It's New Orleans: Midnight Menu +1

What s the difference between God and a Goddess The former is everywhere and the latter is in one place at a time, right NOLA Food Goddess Lori Gaudin comes mighty close to challenging that definition. Ray and Margo do their best to list all Lorin s culinary exploits from blogs to cookbooks, podcasts, TV shows, social media, and radio programs, but the list of achievements pales like vanilla against the colorful conversation about Lorin s life. From disparate childhood influences to daring early forays into love and food, from the Paris of South, New Orleans, to the real deal Parisian cooking school, from omnivore eating to the tyranny of Celiac disease and her attendant blog about it, My Stupid Stomach, Lorin Gaudin s fearless tell all defines what makes a Goddess. Kim Ranjbar and Lorin have been buddies since their early post Katrina experiences threw them together. Kim tells the story behind her wildly popular column Weekend Cheat Sheet, in which she chronicles her weekly indulgences in her one day a week deviating from her diet. Kim s prolific NOLA food footprint is quickly catching up to Lorin s, with a regular column in Where Y at, her Suck The Heads blog, and her tell it like tastes NOLA Food Porn. On the other side of the table, Chris Kehoe and Mary Ross produce and direct Midnight Menu 1.

Chef Richard Papier still remembers when Mexican food in New Orleans meant Taco Bell. And he s not that old. Chef Richard is changing how we experience Mexican dishes with authentic recipes from Mexico steeped in his fine dining training working alongside Emeril, Susan Spicer, Nathaniel Zymet, Donald Link and Guillermo Peters. Chef Richard s new Uptown restaurant on Magazine Street is a few thousand giant steps up from Nacho Mama s, the space it now occupies. Arana Taqueria y Cantina is the real deal Yucatan soaked flavors paired with the only imported Mexican craft beer in town and a range of fine tequilas. If you think the leap from Nacho Mama s to Arana is about the most incomparable comparison you could imagine, how about this one the leap from Cairo, Egypt to Ocean Springs, Mississippi. That s the trajectory Cal Zayed s life took. Cal is Arana s front of house face and a tequila sophisticate who turns drinking tequila into an art form. Cal can take you on a flight with the finest tequilas from Mexico or have you climb a tequila ladder from ground to kissing the sky. Just don t ask him about "angry grapes" raisins or how those dancing raisins from the TV ads back in the day terrorized him as a child and haunt him still. Chef Richard s and Cal s complementary pasts, tastes, humor and passion make for a lively night out, whether it s at Arana or here on Midnight Menu 1.

Bar B Q ain t what it used to be when dad threw a few ribs and chickens on the grill, pretty much forgot about it while he got loaded on crappy beer and we all had to pray mom s potato salad was edible before we were forced to accompany it with various forms of carbon which we just knew would give us all cancer. Well, we survived. And just as well because we ve lived long enough to learn to bar b q right thanks to the pride of Mid City, Colleen Rush. Colleen wrote the 10 commandments of bar b q, Low and Slow, and now she s back with the new testament, Low and Slow 2. Colleen s 1 is legendary NOLA writer and blogger, Deborah "Big Red" Cotton. Big Red is the world authority on second lines and street parades. Believe it or not, despite the century plus history of parading and Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs in New Orelans, nobody had thought to provide a centralilzed resource for all that info till Big Red came along. As she says to Ray and Margo, if nothing else it ties up traffic for 4 hours on a Saturday, wouldn t you think people would like to know about that Apparently they do, and that s why Big Red is so big. Check out the fabulous new NOLA Brewing Tap Room. It s truly awesome. These crappy photos don t begin to do it justice.

Many things in life are not as simple as they appear. That goes for sausage. And hogshead cheese. And hearts, bellies, snouts, stomachs and every part of an animal you could butcher that ends up in a meat product or on a smoker. Chris Roos aka The Rooster is a meat broker. A meat middle man whose company Holton Meats

If it's fresh, lives in La and you can throw it in the back of a truck it's at Peche

If you re the type of New Orleanian who "goes out" meaning you spend time in bars or music clubs and tend to see the same couple of hundred faces, some of whom you know by name and some of whom you just recognize Joe Armitage is a fellow traveler. Joe has been working in restaurants around New Orleans for, by his own reckoning, 30 years. And he s only 43. For about the same amount of time he s been playing in bands around town. So if you go out there s a fair chance you know Joe. Most recently you would ve known him as the manager of Sammich, the uniquely New Orleans take on a sandwich shop on Maple Street. Hopefully you enjoyed eating at Sammich and talking to Joe prior to reading this because, if you didn t know already, as of this week Sammich is no more. Joe s looking at his next incarnation as a swing of the pendulum back to the music side of his life. It might have been food and it might have been music that brought Joe and his plus one Aron Lambert together lo those 30 years ago when they were both starting out on a shared parallel food and music track. Aron s family owns and operates Preservation Hall and Aron plays in the vaunted NOLA royalty that is the Treme Brass Band.

If you want to know what really goes on at Stein s Deli, Bouligny, Bellocq, Cellar Door, and you want the answer from a chef to the age old question "Do chefs spit in people s food " this show might have everything you re looking for. Then again, everything in this conversation could be a total lie. It s hard to tell. When mixologist, maitre D and film maker Mike Yusko one of our favorite all time guests asked Midnight Menu 1 if he could shoot a scene for his upcoming movie on our show we readily agreed. What follows is Mike shows up with his sidekick, acclaimed chef Wayne Corbett, and buddy Guy Lyman from Guy Lyman Gallery, a neighbor to Bouligny Tavern. The show starts with Mike explaining he s shooting a movie about guys shooting a movie and this scene on Midnight Menu 1 is the characters in the movie appearing on Midnight Menu 1. Except Mike and Wayne and Guy who calls himself Gary in the movie are actually on Midnight Menu 1 in real life as well as in the movie about guys making a movie.

Domenica link1 Chef Alon Shaya explains how an Israeli living in New Orleans fell in love with Italy and Italian food and why cooking it is a way of life. His surprise 1 is the real deal. link1 http www.domenicarestaurant.com

Meredith Timberlake brings along 40 pounds of Haydel s Bakery King Cake to share with Margo and Ray on Midnight Menu 1. In an "only in New Orleans" way of life, Meredith works off her day job king cake by being a cross fit trainer and a power weight lifter. Meredith s 1, Cornell Landry, started out owning restaurants and cooking. When he discovered he could write children s books Cornell left the restaurant business but didn t entirely leave food out of his stories. Cornell is the author of the Bead Dog books, inspired by the Haydel s Bakery bead dog, and also of local kids favorite, Goodnight NOLA. Meredith tells a wide range of tales on this show including growing up around the world from Alabama to Guatanamo, and Cornell tells some wild stories about chauffering actress Faye Dunaway which he groups under the title "Driving Miss Crazy."

Welcome to the amazing crazy world of Tony Tocco, circling the Earth at 5x the speed of life. Ray accurately describes Tony as having an influence on more hip New Orleans places than almost anybody in town. Tony was on the floor the night Bayona opened, spent a decade at Gautreau s, was the co founder of Snake and Jake s Xmas Club Lounge, The Circle Bar, and his current super success, Atchafalya. Tony s plus one, David "Feel No" Payne, has an equally storied NOLA dining pedigree spanning Bayona, NOLA, Galataoire s, among a laundry list of other notable eateries. Tony and Feel No are equally matched sides of the same coin, their most stark difference being Feel No still has a flip phone and Tony is the creator of a groundbreaking app, Specialus. Specialus allows chefs and restaurateurs to get around the filter of dining review apps, like Yelp, and talk directly to customers. Chefs or servers make a short video showcasing the restaurant s nightly special and showing a hand held phone sweep around the restaurant so diners get to see the food and the space for themselves, without having to wade through a hundred amateur reviewers opinions. Margo is out of town on the beach in Bali. Her tan will fade but she ll never get over missing this classic edition of Midnight Menu 1.

If you re looking at the title of this show, Two Girls One Shuck and think the name of this oyster shucking duo is a play on the f word, you re in a better place than knowing the truth. Don t, for the love of God, Google "Two Girls One Cup." Your life will never be the same. Becky Wasden and Stefani Sel met one unlikely evening in a straight bar in Salt Lake City after every lesbian in the state of Idaho had spilled out of a Melissa Etheridge concert. They ve been together ever since and when another magical night found them shucking oysters in a New Orleans back yard because they were hungry and everyone else was too drunk to shuck, well, shucks, yes, and more shucks, and now they re professional shuckers. If Becky and Stefani ever have kids they ll be mothershuckers, and that s probably about all the lady oyster shucker references we can fit in this space but you ll never spend a more entertaining hour than hanging out with these two shuck sharing gals at The Nola Brewing Tap Room.

Phil Minissale visited New Orleans for the first time when he was 17. An impressionable age, Phil got the bug and as the years unfolded found himself visiting the city as often as he could get here. As a traveling songwriter, Phil made his way through New Orleans on extensive tours, either playing the Blue Nile or Neutral Ground Coffeehouse each year. In 2012, with nothing but a fierce impulsive desire, Phil stuffed his 97 Civic Hatchback may she RIP with all his clothes, guitars, and potato chips. He found a place right off Napoleon and St. Charles, and not long after met an amazing community of artists, eventually befriending James Michalopoulos, owner of Celebration Distillation. Reminiscent of Old Time Traveling Medicine Shows, Phil sells New Orleans "elixirs," better known as Old New Orleans Rum and Gingeroo. Phil still plays out, sharing his acoustic folk and blues music. In a first for Midnight Menu 1 Phil plays live for Ray and Margo and the delighted assortment of folks at The NOLA Brewing Tap Room.

Nick Bazan started out washing dishes at Shoney s in New Orleans East. Two years later he was the longest serving and hardest working sucka in the history of Shoney s, still making a little over minimum wage as a line cook, working "It s illegal by the way" 12 hour shifts without a break. The he wised up, got the heck outa there and started on a career working the gamut of famous New Orleans restaurants till he ended up as an owner of Rio Mar and now the historic Little Gem Saloon. If the walls of the Little Gem Saloon could talk they d have quite a story to tell. The Little Gem is inextricably entwined with the birth of jazz and the rise of Louis Armstrong from childhood to star. Nick tells the fascinating story on this edition of Midnight Menu 1 plus the story of the fateful day he, Nick not Louis Armstrong, met Michael Shelton. Michael is Nick s 1 on this show and the chef at Little Gem, but he might also be the mayor of New Orleans, the mayor s speech writer, a motivational speaker or a preacher.

If you're the type of person who love's sushi with a passion, then you're probably like Cheryl Lemoine. If you're the type of person who creates an entire festival around sushi, and then comes onto Midnight Menu 1 to talk about it, then you most likely are Cheryl Lemoine. Cheryl sits down with Ray and Margo this week to discuss the second annual New Orleans Sushi Fest and Competition. But Cheryl isn't just the brains behind Sushi Fest; she also works for Renaissance publishing and enjoys rabbit brains when traveling in Spain. If sushi isn't your thing, have no worries there will still be plenty of other types of food at Sushi Fest, prepared by some of the New Orleans' finest restaurateurs, such as Scot Craig, owner of Katie's Restaurant and Bar. Scot is also Cheryl's plus one so he joins in to talk about first purchasing Katie's, employing his mother, and why skipping law school was the best decision he's ever made.

Ironically it s the worlds crappiest coffee that started the international "second wave" of coffee drinking that continues to crank up the world on caffeine. Having gotten us all hooked, the green St Joan of coffee watches implacably from her ubiquitous seal as those with more discerning taste enter the era known as The 3rd Wave of Coffee, pursuing an ever growing flight to quality.

Calling Luke Deadnettlez a barista is a little like calling Richard Branson a businessman, or Mick Jagger a vocalist. While it s essentially true, the job description doesn t begin to do justice to the scope of their influence. Luke holds court daily at Zotz coffee shop on Oak Street. He doesn t own the place that distinction belongs to a couple Luke describes as "Old school New Orleans Goths" but Luke s been there for a decade and his brand of intensity, humor, politics, and ambiguous relationship with normalcy permeates the place to such a degree that Zotz has a brand as a New Orleans coffee shop every bit as defined as Starbucks brand. If Starbucks was a cave peopled by every type of Crescent City coffee drinker from a marginally functional crack addict to a Presbyterian pastor with a pompadour. Luke Deadnettlez two thirds of his real name given to him at birth in Prattville Alabama is a gay man in a loving relationship with a woman, the father of two children, a communist, permaculturist, universalist, ex acid swallowing ex Tulane architecture student who, if he doesn t and he probably does, should give thanks every day for the existence of New Orleans where he is able to live the life he wants and not just survive but thrive, shine and be a star in a caffeinated galaxy.

If you catch and smoke a raccoon, an event that involves neither a farm or table, is that strictly "farm to table" That is just one of the many vexing questions posed by the annual Eat Local Challenge in which you re challenged to eat only locally sourced foods for 30 days. Eric Bucich is a board member of the Eat Local Challenge. He s a raccoon smoker. And he eats bugs.

Of all the TV shows, radio shows and podcasts about food of all the years of restaurant reviews in newspapers probably nothing has revolutionized dining out more than the smart phone app, Yelp. Yelp puts the power of approval or disapproval of a restaurant in the hands of regular people. But it also means in New Orleans that tourists have discovered every great little neighborhood restaurant that we used to consider local. That s just one of the daily issues that local Yelp Community Manager Morgan Ford has to deal with. Morgan is one of only 120 Yelp Community Managers worldwide. The local community she manages is one of delighted business owners when things go right online, mightily disgruntled restaurant owners when diners post pissed off reviews, and a wide assortment of local businesses and non profits who partner with Yelp in all kinds of interesting ways. If you re wondering how you get a cool job like Morgan s, meet Johnny Culpepper. Johnny was Morgan s colleague at Old New Orleans Rum, now he s Director of Sales at DPD Distillery, makers of Rougaroux Rum and other local sugarcane field specialties. Johnny s story of how he got to do what he s doing takes an even more only in New Orleans twist than Morgan s, involving Chris Owens and Bourbon Street on Mardi Gras Day. This Midnight Menu 1 is a lively look at the intersection of app not appetizer dining, booze, Mardi Gras, 610 Stomping, and an examination of the bizarre claim that the best food in New Orleans comes in a plastic box at Langenstein s supermarket.

Ray and Margo sit down at an especially lively night at the Nola Tap Room to welcome our first official returning guest, Gia Di Leo of Green to Go. Gia has to shout to be heard over the noise, but she s so excited that she d probably be shouting anyway, because Gia is just days away from opening Green to Go s first brick and mortar store

Margot was on a hot streak at the dog track and couldn t make it these week, so Ray is flying solo. But don t worry, Chef Ryan Haigler of Grand Isle is never short on conversation.

Kirk Coco s inspiration for opening NOLA Brewing is inextricably entwined with the US Navy, Hurricane Katrina, Dixie Beer, and the clap. In a city of colorful characters, Kirk Coco is a colorful character. A wonderful combination of impetuousness, frank honesty, and business acumen, Kirk s venture into brewing is from his telling something akin to a blind man wandering drunk along the edge of a cliff. But in this case the blind man s sense of direction is impeccable. What could a guy who was a lawyer, a US Naval officer, and now a successful entrepreneur, regret How about being 8 years old and not making out with Maria Bertucci

Nina Camacho and Marc Quiroz have known each other before they were born. Their fathers were college room mates and had kids within a month of each other. Those kids, Nina and Marc, have stayed friends ever since. Today, after a circuitous route that has taken them individually across the country, they are both back in New Orleans. Nina is part of the team opening Jack and Jake s Public Market on OCH Blvd and Mark is working with returned veterans. Nina and Marc are both as passionate about New Orleans food as the day they were born

Roy Nelson was the Willy Wonka of New Orleans, growing up in a chocolate factory. His family owns

Like many New Orleans kids, Colin Provensal was hanging out in bars way too young. In Colin s case, 7. And he was playing piano. By 13 he had a regular Saturday night piano gig in a restaurant on the Orleans Jefferson parish line at the beginning of Veterans Boulevard. At 14 he was working in his first restaurant, dropped out of high school, and he s been in the food biz ever since. Colin s current gig is a breakfast pop up in a restaurant that, depending on when you read this, is either still called Dis n Dat or its new name Dis n Dem. The difference between Dat n Dem is more significant than it may appear but it all began, as Colin remembers, "when we were a bunch of stoned college kids slinging weiners." Colin s breakfast pop up is everything you could ever want traditional New Orleans food with a gourmet twist, cheap under 10 and complete with signature bloody marys. Somewhere along the line Colin moved to Austin for a girl which didn t work out romantically but it did work out culinarily in as much as Colin got a kitchen gig in a high end diner where he learned he cold crack 524 eggs in 20 minutes. And that was just lesson number one. While all this was happening to Colin, Jeff Thompson had escaped his New Orleans upbringing and become an established singer songwriter and band leader in Asheville North Carolina. Now sneaking back into New Orleans, Jeff has formed a band and recruited Colin to play keyboards. While things may have come full circle for Jeff and Colin, the fun is just beginning for you. Go to Dis n Dem or Dat, date dependent for breakfast, tell em you heard Colin and Midnight Menu 1 and get free coffee for all eternity. Or until Colin cuts you off.

If you shop at a New Orleans Sam s Club pretty much any weekend you ll see a guy or a girl stirring a giant pot of jambalaya. The girl wearing yellow plastic fork earrings is Jambalaya Girl Kristen Preau and the guy is her brother Kevin. When you get home from Sam s you can cook up the same jambalaya from a pack of Cook Me Somethin Mister jambalaya. Kristen and Kevin aren t cooking at Sam s out of desperation for you to sample their jambalaya, Cook Me Somethin Mister is available in over 600 stores across the country. It s manufactured in association with Louisiana s original celebrity chef, Paul Proudhomme. Ray and Margo s taste test affirms this jambalaya is the real deal. The pouch contains delicately seasoned and perfectly balanced rice that creates a home made tasting jambalaya with all the richness and texture you d make yourself if you were Paul Proudhomme. Kristen and Kevin s father was an outdoor cooking hardware guy he created the grill which started up Proudhomme s "blackened" Louisana food revolution and he originated the Cook Me Somethin Mister jambalaya recipe to sell the jambalaya pot he was cooking it in Ray dips into the infamous Book of Questions, revealing Kristen s wedding plans and Kevin s life as a Yum Yum guy. For a total New Orleans culinary experience, Haydel s king cakes even come with Cook Me Somethin Mister Jambalaya.

"Food evangelism" probably doesn t sound too appealing, but spend a few minutes in the fresh food revival tent with Emery Sonnier and Kimisha Sawyers and you ll be testifying you ve seen the light and a holy band of green angels. Emery is the Associate Director of Market Umbrella, the folks who put on 4 Farmers Markets a week in New Orleans. Kim is the market s Evaluation Manager. Growing up in a Sicilian New Orleans family and working as Assistant Editor of Food and Wine magazine New York, Emery knows a thing or two about food. Her road to the healthy side of diet came via the traditional NOLA foodie route of working in restaurants in various capacities but it was Katrina that gave her the final kick in the pants and dragged her home and headed for healthy. Also growing up in New Orleans, Kim ate plenty of home cooked meals but they were made without regard to healthy contents. A trip to Taiwan her first foray out of the country suddenly opened her eyes to the possibility that she could live her life any way she wants and one of the things she changed was her approach to food and eating. Now Kim spends her days changing other lives by eating changing habits from Big Mac to carrot snack and from chocolate shake to Beet lemonade. And then there s the Magic Beans and Different Color Soup... By the end of this show you ll understand the phrase "joie de vivre" in a way you may never have before living in New Orleans.

You might think naming a restaurant after a ditch is maybe sending the wrong message about the standard or even type of food you d expect to get there. But when the ditch is "Trenasse" the Cajun French word for a cut through in the bayou and the location is the tony Intercontinental Hotel on St Charles Avenue in New Orleans, it all starts to make sense. Chef Jean Pierre Guidry has a prestigious name in American kitchens, having worked this way through both the CIA and the culinary college of real world restaurants in France and the US, including a long stint alongside Chef Daniel Boulud in New York. When Chef JP heard Lafayette native, Commander s Palace among others alumn, and Florida s famed Stinky s Fish Camp owner Chef Jim Richard was opening a New Orleans restaurant that was Cajun inspired, based on the principle "simple things done right," JP was in, shrimp boots n all. Patrick James is as excited and passionate about Trenasse as Jean Pierre, which is probably just as well seeing he s the restaurant s General Manager. Patrick comes from an extensive New Orleans restaurant background that includes Palace Cafe and Red Fish Grill. When you hear these guys describe something as simple as gumbo or their re imagined poboy it s like you re hearing about these foods for the first time. This episode of Midnight Menu 1 was recorded at the NOLA Brewing Tap Room.

When Barrie Schwarz went home from work as a food runner in a restaurant and tried to figure out what she could do to open a business in between throwing parties at her house, she realized that maybe if she combined all three parts of her life throwing parties at her house for the people at work as a business she d hit a home run. Well, it wasn t totally a home run but it was a lead off double and led her to the next step throwing parties at places other than her house and getting people other than the chefs at her work to do the catering. And so was born My House NOLA mobile kitchens aka food trucks who cater events Barrie plans in places other than her house. When a 7 foot tall friend of a friend showed up at a party with his Spanish room mate, presto Jordi Figueras was the regular sized Spaniard who, it turns out, drives a pedicab, designs websites, fixes stuff, and knows a thing or two about business thanks to graduating from Tulane Business School and never going home. Jordi and Barrie obviously enjoy working together and hanging out together but their differences are fascinating. Barrie grew up eating scooped out cantaloupe filled with cottage cheese. Jordi s mom supplies him with fine Spanish cheese. Barrie is Jewish, Jordi grew up in a town where all the Jews were dispensed with generations ago but American Jews are the town s only tourists, looking for their long lost roots. Barrie is steeped in New Orleans food, Jordi has never had Bananas Foster, or, as he calls it, Frosted Bananas. This conversation is a fascinating, rollicking exploration of cultures powered by figs.

Scott and Jane Wolfe got married and opened their first grocery store when he was 19 and she was 17. A few grocery stores later Jane and Scott were to discover a factoid about marketing that changed their lives and etched an indelibe icon into the minds of all New Orleanians. Dispensing with every other daily special in their grocery stores, Scott and Jane swung for the fences and hit a home run with their never ending meat specials. Now, all these years later, after pre katrina i.e. voluntary retirement they re back. Jane went to school and graduated with a masters in divinity from Harvard yes, the real Harvard and while she stuidied, Scott threw himself into building a new business. Melba s is a poboy shop, an art gallery, an art studio, a neighborhood meeting spot and on top of all that it s open 24 hours a day. New Orleans is not short on innovators in the food, arts, entertainment and social gathering fields, but you ll go a long way till you meet folks who combine all those skills and who are this delightfully humble and understated about all their accomplishments. This is a combo fun feel good show of the year. Recorded live at The NOLA Brewing Tap Room.

When you grow up on the Bayou you learn to catch and cook pretty much anything that moves. When you get to be Executive Chef at one of New Orleans leading hip restaurants like Tivoli and Lee you can be "influenced" by your childhood roots but you can t totally replicate that cuisine. Chef Marcus Woodham is a product of Bayou Goula but the dishes he creates and serves on Lee Circle are a couple of degrees removed from the squirrel head gumbo his mom makes. Once you ve gotten past the subject of Squirrel Head Gumbo you crack the heads open by "giving them a good whack" with a butter knife by the way you d be forgiven for assuming the rest of the conversation would seem pretty tame. Not on this show. Don t let Kirk Estopinal s suave demeanor fool you. Kirk, as co owner of Cure, Hotel Modern, Bellocq, and Cane and Table, is admittedly a master of craft cocktails, Southern dining, and hospitality. What you might not know about him, and probably until tonight only his wife knew about him, is that Kirk has leanings toward cannibalism. As Chef Marcus said after Kirk explained his yen for eating placenta, "We ve got some catching up to do." When Margo and Ray s guests are not eating cute animals or babies they re working with Margo and Ray on the Dexy s Midnight Runners tribute band.

Molly Kimball is New Orleans highest profile proponent of eating healthy, but she s no tyrant. Molly is happy for you to go to your favorite restaurant and order your favorite meal. She also believes that your favorite restaurant can make your favorite meal with no white carbs meaning without or with less white sugar or white flour. Putting her money where her mouth is, literally kind of Molly s crusade Eat Fit NOLA works with New Orleans restaurant chefs to craft their same awesome meals without the fat and heart attack quotient. Over 40 NOLA restaurants, including Brennan flagships Commander s Palace and Cafe Adelaide, are on board and the program is catching on in commercial kitchens city wide. Molly s 1 is her visiting friend Jocelyn Lockwood who, on her first night back in New Orleans in almost a year, bravely agreed to come on Midnight Menu 1. If you think you ve seen Jocelyn and Molly before, you have they were together on WGNO TV s Get The Skinny when Jocelyn lived in New Orleans. Around a year ago Jocelyn and her husband sold up and went travelling, hitting hundreds of hot and not so hot spots around the world. On the way they sampled all kinds of food, including stingray, whale, and reindeer And that s not the weirdest or most disturbing food incident on their trip. That one occurred when Molly and her husband Brad joined Jocelyn and her husband for a romp through Vienna. Molly had no idea when she gamely volunteered Jocelyn as her 1 that she d have to sit through re living the Vienna schnitzel tossing incident. All that and a whole lot more on this fun and food fact filled low fat Eat Fit edition of Midnight Menu 1.

When acclaimed Boston chef Dustin Brien mistakenly applied for a job as a line cook at Salu restaurant on Magazine in Uptown New Orleans neither he nor the equally confused owner understood what either of them was thinking. Once they got the confusion sorted out, the restaurant owners decided to ditch their plans to hire a chef they had lined up and put their chips on Dustin. It turned out to be a good bet. Chef Dustin shook up the menu and, insider tip he s in the process of changing it up again and moved the restaurant from tapas to bistro. Half a block down Magazine Street the owners of Salu decided to convert their restaurant Byblos into a Mexican restaurant under the stewardship of ex Emeril s, ex Guillermo Peters disciple Richard Papier. Thus was born Arana and the brothers in arms team of Chef Richard and Chef Dustin. These young chefs are at the top of their game. Their love of food, entertaining, and life itself whether or not they choose to remember it shines through this entire sparking conversation at Salu.

The last thing you d think of as British food is hot dogs, right Right. And if you were going to import hot dogs into Britain the last person you d turn to would be a foodie from New Orleans. Right Wrong. Skip Murray introduced the unsuspecting Brits to the delicacies of second rate meat on lame white bread roll buns before realizing if that if he amped up his game he could create a gourmet dog and be on to a worldwide first. That s exactly what he did and had a thriving business in London for many years. Till Katrina hit. The hurricane s damage messed with a lot of people s psyches and Skip was one of them. It dragged him home. Back in New Orelans Skip got together with a few friends from high school and with them took a chance on a 475 square foot dilapidated shack on Freret Street that was the first Dat Dog. More recently he s branched out and opened a location that sells more than dogs, that s Dis and Dat. When you meet a guy called "Kiss" what s the first thing you think Gene Simmons, right What s the second thing you think, "Well, being called Kiss can t be anything to do with Gene Simmons, that would be crazy." Guess what You were right the first time. Kiss is the general Manager of Dis and Dat and he is in fact named after and lives his life according to Gene and Kiss. You ve got to hear Kiss tell you the story to believe it. Midnight Menu 1 is recorded live without makeup at The NOLA Brewing Tap Room.

Traditionally in America there have been two sure fire ways to get out of a life of poverty sports and music. Here is New Orleans there s also another route food. Following in the footsteps of Catholic Charities success story Cafe Reconcile in Central City, Cafe Hope started up on the Westbank, giving disadvantaged kids courses in kitchen and front of house skills that they can then apply in the wider world of restaurants, service industry, and culinary arts. Cafe Hope s Executive Director Luis Arocha tells Ray and Margo inspiring tales of his students but none can be more inspired or inspiring than Luis himself. The tale of his conversion from wealth management professional to running a charity is the most life changing food story you ve ever heard. Stan Meadows restaurant adventures are as unique as any food tale you ve heard too. Stan runs the only good restaurant between Gulfport, Mississippi and Panama City, Florida Stinky s Fish Camp. The secret to Stinky s success is Chef Richard, a graduate of Commander s Palace restaurant in New Orleans. When folks from the newly re modelled Intercontinental Hotel in New Orleans ate at Stinky s they were so impressed they hired the Stinky s peeps to open a restaurant in the hotel. That new restaurant is called Trenasse. Trenasse features the fresh Gulf fish dishes that Stinky s is famous for, under the direction of Chef Jean Pierre, a Bayou Lafourche kid who went off to culinary school, cooked at Daniel in New York, was sous chef at Commander s, and is creating tradition and re creating taste at Trenasse. This show is our first at the Tap Room, NOLA Brewing Company s watering hole next to the brewery on Tchoupitoulas Street in the Irish Channel.

If you don t hear this for yourself you won t believe it. It s hard to imagine a more innocent opening question to ask Chef Kevin White, the kitchen mastermind behind the Freret Street bistro success, Wayfare. Margo simply asks Chef Kevin, "How did you get started cooking " From there the conversation starts down a fascinating road that takes us from eating snakes in the Iraqi desert to cooking pasta with Mario Batali in New York. So far so good. So how exactly does that turn into a plea for the use of women s breast milk in cooking Ray is as enthusiastic about the culinary delights of breast milk as Chef Kevin, and Margo is not exactly opposed to the concept. If you ve wondered when you re ever going to hear a serious discussion about recipes for human breast milk, from milkshakes to cheese, complete with a healthy dose of hilarity, you re in luck. Chef Kevin s serious about solid food too, specifically sandwiches. Describing Wayfare as a "dynamic sandwich brasserie," the Batali trained pasta chef describes how he set himself a specific goal on moving from New York to New Orleans "to put fine dining in a sandwich." The skill and imagination that goes into Chef Kevin s sandwiches from 35 different home made mayonnaise varieties to the sandwich names are an ode to the universal staple as lyrical and loving as Mike Coustay s fondness for Scarlett Johansson. Mike aka Mikey is Chef Kevin s 1 guest. Although his appearance with Chef Kevin was a surprise, we d met Mikey off the air when we first started Midnight Menu 1. He was also starting up a food podcast. Since then Mikey has gone on to become less of a podcaster and more of a Tweeter nolachef504 as well as having the distinction, he claims, of being banned first from Whole Foods and now from all 38 of Rouse s supermarkets. We started Midnight Menu 1 because we believe people in the world of New Orleans food have so much more going on than recipes and as people are as fascinating as our musicians and other creative artists. If we ever wanted proof we were right, this show is it This is one of our most entertaining, informative, revealing, fascinating, surprising to say the least and fun Midnight Menu 1 s. From the secret to cooking perfect pasta to the marginally weird visionary recipes for breast milk, this is New Orleans culinary conversation at its finest.

Mike Yusko came to New Orleans the same way many have before him "I met a girl from Hammond." Yanked out of the cosmopolitan world of tending Bohemian bar in downtown Los Angeles, Mike found himself pioneering the cosmopolitan world of Bohemian Freret Street at newly opened Cure. Creating drinks named after movies and Czech novels, like The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Mike didn t start writing moody novels in his off hours, but he did start making movies. Like the festival favorite, I m Gonna Punch Sam Mackey In The Face. One of the stars of Mike s movies is the urbane import from the hinter farmlands, John Cleese lookalike, Wayne Corbett. Wayne showed up in town with nothing to do a few years ago and with no real kitchen experience landed a job at the newly opening Bouligny Tavern, making dishes like gnocchi which he had never heard of and couldn t pronounce. Everything went great for a few years till Wayne realized that people s appetites were never satisfied and there would be no end to cooking. Not being able to stand the thought of lifelong job security, Wayne teamed up with his pal and movie director, Mike. Mike at this stage had the lease on an ex brothel and was opening what is becoming New Orleans hippest bar, The Cellar Door. If you re wondering, given this rambling tale of what could be a classic Southern buddy movie, why this story would be called "Handful of Sand," well, that would be a total spoiler. All you need to know going in is all the best martial arts advice comes from your grandma, and three socks in a rock is a mistake. Keep those two facts in mind as you listen to what might be the absolute best episode of Midnight Menu 1 in the show s history.

Harveen Khera s ethnic background daughter of Indian and Malaysian parents growing up in London and her cuisine career including working in San Francisco s finest restaurant and opening her own bar prepared her for almost any epicurean eventuality. Except being the chef in a New Orleans kosher kitchen. But that s exactly what she is, and she s killing it. Harveen is the founding chef at Hillel s Kitchen, the local, organic, seasonal, kosher restaurant in the Hillel House on Broadway, a part of Tulane University. She makes everything from scratch from granola to bread, from burritos to burgers has a full fresh juice bar, bagel bar and salads. There s even a free matzah ball soup hotline if you re sick Hillel delivers. Harveen s non food partner in this enterprise is the guiding light of Tulane Hillel, Rabbi Yonah Schiller. Harveen s 1 guest on tonight s show, Yonah s philosophy of community and sharing inspires and shapes the dining experience. Midnight Menu 1 moved into a new home tonight at Chappy s Restaurant on Magazine Street next to Monkey Hill Bar. Chef Chappy has transformed the old Grill by The Hill into a whole new and far finer dining experience.

Sometimes you meet people who have moved to New Orleans and when they tell you their life story all you can think is, "Thank God you found New Orleans. There s no other place in the world you could be yourself." How about tonight s guest on Midnight Menu 1 for an example Where else in the world could you be a genuine Samurai custom cake baker hat maker Mardi Gras parade Marshall make up artist Meet Midori Tajiri Byrd. Yes, they re all Midori s cakes. And that s not half of the story. Midori is genuinely a Samurai the last of a long line of Japanese warriors and rulers whose Japanese family lineage stretches back into the mists of history. Check out the traditional tattoo on her palm. Midori s 1 describes himself as "the only chef in New Orleans without a tattoo" and the reason he doesn t have a tattoo is the reason he ended up a chef. A veteran of a slew of NOLA restaurants from Harrah s to Isis Matthew Ratcliff is a chef for hire, catering events with his company Crescent Cookery. Matthew made some brisket and mrliton picked sandwiches for the evening s get together and Midori made a cake. This is a totally fun and fascinating Midnight Menu 1. From Samurais to sweets and sandwiches. And much more in between. There are more pix and more activity over at our Facebook page.

Bryan Gilmore likes to mix it up. Blast freeze it. Thaw it. Freeze it. Serve it. That s how you make ice cream and that s what Bryan does all day on Prytania Street in the old McKenzie s Bakery, which according to the Historic Places designated red neon sign outside, is still McKenzie s but in fact is Creole Creamery, Uptown s favorite ice cream shop. Imagine if you could eat all the ice cream you want, from childhood, and never get cavities in your teeth. That s what is happening to Bryan s kids. Because they brush with Theodent the chocolate toothpaste created in New Orleans. The creator of Theodent is the mad scientist genius Dr Arman Sadeghpour. Who also happens to be Brian s 1 guest on this episode of Midnight Menu 1. Tips on how to keep ice cream fresh frozen at home, the "scoop" on foie gras ice cream, the secret to good teeth, and more... This is hands down the most educational decadent healthy New Orleans podcast in ice cream and toothpaste history.

Franky Vivid is one of the most colorful characters in the New Orleans food ecosystem. Franky is the wearer of many hats, most of them related in one way or another to scantily clad or naked women. Franky is the producer of internationally renowned burlesque shows Superstars of Burlesque, and Burlesque Hall of Fame. He's the co founder of the live event and website, Naked Girls Reading, and if you're wondering how any of this gets you invited on Midnight Menu 1, Franky Vivid is the creator and principal contributor to the blog, website and way of life Cooking For Strippers. Franky didn t always coook for strippers. Not till he married one. Michelle L amour is one of the world s best known burlesque entertainers and an internationally renowned teacher of burlesque. Besides being Franky s 1 on this show, Michelle, aka Mrs Vivid, is the inspiration for Franky s culinary exploits. Michelle holds a burlesque intensive series of classes each year and, well, a girl s gotta eat. Realizing that he enjoyed feeding burlesque dancers, Franky started blogging about it and what started out as fun food for 10 girls is now fun reading for tens of thousands of blog subscribers. Grant Morris sits in for Ray and helps Margo and Michelle celebrate Franky s birthday.

When you come from a New Orleans family of 10 kids it can sometimes be difficult to remember what number sibling your sister is even if she is your business partner and closest friend. Of course you can always blame your faulty memory on the Bloody Mary that you have to drink to be sociable because they re making it with the Bloody Mary mix you and your sister 6 produce. Or maybe it s the martini you had to drink to be sociable because they re making it with the spicy olive juice mix and olives that you and your sister 5 bottle from your dad s old family spicy olive recipe. It s hard to imagine people having more fun running their own business than The Louisiana Sisters Karen Poole and Sharon Poole Mahne. Sharon and Karen started up their now rockin olive biz using a recipe their dad created that they got doctored up for supermarket shelves by a guy they know only as "Chef Happy." No kidding. Louisiana Sisters products are across Louisiana in almost every grocery store from Langenstein s to Whole Foods and namesake sisters Sharon and Karen don t know the name of the guy who helped them create their signature taste. Although there s something to be said for the fine taste of the sisters olives, pepper jelly, bloody mary mix, spicy olive juice, and other products, the spice and bubble of their personalities certainly contribute to the meteoric success of their small family business. This is not your father s olive business. Hang on, yes it is.