Lovely Listeners,

We had already decided to air the interview I did with Noma's Rene Redzepi a few weeks ago for this weekend when the news broke about his decision to shut down regular service at the Copenhagen restaurant in 2024. It's so interesting to listen to our conversation and tease out the hints he gave about making such a huge decision. The restaurant business is brutal at every level but at the tippy top the pressure is next level. I look forward to seeing what his creative intellect unleashes once the daily pressure of running the theater that is a three-star Michelin restaurant is gone.

Can you imagine working with your parents and sibling? Not many of us could pull it off. But the Leung family at the heart of The Woks of Life blog, YouTube channel, and book manage to harness four points of view in service of sharing their Chinese food heritage with us.

We lost a pioneer Chinese restauranteur last year. Sylvia Wu passed at the age of 106. You can thank her for that Chinese chicken salad you eat on repeat. Madame Wu's Garden opened in 1959 and brought an Angeleno sensibility to Chinese food, expanding the cuisine and its fans. Tejal Rao explains her impact, legacy, and transformative glamour.

I used to love how Jonathan Gold would describe certain adornments atop dishes as "splooshes." Well, the king of drips, dots, and splooshes, Yotam Ottolenghi, again collaborates with head of the Ottolenghi test kitchen Noor Murad in their latest test kitchen cookbook. Get ready to embrace make-ahead condiments, dressing, and sauces to embellish your dishes. 

Chef Zarah Khan picks carrots at the farmer’s market for a new dish at Rustic Canyon that uses the carrots in four ways.

Finally, from a garage pop-up to a brick-and-mortar in Melrose Hill, Bill Addison reviews Filipino favorite, Kuya Lord.

Just submit to the rain. It'll make the sunshine sweeter.

Gratefully yours,

Evan

P.S. Become a member of KCRW and get the exclusive guide to our New Year resolutions, including Healthy Communities Reporter, Caleigh Wells's guide "What Can I Do About Climate Change" and mine for reclaiming joy in the kitchen.

Noma 3.0?

Rene Redzepi says “It takes discipline to be curious,” and challenges his chefs with the mantra of “one idea out, ten ideas in.” So it shouldn't be so surprising that he is again shifting concepts at Noma. You can hear between the lines in my latest interview with him.

Judy, Kaitlin, Bill, and Sarah Leung each deeply focused on one aspect of their Chinese heritage cuisine and began to teach it on their blog, The Woks of Life. Their presence online has become the top resource for English language learners to create restaurant-style Chinese dishes at home. Siblings Sarah and Kaitlin describe each other's roles and talents, and the brain trust of the blog — their parents, Bill and Judy.

They say the Chinese chicken salad was created for Cary Grant by Sylvia Wu five decades ago.  Wu was a glamorous legend who passed away last October at the age of 106. NY Times critic at large Tejal Rao discusses her legacy.

The king of dots and drizzles, Yotam Ottolenghi cites this butter-poached shrimp and celery root dish as one of his favorite comfort food meals. Dots of freshness from the herb paste cut through the richness of the prawns and is a blueprint for other condiments  

Paul Thurston of Laubacher Farms braved mud pools and extreme weather to bring his carrots to market. Rustic Canyon’s chicken and carrot dish uses the root vegetable in four different ways.

"Every dish is masterful," says LA Times critic Bill Addison about Lord Maynard Llera's Filipino cooking. Kuya Lord is now a brick-and-mortar in Melrose Hill after starting in his garage in La Cañada Flintridge during the pandemic lockdown.