Carolina Miranda meets a donut-slinging luchador, Wolfgang Puck tells us what’s on the Oscars menu and we learn about a hops tea that’s brewing at Grand Central Market.
Highlights from this week’s show:
1. Donut Man of East L.A.–Carolina Miranda is an arts reporter who wrote a feature on Abel Nabor Campos in the winter edition of Lucky Peach Magazine. Her story details how Abel Nabor Campos, hailing from Lagos de Moreno, Mexico, accidentally fell into doughnut-making upon crossing the border with some bakers. Doughnut-making is not his only talent, however, he’s also a wrestler and fittingly refers to himself as the donero luchador.
2. 20 Years of Cooking for the Red Carpet with Wolfgang Puck–This year marks the 20th year that Chef Wolfgang Puck has catered the Oscars extravaganza– an endeavor that requires Military-like organization to ensure one of the great parties of the year is perfectly tasteful. He shares this year’s menu and discusses how the meal has evolved over the years.
3. Market Report with Miles Thompson and Eric Swannon–Miles Thompson is the Executive Chef at Allumette in Echo Park. He and Serena Herrick, Allumette’s Bar Manager, are shopping for late winter and early spring vegetables this week.
Eric Swannon works with Flora Bella Farms where Chef Miles Thompson purchases some of his flowering herbs and greens. Flora Bella is also bringing some wild greens to the market this time of year like miner’s lettuce, chickweed and stinging nettles.
4. A Rare Craft Beer that’s Never Been Bottled: Pliny the Younger–Last month, fifteen thousand beer fans made a pilgrimage to Russian River Brewing Co.’s small pub in Santa Rosa California for the annual release of a triple IPA called Pliny the Younger. It’s expensive, strong and extremely rare. It’s only served on tap for just 2 short weeks in February instigating enormous lines wherever it’s offered. A few lucky bars in Los Angeles got their hands on a keg and KCRW’s Evan George set out to discover if a single beer can live up to that much buzz.
5. Maltose Falcons–The Maltose Falcons is the oldest home brewing club still in existence in America and the group celebrates their 40th anniversary this year. Evan Kleiman talks to Drew Beechum, a board member of the club.
6. Hops Tea at Grand Central Market–Charles Babinski is the co-founder of G&B Coffee, and he’s also behind Go Get Em Tiger on Larchmont. He talks about a hops tea that you can get at the G&B outpost in the Grand Central Market.
7. Jonathan Gold Reviews Rustic Canyon–Jonathan Gold is the Pulitzer Prize-winning food writer for the Los Angeles Times. This week he reassesses Rustic Canyon, a wine bar in Santa Monica, now that Jeremy Fox is the chef. Click here for recommended dishes.
8. Tasty Pozole in Santa Ana–Gustavo Arellano is the editor of the OC Weekly. This week he joins Evan Kleiman to talk about a place in Santa Ana where he loves to get a bowl of white pozole. The restaurant is also known for their burritas (not burritos – these more closely resemble quesadillas) and Arellano also likes the enfrijoladas.