Typical Hanukkah fare features foods cooked in oil. Mainly to symbolize the miracle by which a night's worth of lamp oil lasted eight nights... but also because fried food is delicious. So Rico headed over to Redbird -- one of the top restaurants in L.A. -- to sample sophisticated takes on latkes and sufganiyot (a.k.a donuts).
Brendan talks to Christine Haughney, the investigative producer behind "Corkscrewed: The Art of Fake Wine." Learn all about how the fake wine industry has boomed in recent years and the real-life risks oenophiles face with high-end brands.
Thanksgiving is closing in on us. Which means home cooks across the country are crafting Thanksgiving menus and confronting the annual paradox: how do you respect tradition and keep things interesting Let Brendan and Editor-in-Chief Adam Rapoport give you a little rundown of Thanksgiving do's, don'ts, and inventive ways to make use of those leftovers (think: Turkey Pho).
Just in time for a rambunctious Halloween weekend, find out about the night so rowdy, it changed the way we describe rowdy nights. Then wash it down with a strong cocktail that'll paint your tongue red.
Rico gets a very hands-on crash course on the pungent and potent Chinese liquor, from Los Angeles cocktail star Cari Hah -- who developed an entire baijiu-centric menu for L.A.'s Peking Tavern.
Manoush Zomorodi, host of WNYC's NotetoSelf, explains the RoboHow project, which uses the website WikiHow to teach robots -- including a humanoid named Romeo -- how to act as waiters and make foods like pizza and popcorn.
This week, Brendan talked with self-professed food nerd J. Kenji López-Alt about his new book, "The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science." It's a thousand-page book on every food in the world... and how most people are cooking them wrong. The chef and Serious Eats managing culinary director explains his method of bringing science to the kitchen and busting that myth about searing meat.
Phil Rosenthal, creator of the megahit sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond," famously fed his staff better than anyone in show business. These days, he invests in restaurants from chefs like Mario Batali... and starting this week he hosts his own food travel series on PBS: "I'll Have What Phil's Having. He talks to Rico about his foodie awakening and the worst lasagna in history.
Despite Brendan's efforts against coffee, tea remains just a sad bag, bobbing on the surface of a tepid cup of neglect. But there's hope in the form of "oocha." Learn all about the cold drink, brewed from oolong tea, that'll make you forget about its bolder, trendy cousin matcha.
LA Weekly writer Jim Thurman gives Rico the rundown on grass jelly, the Southeast Asian gelatin dessert that, despite its name, is not made of grass.