Five Things You Missed on Heritage Radio This Week

Heritage Radio is the food-focused, listener-supported 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 recent programming:

1) State Malt and State Hops Featured This NYC Beer Week:

Previewing NYC Beer Week, Jimmy Carbone corralled a giant collection of brewers to talk about their "Smash" brews, which are beers using only in-state malt and hops.  Kyle Hurst of Big Alice Brewing, Chris Cuzme of Fuhmentaboudit! and Cuzett Libations, Marcus Burnett of Rockaway Brewing Company and John LaPolla of Bitter & Esters.  Here's Burnett on the challenge put to the participating NYC Brewers, the results of which will be on display at NYC Brewers' Choice this Tuesday in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.

The challenge was given to each brewery to design a different beer from the same three hops and the same three malts, and I think everyone tried to use all three of those ingredients.

2) Dining on the Trans-Siberian Railroad:

Linda Pelaccio, host of A Taste of the Past, spoke with food and travel writer Sharon Hudgins, a frequent rider and historian of the Trans-Siberian Railroad in Russia.

There were different categories of trains.  If you were on one of the international trains, you might have a dining car that was very elegant, a white tablecloth service kind of place, that would serve caviar and Champagne and fresh fish and oysters and steaks and very nice food for the time, and then if you were a Russian that was traveling third class on the standard train, there might not be a dining car at all and if there were, you couldn't afford it.

3) Supplying the City with Baldor Foods:

Cecilia Estreich of Baldor Specialty Foods, restaurant wholesalers recognizable by their trucks making the rounds throughout NYC, stopped by The Main Course to talk about the company's renewed focus on greater local sourcing

I've been really impressed because I think most people in the industry know Baldor as a produce house...but they also do an incredible amount of the sorts of rare and unique foods.  They already have an impressive local food program and in 2015 they're rolling out more local farm partnerships.

4) Leo Schneeman of KG-NY Restaurant Group:

Schneeman, wine director of the group that includes Wallsé, Cafe Sabarsky, Blaue Gans and Upholstery Wine Bar, spoke with the ladies at The Morning After nd gave some insight into picking wines from his heritage:

The Austrian/German wine scene in restaurants I think is still on the smaller side but I think a lot of restaurants picked up on it.  I see more and more products out, especially German ones, that are at a very high level.

5) SSSSociety:

Patrick Janelle and Amy Virginia Buchanan of the Spring Street Social Society, a dinner/performance piece/variety show, spoke to Michael Harlan Turkell of THE FOOD SEEN about their chance meeting and growth into a renowned happening.

The performance takes vastly different shapes, sometimes it's immersive theater, sometimes it's more like a showcase of performative dance or comedy...so performance has remained an element of what we do, and about nine months after our first cabaret, I was working at Bon Appetit magazine at the time and I wanted to do a dinner, I wanted to do a pop-up dinner.