All Episodes 2012 - 2017

TV-PG

In The Mind of A Chef Potluck Music Special, we take a deep dive into the intersection between food and music. World-class chefs Danny Bowien, Iñaki Aizpitarte, April Bloomfield, Sean Brock and Anthony Bourdain get together and recount their fondest musical memories and how it has impacted their most-celebrated cooking prowess.

Author and Chef David Chang visits a noodle factory in Japan; eats the best bowl of ramen in his life; and, cooks two incredible dishes with the instant ramen variety. Food scientist Harold McGee explains how alkaline salts make ramen noodles unique.

This episode explores Chang’s relationship to the pig. He travels to San Sebastian to discuss pork bushi. He makes pork belly, and tonkotsu and travels to Montreal with his pal Aziz Ansari for a fried bologna sandwich. In the kitchen, David makes a "red-eye mayo;" his pastry chef shows how to make a salty sugary late night snack--the corn cookie ham and cheese.

Author and Chef David Chang revisits a ramen shop in Japan, where he ate while apprenticing at a restaurant in Tokyo. He also visits the Callaway Golf factory where, for the first time in the 14 years since he threw his clubs off a cliff, he hits a golf ball. Later, he prepares a cold Korean soup, naeng myung, that his mother prepared for him and his father when they went golfing.

This episode is all about Spain’s influence on Chang’s career. He visits with some of his idols- Juan Mari Arzak and Andoni Aduriz, makes fideos, salt cod omelet and a sponge cake from chef Albert Adria.

There is something rotten in David Chang’s kitchen and that’s a good thing. Rotten is delicious; katsuibushi in Japan, XO sauce, rotten bananas with Chef Christina Tosi, and Kimchi.

Chang hangs out with one of his best friends- who happens to be the world’s top chef- Rene Redzepi.

Dishes in this episode are deceivingly simple; Chang travels to Japan for some Yakitori and high-end sushi, and his pal Daniel Patterson makes beets.

It’s gluttonous goodness in this episode; over the top indulgence with Joe Beef chefs Federic Morin and David McMillian’s fois gras sandwich, a whiskey tasting Mayhem with Chef Sean Brock at Buffalo Trace in Kentucky and the classic dish Hot Brown served up three ways.

Chang prepares eggs with his chef pals; Wylie Dufresne, Daniel Patterson, Rene Redzepi, and makes his Ko egg.

Chang travels from Tokyo to Kyoto to meet and eat with friends. He visits a street market in Tokyo and Michelin three-star restaurant Kikunoi in Kyoto.

This episode is all New York with the Torrisi boys, oysters, carrot dashi, and farming. Plus Chang visits native New Yorker Ivan Ramen in Tokyo where he is making ramen that is taking the city by storm.

This episode explores the idea of fresh in the kitchen; instant broth, pea agnollini, fresh and aged steak with Chef Tien and Ike Jime with Dave Arnold and Chef Murata in Kyoto.

This episode is all soy; Chang visits tofu and miso factories in Japan, Chef Christina Tosi makes Burnt Miso.

Chang’s protégé Christina Tosi makes corn cookies three ways and her three layered Arnold Palmer Cake, Chef Burns makes ice cream and Chang goes strawberry picking.

Chang profiles regional BBQ in North Carolina, Texas, and Kansas City plus the other-worldly smoky bacon from Allen Benton in Tennessee.

Chang cooks and goofs around with his friends; Peter Meehan in Japan, Laurant Gras, Set Bains, and Rene Redzepi in Copenhagen.

In this episode, Chef Sean Brock explores a few of the unique regional cuisines in the South.

It all began when Sean Brock went looking for Jimmy red corn. That simple journey turned into a lifetime of searching, archiving and reviving lost crops of the South. His partners in crime are legendary owner and operator of Anson Mills, Glen Roberts, and University of South Carolina professor David Shields — a trifecta of seed nerds hell-bent on preserving Southern food heritage.

The resurrection of Carolina gold rice, which disappeared following the Civil War era, is examined. Included: making pilaf and Hoppin' John fritters. Also: Louisiana chef Donald Link makes jambalaya; and Senegalese chef Fati Ly makes pilau.

A look at Louisiana cuisine features a visit to Middendorf's Restaurant in Akers, La., with food writer John T. Edge; and a frogging excursion with chef Donald Link.

Preservation techniques that play an important role in Southern culture are discussed, including drying, salt-curing, canning and fermentation.

Host Sean Brock prepares a typical Appalachian dinner; cooks chicken dumplings with his mother; visits with chef Joseph Lenn at Blackberry Farms in Tennessee; and learns how to make fried okra and country ham.

Host Sean Brock prepares an outdoor feast on a friend's farm, where he's joined by barbecue pitmaster Rodney Scott, who roasts a whole pig; and Steven Satterfield, who makes Savannah red rice. Brock also prepares frogmore stew

The influence of West Africa on Southern cuisine is explored during a visit to Senegal. Historian and chef Fati Ly leads a tour of the markets in Dakar and M'Bour; and cooks theibou yapp, a traditional Sengalese dish.

Travel with Chef April Bloomfield to London, where her cooking career began.

Focus on April’s love of the sea, which is deep and fully realized.

Explore the origins of curry and England’s versions of this historic cuisine.

Explore April Bloomfield’s deep love for Italian cuisine and its influence on her cooking.

Review some of the signature dishes of UK cuisine: bangers and mash, fish-n-chips, and pies.

April travels four hours outside London to Cornwall to visit and cook with farmer and chef Tom Adams on his farm. Tom raises the cute, furry and delicious mangalitsa pigs. April and Tom butcher and cook the entire pig piece by piece: loin, shoulder, belly and head.

This episode aims to prove that nasty bits have been given a bad rap and deserve to be on the kitchen table along with meatloaf and mashed potatoes. In the kitchen, April cooks faggots, bubble and squeak and pig parts; Fergus Henderson works his offal magic on kidneys.

Chef Bloomfield wrestles with the questions every aspiring new or expanding veteran chef has to confront. April and her business partner, Ken Friedman, explore the challenges of opening their first out-of-state venture in San Francisco: Tosca. April is inspired by a local morning bun, and she’s busy in the kitchen testing and tasting dishes for her new menu.

Sean Brock shares some of the secrets that have made him one of the world's top chefs, including techniques for virtually any type of cuisine.

Join celebrity chef April Broomfield as she demonstrates indispensable tips for everyone from beginners to experts, no matter what's on the menu.

Chef Ed Lee returns to his roots in East Brooklyn, where as a Korean kid in New York, he was surrounded by an eclectic mix of cultures and cuisines that inspired how he cooks today. Spending time with other chefs that have roots in one cuisine but have veered away from their assumed culinary paths, Ed explores the meaning of origin in the city where his life and career began. Ed and Ivan Orkin stop by one of the city’s oldest “appetizing” stores and head back to the kitchen to cook their versions of American cuisine (Japanese-Jewish and Korean-Southern). Alex Stupak shows why a white kid from Boston should be cooking Mexican, and Ed pays a visit to his mom in New Jersey for a lesson on how to cook Korean comfort food.

American cuisine has come to be known as much more than just burgers and hot dogs. Ed Lee and Pok Pok’s Andy Ricker head to Sunset Park – Brooklyn’s Chinatown – for some exotic ingredients, then head to the kitchen to make Jop Chai, a Thai stew. Ed plays with some local by-catch in that most American of cities, Houston, Texas, with chefs Chris Shepherd and Paul Qui, making a crispy fish fresh from the gulf and Filipino kinilaw. A sweat-inducing crawfish dinner in a Vietnamese joint exemplifies how Creole, Cajun, Mexican, and Asian flavors blend together with the gulf’s bounty, effectively creating an entirely new American Cuisine.

Fire is the most elemental part of a kitchen – without it, food would simply be eaten, never “cooked.” And yet in the post-Nouvelle-Cuisine age, food and fire have become distant from one another. Ed Lee travels to Argentina to visit Francis Mallmann, the country’s most esteemed chef and the godfather of open-flame cooking, on his private island nestled in the foothills of the Andes. While on La Isla for three days, Francis and Ed create a feast that reunites the simplest – and arguably the best – ingredients and cooking techniques. Armed with fire, smoke, meat and salt, Ed relishes in this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Chef Ed Lee got his start in NYC but now calls Louisville home, and home is where the heart is. Ed discusses how living and working in Louisville has inspired, influenced, and changed him over the past decade–Louisville is where he gently placed aside his classic French technique and decided to do something all his own. Working with chef Kevin Ashworth from Ed’s restaurant Milkwood, the chefs experiment with farmers market finds and we get a view into how a new dish is created. Ed then delves into Louisville’s fried chicken scene and cooks up his own version along with North Carolina chef Ashley Christensen. Finally, honoring the woman who kept him in Louisville in the first place, Ed uses the city’s German heritage as inspiration to cook hasenpfeffer for his wife, Dianne.

The Bluegrass State offers so much more than just mint juleps and the Kentucky Derby, with a rich culinary history that rivals that of America’s more well-known food destinations. A few ingredients come to Chef Ed Lee’s mind when he thinks about his adopted state: country ham, sorghum and smoke. Ed visits Nancy Newsom, still making her family’s ham with their century-old recipe, with Southern food historian and Atlanta chef Linton Hopkins. Then it’s off to Owensboro with homegrown chef (and local celebrity) Ouita Michel, to make a dish featuring two more local ingredients: smoke and spoonbill caviar. Yes, caviar from Kentucky. And finally, Ed places Kentucky’s most prized crop – sorghum – on a pedestal and creates a decadent ice cream with the viscous, sweet, earthy amber syrup.

Chef Ed Lee has always fought with the idea of fusion, instead viewing it as combining the food of different cultures and letting the borders disappear. In many ways, cooking with southern ingredients feels like second nature to Ed, and for good reason–South Korea and Kentucky both lay along the same latitudinal line. The 38th parallel also spans Southern Spain and Italy, San Francisco, and generous portions of the American South. A similar terroir translates into some interesting crossing of cultures for chefs like Ed, as well as State Bird Provisions’ Stuart Brioza, who prepares a salad inspired by San Francisco and the Mediterranean, and Hog & Hominy’s Andrew Ticer and Michael Hudman, who cook Memphis favorites imbued with Calabrian family traditions.Ed collaborates with Andy Ricker on a pancake that ties together the influences of China, Korea and Kentucky.

The more things change… the more they continue to change. So much of cooking, writing, art and music is based on what came before. First there was meat. Then there was fire. Then came sous-vide. Chef Ed Lee dissects the evolution of a dish and the public’s changing tastes. The ephemeral is explored in multiple disciplines, from graffiti to eel terrine, while Ed tries his hand at cooking alternative meats (like alligator); enjoys a recipe that has stood the test of time, Maw Maw’s Ravioli from Hog & Hominy’s Andrew Ticer and Michael Hudman; and creates a quickly-disappearing dim sum dish with Stuart Brioza, as he looks toward the future of the food chain.

What is bourbon? A whiskey, sure, but what makes bourbon the classic American spirit, and why is it so closely associated with Kentucky? Chef Ed Lee and his band of merry men and women, including whiskey patriarch Julian Van Winkle, Matt Jamie from Bourbon and Barrel Foods, chef Paul Qui, and special guest and bourbon-lover Aisha Tyler, set out to distill this prized and often misunderstood liquor down to its many parts and enjoy it both in the glass and on the plate.

Over generations, preservation techniques developed to help humans cope with the scarcity of the season. The adherence to seasonality at Fäviken means that these techniques are maintained and the restaurant can continue serving food throughout the barren months. This episode explores the ways that the Scandinavian people have survived winter through the practice of preservation and aging.

After a long winter, the arrival of spring awakens the delicate flavors of young herbs. The sun remains perched in the sky until midnight, the temperature climbs, and life returns to the once snow-covered landscape. This episode takes advantage of this brief window of time to explore the ingredients of spring in Sweden.

When Chef Nilsson develops a dish at Fäviken, he pays careful attention to the unique properties of an ingredient. Through research and recipe testing, the components of a dish are combined with the aim of preserving their natural quintessence. “The Creation of a Dish” follows the life cycle of an ingredient as it transforms from an idea into a dish at his restaurant.

As a young cook, Magnus Nilsson found himself living in France and looking for a job. Undeterred by a lack of job offers, he eventually convinced Paris chef Pascal Barbot of l’Astrance to give him a shot. Once there, Magnus saw the possibilities of cooking open up in front of him. He was introduced to new techniques and flavors, but the most valuable lesson he learned was how to care for ingredients. This episode explores Magnus’s time in France and visits with the people and places that had a profound impact on his cooking philosophy.

Before moving to France to learn about cooking professionally, Chef Magnus Nilsson’s main culinary influences were his mother, aunt, and grandparents. They cooked traditional dishes for family dinners while Magnus observed. When he returned from France to begin working at Fäviken, the influence of traditional Swedish cooking remained. In this episode, we examine how the bonds of tradition help to forge the identities of families and individuals.

Chef Magnus Nilsson depends on his network of local purveyors to keep the restaurant supplied. Because everything is sourced in a 100-mile radius, the seasons play a big part in availability. As a result, the needs and supply constantly shift between the restaurant and purveyor, but their close relationship ensures that diners are never left hungry. This episode examines the connection to locality that Chef Nilsson views as a staple of his cooking philosophy.

Outside of running the kitchen at Fäviken, Chef Magnus Nilsson researches Nordic traditions that are rarely documented. He travels throughout the region, meeting people whose lives are tied to the past. This episode examines Chef Nilsson’s motivation to document and preserve cultural heritage through the lens of photography as he visits the Faroe Islands.

This episode explores a day in the life of Chef Magnus Nilsson as he and the staff at Fäviken prepare for a night of service. We follow Magnus from the early morning when he forages for spruce branches for his scallop dish, through the heat of service when every detail is timed-out. At the end of the night, we understand how and why the experience at Fäviken is meticulously choreographed and executed.

Chef Edward Lee creates some of his favorite dishes, including Kentucky fried quail and edamame hummus, while sharing his secret to spiking sweet tea.

Magnus Nilsson creates a well-seasoned chicken-liver pâté, an almond cake that's not too sweet and a unique take on Hawaiian pizza.

With every chipped plate and hand-written to-do list, Gabrielle Hamilton’s “presence” is all over her NYC restaurant, Prune.

Having been raised in a large family with many mouths to feed, to then needing to fend for herself from a very young age, Gabrielle Hamilton is the master of utilizing scraps.

Explore Gabrielle’s deep love with this ancient city.

From a very young age, Gabrielle Hamilton was left alone in her home to fend for herself. She rummaged through what was left in the pantry and refrigerator and satisfied her hunger with what she could scavenge. At 16, she moved to New York City where she used her jar of change to feed herself. All her experiences with hunger made her the chef she is today.

It’s an age-old saying, but where you have been is almost as important as where you are going and ultimately makes you who you are today. Gabrielle Hamilton has traveled the country and the world, but sometimes, it’s good to go back to your roots.

Surviving the restaurant game for 15 years in New York City takes some major hustle. From lying about her age to get her first dishwasher gig to lying about her tips, getting busted and charged with grand larceny, hustling was the easy part in running a restaurant for Gabrielle Hamilton.

Milan is a meeting ground of both contemporary and classic Italian culture. But what really entices Gabrielle Hamilton are the small details, an embroidered curtain, a classically non-garnished plate, a perfectly folded napkin.

Gabrielle looks long and hard at how she has evolved not only as a chef, but as a writer and restaurant owner.

Things can change in an instant, as David discovered in July of 2014, when he got a fateful call that his restaurant Manresa had burned nearly to the ground.

Food is evolution, and wise chefs never forget from whence they came. A solid foundation allows them to test new boundaries and push things to new limits.

Nothing is more calming or inspiring than the sea, and living in Santa Cruz, David is never far from one of his many muses.

A dish is only as good as its ingredients, but an ingredient can also be manipulated in many ways. In this episode, David focuses his attention to the strawberry, at the height of its season during production, to celebrate the summer favorite.

For Chef David Kinch, balance in life is as important as balance in a dish. And seeking that balance means walking away form the bustle of the line and demands of running the restaurant.

Diners these days can be pickier than ever, and they seem to have no problem telling a chef how to do his or her job. Allergies, self-diagnosed sensitivities and customer “dislikes” have become the bane of several chefs’ existence.

When your first restaurant job is Commander’s Palace in New Orleans, you are inevitably destined for great things. As a high school student in New Orleans, David’s eyes were opened by the glamorous Crescent City institution, and a long career in cuisine followed.

A perfect tasting menu relies on balance, and on not fatiguing a customer’s palate. Based on that theory, no meal should be more than 25 bites.

Gabrielle Hamilton whips up a killer Monte Cristo sandwich and Calvados omelet, then shares her technique for making fresh butter from heavy cream.

Chef David Kinch shares his techniques for making corn fritters, eggplant caviar tartine, and his own special version of pommes paillasson.

Chefs Danny Bowien, Iñaki Aizpitarte, April Bloomfield and Sean Brock gather to cook a potluck meal, sharing their favorite dishes and music memories.

From the NYC classic egg on a roll to Faroe Island fulmar egg and curry, re-fall in love with the best egg dishes from our archives. Crack it open, and let the fun begin.

It takes a great chef to make a great chef. This episode is all about paying homage to the greatest culinary minds in the world. Fergus Henderson, Eric Ripert, Pascal Barbot and more spend some quality time cooking with our alumni.

When it comes to preparations, few could be as delightful and decadent as a good, old-fashioned deep fry. We dip THE MIND OF A CHEF basket in hot oil, serving up everything from oyster poboys to pig’s head, from alligator filets to sardine spines.

How does a chef trained in the finest kitchens of France translate his haute cuisine to fast food? Ludo’s obsession with a perfectly cooked bird can be traced back to France, where he learned to roast chicken, and his love for the American classic was solidified when he ate at KFC for the first time.

Trois Mec and Petit Trois can be found side-by-side in a Hollywood strip mall, nestled between a dry cleaners and a Yum Yum donut. Ludo’s restaurants and the dishes he creates for them embody the cultural mash-up and high/low flair that is the strip mall philosophy.

Ludo came up under mentors like Alain Passard and Mark Meneau, chefs with an almost pathological obsession with ingredients. His eyes light up when he describes the Lobsters of Brittany, the Oysters from Cancale, and the myriad of other extraordinary culinary jewels in the oceanic bounty of France.

Today’s chef reveres his gardener as much as his butcher. Ludo explores the vegetables, gardens, and memories he uses to cook some of his dishes.

The demands of a celebrity chef, especially one that runs three vibrant restaurants and a fried chicken franchise, are rigorous. When Ludo needs to escape the chaos, he heads to the lilting and poetic world of Paris in the spring, where the emphasis is placed on the joy and fun of life.

A bistro is typically defined by its modesty – they are relatively small, affordable and humble. With Petit Trois, Ludo’s has brought the spirit of the bistro to Los Angeles. In this episode, Ludo brings us back to Paris to introduce us to some of the people and places that first inspired him to begin a culinary career.

Does an artist follow instinct, training or intuition…or perhaps all three? This episode examines the ties between artists and their education, and how childlike wonder can, in fact, translate into a career.

Ludo began his US career cooking at Los Angeles restaurant Bastide, but after it closed for renovations he opted not to return and instead chose to do things his way. Borrowing a friend’s bakery space, Ludo created a unique dining experience in the form of small, reservations-only, “chef’s choice” dinners that became known as LudoBites.

Explore the wet and dry side of our culinary world as Magnus Nilsson dry-ages a steak in kidney fat as long as he possibly can, April Bloomfield hallucinates while at a butcher shop, and Ed Lee makes a ribeye with eel puree.

We take a long, hard look at the cherry on top of a dining experience. On the menu is burnt miso apple pie, the English classic banoffee pie, and sorghum ice cream, so grab a spoon.

We open the birdcage on some of our familiar (and some not so familiar) poultry dishes. Chinese chicken noodle soup, and chicken and dumplings make an appearance, but also stuffed Faroe Island puffin and duck-on-a-string.

Nobody gets a say in the life they’re born into. Thrust into a body, a family, a country and a history, the story of our lives are merely the sum of an endless combination of circumstantial factors determining who we will know, how we will fare, who we will become. But for those adopted, their origins are complicated as the where they were born fuses with the world in which they’re raised. Danny Bowien was born in Korea but only spent the first 3 months of his infant life there. He was adopted and raised by American parents in Oklahoma — religious, hard-working folks – and instead of a life in Seoul, Danny grows up in suburban middle-America. Adapting to this life was easy, for it was all he knew, but he constantly carried traces of his past with him, superficially and also buried deep below.

Danny spends the bulk of his time obsessing over the future – there is urgency in him that needs to be on top of everything, ahead of every trend, aware of what lies beyond the curve. But it would be impossible to know where he’s going without first examining where he came from, and from where that drive was borne. Once he committed to leaving Oklahoma, Danny emerged in San Francisco as a human tabula rasa, open to all of the experiences the city laid before him. It was here that Danny formed who he was as a person and as a chef, and the grassroots movement of Mission Street Food blossomed into what is now his greatest success.

Danny has been to China several times, but he’s visited Chengdu (the geographical and spiritual capital of Szechuan food) only once. He’s returning here to reconnect with the place, the food and the person – renowned chef Yu Bo – that have influenced him the most. Szechuan food has been the greatest source of inspiration for Danny, and consequently his life. This episode is about the dishes, cooking methods, unique flavors and stories (both his and Yu Bo’s) that have driven Danny on a quest to master this style of food.

For better or worse, we do not get to choose the family into which we’re born. In Danny’s case, nor did he get to choose the family that adopted him. He had no say in where he would live or how he’d be raised. After his mother’s death he felt a bizarre combination of liberation mixed with guilt, and he desperately wanted to hold on to – or recreate – the familial feel of togetherness.