Claudette and Francis Lamb. Francis drew out a story from Claudette about how Aguachile, which we think of as like a Mexican sort of ceviche, actually originated with cowboys in Sonora in the Sierra Madres in the desert. They would take their dried beef and grind up chiltepin chiles in a little uh mortar and pestle that they would carry with them made out of really hard wood and mix it with lime juice and dress their uh beef, their dried beef, out in the desert. And that was the origin of aguachile. Who freaking knew? You gotta get the book. BC: The event with Kim and June retelling the story of the birth of the New York grainshed was so beautiful. 03:59 Just reminiscing about all the people that helped them along the way, the story about the oat bread. Being one of their like, they did this before COVID and when COVID happened, their oat people went away, their oat source. And then after COVID actually, this is very recently because Brooklyn Granary and Mill opened up and their friend Patrick said, I'll crack you some oats. And now the oat bread is back, which is why they brought that oat bread to the event. Very good stuff. eventually these programs will end up on our YouTube channel so that everyone can experience them. ID: Yes indeed. uh same goes for the podcast. The podcast is not going anywhere just because Street Food City is shuttering for now. And we've got one more event at MOFAD before the exhibition closes. It's going to be the subject of today's episode. BC:Yes. You know, everyone's always like, oh, so much food, this one's about drinks. 04:59 ID:Yes. Food and drinks. Hello! We've got Nelson German, of course, the chef, uh who is from Washington Heights, Manhattan. And he's going to talk about his new book, Caribbean Cocktails. And it's going to be incredible. He's joined by his co-author, uh Andrea Lawson Gray. It's going to be a really wonderful talk. We're going to have some of those cocktails and some incredible food for the event as well. And so that's going to be Wednesday, June 24th. And if you want to check out the exhibition one last time, check out one event. If this is your only event that you're going to check out at MOFAD, it is indeed your last chance for the time being. BC: So just bringing it back to the Knicks. Nelson is from Washington Heights and said he's a Knicks fan. Andrea definitely said she was a Knicks fan and she was like, yeah, excited about the win. But apparently one of Nelson's partners is a Golden State Warrior for his newest project. Is he still a Knicks fan? Oh, I'm curious. 05:59 ID: Well, yeah, you got the New Yorker going to Oakland over here, you know. BC: it's a really great chat and like we cut it short and it had been an hour and we could have talked for another hour. ID: Totally. BC: Check it out. ID: Welcome to RadioMOFAD, the podcast from the Museum of Food and Drink. Nelson German is a chef who has appeared on Top Chef and whose work focuses on the vibrant culinary roots of the Afro-Latino diaspora. His restaurants include Alamar and Sobrmesa Cocktail Lounge in Oakland and Meski in San Francisco. Together with culinary anthropologist and author Andréa Lawson Gray, their book, Caribbean Cocktails, Drinks and Bites from the Afro-Latino Diaspora, collects recipes inspired by Nelson's Dominican and Cameroonian heritage and his upbringing in the Heights. Nelson and Andréa will appear at MOFAD on June 24th in conversation with Tonya Hopkins to discuss two ingredients crucial to Caribbean cocktails, sugarcane and rum. BC: Andréa and Nelson, did you guys meet before working together on this book? 7:07 Andréa Lawson Gray (AG): So we met through Tanya Holland, who uh is a mutual friend, and we did not meet before starting on the book, but she knew that Nelson wanted to write a book and I had talked to her about wanting, you know, to do my next book. And it was turned out to be a match made in New York. BC: Are you based in New York, Andrea, as well? AG: I am not, but I am a born and raised New Yorker. I was shouting into the wind when the Knicks won here because nobody else was excited here in San Francisco. BC: But I didn't know you were both born New Yorkers. ID:Shout out. Shout out to the Heights. I lived in the Heights for eight years since I was from age like 14 to whatever that was. AG:Yeah. Yeah, that was definitely one of our points of connection when Nelson and I first started talking. My daughter was living in Wash Heights. 08:00 Nelson German (NG): So the first time we met, Andréa talked to me about, are you ready to write a book? This is kind of still during COVID times. We had a (park lit up, it's sort of messed up.) Tonya Holland connected us. And, you know, I always talked about having a book, but never, I wasn't ready for it. So Andrea came over and kind of explained to me the process and kind of got me really excited about the possibilities. And just to have a writer, right, makes it, I wouldn't say easier, but yes, easier. because you have somebody there writing your story. You don't have to sit there yourself and type and write, you know, like traditional authors. But yeah, it made the move. It was like, just took the risk. You know, I think during that time, I took a lot of risks, you know, things that I would normally say no to or said yes to, like writing a book, Top Chef, because I'm very hands-on in my restaurants. You know, I'm in the kitchen, just grinding all the time. Really don't have time to be anywhere else. 09:00 And because of everything that went on during that time, we only had, we just opened our second place, reopened, which was Sobremesa. We opened it nine days before the first shutdown, which is crazy. So we're closed for almost a year, did everything out of one restaurant, Alamar. Yeah, it was just like, okay, this is going on. Things are doing okay after a few months. You know, we're doing a lot of to-go's and all that, doing to-go cocktails too. And it was like, okay, I have time to do these things. Let me just, I usually would say, no, let me just go for it. BC: Yeah. You had all that downtime. So you were able to be able to work on recipes and speak with Andréa about all the background and things. NG: Yeah. Yeah. was, you know, things happen for a reason. And it was, uh, you know, a great decision on my part to finally say yes and just try things out, take the risk. And it's been super rewarding. AG: It started out as a cookbook with cocktails. 09:54 Yeah, because after I spoke with Nelson I was like I could see how important cocktails were. As part of Sobremesa, which is where I met him Which is a cocktail lounge environment when I started looking into what was in the world of cookbooks with cocktails I noticed that there really wasn't much. Whatever there was would pair like a dish with a drink So, you know, you have a lamb dish and you're pairing it with I don't know a gin drink So if you don't like lamb or you don't like gin 10:23 The baby goes out with the bath water. I'm also a chef, which allowed me to look at this through the lens of a chef. And so I realized, okay, it's flavor profiles. That's how we do our meals and that's how we do our cocktails. And so we created a book that's pretty unique in that each chapter is a flavor profile from herbals and botanicals to umami to spicy, warm flavors. 10:50 And any of the cocktails in a chapter can go with any of the bites in a chapter. So when the book, when the publisher asked us, we'd really like to be more cocktail forward. We already had the backbone of the book there anyway. BC: So how far along in the process did you decide to make that switch? Cause I just looked at the book and I actually, I'm going to be cooking the recipes for, for the event. I'm really excited about it. I was looking at the book and I was expecting more of a recipe book and it was a cocktail book. And that was really exciting. And I know you're both chefs and you made that switch. I did hear one passage in an interview, Nelson, when you said you went behind the bar and it felt natural because maybe you were ready for it. Maybe you weren't before. NG: Yeah, that was a crazy day. It was a what they call first Fridays here in Oakland, where it's like a big, big street festival. And, you know, it’s all about the arts and music. And it's a busy time for a lot of restaurants, especially ours. And just one Friday night had no bartenders. know, called out, one quit, had to get rid of one. And as an owner and chef, you just got to do it all right. Whatever needs to be done, you have to do it. And at that point, it's crazy because we were into our maybe fifth year or so. And we've been open 12 years now. And, you know, it comes to a point when you own your own place. 12:15 It’s definitely a dream come true, you're happy. You're a kid in a candy store, like I always have, still have that feeling to this day. But you can get complacent doing the same food all the time, right? Especially if it's like all these staples that you have, you can't really get out the menu. So I kind of complacent, a little bored at the time, was still in the kitchen. So I was like, okay, I have no bar tenders. Who else is going to jump behind the bar? I have to do it. You know, I had to go behind there, went there, it was nerve-wracking for me because one, I was always been an introvert. You can't tell now, I've known this years, but I used to be that shy kid, you know, standing the wall, not really saying much. So I was, and the kitchen was always kind of as chefs are kind of safe haven where we're just focused on the food and the team. We're not, you know, talking to guests, not talking to anybody else except the team. So it was nerve-wracking to finally, 13:14 be somewhere where I can't just hide, right? I have to be there creating, going through the flows of service while having guests in front of me. And that was the toughest thing for me, but I fell in love with the moment. I fell in love with the whole night. like the creating cocktails was, it was really cool because it was familiar to me. It was like cooking. So it was like this familiarity with me and it was like exciting, like doing something so new, but it's still familiar and it's really cool. You know, I love having drinks. So this is something that kind of was instilled in me for some reason. I fell in love ever since that day. And I started bartending more and more. Like every night I would be behind the bar just kind of doing my thing, testing out recipes, doing our thing. it just like became such a big passion. It made me respect bartenders more too. Because you know, there's always that front of the back of the house thing. They're like chefs behind the bar. They're creating with... 14:10 And people who create cocktails, they're it through inspirations, through memories, just like chefs do, combining flavors that normally might not even go together to go together and tell a story. So it was like, OK, is biggest factor for what they do. it's just like, they're not just creating, but they're also having conversations or even just listening to guests. BC: Andrea, as a chef, because you're a chef too, did you have cocktail experience as well or did that come upon you? AG: I did not. I certainly enjoy a good cocktail and I wonder if the… so the switch from a food forward book to a cocktail forward book came from the publisher. I have to wonder whether if Nelson had approached me and said I want to write a cocktail book, whether I would have even taken the project on because I'm very big at doing things that I am good at. I'm a culinary anthropologist, self-taught. I'm a self-taught chef. I will say when you're self-taught, 15:08 you set a really high bar for yourself because you're always worried that someone will discover that you don't know something. And so I don't even know if I would have taken it on. I have to say one, my skill set as a chef and understanding flavors kicked in right away. The journey that we went on as I started to dig into cocktails, it was amazing. It was interesting. It was fun. It was informative. And it led to all of the things that I learned that are part of the threads that we can pull on in this book. The whole idea of distillery justice came from me looking at patterns that happened in the cocktail world, in the distillery world, recognizing that they were similar to patterns in the culinary world. NG: And I was going to jump in and say that because of this whole process too, and just kind of her asking me about my life story and things in the past. 16:04 I realized I was making drinks way before being behind the bar. I was always that guy in the stoop in New York for my friends mixing these crazy sodas and... BC: Wait, did you make nutcrackers? NG: Yes, yes. BC: You did? Oh my God. Those are... I mean, just like... It's rolling the dice when you buy those because you don't know who was mixing it together. So you don't know if they're going to taste even good. You don't know it's to be super sweet. You don't know how strong they're going to be. Yeah. Oh my God. totally. NG: I wasn’t selling it. was just making it for my friends anytime before we to the club. that's how we we always another thing with me and Andréa, like a fascination and love for this place called Copacabana. This would be one of most famous nightclubs in the world. It was in New York, the second iteration. And that was what inspired me to be going to the culinary world, coming out of that nightclub. 17:00 Cooking was always kind of a hobby for me. Became a passion when I just went for it, but it was always a fascination as a kid, just watching my mom and grandma, always wanted to be in the kitchen, but never like pulling myself out of it too. Thinking that my dad would just kind of get mad. To this day he said he wouldn't. But um I realized that during this whole process, was like, wow, I making drinks. Way in the past, I was the one mixing things for my friends before we go to the clubs or just on a regular night. You know, mixing all these crazy flavors and having fun with it. So I was like, wow, this is, it brought something out of me. was like, okay, this is all connected and full circle. AG: So those were two other points of connection for us, which is crazy. One was New York stoop culture, which is very New York. Okay. Absolutely. You know, I lived on the Upper, Upper West side, you know, it all about in the summer that we had no AC sitting out on the stoop, you know, drinking, chatting with friends, meeting the neighbors. 17:58 And then when you talked about the Copacabana, was like, oh my God, you're kidding. I used to go dancing there. I was on Wednesdays. I'm a big salsa dancer. And so we just had all these ridiculous points of commonality. Not only did it make both of us think that this was meant to be, but it made the relationship easy and fluid. And when you write a book with someone and you're using your words to express their voice, It's a very intimate relationship. Intimacy is something that's usually achieved over time. We were very lucky because I think we had like a shortcut to intimacy because we had so many common points of reference, mostly related back to New York City. BC: Tanya did good. She did good. I know Tanya. Tanya and I worked, we met uh with Bobby Flay, through Bobby Flay. A long time ago, and I don't know if she would even remember. 18:58 I think she would, but it sounds like she did good by bringing you guys together. ID: Absolutely. she did. And

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #5

  Meat On a Stick, Black Coffee, and Bread: Kim Vallejo On Our Local Grainshed

  Jun 3, 202640 min

  Meat On a Stick, Black Coffee, and Bread: Kim Vallejo On Our local Grainshed The Museum of Food and Drink MOFAD https://www.mofad.org/ Wed June 10, 2026 : Kim Vallejo and June Russell in conversation about the past, present, and future of local grains. https://mofad.ticketing.veevartapp.com/tickets/view/list/restoring-the-grainshed-reviving-regional-grain-in-new-york https://www.mofad.org/program-detail-page/grains MOFAD Programs https://www.mofad.org/programs Kim Vallejo She Wolf Bakery https://www.shewolfbakery.com/ June Russell Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming https://www.glynwood.org/ Culinaria: Women Of Color Rewriting Our Food Stories https://culinariastories.net/book Dr. Willa Zhen The Culinary Institute of America Leah Eskin Like Wafers in Honey https://www.leaheskin.com/ Farmer Ground Flour https://www.farmergroundflour.com/ Brooklyn Granary and Mill https://brooklyngranaryandmill.com/ Bread Alone https://www.breadalone.com/ TRANSCRIPT (0:00) Ivan De Luce (ID) Welcome to Radio...Take two. Welcome to Radio MOFAD, the podcast from the Museum of Food and Drink. How's it going, Bernadette? Bernadette Cura (BC) It's going great. We love the rain. ID: We love the rain. BC: It makes people want to scurry into a museum. Come here when it's raining. It's the perfect place to be. And we're not going to give you a headache because we're too large. And also there are snacks to help you to fight off that museum headache. ID: We've got protein in the form of Nuts for Nuts honey roasted peanuts. BC: And also the halvah has a good amount of protein and fiber. ID: It's all good for you, really. The pretzel bites are tasty, too. Some simple carbs for some energy as well. BC: There's like a great burst of energy. ID: And you know what I will say about MOFAD? Your feet will never hurt after you get through it, because there's simply not that much surface area to walk across, you know. BC: It's just the right size. ID: I agree. BC: Absolutely. (1:00) And also the air in here is quite nice. Like, you know, like the air in museums sometimes it's just like, oh my, why am I dissing museums? ID: Take that, The Met. BC: No, stop. I love museums. ID: I love museums, even The Met. BC: So I'm not going to say another word about other museums. I'm just going to say this is a really great place to be. And oh my gosh, we are revealing too much about ourselves, I think. ID: Pay no attention to the podcast hosts behind the curtain. BC: We'll edit this out in post. ID: Yes, or will we? BC: I don't know. ID: Well, so we had a great chat with Claudette. We've also had some great events this past week here at MOFAD as well. One of my favorites was the one about Women of Color in Food Studies. It was basically a book talk for this new book called Culinaria. And it basically has these chapters written by different food studies academics, both senior academics and junior academics, all about their food stories and their cultures. It ranges from autoethnography, talking about one's own family and family recipe history and culture, other kinds of ethnography, talking to people from other cultures, and just a really broad transnational look at Women of Color in Food Studies. BC: (2:19) Well, I know that Willa was here, and she is a professor at the Culinary Institute of America, of which I am a graduate. It was nice that she was here to be part of that program representing the CIA, yo! ID: Exactly. BC: We had food at that event. Tanoreen provided some delicious food. ID: Delicious Palestinian food. Yeah, it was so delicious. ID: Yeah, so I really encourage people to check out culinariastories.net. It is the page for the book. The book is out soon.It's not out yet. But for any of you food studies people out there, it's a really unique look at these underrepresented topics. BC: I was at the event for Leah Eskin and her book, Like Wafers and Honey, which we called our book club, but nobody had to read the book beforehand. ID: But they probably learned a bit about the book while they were there. BC: The nice thing is that Leah read some lovely excerpts from the book. ID: So what is the book? What's it about? BC: So that book was set in the town of Pitigliano, which is in Tuscany, which apparently we all learned was called Little Jerusalem because of the Jewish community in that town for centuries. And sadly also for centuries at different times the community was persecuted and kicked out. There were also times of you know where the community flourished and was supported, but not always. And I believe this book was set in the last time that it happened during the anti-Jewish laws in the 30s. ID: (3:58) Right. BC: So Taylor, our program director, made some cookies from the book because it's stories and recipes. The cookies were called sfratti and sfratto means eviction. It's so dark and sad that they can make something delicious about something that is so tragic. But when they would do these sfratti or evictions, they would use a stick to bang on the door or to bang to like let people know that they had to get out. And the cookie is in the form of a stick which is then cut into rounds. And they're made with walnuts and pine nuts and lemon zest and honey and they were so delicious. A gentleman who also came to the program made them as well from the book and said he had the same experience. ID: It's just interesting to make this recipe out of a very dark time in your community's history. It shows the resilience of that community. Making the most of being evicted en masse just because of your religion. BC: (5:00) Anyway, it was a really moving event and we loved it. ID: Wow, very cool. Another event coming up relating to She Wolf Bakery. BC: Oh my gosh. ID: A lot of you might be familiar with this really amazing bakery here in New York that sources local grains from the New York and Tri-State area. We're going to be talking to Kim Vallejo who is the business director at She Wolf Bakery. About sourcing local grains. BC: I'm so excited for that. And she's going to be in conversation with June Russell who I know had a lot to do with building that ecosystem. Here in our area, she used to work for Grow NYC. As a matter of fact, one of our volunteers MJ or Michelle Hernandez used to work for Grow NYC and knew her and speaks highly of her and is very excited about that program for that reason. Yeah. She's going to be back talking about what she built with She Wolf also. ID: (6:01) Right, right. So cool. Yeah, it's going to be great. I can't wait. BC: We did talk to Kim about this upcoming event. Yeah, so here it is. Check it out. ID: Welcome to Radio MOFAD, the podcast from the Museum of Food and Drink. Kim Vallejo is the business director of She Wolf Bakery, a New York City-based bakery that sources its grains from local farmers. Founded in 2009, She Wolf helped to create the resurgence of regional grains resulting in breads that are healthier, tastier, and easier to digest while fostering a more sustainable food supply chain. Kim will appear at MOFAD on June 10th in conversation with June Russell, director of regional food programs at the Glynnwood Center for Regional Food and Farming to discuss regional grain in New York along with a guided sourdough tasting. ID: Kim, so you are the business director at She Wolf Bakery and I was wondering how you got your start at She Wolf and how you got connected with them in the first place. Kim Vallejo (KV) (7:06) That's a great question. And also like everything in our story loops back to June Russell. So I had been working with the state of New York. I was the head of the New York City office for the New York State Department of Agriculture based in Brooklyn, and I did that for about five years from about 2016 into 2021. Working with local ag or representing local ag in the city was super exciting and fulfilling work. That's where I initially met June and got really excited about the work she was doing at the grain stand. And halfway through 2021, I decided I needed a career change. State service was wonderful, but just not for me. It was a great job while I had it, but I just I needed something more hands-on. As we've sort of discussed, I grew up in food and I missed the actual hustle and bustle of being inside a kitchen or at the farmer's market or really working with ingredients with my hands, right? (8:02) And so I made the tough choice to make a career change then and took the summer off. I was doing a lot of baking and soul searching and trying to find my way and like what comes next. And I just happened to shoot an email to June and I said, hey, you know the mission that that you're pursuing and this work with local grains still feels really relevant to me and like something that I want to pursue further. Do you know of anything? And there wasn't really a lot on the job market at the time for doing this kind of work, but June got back to me and said, you know, Andrew Tarlow is looking for someone to run She Wolf. She Wolf is poised to grow. They don't currently have a business person or a business lead. It was just sort of that the founding head baker and the owner and maybe one other manager at the time and they needed to be thinking about the next steps. He was slated to move the bakery into the Navy Yard, which is a city run entity. I had worked for the state and worked with city RFPs and I understood the process of working with the government agencies and the red tape and all of the licensing and all of the inspections and all of the fun things that we were going to have to to go through in our new home. (9:06) And so June put us in touch. BC: Yeah, right. All the fun stuff. KV: But June put us in touch and Andrew and I met for coffee and he came with my resume with just like notes all over it and said, you know, you seem awesome. We should talk and the rest is history. I think we spent two hours in Marlowe & Sons just chatting about all things food and getting really excited about the work that She Wolf is doing. And I came in, I met the team and completely fell in love with the work. We are so true to our mission and that's so hard to find these days that it just like it felt like home, like kind of immediately. And so here I am five years later, still very excited to be doing this work every day. BC: I was wondering, you were saying get your hands back into food. Do you actually participate in production at She Wolf? Because I know you're the business manager. KV: Yeah. (9:59) Yeah, you wouldn't expect me to do much in production, maybe less so now, but certainly in my early days. Running a small business means you do anything and everything, right? And so I'm literally going to be the person at the farmer's market tomorrow. I'll probably have to cover a wholesale shift, you know, in the next week or two. I'm definitely pretty good at shaping bread at this point and like happy to get my hands in the dough whenever I can. I jump into our pastry team and we troubleshoot our custard recipes together. Like luckily, I come with enough kitchen experience and enough of a love for baking that the team found me useful in those spaces, which was really exciting for me. It makes for a really exciting job. Yeah, but it is a little bit of, you know, I've got the 30,000 foot view, but I'm also on the ground and inside every operational piece of what we do in a day and sometimes that does mean production. Yeah, and it's fun. I wouldn't change it. I think it's hard to find the balance of time sometimes. You're splitting your time in so many different ways and I think we've gotten a little better about that as the team has grown. (11:02) We've had more people to delegate to and more people to lean on across all the teams, but if I go for too long without shaping a batard, I'm in a bad place and I need to get on the bench. That's just a part of my reality here. ID: Because it's all about the bread. Absolutely. KV: It is all about the bread. Yes, exactly. ID: You know, our main topic here about this regional grain sourcing and that sort of landscape, we were wondering what that looks like and how it's evolved both since She Wolf was founded in 2009 and since you joined in 2021. KV: Yeah, I mean it's growing and evolving literally every single year, which is something that I find so exciting about working in this space. When our bakery began, there was no local flour to work with. Like our origin story, Austin Hall, our founding baker, he was hired at one of Andrew's restaurants. He was hired at Roman's to just bake bread for the restaurant. So he would come in overnight, mix the dough, bake it off in the morning for service, and then go home.(12:04) I think in the early days, they were just working with King Arthur, you know, organic flour, whatever you could find, because there were not other options until June introduced herself and came knocking. I think she reached out to Andrew pretty early on in the grain stand days and was like, explained what she was doing, looking to bring local grains into the green market. She came in and met with Austin and Austin just immediately gravitated to that mission. Like he just, he got it and was committed to, as a baker, figuring out how to do this well. And from there, our niche was born. Our niche was the sole bread of She Wolf in the early days until we were a little further along and then we started making batards. But even then, Austin could not find local grains. So at this point, we're talking like 2014-2015, which is when the grain stand got its start. He was going to the farmer's market or sending someone to the farmer's market to get a 10-pound bag or a 20-pound bag. (13:00) He couldn't even get multiple bags of these. So our production was really, really small, in part because the mill we were buying from had also just formed. I think that Farmer Ground flour was founded about the same time that we were. And so they're just new and growing and didn't quite have distribution into the city yet. The grain stand was the only way to get your hands on some local grains. That, of course, has changed very dramatically just within the last couple of years. We have continued to buy a lot of our flour from Farmer Ground and what used to be one 20-pound bag a week has now turned into two full pallets of various grains every week. 4,000 pounds of local grains coming in and out just from one supplier. We branched out who we're sourcing grains from as well because the market has evolved, because there's more people getting into this space. And something that I have been really excited to do with Sarah Vitale, my pastry lead, she's having an especially big impact on this because we realized a couple of years ago, you know, Farmer Ground has grown to a scale that we can get pallets every week, which is great. (14:06) But there's a lot of other smaller mills in our region who are now trying to come up on the heels of Farmer Ground. There's more consumer demand. There's people milling in Jersey. There's people milling in Pennsylvania. There's people milling in Massachusetts. BC: There's people milling in Brooklyn. KV: Yes. Oh, we'll get to Patrick. Absolutely. There's people milling in Brooklyn now. And all of this is coming from, I think, the original proof of concept that you can make beautiful, delicious things out of local grains and that people want them. People come to the market to seek them out. I know that Sfoglini Pasta and She Wolf are, I think, Farmer Ground's biggest customers at the moment. But what we started to do maybe three or four years ago, Sarah and I, is look at our pastry program as an area for growth. And this was strategic in a couple of ways. One, you can work with flours that don't make great bread in pastry. You can use a softer wheat. You can use something with less protein. (14:59) You can use something like rye that is tricky to make a bread entirely out of or a good bread entirely out of. And you can start to buy from smaller mills and smaller suppliers because you don't need as much flour to make a couple of muffins as you do to make hundreds of loaves of bread. Or you can use something that's like einkorn that's quite pricey and really special, but you can use a small amount of it in biscuits that, again, you're not making these giant loaves of bread and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them at that point. We're just making them at this point for our café, we could make six or 12. And then if something is a hit and we want to scale it up, we have the option to do so and we can bring it to the green market. But through that, we have been a part of constantly keeping our eyes peeled. Anytime we hear that there's a new varietal, a new mill, a new way to get some local grains here in Brooklyn, we jump on it. That includes working with folks like Patrick. (15:59) As soon as we heard he was opening, we were like, what can we get from you that we can't get from someone else? Let's build a product around it. We start with the grain first. That's how we're creating new products here. Our brownies, our cookies, all of that is coming from not just we should have a pastry program, but looking at what the local grain industry needs and how can we support it. We can make something at smaller scale. We can make these new items that require different kinds of specs than bread. And between both our pastry and our bread program, now we have a home for pretty much anybody who's milling locally. BC: That's so exciting. When I was reading about June and the challenges of bringing these grains to bakers, I read that people would use the new flours from the grain shed and would say they just don't work because they had been baking with commodity flours and they act differently. I'm sure that's one of the challenges still since you're dealing with new varieties of flour all the time. (16:59) That's just amazing that you're doing that education for people if they need it. On a numbers basis, what percentage of people in New York do you think, like this is a small percentage of usage, right? I mean, it's like a drop in the bucket. Whmjķat are the numbers? I'm curious. KV: For perspective, we say that something that makes She Wolf really deferent from a lot of other bakeries that work with local grains is our scale, is our volume. It's one thing to make 25 perfect loaves or 30 perfect loaves from local grains and sell it in your local bakery. That's a beautiful thing. Every neighborhood should have a bakery that is doing that. That's not She Wolf's job. We're producing at a slightly higher scale. We're making 2,000 loaves on our busiest days, which is significant. But to your point, it's still a very small drop in the bucket for New York City. We're still, for the most part, we sell about half of what we make in the farmer's market. 1% of the population actually shops at the farmer's market. We really are serving a very small slice of the pie. (18:00) We are expanding our wholesale program. We have about 75 wholesale customers, mostly restaurants around the city. We are, in reality, serving a much wider audience beyond that. But again, it's people who have the income and the leisure to go to great restaurants around the city and enjoy local food there. So there's still a long way to go, I think, in terms of making these grains and the products that you can produce from them just very commonplace and more approachable or accessible to the general public. BC: Ivan, at your store where you get the She Wolf, do you see the Bread Alone bread there? ID: Yes, our ocal farmer's market is the Tompkins Square Park one in the East Village and we see Bread Alone and we see She Wolf. And She Wolf's right by our compost drop-off. I think that I'm lucky to live near this and anyone who's living near a farmer's market because growing up in New York, I was not living near one while I was in Washington Heights or Hell's Kitchen or things like that. BC: (19:04) Yeah, even within the city,

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #4

  Let Me Be Weird: Claudette Zepeda on “Cooking the Borderlands”

  May 30, 202634 min

  The Museum of Food and Drink MOFAD https://www.mofad.org/ Wed June 3, 2026: Claudette Zepeda and Francis Lam in conversation about her upcoming book Cooking the Borderlands https://mofad.ticketing.veevartapp.com/tickets/view/list/cooking-the-borderlands https://www.mofad.org/program-detail-page/borderlands MOFAD Programs https://www.mofad.org/programs Claudette Zepeda https://chefclaudettezepeda.com/ Cooking the Borderlands: Spice and Smoke Between Mexico and the States https://sites.prh.com/cookingtheborderlands/#preorder-the-book Tacos La Poblanita Corner of Jay St and York St Brooklyn, NY 11201 Mon-Sat 10-5 Jasar Castillo 929-245-3098 Michael Szczerban https://www.instagram.com/foreverbeard/ The Talisman of Happiness https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/ada-boni/the-talisman-of-happiness/9780316577991/?lens=little-brown-and-company TRANSCRIPT Ivan De Luce (ID): Welcome to RadioMOFAD, the podcast from the Museum of Food and Drink. Hey Bernadette, how's it going? Bernadette Cura (BC): Hey Ivan, it's rainy at the museum today. It's a rainy Saturday. We had quite a good crowd because people love the museum on a rainy day. ID: They do. I know I do. BC: Yeah, me too. People do a lot of photoshoots here in Dumbo. I don't know if you knew this. I mean, you know. I don't know if you all know this. People come for their weddings and their quinceañera photo shoots in all their finery and are taking beautiful pictures. There's a whole entourage of people right behind us now taking pictures. ID: Yeah, there are about four or five five-year-olds running around in dresses and tuxedos chasing each other. We do see that everyday. But yes, we've had a lot of fun at MOFAD lately. We've had some great events. BC: Yeah, you know, we talked with Michael Szczerban last episode. You were on the Zoom for that event. ID: Yes, I attended the Talisman of Happiness event with Michael Szczerban over Zoom just to get a different sense of what it's like to attend a MOFAD event. It was great. It was a wonderful talk. Michael Szczerban talked with Deb Perelman from Smitten Kitchen. BC: Sweet, sweet. ID: They talked about the 1929 cookbook by Ada Boni called The Talisman of Happiness, and it was a great talk, I mean, we had a great talk with him last episode, but Deb was asking about kind of how the book compares to other books. It's not your typical cookbook in so many ways, not just because of the 12 minestrones that you can choose from in it, out of the 1600 recipes in there, it's a huge book, but also because it's not full of fancy, glossy photos. Cookbooks in the 20s definitely weren't. Michael was comparing it to the Silver Spoon cookbook, which many of us are familiar with. BC: Yes ID: It's a beautiful book, much like the fancy Silver Spoon that sits in the kitchen, and maybe isn't touched every day, whereas Michael sort of compared it to Nonna's worn wooden spoon that's been in the sauce all day on a Sunday, chipped and worn, but full of love, and has made so many things, and is used every single day. BC: Well, I know that for me, as far as like The Joy of Cooking, which is what it was compared to a lot. I definitely use that book a lot, and there's no room for pictures. You want the words, you want the solid recipes. ID: Yes, and Michael had said that he wanted it to stick to 1000 pages and not go beyond that. Well, I think I'd rather, for a book like that, that's really useful in the kitchen, I'd rather not have pictures, and like we talked about in the podcast, that illustrations are really additional information that's helpful, and they're really cute. So I'm glad, I'm glad they stuck to that formula, and I cannot wait to get this book. I get excited about all our cookbooks that we have in the museum, but this one seems really special. BC: Definitely. So, as far as events, that one was great, and we have more coming up. ID: In June, we'll see Claudette Zepeda and her new book, Cooking the Borderlands. BC: Yes, she grew up in San Diego, and also in Tijuana. So, the foods that she grew up with, she's going to talk about it. What are the elements and the ingredients and the influences that came together to make that very special cuisine there, where she's from? And we're excited to host her here. And you know, I'm from Fort Worth, Texas, and there's Tex Mex cuisine there, and I'm wondering, like, what the similarities might be, since it's Mexican American, so I'm curious about that, and I think you told me, Ivan, that you're not that well-versed in Mexican food to begin with, so there's a whole world for you to discover ID: When it comes to Mexican food, I know Mexican food in New York really well, and I love it, but when I meet people from California, they say you gotta have California Mexican food, it's totally different, and it sounds like this border area, you know, between Tijuana, San Diego, and these other towns there have some kind of distinct thing going on, like a lot of regions do, and I would imagine that the Texas Tex-Mex thing is super different as well. BC: Definitely, definitely. And that's what's so great about regionalism in cuisine, is that we do have things in common, but they're also unique. So I'm excited to discover all that when she's here and during our talk with her on the podcast, ID: Yes, let's take a listen to that interview with Claudette. ID: Welcome to Radio Mofad, the podcast from the Museum of Food and Drink. Chef and author Claudette Zepeda grew up on both sides of the California-Mexico border, a first-generation. Mexican American, where the mixing of vibrant culinary traditions informed her food. Claudette has served as executive chef at El Jardin, appeared on Top Chef as well as Iron Chef Mexico, and now has a new cookbook, Cooking the Borderlands: Spice and Smoke Between Mexico and the States. Claudette will appear at MOFAD on June 3 in conversation with editor Francis Lam to discuss borderlands culture, migration, and the stories behind the recipes that shaped Claudette's life growing up between Mexico and the US ID: So your new book, Cooking the Borderlands, centers around the mixing of these cultures that you grew up with, you know, between California and Mexico. It's a unique blend of cultures in this particular area, and I guess I was wondering what you love most about this kind of food. Claudette Zepeda (CZ): I love that there's, you know, on the border, I should say, as a chef, especially cooking Mexican food in the United States, people always want to put us in a box of, like, well, where's this from, and where's that from, and you know, is this tradition to use words like traditional or authentic Mexican food? It's hard to receive when you're a creative and you just want to create, and as a border kid, and that sensibility that I learned because of being on the border and living with one foot in both countries, I learned that the sensibility of the food in the borderlands has no borders. It does not answer to whoever set the barrier of does it go this way or that way. Food is so fluid, as a border kid, because I mean, the book trespasses the entire border, from San Diego, Tijuana to Tamaulipas in Texas. The dichotomy doesn't change between any of those regions, it changes geographically, and the food changes, but the sensibility is the same. I was like, we don't care what barriers you put up, food doesn't answer to those. BC: Yeah, that's a tricky question to answer, and kind of annoying, like, what is traditional? Because I'm from the Philippines, I know what my parents cooked, and it has a lot of elements of traditional, but it also has a lot of elements of, like, what you can get in Fort Worth, Texas, as a Filipina, CZ: Yeah BC: you know, like, and it wasn't a lot, so it creates its own authenticity, and I think, as Americans, we have to go through that a lot in different parts of the country. People want that authenticity, and I, a lot of it, I'm not sure, has to do with being PC. Is that true? I mean, I don’t know. CZ: I think a lot of it has to do with their most people are uncomfortable in the, in the uncomfortable, so they think to they need something safe, and I hate the word approachable, but they need you to be palatable, Right, and I feel like sometimes I'm just like, just let me be weird, authenticity is very personal, and tradition, you could have one neighborhood block in Mexico, everyone's making albondigas, and every single one will taste different, because every single family has their own traditions, and they're not static. BC: Yeah, I love that. Let me be weird. You want me to be weird! I promise it's gonna taste better. CZ: Exactly, and I'm also not an 80-year-old grandmother cooking over wood fire, and like, with you know, I would love that one day. I want that, but currently that's not where I'm at. BC: Oh man, yeah. ID: And Bernadette, you said Fort Worth, Texas. I mean, that's Tex-Mex food that you were kind of growing up having as well, right? BC: Well, yeah, and I really, I'm not really sure about, like, what the roots specifically of Tex-Mex are, but I know there's a lot of that ranch cuisine in Texas food because of the beef industry, and you mentioned that earlier. I wonder if they have, if there's anything similar there, but no, it really is much different from the stuff in San Diego and Tijuana. CZ: Yeah, and you mean Texas all the way to El Paso, you have the Chihuahua border, you have the Nogales, you have Juarez, you have all these...I mean,Texas is a huge state, so within that one state, and you have the Native Americans that live, you know, the Tarahumara people, the Rarámuri that are on the other side in Mexico, on the Sierra Nevadas, and the Sierra Madre is like that, is very different climate, very different adaptability that those first people have had to really familiarize themselves with the land. But also do without a lot, you know, like how do you feed a family with very little resources? And sometimes like the climate is really uninhabitable to a lot of people, but they, that's their, what they know, and what they're raised in. So 1000’s of years of generations. BC: Where you were in Tijuana and San Diego, what were the products like? CZ: Well I'm so spoiled, you know, fortunate enough to travel to six of the seven continents cooking food. Making tortillas in the craziest corners of the world, but I am always very hesitant to, like, send - you got to send an ingredient list when you're going to go cook somewhere, and I try to take to remove my San Diego, California, Southern California chip from my brain, because I understand how spoiled we are. Everything grows here, it's, you know, the 76 and sunny is a true statement. There's pockets of not 76 and sunny, but I'm also on the border, so if I need a Mexican ingredient, I cross from five minutes, I'm in Tijuana and atthe Mercado, and then I cross another five minutes with Global Entry. So I understand that my circumstances are unique as a border human being, and Tijuana, being where I grew up, it's very familiar to me. I don't see it as going to another country, I see it as the “other side” is what we called it growing up, but I do have ingredients from all of the Republic of the entire country of Mexico end up in Tijuana because most people migrated to Tijuana. ID: And speaking of that sort of exchange of ingredients, your book starts by mentioning the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the drawing of the border between the US and Mexico, you know, at times following geographic features like rivers, and at times just an arbitrary straight line, you know, and then you talk about San Diego today, where you have access to pretty much whatever you need. How was that exchange of ingredients back then versus today? You know, what did that look like? CZ: Well, I mean, I can't speak to the chefs in the 1800’s and how they were cooking, but I can speak to the sensibility that Tijuanenses have, and I think it's more - it's more on the mindset and the way we think about food in Tijuana - is everything's welcome at our table. I don't think there's any country that can say that doesn't have some sort of ugly past and ugly history, and we have it. There's, you know, racism that is really prevalent to this day in Mexico, but no matter what, Tijuana has become home to so many different human beings and accents and cultures that it changed the landscape of the culinary quilt of that is Tijuana, and for I mean, I just see it as like the ingredients that were in my pantry were not different. They weren't quote unquote different, and or weird, but I had, you know, soy sauce, and I had a lot of Asian ingredients, which Chinese and Japanese cultures that are, you know, really prevalent in Baja. Those were always in my, in my pantry, and going out to Chinese food every Sunday was not weird, and my dad emigrated to the states in the 60’s, so he had a little bit more of a gourmand’s, so to speak, palate, because he, you know, was able to go out and eat in restaurants in LA that weren't, you know, available in Tijuana, or in Mexico, or in Jalisco, where he's from, so I think overall Tijuana, Tijuanenses have a sort of fluidity to them, nothing's a big deal, everything is figure-outable, and it's like, oh, you don't have this either, you have this, you know, it's like, oh, I don't have salt, but I have soy sauce, and you know, it's adapting and overcoming over every single obstacle, because the entire city of Tijuana was built on, now especially, built on people that wanted to follow the pursuit of the American dream, and then couldn't, and had to land in Tijuana and make it their home. So it had the resilience of Tijuanenses, it’s very special, and that translates to starting as a ranch, Rancho Tijuana, to what Tijuana Baja California is today. I mean, it's the promise land for a lot of young, talented chefs, even in San Diego, that they can't open a restaurant here, so they go to Tijuana, and they’re earning Michelin stars. It is such a foundational, pivotal well of creativity. I mean, and we, I feel like we all love it in that way. BC: I had no idea that Tijuana was like that. I can't wait to check it out the next time I'm over there. CZ: The media does a really shitty job (Sorry, pardon my French) does a really sad job painting it as, villainizing the border. And as someone who's lived here my whole life, there's a lot of pretty and beautiful things about it too. BC: Well, just getting back to the book a little bit, your second chapter talks about matriarchs. How did the matriarchs in your family influence you to become a cook? How did they influence who you are growing up also? CZ: It was really important for me, you know, as I was talking to Francis about what, how the book was going to shape up, the original 100 recipes that I've written down, kind of. I mean, I would say maybe half of them made it, half of them changed, and the biggest part was like the “cooking off my matriarch’s hips” was because as a child I was the only girl in a house full of boys, go figure, I picked the most like boy-centric career, but it's it. Was understanding, like, the role of nurturing. It was really bestowed on me by my matriarchs, and because my family, on both my mom's side and my dad's side, are from Nayaritan Jalisco, both of them, and understanding that Tijuanenses, most of them migrated to Tijuana, because it was not - it was a ranch that everyone went to for vacations, those were casinos, where it wasn't a place where a lot of people lived, and my matriarchs, my mother, my grandmother, my mom had 16 kids, and they were all born in different parts of Mexico, and as she was going to the different states, because of where work was available for her and my grandfather, they would pick up dishes from the regional, you know, Mexico has seven regions of cuisine. Every region has multiple states, multiple cities, and a lot of dishes in them. She started collecting these dishes, so by the time she got to Tijuana, and she was raising her grandchildren, we grew up eating chongos zamoranos from Zamora Michoacán, we grew up eating sopa de lima from Yucatan, we grew up eating birria, because we're from Jalisco, but it was all these flavors that I was really spoiled to have, and not every family did that, you know, that some people never leave their pocket and then migrate, so all they know is, you know, Sonorense food, or all they know is that region, and my family, since they were a little nomadic by me, by socioeconomics, it really, I needed to talk about those recipes, because they might start from somewhere else, but they taste different, and they tasted different to me. BC: So, when you were talking about your dad being a gourmand and being somewhere where he could enjoy a lot of food, your mom also enjoyed a lot of food because of her work and how she had to move around, and that's why you're traveling the globe and exploring, that's really interesting stuff. CZ: Yeah, I was, I was, have a gypsy soul, and I obviously it has a little to do with my family, but my mom learned how to cook when she met my dad. Funny enough, because my mother did all the cooking, my mom, by watching PBS, because again he had been living in the country for 20 years, he gifted her, and when they met in Tijuana, The Joy of Cooking, and a couple of Julia Child's volumes of her cookbooks. So I remember growing up, my house, my kitchen was a nightmare. It was just like I remember a pressure cooker exploding, but the magazines, and like, the thoughts of my mom trying to please my dad, and being like, oh, I made this, and I made that, and him having a craving, and her going, “Shit, how am I going to do this?” Okay, and so she learned, and we were the benefactors of that learning process. ID: It's so interesting, you've got all these great influences, you know, Julia Child included, like that kind of influencing your childhood, you know, before you even realized it. CZ: Oh yeah, she taught us how to speak English. We're ESL, we were only speaking Spanish, and all my life we only spoke Spanish at home, and PBS is how we watched, you know, Sesame Street, all the BBC shows, Are You Being Served, Mr. Bean, all those characters, including Julia, were pivotal in, like, understanding one, the culture in the United States, and two, and British humor, which was fantastic. I learned how to have a really smart ass sense of humor, but Julia, I mean, when people talk about your heroes, unbeknownst to me, she left a big imprint, not only in, you know, us observing her and watching her cook, but the sensibility of it's okay to make mistakes, that kind of stuck BC: Being a professional chef as you are, and you were saying before, it's boy-centric, it's just ironic how, you know, most of the cooking happens in the home by a woman, and then when it becomes a profession, it's like all dudes, and I went through exactly same thing. I was a line cook when I was 15, and I was like, why? Like, because I started as a waiter, and there were no ladies in the back, and I'm like, why? This is like so fun, and we all cook at home. It's just bizarre. It's definitely challenging, you know. It's definitely testosterone driven still, I feel like. ID: Do you feel like that's changing at all, or is it still just completely boy-centric? CZ: You know, I think post-pandemic it was really scary. I opened a restaurant, a hotel property in in 2021. It was like we were still mid-pandemic, technically. Any other restaurant I had built before that, I was about 50% women, 50% men. I had a male sous chef, I had a female sous chef. It was very balanced, and post pandemic, I think the industry hit this kind of speed bump where there was a lot less women willing to put up with a bunch of kind of toxic environments in restaurants, and they found other ways to make a living, and it made me sad, but it was definitely an awakening. I think there are definitely like all the women that are cooking and making kind of rattl

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #3

  The Minestrone Moment: Michael Szczerban on “The Talisman of Happiness”

  May 13, 202639 min

  MOFAD Program Director Taylor Early chats with Bernadette in the afterglow of two wonderful programs this month. They introduce Ivan and Bernadette’s conversation with Michael Szczerban about Voracious publishing’s recently published first full English translation of The Talisman of Happiness by Ada Boni. As MOFAD continues to explore street food vendors in Dumbo, Brooklyn, we learn about the owner Hamdur’s experience with city inspectors. Priyanka Poddar, Knead Some Love NY Indian Fusion Desserts https://kneadsomeloveny.com/ Smorgasburg https://www.smorgasburg.com/ Ashley Rose Young https://ashleyroseyoung.com/ Nourishing Networks https://global.oup.com/academic/product/nourishing-networks-9780197794036?cc=us&lang=en& Saeng Douangdara https://www.saengskitchen.com/ The Lao Kitchen https://www.saengskitchen.com/cookbook Jujubee https://www.instagram.com/jujubeeonline/ Michael Szczerban https://www.instagram.com/foreverbeard/ The Talisman of Happiness https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/ada-boni/the-talisman-of-happiness/9780316577991/?lens=little-brown-and-company Marcela Hazan https://marcellafilm.com/ Mario Carbone https://www.carbonefinefood.com/about Paul Bertolli Fra’ Mani https://framani.com/pages/about-framani Deb Perelman https://smittenkitchen.com/ Esther Choi https://estherchoi.com/ Dumbo Grill Corner of Front St and Jay St Dumbo, Brooklyn Friday - Sunday

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #2

  Embracing the Funk: Saeng Douangdara on “The Lao Kitchen”

  Apr 30, 202635 min

  Episode 2 We speak with food content creator Saeng Douangdara about his new cookbook, The Lao Kitchen, and an upcoming event May 1 at MOFAD with drag performer Jujubee. We also continue exploring the street food in our Brooklyn neighborhood, DUMBO. Ivan and volunteers Aidan and Brittany visit and chat with Dustin at Cocoboys. NOTES: Muhammad Abdul-Hadi Down North Pizza https://www.downnorthpizza.com/ Out West Coffee https://www.outwestphilly.com/ We the Pizza: Slangin’ Pies and Savin’ Lives https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/739586/we-the-pizza-by-muhammad-abdul-hadi-with-michael-carter-and-david-joachim/ Kalilah Moon Drive Change https://drivechangenyc.org/ Paul Van Ravenstein, Monique Mulder The Pickled City https://papress.com/products/the-pickled-city Ashley Rose Young Nourishing Networks: The Public Culture of Food in New Orleans https://ashleyroseyoung.com/dissertation-research/ Saeng Douangdara The Lao Kitchen https://www.saengskitchen.com/cookbook James Syhabout, John Birdsall Hawker Fare https://www.harpercollins.com/products/hawker-fare-james-syhaboutjohn-birdsall?variant=32130063826978 Ponpailin 'Noi' Kaewduangdee A Child Of The Rice Fields: Recipes From Noi’s Lao Kitchen https://doikanoi.com/book/ Jujubee https://www.instagram.com/jujubeeonline/ Dustin MacKay Cocoboys 147 Front St (on nice days) https://www.instagram.com/cocoboysnyc/ MOFAD The Museum of Food and Drink 55 Water St 2nd Fl Brooklyn NY 11201 https://www.mofad.org/ TRANSCRIPT: 00:00 Ivan De Luce (ID): Welcome to Radio MOFAD, the podcast from The Museum of Food and Drink. Hey, Bernadette. Bernadette Cura (BC): Ivan! Long time no chat. ID: Yeah, how's it going? BC: Actually, I see you like four times a week. I'm sick to death of you. ID: It's only episode two. BC: I know. But it's good. I'm going great. We had a great couple of weeks here at MOFAD. So fun. ID: Yes, we had our event with Muhammad Abdul-Hadi, author of We the Pizza. BC: Yeah, we spoke with him during the last podcast. ID: And he was in conversation this past week talking about his cookbook. And there were some interesting 00:35 recipes in there that I had not noticed the first time around. It was a great way to kind of get more in depth there. One of the most interesting recipes in the book came from Chef Mike Carter. When he was incarcerated, he noticed that inmates would get resourceful with the types of um dishes they would make with their limited resources. So they would actually take Cheez-Its and ramen and make pizza dough out of it. BC: It is a striking recipe in it's really gravity 01:05 and humor at the same time somehow. The event was really wonderful. Yeah, we made strawberry lemonade from the cookbook as well. And we also served pickle lemonade because we had a pickle event the week before, so we were, the entire museum is obsessed with the pickle lemonade, including Nazli, our president. As a matter of fact, she made it, and so we ended up serving it alongside the strawberry lemonade at the event, and it was a hit. ID: It gave sort of a thirst-quenching 01:35 electrolyte kind of flavor. Imagine Gatorade but good. And I would imagine it would be good with a bit of tequila so I'm gonna give that a shot at some point. BC: Maybe vodka, tequila might be a little strong. ID: We're gonna have to do a comparison. BC: It's happening. Yeah. Okay so we have also some events coming up what do we have coming up on Thursday April 30th? ID: Yes we have our event From Pushcarts to Po’ Boys: How Street Food Becomes American. We're going to have food historian and author Ashley Rose Young over here at MOFAD. 02:05 BC: She was an advisor for our current exhibition Street Food City, right? ID: Yes. BC: So I'm so excited to have her in-house and what are they gonna be talking about, who’s she talking to? ID: She's going to be talking to NYU Food Studies Chair Jennifer Berg. Ashley Rose Young has a new book Nourishing Networks the Public Culture of Food in New Orleans. So she's going to talk about how everyday street foods in New York, New Orleans, and all around the country became American standards and influenced our diets today. BC: That's gonna be so 02:35 amazing. I cannot wait. And I heard tell of a New Orleans cocktail that's going to be on the roster for that event. ID: Wow, okay to embody New Orleans in a cocktail the possibilities really are limitless. BC: I'm excited. And then after that on May 1st, we have an amazing event coming up with Saeng Douangdara and he's gonna be in conversation with Jujubee who is a drag queen from Laos and they're fans of each other. 03:04 They support each other in promoting their culture. We talked about Thai food and how that's more comfortable for people. So a lot of people from Laos called their food Thai so it was approachable. Now it's going to have a spotlight shown on it with his cookbook. Excellent. Let's take a listen. BC: Yeah. ID: Welcome to Radio MOFAD, the podcast from The Museum of Food and Drink. 03:31 Saeng Douangdara is a Los Angeles-based personal chef and content creator. His new cookbook, The Lao Kitchen, explores traditional and contemporary Lao flavors told through family recipes. After moving to the United States with his family at the age of two, Saeng grew up in Wisconsin, grappling between two cultures and learning recipes from his parents. After a month-long trip to Laos, Saeng discovered a deeper love of Lao cooking and founded Saeng's Kitchen. Saeng will appear at MOFAD on Friday, May 1st 04:00 in conversation with Jujubee, a drag queen and performer who has appeared on RuPaul's Drag Race. In The Lao Kitchen, she says, Saeng shares our Lao culture and food beautifully. 04:16 BC: Okay, just getting into the book a little bit. On the first page you described Lao Cuisine as funky. And I'm sure that has a lot to do with padaek 04:26 and the other fermented foods in the cuisine, is that mainly what you're talking about? Or is there like a metaphorical like other like funkiness? Saeng Douangdara (SD):I mean, I just admire the word funky now. I think about my childhood and even the community back then, like you would hear stories about like a lot of the refugees coming in and we'd be talking with each other and it was all about hiding your food. It was all about like, oh, this is too smelly. This is too, the padaek is too funky. 04:54 And so I also heard a lot of those stories from like neighbors, our peers and 04:59 other Southeast Asian folk talking about Lao cuisine. So there was a very much of a big shift that needed to happen. And so that's when I saw, think in the 2010s, when Lao folks slowly started positioning themselves and reclaiming that word of funky. And so that's why I use funky now in a way, an empowerment word, acknowledging, yeah, our food is different and it is pungent, but if you know how to use it, if you know how to use the funk, 05:26 your food is gonna be incredible. So I'm reclaiming that word of like, it's time to shine a light, big old bright light on Lao cuisine and the unfiltered fish sauce and all that good stuff. BC: I think it's so amazing that you have that recipe in there for the fish sauce. SD: It took so hard to figure out, cause when you know moms, they don't measure. So I had to go and just watch her several times. Was like, Mom, how do you do that? And it takes at least a year to ferment good padaek. it's a long process. 05:55 BC: You know, after it ferments for that first three months or whatever, you add the aromatics, you add like the garlic husks. And the peel of the pineapple. You were talking in one of your videos in your Instagram about how, you know, like the fish and banana leaves is sustainable. I mean, there's so many things about traditional cuisines and old ways. Where including like those waste products, the husks of the garlic and the pineapple. 06:21 I think that's really exciting. SD: I think that's a piece that I learned from my mom that, you know, she never wasted anything. And I think that's the generational knowledge that she carried on from Laos to America. And to be able to like... 06:34 first to see that I was like wow you really don't waste anything like everything was always used in the house every single grain of rice because you know Mom growing up was working in the rice fields to make every single grain so it's like that type of knowledge. BC: You know the work that goes into that rice. It's not just a bag that came from the store, like some abstract piece of food. There's also a flavor component to the husks, that idea that you could even get flavor out of some 07:04 like that. My dad, because there's, you know, when he makes his chicken adobo, which is like the national dish of the Philippines, sometimes people use peeled cloves, but my dad insisted on using the husk. 07:13 because it gave that special flavor and that like validated to me when I saw that recipe, I'm like, oh my God, my dad was totally right, you know, like there is flavor to be had in those things that are, that people consider garbage. So it's really interesting. And the fact that it's unfiltered, is that unique to Lao cuisine, the unfiltered fish sauce? SD: Yeah, so I would say within Southeast Asia, there's other types of unfiltered fish sauce, but I usually like to focus on how Lao 07:43 people create our own padaek or unfiltered fish sauce because it is very much with the ingredients that are in the staple Lao cuisine. So like in padaek, we use the sticky rice husk. So when like you're making your growing sticky rice and before it becomes that shiny white grain, you get the husk, the brown husk around it. And that's what they use actually to make padaek. But in the book, I say, if you can't have access to it, you can still use lightly toasted sticky rice powder to kind of get that similar taste. But essentially, 08:13 I focus on that because I think of you think of Vietnamese food they use them more of like the see-through filtered maybe fish sauce that is clear we use some of that but mostly I would say padaek is like our salt in Lao cuisine. BC: I saw you on Instagram doing a tasting of fish sauces. Which is your go-to fish sauce and if like which is the most common one that you recommend? SD: I had to ask my mom this question because I was so she had you know several bottles of fish sauce and so there is depending on like 08:42 whether the dish is going to be cold like for papaya salad where you're not cooking it or if it's going to be in a stew where you are cooking it versus if you're going to make it put at it in padaek. So those are like three different variations but I would say like if you're cooking it one of my favorites is probably Red Boat and Three Crabs. I think those are really good middle of ground understanding like 09:04 for this recipe because some fish sauces can be a bit more salty. So I usually tell people with whatever fish sauce you're going to try, stick with it. And then because the saltiness is going to range, so you have to play with the saltiness. BC; Yeah, the Filipino ones are really salty. And also, well, I think it's great that you said Red Boat because that one you can get at most mainstream stores. 09:26 I wanted to ask you a little bit more about kind of like how Lao cuisine has had to be categorized as Thai in this country just to be, you know, approachable by American standards. What's that all about? SD: Yeah, no, please. I love that question. I love talking about it because that is the misconception that, oh, like Lao food is just Thai food or like it. 09:49 People don't even know about the country Laos. And so essentially when I hear that or when I tell them, it comes from a long history. So the first history is the piece that when Lao refugees came to the United States, they already weren't feeling, you you're coming as a refugee with little to nothing with you besides knowing how to cook. 10:08 And so at that time there was also this surge in Thai diplomacy through food. so at the same time, the country Thai was pushing this internationally. then so of course, know, Lao people were the neighbors and they kind of clung on to that because that was the most accessible and like instant like, I don't have to market anything, but I can still somewhat share my food. But my food is going to be on the secret menu. And then Thai food is going to be the public menu. Within the Midwest, you have several, hundreds actually of 10:38 Thai restaurants owned by Lao people. And then even going back a little bit further, that idea of like, oh, Lao food is here, Thai food is here. That also I came from because of the history of Thailand and Laos through colonization and just the wars back there. I think back then, if you were to talk to different neighbors within Southeast Asia, they always saw like Laos as almost second class citizen because they are eating padaek, unfiltered fish sauce. They're eating sticky rice, or eating with their hands. 11:08 So the cuisine became known as this second class option. But I think that hugely shifted because if not many people know, but now it's becoming popular. But Esan region of Thailand, that's where they're literally eating Lao food, but they call it quote unquote Esan. So it's this rebranding of the cuisine that almost wasn't as respected back then, but now they're loving it because it is being rebranded. And so I like to mention that. BC: It's so annoying. SD: It is so annoying. But that's why it was so important to write the book. 11:38 And so I write all of that in the book and I think it's so important that people understand history and context that food doesn't have borders but the people are in, you'll see noticeably. 11:48 I think of central Thailand, the curries, jasmine rice, the very light papaya salad, that is essentially what was marketed for Thai diplomacy. But it wasn't until this shift now that Esan is becoming popular. But I always try to tell people, look back in the history, the Kingdom of Laos, that was a huge part of it until the French divided the line through the Mekong and then all those Lao people, boop, and then here is boop. So there's a little history of it. BC: Hug Esan, the restaurant, that's going to make food for the event at MOFAD, 12:21 I was wondering about that. Do you have a relationship with that restaurant? SD: There were two Lao restaurants in New York City. Unfortunately, they closed down. I was good friends with them. BC: Was it COVID? SD: Yeah, COVID and after effects of that. I was reaching out to some of my friends in New York City. Is there any Lao place or what other options? They mentioned Hug Esan. They catered their wedding, so it was through mutual friends, chit-chatting back and forth. And even the Hug Esan website acknowledges the Lao history there, so I thought this was the perfect partnership. 12:58 BC: I saw that. SD: I think a lot of the time Esan people are kinda stuck in the middle. And so it's like, I feel for them. And I think for me, it's just being able to share and include when possible. So our Esan brothers and sisters will be part of the New York City event. I’m really excited 13:18 for them to share their food as well. BC: That makes me so happy that you connected with them through your friend. I'm gonna get a little political here. SD: Yeah, let's do it. BC: Because the reason that the Thai government does that kind of soft diplomacy, gastrodiplomacy is so that, you know, on a global level, people have a good impression of that country. I'm not really well-versed on the political situation in Thailand or in Laos. 13:48 Like what is the Lao government like right now, the regime and all that? SD: Even going back to why Lao people are in the United States, we are in the United States because America bombed Laos, the most bombed country in the world even to this day because of the Vietnam War slash American secret war. That's no longer a secret that the CIA actually has kind of showed all the files. 14:10 And President Obama was actually the first president to actually go back, acknowledge and support and fund like, hey, it's our bad, we're going to remove that. So I think for me as a diaspora from Laos living in America, it's very complex emotions, I would say. You you can feel gratitude and you can feel pain and suffering all at the same time. It's not exclusive, but I would say within those political realms, there's always neighbors, right? So like Thai and Lao. 14:38 both countries haven't always seen eye to eye because of the wars that have been through the decades and the back and forth 14:48 wars within each other. So I think with Thailand, I would say very smart of doing, you know, food diplomacy, like you said, make sure that, you know, they're in a good position within this world. And I think for Laos, it is much more underdeveloped and, you know, the people are still trying to heal from all the wars, the attacks. I look back in history and I see there, Laos has always almost been the punching bag in terms of like wars and what's been going on. So I think finally, to be able to even acknowledge these pieces 15:18 of history is so crucial because it often gets bypassed through our textbooks. I would say, I think it's more of survival. Southeast Asia, Thailand, doing what they need to do for their people, I understand. And at the same time, I think to Lao people, I think finally finding their voices, whether through this book, through their art, um through the diaspora, it's finally uh kind of shifting the history a bit. 15:47 BC: I know that you took your trip to Laos for a month to get to know the food a lot better and that you're planning to also travel more there with groups in the future. But what is the current government situation there now? Like what is the regime like in Laos? SD: Yeah, I forgot to mention, but yeah, so like even for me growing up, my parents, you know, they fought with the US, so they were scared that I was going to go back to Laos. I grew up with all these stories of their trauma. And so even for me, 16:17 was passed on to me and I was so scared to go back to Laos. I thought I would never go back, but it was through actually connecting with friends in Laos and like that network that really helped ease my nerves and my anxiety. And it since going for the first time in 2019, it has been such a eye-opening experience. I would say the Lao people over there and the government is very much open and accepting of people coming back to understand their roots. You know, we, like to think that 16:47 You know the past is the past but we definitely need to learn from it And are now like you said I bring since 20 It's this will be the fourth year of my Lao foodie tour that I bring people 15 to 20 people with me to experience Laos and it can be people from the diaspora but we've also had so many people that just are so interested in Lao cuisine and want to learn more and it's a beautiful way of connecting with travelers that have like minded of wanting to eat food and travel through three different cities in the north for nine days 17:17 And so I would, I always encourage the diaspora to go back and visit because they, we're very much connected. We still have our aunties or uncles or grandparents that are still living there. So it's that bridge finally that, that we're connecting again. BC: That's exciting that you go back a lot and help people to reconnect with their roots. Speaking about roots, maybe growing roots here in this country, you're talking about your mom made her own fish sauce and that your dad grew herbs. 17:46 That must've been really hard for them to replicate these recipes from the book I have it here. SD: It took them time. So right now in this moment, they have all the right herbs and the padaek that's filtered for two, three, five years. And my mom is actually the padaek lady. Everyone comes to her house to get the good padaek. Exactly. So I think that took years in the making in terms of sourcing the plants

  ListenShow Notes

Recent guests on Radio MOFAD. Study who booked and why before you pitch.

Based on semantic analysis of episode topics and host coverage, this show is a strong guest fit for executives in:

Industry fit is computed by PitchCentric using vector embeddings of the show's episode catalog.