It's the time of year for gathering together family and friends to celebrate all that has been and all that will be. An important element to all those spirited celebrations are the spirits themselves. On this week's show, we look at cocktail culture and mixed drinks perfect for any type of get together. We begin with T. Cole Newton, one of New Orleans' premiere bartenders and bar owners. His book, Cocktail Dive Bar, not only shares recipes from his famed Mid-City hangout Twelve Mile Limit, but also imparts plenty of thoughtful wisdom Cole has garnered from over a decade in business. Then, we learn the story of one of the Crescent City's most charming after-dinner traditions. First-time author Sue Strachan shares her knowledge of Café Brûlot, also the name of her book. And how many bottles does it take to make a bar? Lesley Jacobs Solmonson and David Solmonson, authors of The 12 Bottle Bar, provide advice on holiday entertaining and wise ways to imbibe.

Its New Orleans: Louisiana Eats

Spirited Celebrations

Food just tastes better when you know the farmer who grew it, the beekeeper who spun the honey from the hive, or the cottage producer of some delicious new fermentation purchased from your farmers market. On this week's show, we meet them all. We begin at JD Farms in Poplarville, Mississippi, where Donald Van De Werken and Jeff Brown have been growing the biggest, sweetest, best blueberries in the region. Then we’ll visit with Matthew Raiford, self-described CheFarmer who is spreading the good word of his Gullah Geechee heritage through a new book, Bress 'n' Nyam. Finally, we travel to Northern California to visit the apiary of beekeeping guru Spencer Marshall of Marshall's Farms, before meeting New Orleanians Adam Orzechowski and Emily Shoemaker of Farm to Funk Ferments.

Rooted In Agriculture

There's no denying the last two years have been a major challenge for everyone. Between the pandemic and the surge of natural disasters across the nation, we've seen it all. On this week's show, we learn how people are coping from coast to coast. We begin in New Orleans with Chef Eric Cook, who battled to keep his first restaurant Gris-Gris open in 2020 while somehow finding the inspiration to open his second, Saint John this year. Eric shares the story of his viral open letter to the city published at a make-or-break moment for Gris-Gris, which articulated the impossible situation he and other restaurateurs found themselves in dealing with the pandemic in the summer of 2020. Then, Gibson Thomas, publisher and editor of Edible Marin & Wine Country Magazine, shares the latest on how vintners are adapting to an ongoing series of wildfires burning across California. Finally, we meet Peterson Harter, a Crescent City native and entrepreneur, who has become an advocate for mental health in the Bay Area while operating his popular sandwich pop up, Sandy's SF. For more of all things Louisiana Eats, be sure to visit us at PoppyTooker.com.

Coping With Disaster

Though he’s been on the local restaurant scene since 2010, Chef Jeff Mattia didn’t move to Louisiana until well into his culinary career. At that point, the Marine vet had already worked with some serious luminaries like celebrity chefs Tom Collichio and Todd English. While his career was centered in New Orleans for the first four years, Jeff and his family felt decidedly more at home across the lake in St. Tammany Parish. There, he found the slower pace of life shared much in common with his Hartford, Connecticut birthplace. When the opportunity to open his own Northshore eatery finally presented itself, Jeff was all in, opening Pyre Provisions in Covington in 2020. Based on his pandemic take out success with his barbeque menu, Jeff expanded in 2021 opening Pyre BBQ on the Mandeville Trace. To learn more about Jeff’s restaurants, visit www.pyrerestaurant.com and www.pyrebbq.com.

Tammany Taste Quick Bites: Pyre Restaurant's Chef Jeff Mattia

On this week's show, we take a journey into the Ice Cream Underground to uncover the magicians taking America's favorite dessert to new heights right here in Louisiana. We begin with Sam Caruso, who has overcome a host of challenges to find a sweet opportunity with Laozi Ice Cream.

The Ice Cream Underground

New Orleans is well known for its legacy restaurant families. And now, just across the Mississippi River in Gretna, the Mandina clan is poised to claim its own place in our culinary pantheon. On this week's show, we meet three generations of family who have made Tony Mandina’s a Westbank culinary institution. We begin with the restaurant’s namesake founder and his wife Grace Blanchard Mandina. Having no prior experience in the business, the couple ran the restaurant with help from members of their extended family. Grace shares stories of some pitfalls and laughs in those early days, when the ragtag team found themselves having to make it up as they went along. The Mandinas’ Sicilian roots make their story a particularly rich and delicious one. We learn about the family's history, which can be traced back to Salaparuta, a town in southwest Sicily. Tony recounts the first time he met his aunts in the Old Country in 1960. Ever since then, the family has maintained a connection to their family across the Atlantic, even forging new relationships with distant cousins, resulting in an import/export business. Tony and Grace's three daughters began working in their parents' restaurant as children. In 2020, middle daughter Kolette Mandina-Ditta took over the reins of Tony Mandina's, along with her daughter Lindsey Marcel. Both of them join us in the studio to discuss growing up in the restaurant, and Kolette describes what motivated her to write "Tony Mandina’s Kitchen," a new book featuring a collection of family history and recipes.

Meet The Mandinas

How does a recipe become a retail offering? On this week's show, we track the path of great dishes and drinks from restaurant to retail. We begin with the Bayou State's spiciest new business, Louisiana Pepper Exchange. Founder and CEO Chris White tells the story of how a particular engineering feat of his led him to launch the new company. Then, we visit with research and development chef Ross Robertson, who is often tasked with turning a restaurant's signature drink or dish into a retail commodity. That's a dream that Warren Chapoton, founder of Juan's Flying Burrito, is currently pursuing. Warren and co-owner Jay Morris tell us the story of the New Orleans-based Creole-Mexican institution, and why they will soon be introducing their very own spice line. Finally, Christa Cotton of El Guapo Bitters shares how her company is manufacturing bitters and syrups so that every home bar is capable of mixing professional-style cocktails. For more of all things Louisiana Eats, be sure to visit us at PoppyTooker.com.

Restaurants to Retail

Located less than an hour from the New Orleans' French Quarter, Baton Rouge, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, St. Tammany Parish has long been a favorite vacation spot. The allure of piney woods, fresh air, charming historic towns, and delicious food has beckoned visitors for over a century. On this week's show, we take you along with us as we cross Lake Pontchartrain to meet some chefs and restaurateurs on Louisiana's Northshore. We begin at Tchefuncte's in Madisonville with Chef Michael Gottlieb, who’s introducing a whole new level of fine dining on the restaurant's namesake river. Downstairs from Tchefuncte's, Michael also operates The Anchor, which provides more casual dockside food and drink. Next, we meet the inimitable Liz Munson of Liz’s Where Y’at Diner, a place that offers a very special kind of family-style hospitality along with a killer crab meat grilled cheese sandwich. We also experience some authentic German-style fun at Horst Pfeifer’s Middendorf’s before catching up with Billy and Sarah Rieger to learn the story of the couple and their dream restaurant, Rieger’s On The Trace, which unfortunately couldn’t survive the pandemic. For more of all things Louisiana Eats, be sure to visit us at PoppyTooker.com.

Crossing The Causeway

Halloween is upon us and there's something spooky in the air! On this week's show, we have some very special treats (and no tricks – we promise!). We begin with Sally Asher, owner and operator of Red Sash Tours. On Halloweens past, Sally has taken us on special tours of St. Louis Cemetery No. 3. This year, we tour two different New Orleans graveyards in search of our dearly departed restaurateurs, barflies, and forgotten food luminaries.

Cemeteries, Specters & Poltergeists

On this week's show, we meet some folks who have moved on to new adventures in their lives. We begin with Chef Steve Himelfarb and his wife Becky Retz. In the summer of 2020, they closed their beloved bakery, the Cake Café, after 13 years of business. But this isn't the first major life change for them. Long before there was a Cake Café, Steve worked solely as a music engineer and producer – doing Grammy-nominated work with artists like Buckwheat Zydeco and Beausoleil. We hear about his career in music and food and learn about the new Cake Café Cookbook.

Taste Memories From The Marigny

In 2011, Jessica Harris wrote “High on the Hog,” a book that traces the origins of African American food. Ten years later, it has become the basis of the hit Netflix docuseries of the same name. On this show, Dr. Harris sheds light on the resilience and inventiveness of Black cooks who shaped American cuisine.

Africa To America

If you’ve ever had an encounter with a celebrity, you know you can dine out on that story for a long time. On this week's show, we hear from notable writers and chefs in their own right, whose brushes with fame come with a host of tales.

Books, Bands & Bon Vivants

Across the Bayou State, people are taking their destiny into their own hands and pursuing entrepreneurial dreams of owning their own business. On this week’s show, we encounter a Louisiana-style cornucopia of self-starters who forged their own path to find success in the sphere of food. We begin with Alfonzo Bolden, who, along with his brother Troy, is co-CEO of Cajun Nation Cajun Seasoning Company, based out of Lafayette. While there's no denying their food talents, Alfonzo and Troy's true genius lies in knowing just when to trademark a name – which for them, often precedes the product concept.

Patents and Pop-Ups

Whether it's loss due to recent hurricanes or the overwhelming, devastating loss suffered the world over during the pandemic, grief has been an unwelcome guest in many people's lives these days. On this week's show, we take a look at grief, its effects, and the gifts that sometimes accompany it. We begin with Merissa Nathan Gerson, a new New Orleanians whose time here has been gravely marked by the unexpected death of her father. In her new book, "Forget Prayers, Bring Cake" Merissa shares an honest, unwavering look at her life during her year of grieving.

Good Grief

Between the levee and the Mississippi River is the batture – a lively slip of wilderness that a tiny community calls home. There's batture land right here in the midst of metropolitan New Orleans – but unless you're lucky enough to know a batture dweller, there's a good chance you weren't aware of one of the city’s most unconventional neighborhoods. That was certainly true of Macon Fry when he arrived in New Orleans in the 1980s. After a chance encounter with a batture resident at a local watering hole, Macon got his first glimpse of life on the river's edge and became so entranced that he built himself a life there. His obsession with the batture ultimately led him to publish his new book, "They Called Us River Rats: The Last Batture Settlement of New Orleans." Macon joins us in the studio to discuss his decades of research about lives spent there in relative obscurity. Then, we head over the levee to visit with New Orleans chef and restauranteur Dickie Brennan at his new batture abode, where he's enjoying all the benefits of life in one of the last "camps" located there. Surrounded by lush vegetation and the kind of fauna found in more rural environs, Dickie can often be found taking in the outdoors on his deck – watching ships, tugs, and paddle wheelers make the turn on the Mississippi. Finally, Tulane environmental professor Oliver Houck shares tales of the countless hours spent observing life – wild and otherwise – as he walked his beloved dog along the batture. For more of all things Louisiana Eats, be sure to visit us at PoppyTooker.com.

Life On The River's Edge

On Louisiana Eats! NOLA food icon Poppy Tooker takes us into Louisiana's wide open fields, deep waters, bustling markets, and busy kitchens. Poppy's people are carrying on the traditions of Louisiana's wholly local but universally celebrated food, from farm to table, and sometimes barroom! Poppy roams the State to find the folks whose inspiration and innovation are taking the abundant wealth of Louisiana's food culture into the future. Let's eat!

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Its New Orleans: Louisiana Eats

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