Tipped workers, like servers and bartenders, can be paid as low as $2.13 per hour in some states. Soleil Ho and Justin Phillips trace the origin of America’s tipping culture back to slavery, and how minimum wage politics mostly impact Black and female livelihoods. Plus: how the fight to raise the federal pay floor goes beyond the restaurant industry. This episode first aired in April. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During this crazy, difficult and strange pandemic year, cooking and eating has helped many of us take care of ourselves and each other. So we’re devoting this week's episode to talking all about food as a love language. You’ll hear from Danny Lavery and Chronicle reporter Annie Vainshtein, who have found joy, comfort, and sometimes even anxiety at the thought of having to prepare a meal. And we’ll get to know Susanna Zaraysky, a San Jose woman who prepares and delivers elaborate meal packages...

Cascatelli, a new pasta shape created by Dan Pashman, host of The Sporkful podcast, is making waves. Pashman joins Extra Spicy hosts Soleil Ho and Justin Phillips to discuss his multi-year creation process with the company Sfoglini, plus the criteria — ‘forkability,’ ‘sauceability’ and ‘toothsinkability’ — that led to the world’s newest pasta shape. Send us your questions about food, life and everything you’re obsessed with at sfchronicle.com/spicy. | Unlimited Chronicle access:...

Doctor Linda Shiue had a revelation: her prescription pad could motivate patients towards better eating habits. First, she wrote a prescription for kale chips; now her new cookbook, "Spicebox Kitchen," bridges her medical expertise with the joy of cooking healthy, plant-forward meals. She talks to hosts Soleil Ho and Justin Phillips about her journey from doctor to chef and the ancient tradition of food as medicine. Send us your questions about food, life and everything you’re obsessed with...

Singer-songwriter Michelle Zauner, known by the moniker, “Japanese Breakfast,” discusses her memoir, “Crying in H Mart.” The book explores Zauner’s complicated relationship with her late mother, Korean identity and processing grief. At the time of the interview, the topic was abstract for host Soleil Ho – until her own grandfather got sick. Extra Spicy dives into the complexities of food, family and finding solace through storytelling. Send us your questions about food, life and everything...

Sheldon Simeon, chef and owner of Tin Roof restaurants and two-time "Top Chef" finalist, talks all about Hawaiian food: what it is, what it isn’t, and how you can learn to cook it through his new cookbook, “Cook Real Hawai’i.” Sheldon addresses the relationship between tourism and the mainland’s image of the islands’ cuisine and how chefs like him are on a quest to reclaim the cuisine for his fellow Hawai’ians — to really capture the multicultural nuances of what people actually eat...

Tipped workers, like servers and bartenders, can be paid as low as $2.13 per hour in some states. Soleil Ho and Justin Phillips trace the origin of America’s tipping culture back to slavery, and how minimum wage politics mostly impact Black and female livelihoods. Plus: how the fight to raise the federal pay floor goes beyond the restaurant industry. Send us your questions about food, life and everything you’re obsessed with at sfchronicle.com/spicy. | Unlimited Chronicle access:...

There are 1.5 million children harvesting cocoa in West Africa. Major chocolate companies now face child slavery lawsuits, marking the first time a class action of this kind has been made against the cocoa industry in the United States. Simran Sethi, professor and freelance journalist, joins Soleil Ho to discuss the problems within the industry and what consumers can do about it. Send us your questions about food, life and everything you’re obsessed with at sfchronicle.com/spicy. | Unlimited...

Hosts Soleil Ho and Justin Phillips have a frank conversation about the tensions between Asian and Black communities, the dangers of a widening rift, and the media’s role in perpetuating misunderstanding. Send us your questions about food, life and everything you’re obsessed with at sfchronicle.com/spicy. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So this week, we were planning to publish an open conversation between Soleil Ho and Justin Phillips about crimes against Asian people, from the March 16 Atlanta shootings, to high profile violent incidents in the Bay Area captured on video that often showed Black aggressors. And we’re going to be honest: we weren’t quite sure how to put our feelings into words. We had recorded one version of this episode, but we realized we needed more time to process so we’re going to take another week. So...

What is the culinary equivalent to sweatpants? Katherine Spiers, the woman behind the food history podcast and newsletter Smart Mouth, joins hosts Soleil Ho and Justin Phillips to discuss the pandemic effect, food access issues and whether this past year has helped facilitate more empathy. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Send us your questions about food, life and everything you’re obsessed with at sfchronicle.com/spicy . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

Julia Turshen – a bestselling cookbook author, food writer and food equity advocate – joins Justin and Soleil to discuss all the considerations of recipe making. From pitch to publication, Turshen shares the steps of making her latest cookbook, “Simply Julia: 110 Easy Recipes for Healthy Comfort Food.” Plus, hosts Soleil Ho and Justin Phillips take on the headnotes debate. Send us your questions about food, life and everything you’re obsessed with at sfchronicle.com/spicy. | Unlimited...

Reem Assil, chef and founder of Reem’s California, talks about the struggle and necessity of transforming her Arab bakery shop in Oakland into a worker-owned operation amid the coronavirus pandemic. Assil’s restaurant models subvert and redefine the traditional definition of what a restaurant can and should be: Her team has been hard at work making meals for frontline workers, unhoused people and low-income community members while also cooking meal kits for customers. Plus: Hosts Soleil Ho...

The child of Iranian-Armenian refugees, writer and journalist Liana Aghajanian shares stories of growing up in the United States, the role that places like Chuck E. Cheese, Sizzler and IKEA have in teaching immigrant communities how to be American, and how she approaches writing about immigrant experiences in a way that embraces their nuances. Her multimedia project, Dining in Diaspora, documents the Armenian experience in America through food. Related: Read Liana Aghajanian’s piece about...

Alexis Nikole Nelson – @blackforager on TikTok and Instagram – talks about the racial history of foraging laws in the United States and what it’s like to teach people how to identify and cook wild foods. Send us your questions about food, life and everything you’re obsessed with at sfchronicle.com/spicy. |  Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 2021 Lunar New Year marks a full year of the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on San Francisco’s Chinatown. Well before the Bay Area shut down, America’s oldest Chinatown experienced reduced business and xenophobia. With thousands living in single-room-occupancy hotels and legacy businesses on the brink of closure, the neighborhood is fighting to survive. Related: Fifth & Mission podcast: Chinatown's Endangered Banquet Halls: pod.fo/e/b68e0 Send us your questions about food, life and...

What is “dude food” and where does it come from? Dr. Emily Contois explores these questions and more in her new book, "Diners, Dudes, and Diets: How Gender and Power Collide in Food Media and Culture." She dissects how Powerful Yogurt was created to appeal to men, the power that marketing departments have in upholding the patriarchy, and the many ways that “the dude” remains a privileged masculine figure. Send us your questions about food, life and everything you’re obsessed with at...

The coronavirus pandemic has devastated the restaurant industry since its outset in March. In the wake of shutdowns, paired with little material help from the government, more than 1,000 restaurants and bars have permanently closed across the country, leaving hundreds of thousands of people out of work. Restaurateur Samir Mogannam of Beit Rima, former restaurateur Hetal Shah of August 1 Five, Golden Gate Restaurant Association President Laurie Thomas, and former restaurant and cafe worker...

A new season of Extra Spicy is coming soon! Join hosts Soleil Ho and Justin Phillips as they attempt to decipher the bizarro happenings of the food world alongside a mix of fascinating folks. They dismantle diet culture and angry chefs, cover the restaurant apocalypse and pandemic pivots, and dish out advice you didn't know you needed. Extra Spicy will stimulate your mind and your appetite. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the final episode of season 1, hosts Soleil Ho and Justin Phillips apply their question, “What is this nonsense?” to the year 2020. From a KFC movie to the politics of French Laundry dinners, the hosts are wrapping up their top nonsense from a year like no other. Extra Spicy will return with season 2 on January 25, 2021. Send us your questions about food, life and everything you’re obsessed with at sfchronicle.com/spicy. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about...

In this week's episode, hear Soleil Ho and Justin Phillips' full interview with Kevin Vaughn: a writer, cook and tour operator based out of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Vaughn discusses travel writing, the problems within travel media and deconstructing ideas of how to tell the story of another place. Send us your questions about food, life and everything you’re obsessed with at sfchronicle.com/spicy. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

The author who until recently wrote under the moniker Your Fat Friend talks to Soleil Ho and Justin Phillips about the social realities of being a very fat person, the fallacy of tying morality with health, how fat people have difficulty getting the healthcare they actually need, and much more. Send us your questions about food, life and everything you’re obsessed with at sfchronicle.com/spicy. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

Anthony Salguero, chef / founder of Popoca in Oakland, was a guest on Extra Spicy back in August. In this bonus episode, you can hear Soleil Ho's full interview with Salguero, who talks about bringing traditional Salvadoran wood-fire cooking and recipes to the Bay Area and an evolving restaurant culture. Send us your questions about food, life and everything you’re obsessed with at sfchronicle.com/spicy. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

Extra Spicy is off for the season, but we're leaving you with a series of bonus episodes during the holidays. In this week's episode, we're bringing back Soleil Ho's full interview with Daniel M. Lavery, a writer and advice columnist who has produced satirical writing on the rhetoric of beans, breasts and "Columbo" in his newsletter, Shatner Chatner. Lavery talks about potatoes for dessert, imaginary restaurant ideas and the persistence of the dinner table as the place where family tensions...

Roman Mars, author and host of the design and architecture podcast, 99% Invisible, talks about how the pandemic creates an opportunity to make restaurant design more resilient by innovating parklets and reclaiming outdoor space. He also digs into how delivery apps and contactless delivery are destroying people’s empathy towards restaurant workers. Plus: This is the last episode of the season! Hosts Soleil Ho and Justin Phillips will release bonus episodes for the rest of the year and are...