This Week on Good Food: Architectural Ice Cream, Pigs Blood, American Catch

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Photo by Brian Leatart

The ladies behind Coolhaus talk about how they went from working out of a dilapidated food truck to reaching success and Jonathan Gold tries pigs blood. Plus, why do we import our seafood?  

Highlights from this week’s show:

1. Coolhaus–Natasha Case and Freya Estreller are the women behind Coolhaus, an L.A.-based architecturally-themed ice cream sandwich empire. They join us to talk about how they went from selling ice cream from a dilapidated truck to becoming a multi-million dollar business.

Their new cookbook is Coolhaus Ice Cream Book.

Find a recipe for their fried chicken and waffle ice cream here, and watch their tutorial here.

2. Pigs Blood and Beef Bile at Night + Market Song–Jonathan Gold is the Pulitzer Prize-winning food writer for the Los Angeles Times. This week he reviews Night + Market Song, the latest outpost from Kris Yenbamroong. While Jonathan loves the place, squeamish eaters beware. Jonathan talks about a dish that makes your napkin look like you were on the ‘losing end of a knife fight’ and that even the intrepid Ruth Reichl wouldn’t try.

3. Melisse, 15 Years Later–Josiah Citrin is the chef/owner of the two Michelin-starred restaurant Melisse in Santa Monica. This week is the 15 year anniversary of the restaurant. Citrin reflects on what has changed and what has stayed the same at the popular establishment and guides us through one of the restaurant’s quintessential dishes: roast chicken.

Josiah will be hosting a Protégé Dinner with a number of his past cooks, including Brendan Collins and Nyesha Arrington. Then on Monday, 9/15 he’ll host a Mentor Dinner with chefs which he considers to have been (and continue to be) mentors for him early in his career, including Wolfgang Puck and Joachim Splichal.

4. Russ & Daughters–Arriving from Poland, Joel Russ schlepped herring from a pushcart to support his family. One century later, Russ & Daughters is a New York institution, providing shoppers with everything from caviar to bialys. The shop is the centerpiece of a new documentary, The Sturgeon Queens, and third generation Mark Russ Federman’s book, Russ & Daughters: Reflections and Recipes from the House That Herring Built.

5. Why Do We Import Our Seafood?–Paul Greenberg is the author of American Catch, a  book that uncovers “the tragic unraveling of the nation’s seafood supply—telling the surprising story of why Americans stopped eating from their own waters.” He recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times on the same topic.

6. When Global Warming Kills Your God

It’s easy to forget that indigenous people in this country continue to hunt and fish to survive. Twenty-three defendants stood trial in June 2012 in Alaska, where fishing for salmon had been banned, but a practice for the Yup’ik people which is as natural as falling asleep at night. Why the ban? And why hold a depleting population on trial for acting in respect of culture and tradition? Adam Weymouth covered the trial and the implications in his article for The Atlantic, When Global Warming Kills Your God.

7. Market Report–Laura Avery talks to Susan Yoon, sous chef at Orsa & Winston, about how she prepares eggplant. Yoon prefers smaller eggplants which she steams for a Japanese take on caponata.

Melissa Gore has been working for Peacock Family Farms for eight years. Farmer Scott Peacock grows roughly twelve varieties of eggplants ranging from the classic globe to the ornamental bright orange Turkish varieties.