Heritage Radio is the food-focused internet radio station that broadcasts from a studio attached to Roberta's in Bushwick. Every week, many of the big players in the food world host and appear on shows, and oftentimes they reveal interesting tidbits about their work. Here's a guide to five notable pieces of programming from the last week:
1) Adam Fleischman of Umami Burger: Phil Colicchio, host of "The business of The Business," sits down with Adam Fleischman to talk about bringing his West Coast burger chain Umami Burger to NYC. Here's Fleischman on the business strategy behind his brand:
The way I started it was, hey, I figured out this great new concept for a restaurant based on the fifth dimension of taste that hadn't been done. From a business perspective, if you look at the other four tastes, there are billion dollar industries around all of them. There's a cupcake industry and candy for sweet. There's a potato chip industry and a peanut industry for salty. Even bitter, which most people don't like, there's one--beer...That made it so much harder because it was conceived as a global brand, but it had to go into a dinky little 36-seat restaurant when I had nothing.
2) Brooks Headly, Outstanding Pastry Chef: On this week's episode of "Chef's Table," Dorothy Cann Hamilton of the International Culinary Center talks to pastry chef Brooks Headly of Del Posto about his career. Here's the 2013 James Beard Foundation's "Outstanding Pastry Chef" on how his high school years playing drums in a punk band relate to his work with pastries:
Part of being in a band and playing songs is kind of like mise en place...it's being totally prepared. You write the song, you get all the parts, you have a bunch of people working on it?it's all about getting it ready and getting it set and practicing and practicing. Getting it so it's tight, and then getting your set, and then actually getting to play a show, which is the most exciting thing. It's the biggest rush in the world, getting to play music for other people, and in a way it's like cooking. And it's especially like dessert because you're getting everything ready at the beginning of the day, you're making sure everything's together so that all the parts click. And then lunch or dinner service starts, and then you have all your stuff and you're getting to perform for the audience, which is the guest.
3) Jamie Kaloustian of Dovetail : Joe Campanale of "In The Drink" talks to Jamie Kaloustian, the new beverage director at John Frasier's Upper West Side dining destination Dovetail, about the curiosity that drove her to work her way from waiter to wine director:
I think it's just not boredom, but you always want to look for something new. Maybe it doesn't have to be a new country or even a new region, but maybe a new winery that's opening up that's new to the market, maybe a few restaurants or sommeliers have turned them down or haven't met with the distributor yet. So I thought maybe that was the biggest attraction in moving from bartender to sommelier to eventually wine buyer and writing your own list...just constantly hunting for something new. It's really fun and I'm learning so much more than I ever really did, even though being a sommelier, or even a server, in New York is inundating. You learn so much, but, doing this and having control of it is really fun. It's kind of a poetic license.
4) Dana Cowin on Food & Wine at 35 Years: Mitchell Davis of the James Beard Foundation invites Dana Cowin out to Bushwick to talk about the history of Food & Wine magazine, and to discuss how technology, including e-readers and tablets, has changed the magazine over time. Here, Cowin shares her thoughts on how social media has impacted the way the world relates to food:
Food is very visually enticing, and it's something that we do three times a day. It's something that can be really exciting three times a day. I think that twenty years ago food wasn't really exciting three times a day, and there weren't fantastic places to have breakfast, and lunch was a sandwich, and dinner was very special. But now we actually have special food we want to share pretty much every minute of the day.
5) How the Heat Wave Hit NYC's Rooftop Farms: Ben Flanner of Brookyln Grange calls in to explain how the New York's rooftop farmers and their goods are adapting to the hellish heat that's hit the city:
Luckily we don't have any [cold weather] plants in the ground right now. The one sort of semi-cool climate plant we have in the ground right now is kale, and that is struggling; we're losing a lot of leaves and they're getting spotty. They wilt often in the middle of the day when the heat's at it's peak, but then they perk up in the middle of the night?[T]he Tomatoes are holding in there really well, and the peppers and the eggplants are loving it, and some of our green mixes are hanging in there as well.[Photo: Twitter]
— Peter Henry
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