Kishori Rajan is the producer of such shows as HBO's Random Acts of Flyness and Eater's Guide to the World and is currently the vice president of development and production for Tessa Thompson's production company, Viva Maude. In today's episode, Kishori talks about her mother's amazing cooking, how she can't quite master it herself, how she likes to cook for a dinner party, and how she overcomes disaster (like the time she dropped an entire Basque cheesecake on the floor). We also cover producin...
Jul 19, 2021•1 hr 6 min
My patient today, Steve Sando, is the man behind everyone's favorite heirloom bean company, Rancho Gordo, which got many of us through the pandemic with their jewel-like bean offerings. In today's session, Steve talks about, well, beans: how to cook them, when to salt them, why they make so many of us so gassy. We also get personal, talking about Steve's childhood in Sausalito, his dad's diving for abalone, feeling like an outsider, his trips to Mexico, being bad with money, starting a business,...
Jul 12, 2021•1 hr 3 min
Kristin Johnson (no, not Kristen Johnston from 3rd Rock from the Sun) is a delightful, whip-smart therapist-in-training who lives in Bellingham, Washington and happens to be my sister-in-law and this week's lunch therapy patient. In our session, Kristin talks about why she wanted to come on the podcast, cooking for her parents, her theory about why people are obsessed with their food choices, and how she almost made me cry arguing about vegetarianism. We also cover char on pizza, beheading a chi...
Jul 05, 2021•1 hr 6 min
Today's patient, Mayukh Sen, is something of a wunderkind in the food world. At 29, he's the winner of a James Beard award for best profile, the author of the upcoming book "Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America," and a professor at NYU (!!), plus he writes about film for outlets like The Atlantic, Film Comment, and the Criterion Collection. In today's session, Mayukh reveals that he came into the food world by accident, why he prefers writing about other people ...
Jun 28, 2021•1 hr 9 min
Colu Henry is a hugely accomplished food writer, with articles in The New York Times and Wine Spectator, and a beloved cookbook that's right up my alley: Back Pocket Pasta. In today's episode, we learn all about Colu's background as a cabaret performer, her transition into food writing, working for chefs like Scott Conant and Marcus Samuelsson, and growing up with an Italian grandmother. We also cover ego and selflessness in cooking, how to read a wine bottle, people-pleasing, and -- as a specia...
Jun 21, 2021•1 hr 2 min
Noah Galvin is a star of stage and screen. You may have seen him on Broadway in Dear Evan Hansen or Waitress, or maybe you know him from his stints on ABC's The Real O'Neals (where I was a writer for two seasons) or, his newest gig, The Good Doctor. In today's session, Noah talks all about cooking Thanksgiving in a closet in Vancouver, growing up on tour as Gavroche in Les Miz, and how he balances his love of food and cooking with his life as an actor. We also talk about time that he spent cooki...
Jun 14, 2021•1 hr 3 min
Celia Sack is the owner of one of the most beloved and important cookbook stores in the country and maybe the world: Omnivore Books in San Francisco. In today's session, Celia talks about her childhood adventures digging through other people's stuff, eating a roast beef sandwich on the way to an animal rights rally, her background selling rare books (with a specialty in golf books), and coming out to her parents during the AIDS crisis. We also talk cookbooks: which cookbooks she would save if he...
Jun 07, 2021•1 hr 6 min
There are very few people who don't love Cole Escola, whether it's from their viral videos or as Chassie on "Cooking at Home with Amy Sedaris" or as Chip on Season 3 of "Search Party." In today's Lunch Therapy session, we get into Cole's neuroses, which all began with an episode of Oprah about the germs on the top of a soda can. We cover protein powders, acid reflux, veganism, whether or not they ate a latke at my latke party, and sanitizing grocery items. We also cover their hatred for fish and...
May 31, 2021•1 hr 2 min
One of my desert island cookbooks is The Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook (based on recipes from the Back in the Day Bakery in Savannah, Georgia), so imagine my delight that Cheryl Day -- who co-wrote it with her husband Griffith Day -- allowed me to analyze her lunch on this week's Lunch Therapy. Cheryl, a James Beard Award semifinalist for Outstanding Pastry Chef and a cofounder of Southern Restaurants for Racial Justice, reveals that she's actually a Californian (!!), talks about moving to the...
May 24, 2021•1 hr 5 min
Surprise! Here's another episode for you this week, featuring one of my best friends, Jonathan Parks-Ramage, author of a brand new novel that's out today called YES, DADDY. In today's episode, Jonathan shamelessly plugs his book (just kidding: I read it, and it's soooo good), talks about his time as a waiter in a gaystaurant, the notorious pork chop incident at the beginning of our friendship, and his people-pleasing instincts. I also ask some hard-hitting questions about not grating his own nut...
May 20, 2021•1 hr 4 min
Broti Gupta is way too accomplished for someone her age. Not only has she written for television (Speechless, Friends from College); she's also written for The New Yorker AND The New York Times. In today's lunch therapy session, we talk all about cooking for her boyfriend (and vice-versa), Mark Wahlberg's weird schedule, her mother teaching her recipes over FaceTime, and her need to please authority figures. We also cover Patti LuPone, growing up Indian in Kentucky, her love for cumin, cooking f...
May 17, 2021•1 hr 9 min
Kate Berlant is one of the funniest comedians out there -- you've seen her in "Search Party," "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," "Sorry to Bother You" -- and she's the co-host of the hilarious podcast POOG. In today's session, we learn all about Kate's quarantine malaise, her dinner party anxieties, her linguine with clams, and where she sat in the school cafeteria. We also hear about her tendency to lean on yams, her recipe for a lycheetini, get a tour of her mother's kitchen, and how her screen ...
May 10, 2021•59 min
He's the quintessential New York food writer and he's here to talk about the quintessential New York Lunch. Ed Levine, the founder of Serious Eats and author of Serious Eater (as well as New York Eats and Pizza: A Slice of Heaven) opens up in today's session about losing his parents at a young age, how restaurants took on a familial role for him, how his parents' communism affected his food writing, and the way these formative experiences shaped his psychology and career later in life. We also t...
May 03, 2021•1 hr 7 min
Time Out New York once said of Isaac Oliver: "If David Sedaris and Fran Lebowitz had a baby who wrote about subways, theater patrons, and b*******s, he might be a lot like Isaac Oliver." The author of the hilarious book of essays, Intimacy Idiot, artist-in-residence at Joe's Pub, and television writer (High Maintenance, GLOW) joins us this week and boy is he in need of some serious lunch therapy. Find out why Isaac eats lunch at 5 o'clock, how he likes to be bossed around by Ottolenghi recipes (...
Apr 26, 2021•1 hr 3 min
Soleil Ho is the James Beard award-nominated food critic for the San Francisco Chronicle and one of the most important voices currently working today in food. In today's Lunch Therapy session, we talk about reviewing restaurants during Covid, what's fair game and what isn't, the food that her mother made for her growing up in New York, how she channels her anxiety into writing, how Ruth Reichl helped her overcome her fears about publishing reviews, how she sees her job as an opportunity to corre...
Apr 19, 2021•1 hr 3 min
Tucker Shaw wears many hats: he's executive editor of Cook's Country Magazine, the former food critic for The Denver Post, the author of Everything I Ate, and, in a former life, a young adult novelist. In today's session, Tucker talks about his grandparents who were subsistence farmers in Maine, how he's coping in quarantine living above a Russian grocery, cooking from books in junior high school, and the night he saw me at Marie's Crisis. We also cover him getting tapped to be a professional fo...
Apr 20, 2020•1 hr 14 min
Karina Longworth is the creator and host of one of the most popular and beloved podcasts out there, "You Must Remember This," which focuses on the secret and forgotten history of early twentieth-century Hollywood. In today's session, Karina talks about growing up in Studio City in the 1980s, her obsession with old movies from a young age, her mother cooking her way through Bon Appetit Magazine, taking over the cooking duties after her mother's death, and trying to recreate the chocolate mousse p...
Apr 13, 2020•1 hr 4 min
Marco Canora is a true superstar chef: he's a James Beard Award winner (Best Chef New York), a celebrated cookbook author ("Salt To Taste," "A Good Food Day"), the chef/owner of one of New York's best restaurants, Hearth, and purveyor of the best broth in the country with his company Brodo. On Today's Lunch Therapy, we talk about his Tuscan mother's cooking, learning through osmosis, why real-world experience is more important than culinary school, and his early job making prepared foods at Dean...
Apr 06, 2020•1 hr 11 min
Molly Stevens has always been one of my favorite cookbook authors. Her cookbook "All About Braising" remains a desert island disc for me (that's a reference to another podcast) and her new cookbook "All About Dinner" is full of the kinds of recipes everyone should be making now to comfort themselves and their families. With mandatory social distancing, I was super disappointed that Molly's book tour was postponed and that she wouldn't be able to come to Lunch Therapy headquarters in person; but ...
Mar 30, 2020•1 hr 10 min
Bricia Lopez is the co-owner of Guelaguetza, one of L.A.'s most beloved Oaxacan restaurants (a favorite of the late, Pulitzer Prize-winning food writer, Jonathan Gold) and the co-author of Oaxaca: Home Cooking from the Heart of Mexico. In today's session (recorded two weeks ago, before mandatory social distancing), Lopez talks about growing up in a restaurant, her family's journey from Oaxaca to L.A., sharing a single bedroom in her aunt's house with six of her family members (her parents and he...
Mar 23, 2020•1 hr 13 min
"Fergus Henderson is the most influential chef of the last two decades, even though you have likely never heard of him." That's a quote from the late Anthony Bourdain and it helps put into perspective the craziness of today's episode of Lunch Therapy: one of the world's greatest chefs, Fergus Henderson, and his business partner, Trevor Gulliver, came to my apartment and let me ask them about their lunch. Our conversation runs the gambit from why Fergus loves offal ("I was drawn into a world of i...
Mar 16, 2020•1 hr 5 min
Esther Tseng is a food writer in L.A. -- she writes for The L.A. Times, Food & Wine, Eater -- with a surprising secret: she works a normal nine-to-five job in retail finance. In today's session, we talk about her childhood in New Berlin, Wisconsin, her parents moving here from Taiwan, the Taiwanese food that her mother made at home (including delicious-sounding Bah Tzang), her being embarrassed by her father's accent, and how she attempted to assimilate by going to UCLA... only to find that ...
Mar 09, 2020•1 hr 11 min
It's not every day that a rock star becomes a therapist and then eats lunch and comes on a podcast to analyze it, but that's precisely what happens in today's episode of Lunch Therapy with former Grizzly Bear front man, Ed Droste. Learn why Ed decided to give up the not-so-glamorous life of a musician, the kind of food he ate on the road, how he dealt with reviews and Tweets, how he got over his stage fright, and the role therapy played in his life. We also talk about Ed's parents' adventurous e...
Mar 02, 2020•1 hr 11 min
I'm pinching myself, because Ruth Reichl -- former editor-in-chief of Gourmet Magazine, author of countless books (including "Tender at the Bone," "Comfort Me with Apples," "Garlic and Sapphires," and "Save Me The Plums), and the former food critic for both the L.A. Times and The New York Times -- is my patient today on Lunch Therapy. We cover her childhood in Greenwich Village, growing up with a mentally ill mother, learning to cook as a means of survival, and her resistance to being taken care...
Feb 24, 2020•1 hr 9 min
Jen Agg has been called "the most influential restaurateur in Toronto" -- she currently owns Grey Gardens, Rhum Corner, Le Swan, and Bar Vendetta -- and her book, "I Hear She's A Real B***h," was praised by Anthony Bourdain as: "A terrific, beautifully written, frank, and funny memoir." During today's session, Jen talks about her attention to detail, dealing with prickly customers, what it felt like publishing such a confessional memoir, and her ambition to open the best restaurant in Toronto. W...
Feb 17, 2020•1 hr 12 min
As The Carpetbagger for The New York Times, Kyle Buchanan covers the awards season with profiles of nominated actors (including recent ones of Brad Pitt, Adam Driver, and Renée Zellweger) and in-depth analysis of the movie industry's biggest nights. He also happens to be our neighbor (our dogs are best friends) and in today's session, Kyle makes himself vulnerable in a way he never has before: by talking about food. We talk about his favorite foods as a kid, saying a prayer for the lamb before e...
Feb 10, 2020•1 hr 11 min
Nik Sharma is the award-winning author of the cookbook "Season," the creator of the pioneering food blog A Brown Table, and a regular recipe columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle. In today's session, Nik talks about his recent move to L.A., how the food scene here compares to the food scene in San Francisco, growing up in India, his early interest in science, how science impacts his cooking, and why he detests turnips. We also talk about his coming out, how it was a criminal offense to be ga...
Feb 03, 2020•1 hr 13 min
Turn on your TV and there's a good chance you'll see Barrett Foa: he's been playing Eric Beale on NCIS: Los Angeles for eleven years. In addition to that, Barrett's been on Broadway (Avenue Q! Spelling Bee!) and he most recently played Prior Walter in Angels in America at the St. Louis Rep. In today's session, Barrett describes "The Foa Philosophy," talks about growing up in New York City, learning etiquette at fancy restaurants, his pet peeves on dates, and why it wasn't such a stretch for him ...
Jan 27, 2020•1 hr 12 min
Susan Feniger is a force to be reckoned with in the food world. Along with her business partner Mary Sue Milliken, Feniger has received countless awards (including the prestigious Julia Child Award and the Jonathan Gold Award), opened several legendary restaurants (including The Border Grill), co-hosted one of the first Food Network shows (Too Hot Tamales), appeared on Top Chef Masters, and authored countless cookbooks. I'm so thrilled to have her as my patient on today's Lunch Therapy and our-h...
Jan 20, 2020•1 hr 11 min
Buckle your seatbelts: for the first Lunch Therapy recorded in 2020, I decided to switch things around with an actual psychologist, Dr. Deanie Eichenstein, who puts my lunch under the microscope. Learn all about my pre-med years and my decision to go to law school, how I got from there to being a writer (meeting Craig in the process), and how choosing my lunch is often a question of shifting identities. We also cover how smell plays an important role for me, my fear of pooping in coffee shops, a...
Jan 13, 2020•1 hr 11 min
