Evan Kleiman is your guide to the best cooking and eating
The New York Times’ exhaustive search for America’s best restaurants involved 16 reporters, 538 locations, and over 300 years of combined journalism experience. This massive undertaking highlights diverse dining experiences, from the refined tasting menus at Los Angeles’ Jacaranda to the simple, ingredient-focused anto...
"Stories in Store" transforms local grocery markets into intimate stages for literary readings, blending culinary history with personal narrative. This series, a collaboration between KCRW’s Good Food and Vanessa Anderson, invites writers to explore specific themes like "lunchtime" through diverse, lived experiences. A...
Lebanese cuisine serves as a profound link to identity, memory, and community, particularly for those navigating displacement. Chef Jad Youssef illustrates how food acted as a sanctuary during his childhood in war-torn Beirut, where communal rituals like baking manakish at local ovens fostered social connection. The di...
Indian street food serves as a powerful cultural equalizer, transcending regional, religious, and socioeconomic boundaries to provide accessible, high-quality dining. Chef-restaurateur Meherwan Irani highlights the significance of "chat"—a category of multi-textured, vibrant street snacks—as a gateway to understanding ...
Hunger persists as a systemic failure in the United States, despite the nation’s vast wealth and technical capacity to eliminate it. Roger Thurow, a former foreign correspondent, highlights that hunger is often hidden behind a national reflex to ignore or stigmatize poverty, rather than addressing underlying economic i...
Fermentation represents a natural, universal process of microbial recycling that humans have harnessed to preserve food and enhance flavor. Rather than a singular invention, this practice of controlled decay emerged independently across diverse cultures, from Turkish red carrot ferments to African locust bean preparati...
Food serves as a lens for understanding personal growth, emotional healing, and cultural shifts. Carla Lalli, a veteran of the food media industry and former manager of the original Shake Shack, explores these themes in her latest book, Food is a Feeling, which blends memoir with recipes to document her journey through...
Breakfast cereal evolved from a whole-grain health food in the early 1900s into a highly processed, sugar-heavy industry staple. "Fortification" masks nutritional deficiencies, while shelf-space slotting fees maintain market dominance. Sugar functions as both a flavor enhancer and a structural necessity, ensuring flake...
The intersection of religious practice and culinary tradition defines the diverse temple communities across the Los Angeles suburbs. Journalist Frank Shyong examines how food serves as a central pillar of spiritual life, ranging from the mindful, vegetarian lunches at the Taiwanese Shilai Temple to the sattvic, onion-a...
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