Category Archives: Podcast

Learning Tour: Testa Produce

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Podcast

Testa Produce, Inc. is a 100-year-old family owned and operated produce distributor for foodservice entities around the Midwest including restaurants, hotels, schools, country clubs, sporting arenas and hospitals.

Testa’s new LEED* Platinum Refrigerated Foodservice facility (2011) designed by Epstein is the first of its kind in the United States. The warehouse features sustainable technologies including a 750kW wind turbine producing 30% of the building’s energy needs, a huge solar grid for heating potable water, an extensive water management system which recovers rain and graywater for non-potable purposes, LED lighting, skylighting, electric/compressed natural gas delivery trucks and a vegetated roof. Continue reading →

The Art and Soul of French Pastry

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Podcast

Program summary:

· The philosophy of French baking
· How to approach a pastry recipe
· The Do’s and Don’ts of baking

After a lifetime in pastry, internationally acclaimed pastry chef Jacquy Pfeiffer has a wealth of knowledge, advice, and tricks of the trade to help students of pastry learn to master these recipes. Chef Pfeiffer recently recorded many of these in his multi-award-winning book, The Art of French Pastry, co-authored with Martha Rose Shulman. Listen to stories from his life and career that he relates through witty anecdotes and find out more about the philosophy of baking that is the foundation of French pastry. He will offer several do’s and don’ts for baking to help anyone succeed in the kitchen. Continue reading →

Breaking the Fast at a Ramadan Iftar at Khan BBQ

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We will gather one hour before sunset to learn about Iftar, the meal that breaks the fast during Ramadan nights and before observant Muslims depart for evening prayers. Many of the people present will not have consumed even a morsel of food or drink since daybreak that day at 4:01 am. To replicate the experience, we suggest not drinking or eating from once we meet at the restaurant until sunset at 8:29 pm. Certainly you may eat before you arrive.

Khan BBQ offers a nightly Iftar buffet during Ramadan. The composition of the meal is fixed, though what is offered changes nightly. The Iftar buffet will have dates (consumed at the initial breaking of the fast), naan (Indian bread), a featured BBQ, a rice dish, pakora (savory appetizer), rosewater milk and ice water.  Continue reading →

Culinary Memoir & Personal Essays

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Turning a Bunch of Heartland Food Stories into an Anthology
Presented by
Peggy Wolff
With readings by Carol Mighton Haddix and Melanie Benjamin

Peggy Wolff, editor of Fried Walleye and Cherry Pie: Midwestern Writers on Food (U. of Nebraska Press), talks about the inspiration for a post-WWII regional food anthology, the genre called food/lit, some anecdotes about working with writers, and how she put together essays from notable authors who could see food beyond the printed recipe on the page. Continue reading →

Before the Food Network: Recollections by Chef Sanford D’Amato

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Recollections by Chef Sanford D’Amato

It’s hard to believe, but before The Food Network, being a chef in America was often considered to be a last choice when one could just not make it in any other profession. Come join us as Chef Sanford (“Sandy”) D’Amato tells us personal anecdotes and gives readings from his memoir/recipe book “Good Stock” about the state of the American culinary profession in the late 60s and early 70s. Continue reading →