Hot Water Cornbread: Kentucky Food Radio

Chef Ouita interviews co-host Rona about the fantastic foods of the Bicol region of the Philippines, a distinctive cuisine of pungent, sour, coconut-creamy, rice-y vegetables and seafood, with fantastic seasonal tropical fruits. The foods that grow in the Bicol region make its cuisine extraordinary, just as the foods that grow in Kentucky form Kentucky cuisine. The two co-hosts make plenty of Kentucky-Bicol comparisons as they go.

Katie Ellis directs The Berry Center, which advocates for farmers, land-conserving communities, and healthy regional economies. She also heads a new Kentucky food enterprise, Home Place Meat. We talked with Katie about the first cooperative venture, now underway, to produce rose veal.

Rob and Diane Perez brought superior brand development and restaurant practices to Lexington, following Rob’s work with heavyweight national brands, including Hard Rock Cafe and Disney. Recently they have opened DV8 Kitchen, a social enterprise restaurant aimed at changing the lives of people recovering from substance abuse by offering second chance employment and encouragement. And, by the way, while producing delicious, crowd-pleasing foods. In this compelling episode, Rob tells us about the path to DV8, and what he hopes comes next.

This is a mind expanding session with Paul Vincelli, University of Kentucky Extension Professor and Provost's Distinguished Service Professor. Paul is a scientist with expertise in genetic engineering and commitment to sustainable agriculture.

Sam Fore created Tuk Tuk Sri Lankan Bites, a popular tent-based pop-up, after friends simply could not get enough of her home-cooked food. She teaches wonderful cooking classes and makes wise presentations about cuisine and foodways. We talk with her just as she is heading into a bricks-and-mortar restaurant, with the blessings of food celebrity Padma Lakshmi (just after we recorded our show), and with a big set of big ideas on meshing Sri Lankan and Kentucky cuisine.

Brian Luftman founded American Farm Investors after leaving a successful career as a commodities trader in Chicago. American Farm Investors specializes in locating and managing grain-producing farmland for private investors. In part, "grain-producing" means corn grown for Maker's Mark bourbon. Brian is working with Patrick Madden in Lexington, Wilderness Trail Distillery in Danville and partners in England to bring a new bourbon to life and help Britons develop a happy bourbon habit. "Never Say Die" bourbon takes its name from an extraordinary Kentucky colt that ran a great race in England and also brought benefits to some young musicians who eventually became the Beatles. Listen and be amazed. Brian also sits on the Board of Directors for the Bluegrass Angels Venture Fund. He is an active angel investor and Chairman of the Board for Gryphon Environmental, a multi-national industrial waste drying company.

Janet Tietyen Mullins and Doug Mullins have formidable individual food credentials. Janet, a Kentuckian, is a professor in the Department of Dietetics and Human Nutrition at the University of Kentucky, where her work with Cooperative Extension serves Kentucky families and farmers. Doug, from Illinois, serves as the first Chief Operating Officer for the Ouita Michel Family of Restaurants. In two different ways, as they pursue their two different careers in the world of Kentucky food, both Doug’s and Janet’s work supports Kentucky growers and encourages Kentuckians to eat fine, nutritious food from our own land

Chef Tyler McNabb became chef at the fabled Holly Hill Inn in Midway, Kentucky before he was old enough to have a quarter-life crisis. Perhaps because, as he tells listeners in this podcast, he began cooking and entertaining with both his grandmothers in Cynthiana, Kentucky as a young child. His official bio declares him to be “one of the few lucky people who never struggled with knowing what to do with their lives.” Tyler inherited his grandmothers’ love of feeding people—along with recipes for “neon green” lime pickles and a sensibility about how to use fine Kentucky ingredients to perfect Kentucky food.

We wanted Travis Hood of Hood’s Heritage Hogs on Hot Water Cornbread for the longest time, even though we know how hard it is for farmers to make the long trek into town to our studio. When he came, he brought the extraordinary Lydia Hood with him, and so the wait was worth it. Travis educated central Kentuckians to the wonders of heritage pork, particularly Red Wattles. He left golf course management in Indiana and moved with an extended family to hilly Robertson County, Kentucky, to grow hogs. Lydia’s mother and others in her family came to Robertson County, too. All have worked off the farm, grown vegetable gardens, made soap, lard, and other porky products, and added much goodness to central Kentucky life.

When Kristin Ingwell-Goode, Corporate and Foundation Relationships Officer at God’s Pantry Food Bank, grew up in Indiana, she grew a garden and started teaching herself to cook by stirring up cookies without using a recipe--or butter, in her first try. That early strong interest in food makes sense now, as Kristin works to make sure all Kentuckians have access to ample, good food.

Franklin County came to Lexington for this show in the form of two wonderful women, with lots of cheering on from host Ouita, who her reasons—and shares them during the show. Legendary farmer Lee Ann Jones began farming at Happy Jack’s Pumpkin Farm in 1996. She worked to establish the Franklin County Farmers at the same time, and has served as its manager for 22 years. Lisa Munniksma recently began serving in a new position as the Franklin County Farmers Market’s community engagement coordinator. Lisa’s background includes farming in Kentucky and around the world, writing about food and agriculture, magazine editing, and a winter stint in the kitchen at the Holly Hill Inn. Listen to stories of the goodness a farmers’ market can bring to a community. Learn more about the people who make it possible for central Kentuckians to eat well from nearby.

Kentucky’s Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles, at 34, is the youngest statewide elected official in the USA. He brought his young, fresh view on sustaining Kentucky’s agricultural economy to the WLXU studios. Listen to learn how Commissioner Quarles sees Kentucky growers distinguishing themselves in the worldwide agricultural economy.

Carolyn Gahn has acted, farmed for others and for her own family, founded food production companies and organized Kentucky farmers. She recently began a new position as Sustainability Manager for UK Dining Services, which Aramark manages. In this episode, Carolyn talks about her path into caring deeply about food and its provenance. She describes UK/Aramark’s goals for buying locally grown foods—a subject of ongoing interest in Kentucky’s food and sustainability community—and explains future plans. Enjoy Carolyn!

We first featured African American White House chefs on Hot Water Cornbread in early 2016. Ouita’s research on enslaved chefs who served George Washington and Thomas Jefferson left us amazed and interested in more. This week we talk about new work by Adrian Miller, author of The President’s Kitchen Cabinet, and Michael Twitty, author of The Cooking Gene. These authors move forward our shared understanding of the leading role African American culinary professionals have played historically and continue to play in American cuisine. Ouita also continues our “Just Cook” theme by describing pan searing, pan steaming, and braising for weeknight home cooks.

Cooking is good for so many reasons — except when it seems too unfamiliar or too hard. This week’s show concentrates on helping you form a cooking habit. Weeknight cooking requires very little special equipment, ingredients or techniques—or time—to be delightful and nourishing. We offer suggestions for cookbooks, recipes, and ingredients to form the basis of your family’s commitment to regular, frequent cooking.

Janice D’souza leads a remarkable life. In addition to work, family and civic commitments, Janice is dedicated to using Kentucky foods to cook the dishes of her native Mangalorean region of south India. In this episode, Janice describes what her family ate for breakfast, lunch, chai break and dinner as she grew up, and how she makes many of these foods now in Lexington, Kentucky. Janice and her husband subscribe to the Teal Tractor CSA. Cooking with vegetables she had never seen before—rutabaga, kohl rabi, squashes—Janice makes pakoras, for example: vegetable fritters. As part of of her life commitments, Janice chooses to cook from scratch, using local ingredients. Enjoy Janice!

Melanie Blandford and Sherry Maddock met for the first time in the Lexington Community Radio studio when we broadcast this episode. Their meeting held magic. Listen as these two wonderful leaders toward new food systems talk about their connections to plants: they may be sister “plant empaths,” humans gifted with particular sensitivities to plants’ lives. In more traditional terms, Melanie Blandford is the Executive Director of Marketing for the Kentucky Deparment of Agriculture, and leads the acclaimed Kentucky Proud branding and marketing program. Sherry Maddock recently moved to Melbourne, Australia, where she is at work establishing an entity that connects people facing difficulties with opportunities and hope as they nurture plants in an urban setting. While in Lexington, Sherry played a leadership role in a network of urban gardening and job development initiatives, including 4th Street Farm, the London Ferrell Community Garden, Seedleaf and FoodChain.

Three new food business leaders from the new food hall, The Barn at The Summit (at Fritz Farm) gather in the studio to talk about what they are doing: Florence Marlowe of Whiskey Bear, Josiah Correll of Pasture, and Dan Wu of Atomic Ramen. Get to know new food entrepreneurs in Lexington.

Harriet Dupree started a food business in college, and loved it so much she decided to go to culinary school after finding other work dissatisfying. For more than 28 years, her Dupree Catering set the standard for the finest catered food in central Kentucky. At the same time, Harriet launched other businesses and played heroic roles in charitable organizations. Listen as she talks about her favorite kinds of foods, some of her interesting clients, and other inside stories from a life of feeding people.

When Mick Jeffries shows up, fun always shows up, too. Especially when Mick’s topic, as in this show, is cocktails. Mick shares many of his hard-won tips and secrets: Ingredients that make the difference, how to make crucial ingredients at home, and ways to approach cocktails as intriguing tastes instead of booze bombs.

Steven Clem’s grandparents launched Clem’s Refrigerated Foods while both worked full-time for the University of Kentucky. Clem’s must be good for health and longevity, because today Pop (94) and Mamaw Clem (96) are preparing to celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary. Clem’s continues its connections to UK, currently as an important provider of Kentucky Proud ground beef. Steven Clem loves his work, his family and Kentucky. Enjoy this interesting episode. (Photo credit: Ouita Michel)

We enjoyed talking with Larry Kezele and Tobby Moore, two of the owners of historic, marvelous Ruth Hunt Candies, founded in 1921 by Ruth Tharpe Hunt. The present owners continue Ruth Hunt’s commitment to high quality ingredients and splendid flavors, and continue many of the historic candies that made Ruth Hunt Candies famous: pulled cream candy, for example. In addition, the current owners have added new sweets, particularly ones flavored with bourbon, Kentucky’s favorite spirit. The whole episode is sweet!

The foods that bring fall to the plate—squashes, chestnuts and fall greens, for example—star in this week’s episode. Enjoy tips, recipes, and stories about fall foods from Chef Ouita Michel and her two co-hosts.

Susannah Sizemore and Bryce Anderson, two founders of Vinaigrette Salad Kitchen, talk about their team, their experiences and their motivations for launching a complex business, new for their market, dependent on freshness and service, with a strong commitment to buying their ingredients locally.

Honeywood Restaurant manager Leslee Macpherson and assistant manager Brynne Bowden talk hospitality, Kentucky sourced cocktails and bourbon. They share their personal favorite bourbons, talk about bourbon seasonality, and offer tips for people tiptoeing up to bourbon for the first time. We learn about fantastic new Kentucky spirits in addition to bourbon, filled with native botanicals and flavor. Co-host Ouita Michel says Brynne and Leslee represent the new generation of restaurant leaders in Lexington—and they do it so well!

Hall of Fame Baker Martine Holzman and her rock climber husband Jim Holzman share the origin stories of their fabled shop, Martine’s Pastries, and describe their own cross-Atlantic romance. They preview the upcoming expansion of Martine’s into a full-service café in Lexington’s renewing East End, where they will also move their established special event cake business into a renovated historic commercial building. It’s a sweet episode!

What foods fuel resistance and protest? We explore, report, and consider. (Photos is Rosa Parks's pancake recipe, Library of Congress)

Two fine leaders of Kentucky’s regional food economic renaissance appear in this episode. Carrie McIntosh directs the Fayette County Farm Bureau. Ashton Potter Wright coordinates Bluegrass Farm to Table and serves as Fayette County’s local food coordinator. The juicy talk? The importance of local food production in central Kentucky, the new Kentucky Double Dollars program, the upcoming Field to Table Kentuscan dinner that both Fayette County Farm Bureau and Bluegrass Farm to Table are co-hosting, along with others, to raise money for FoodChain. Also: What does Fayette County Farm Bureau do? And what does Bluegrass Farm to Table do? Enjoy listening as linchpins of Kentucky’s local food renaissance describe their important work.

Kentucky visionary Ouita Michel, champion of Kentucky farms, farmers and foodways, cooks for Kentucky conscience Wendell Berry, farmer, writer, activist. The event is a dinner celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Appalachian Writers’ Workshop at Hindman Settlement School— and we get to listen as Ouita and Chris describe the work behind it. The work of the Kentucky farmers who grew the food echoes in the tender care the cooks take with each ingredient in the Hindman Settlement School kitchen. Learn how to cook green beans that make people cry, and heritage boiled dressing for cole slaw. Consider Ouita’s guidance on how to honor a cuisine and extend its reach by refreshing it with current flavors. And find the answer to that puzzling question: what is Kentucky food? All in one lovely episode. Enjoy!

Ouita and Chris Michel went to Montreal on a family summer trip. They share the deliciousness with listeners. Ice wine and other cold region whites, smoked meat, an unforgettable restaurant meal at acclaimed Joe Beef, dumplings and noodles and farmers’ markets—a marvelous food city. Listening is the next best thing to heading for the airport and crossing the border.

For July 4, 2017, Mick Jeffries spirits himself into Hot Water Cornbread to tell Rona and our listeners how to put sparkles in the eyes of friends with well made—and homemade—cocktails. He has thought about, tasted, and learned a great deal about cocktails as part of good living. Learn the best cocktail to make at home. Find out just how crucial the tonic is in the G&T. Be inspired to use your interesting glasses for cocktail occasions at home. Enjoy Mick!

Dr. John van Willigen, author and practicing anthropologist, emeritus professor of anthropology at UK, talks with Rona about ways food and anthropology intrigue him. He grew up in Wisconsin, eating what he later realized we might now call "ethnic food," from his family's Dutch heritage: split pea soup for pretzel cookie. Later he studied what happened when Kikkoman established soy sauce production in rural Wisconsin, then moved to Arizona and did community organizing among the Papago Tribe of Arizona (now the Tohono O’Odham Nation). John has done field work in in India, rural Kentucky, and Indonesia. He is the author of principal college texts in Applied Anthropology and rapid research, along with a book about Kentucky farm life from 1920-1950, and one about Kentucky's community cookbooks as cues to our history, culture and foodways.

We had a Bravetart day! Stella Parks, shining star pastry chef and writer from Woodford County, Kentucky, senior editor at Serious Eats, and author of the forthcoming book, Bravetart: Iconic American Desserts (Norton, August 15, 2017), gratified our wish to talk about making a gorgeous, huge cookbook, and edified our vanilla curiosity. Enjoy!

It gets no sweeter than this: two sisters grow up in Bosnia with astonishing food—including gelato. Two decades after moving to Lexington, Kentucky, studying (an MBA, for example), and positive community work, Alma Kajtazovic and Selma Sulejmanagic learn the ways of highest quality gelato in Italy, buy extraordinary machines, and open Sorella (“sisters” in Italian) Gelateria more than two years ago. Listen as owner Alma Kajtazovic describes their path to a beautiful, sweet, acclaimed local food business.

Chef Jonathan Sanning leads Kentucky restaurants’ participation in the James Beard Foundation Blended Burger Project, aimed at both personal and planetary health and happiness. Jon shares his singular story of becoming a chef, and gets praise from Ouita, who calls him the most creative chef in Lexington—and then engages Jon in trying to find words to describe his creative process.

We plow deep into the rich heart of Kentucky's timeless agriculture and foodways with Chef Ouita Michel, in honor of Kentucky's 225th birthday as a commonwealth (or state, if you prefer).

Topics from our kitchens: the goodness of strawberries and both tart and sweet ways to prepare and preserve them, followed by a food history of the peanut, a paean to Dr. George Washington Carver, and more to amaze and delight you.

Pam Miller launched the Lexington Farmers Market in 1972, one of her many acts of service to Lexington across 47 years. Josh England manages today's Lexington Farmers Market. Rona talks with them about the goodness of this market, past, present and future.

You just can't beat spring eggs. Oh, wait -- yes you can! You should! Spring and eggs go together just like crunch on cornbread. An entire show dedicated to the wonders of eggs.

A good market for chickens can turn a part-time farmer into a full-time food producer. Finding those markets is the work of Dr. Ashton Potter Wright, the first local food coordinator for Lexington, Kentucky. She tells all about it on this local economy-focused episode.

More than 20 years ago, David Wagoner and Arwen Donahue left Washington, D.C. and bought a farm in Nicholas County, Kentucky. They dedicated themselves to growing the most beautiful organic vegetables imaginable--and to making music, friends, community, art, and a family. In this show they talk about their experiences, including a new opportunity for them—to sell all their produce to one trusted customer, the new Honeywood Restaurant in Lexington, Kentucky. It's a good listen.

Philip Weisenberger is a sixth generation miller at historic Weisenberger Mill in Scott County, Kentucky. Phil describes a day in the life of a kernel of corn at their water-powered mill, and helps straighten listeners out on flint corn and dent corn. Plus his personal favorite cornbread recipe. We set this in a historical context of corn in the Americas and Kentucky, and talk about the reasons to treat corn with caution as well as adoration.

Cathy and Harkey Edwards have ripped out more grapevines than most Kentucky growers have planted, either because they didn't thrive, or they didn't make delicious wines. Harkness Edwards Vineyards has a reputation for quality, patience, and persistence. Even a fire that destroyed the winery and tasting room in 2013 did not stop these two Kentucky producers. They kept growing grapes, and gradually returned to making wine again. Listen to their inspiring story.

Lockbox chef Jonathan Searle opened with an update on the upcoming first birthday party at 21c Museum Hotel: art, cocktails, nibbles. But of course! Then Jenn Desjardins of Copper and Kings American Brandy in Louisville laid out the specifics of the new Ideal Bartender School, created in honor of African American cocktail book author Tom Bullock and intended to offer opportunity to 20 Louisvillians committed to hospitality and spirits.

Beloved bakers and bakery owners Kristy and Steve Matherly excel at pastries, breads, cookies, and making people happy. They tell how they met and became interested in their own bakery. They offer a peek into a family committed to great food, to gardening and baking, from their grandparents on to their own two "bakery boys."

Fourth generation African American farmer André Barbour and his partner Teheran Jewell bring energy, ideas and commitment to expanding access to affordable, real, healthy food direct to people in four states. Don't think you can afford a CSA? These growers intend to prove you wrong. They grow the vegetables and an array of meats, and they cook, too.

Chef Ouita Michel researches food history and brings it to the studio. Asparagus, oysters, many spices, eggs, avocado—so many foods have, since antiquity, been considered aphrodisiacal. Each year for 15 years the Holly Hill Inn has featured these special foods around Valentines Day.

Guests Sarabeth Brownrobie(founder of the Winter Wizarding Waltz) and Ashley Minton (innovative chef for this year's event)came to the Lexington Community Radio studios to describe a magical fund-raising and food/drink event that raises money for the local Harry Potter Alliance (Lexpecto Patronum)to use for good.

Blue Moon Farm's Leo Keene tells how he and Jean Pitches Keene began growing garlic to please themselves and ended up changing their own lives and Kentucky cuisine forever. Recently, Leo has made other contributions to Kentucky's re-emerging regional food system by curating and delivering fine locally grown food to local chefs.

Southern SAWG's annual conference and trade show brings E.D. Steve Muntz and grower Jane O'Tiernan to the studio to talk about the acclaimed sustainable ag group's practical, positive impact on growers. Culinary Evangelist Dan Wu follows to describe some of the food-language intrigues of the Chinese Lunar New Year (Year of the Rooster).

Chef Ouita Michel describes a fabulous feast she is preparing for the Epiphany celebration at Midway Christian Church in Kentucky. The hosts talk about Appalachian "Old Christmas" traditions and Epiphany celebrations through time and around the world.