Why are the sickest people in our country being served the worst food? Not content to limit our complaints to hospital food, we move on to school food. Shouldn’t it be better? Can we fix it? Let’s talk about it in this bonus episode of “Three Ingredients.” And should you care to read the article Ruth wrote about school food in 1978 for New West magazine, there’s a copy in this Dec. 2021 edition of Ruth’s Substack newsletter La Briffe. Also, find the story Laurie mentions by Jenn Harris on Los...

In which we discuss our favorite scripted food shows. A few old favorites, and a couple you might never have heard of. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit threeingredients.substack.com/subscribe

In Episode 9 of “Three Ingredients,” Ruth, Nancy and Laurie have a heated discussion about chiles. First we talk about how they hurt so good that sriracha has possibly become an old lady condiment. Then we talk about how they hurt so bad that Nancy once ended up with her hands in buckets of ice water after a memorable encounter with a lot of chiles. And speaking of hands, Nancy would like you to please throw out your salad tongs and start massaging your dear little lettuce leaves with your...

What will you eat? What won't you? In this bonus episode of "Three Ingredients" we discuss eating some things that many people consider very strange. Tarantula anyone? How about guinea pig? Then we consider the lobster — and discuss other unmentionable aspects of cuisine. And have you contemplated the human toll of eating vegetables? Are you ready for some food for thought? We've got it. --- To receive new episodes of "Three Ingredients" as they drop, sign up to become a free subscriber at...

What do you eat for breakfast? In Episode 8 of “Three Ingredients” we introduce you to what might be the strangest way to start the day. It’s also the most delicious. Then we talk about our favorite condiments with odes to great balsamic vinegar, truffles and vanilla in its many forms. And then, because we just can’t help ourselves, we rag on one that none of us can stand. Laurie shares a funny memory of her first foie gras, Ruth speaks wistfully of a great bourbon she can no longer afford...

A friend shares what Italian babies are fed as their first solid food. It is, frankly, hard to believe. But then we fed our kids some pretty strange foods too. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit threeingredients.substack.com/subscribe

In Episode 7 of “Three Ingredients,” we talk about what separates restaurant chefs from home cooks. Is it training? Obsession? A drive for perfection? Or something less tangible? One secret: Nancy says she's never thought of herself as a chef. We ask why.  We also have a discussion about open kitchens in restaurants, including Nancy’s experiences cooking before an audience of diners at Spago and her own mozzarella bar at Mozza, as well as the time Laurie first realized the kitchen watches...

How do you feel about people who come in and just take over your kitchen? That’s the burning question that starts off our conversation and reveals Ruth’s territorial tendencies. From there, we morph into the etiquette of pot luck dinners. And then we get into the whole subject of dinner parties. What is it, exactly that makes a good one? The truth is, we are deeply divided on that subject. We can’t even agree on the timing of the cooking or how to set the table. But one thing is for sure, by...

You’ll hear no iceberg lettuce shaming in this episode. The great little food shops we talk about in this episode * Talbott and Arding, where Ruth does a lot of shopping. 202 Allen Street, Hudson New York * We Got Nuts, Nancy’s online source for Antep Turkish pistachios. She buys them by the five-pound bag. * Breadfolks, the Hudson bakery Nancy asks Ruth about, was opened by celebrity portrait photographer Norman Jean Roy and his artist wife Joanna Jean Roy. Ruth says they did “the greatest”...

What happens when the health department shows up during the busiest time at a restaurant? It's not pretty. Plus, the recipe Ruth invented for those times when she's out of town and craving her favorite food cart treat. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit threeingredients.substack.com/subscribe

How to shock a badass woman chef In our fourth episode, Nancy talks about winning the James Beard Award for Best Pastry Chef in 1991, and how aghast the presenter, French chef and cookbook author Madeleine Kamman, was that an upstart from California had beat out two famous men with French and Swiss training. The predicted winner was the legendary Albert Kumin, the original pastry chef of The Four Seasons who went on to work in Jimmy Carter’s White House kitchen and founded the now-closed...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit threeingredients.substack.com Diamond versus Morton kosher salt Walk into almost any restaurant kitchen and you’ll find the familiar deep red-and-white boxes of Diamond Crystal kosher salt. As Nancy tells us, she even takes a box to Italy when she heads there for the summer because it’s the salt she knows best. Kosher salt (with the exception of Jacobsen’s, which we discuss below), is…

We’re in Hawaii this week — at least Nancy is — and we talk about everything from native fruits to Spam, one of the few foods in the world that Ruth has never eaten. Ruth talks about the Zen of pie making, Nancy gives a shout out to two of her favorite kitchen utensils and Laurie waxes poetic about why Jonathan Gold fell in love with the island. Leaving Hawaii we discuss why failure in the kitchen is a good thing. Then it’s on to the politics of pesto — along with a handy little trick to make...

Why do we call Nancy the queen of pistachios? What secrets can Ruth tell us about critic bait? And is Laurie really the only one of the three of us who loves tripe? Also, can food be too flavorful? These are just some of the things we’re talking about in today’s episode, including the vanity of cooking. We dish on show-off chefs and why Nancy says Thomas Keller and Massimo Bottura don’t fit in that category. We talk about why we love Sarah Cicolini’s Rome restaurant Santo Palato and the Pie...

The debut episode of “Three Ingredients." Artichokes Alice Waters would hate, fish lessons, trashcan stuffing, a panna cotta cook-off...plus Ruth and Nancy throw lemons at each other. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit threeingredients.substack.com/subscribe