Hello Friends,

How cold are we? Pretty darn cold. The put-your-mini-poodle-in-a-puffer kind of cold. I know that people in the rest of the country who experience snow and freezing rain on a regular basis think we're all wimps, and perhaps we are. But there is a reality to how low temperatures, combined with low humidity, affect the body. We simply retain less heat in dryer climates. We seem to perceive cold here as if it were twenty degrees cooler. So fifty feels like thirty. My skin is so dry my face feels like it's cracking off and I've basically turned my flannel-enveloped duvet into a sleeping bag for relief. I'm tucked in it now on the couch. I knew it was time for another layer and to finally put my hoodie hood up over my head when I started googling "korsi" and "kokatsu" the Persian and Japanese versions of a heated coffee table covered with a blanket. Plus I can't breathe because even though it's winter my acacia trees are blooming and dust is wafting off the palm trees one street over. At least I don't have that hacking cough. Oh LA, At least the sky is super blue. I attribute my health to eating at least one bowl of soup a day. Yesterday's was Weiser Farms honeynut squash, chopped up and sauteed with onion then briefly boiled with a little chicken bouillion, spinach, and garbanzos. Also, a reminder that cold weather means sweeter greens so remember to pick up those leafy powerhouses when you shop the markets. 

This week's show takes a look at hospitality (or not) in a few forms.

We start off with a look at how we can use food to set us up for a better overall mood in the new year. Last year I interviewed Mary Beth Albright about her book Eat & Flourish which focuses on food and mood. She recently launched her new podcast, Eat, You'll Feel Better. We check in with her to start the new year off right.

Zach Helfand wrote a fantastic piece in the New Yorker about the history and psychology behind tipping in this new age when a blaring iPad screen is staring at you. Is tipping at a tipping point? 

"I lived in absolute peril the entire time I worked in restaurants," recounts Matthew Bart, who returned to waiting tables while on sabbatical and feared running into his students. He documented the experience, which was different than he imagined, in his book The Last Supper Club: A Waiter's Requiem. 

When I opened Jason Hammel's The Lula Cafe Cookbook, I was greeted with one of the best explanations of what hospitality in the restaurant business looks like. I knew we had to talk. 

New year, new laws take effect in California. Journalist Mona Holmes of Eater LA joins us to break them down.

Stay bundled up, my friends,

Evan

Why does a smoothie named after Hailey Bieber and sold at Erewhon taste so good? Mary Beth Albright considers how drinking it will make us feel. The author of Eat and Flourish makes the food and mood connection to help us navigate a positive outlook for the new year.

New Yorker writer Zach Helfand calls it the iPad pirouette. That moment when the tipping suggestions are bathed in bright light and loom over your sense of guilt and responsibility to others. We talk tipping, why, and how much. Even self-service kiosks are making us feel either guilty or enraged.

The dance of service is a delicate one. "One needs to not be seen to be working hard to make people happy," explains Professor Matthew Batt. He turned to waiting tables again during his sabbatical year. 

Jason Hammel of Lula Cafe in Chicago describes an altogether different time when he and his wife opened in 1999. "We came together to do something creative and fun without pressure or consequences." He's considered to be a leader in the hospitality industry. The above Pasta Yiayia has been on the menu since the beginning.

The new year signals new legislation, and in California that's good news for some industries. Mona Holmes of Eater LA outlines a series of laws taking effect in 2024. One of the most interesting is Assembly Bill 1325 which expands a measure already in place, allowing home-operated food businesses to earn up to $100,000 annually, a 50% increase.