Obsessives On Chow.com

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This is a regular series called Obsessives, in which CHOW explores the worlds of singularly focused food-industry figures. These are the people with the dirty hands, answering detailed questions about the work they do. (Author: CHOW.com)
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Recent episodes from Obsessives On Chow.com

  • Obsessives: Cheese
    Published: Sep 12, 08
    Author, television host, entrepreneur, and cheese expert Will Studd has fought to allow raw-milk cheese to be sold in Australia (those same laws can have an impact on U.S. restrictions as well). Studd has traveled the world with a film crew trying to record the traditions of artisanal cheesemaking.
     
  • Obsessives: Menu
    Published: Aug 28, 08
    Rebecca Federman, librarian, blogger, and menu aficionado, takes CHOW into the bowels of the New York Public Library, sharing stories about the library’s menu collection and its founder, Miss Frank E. Buttolph.
     
  • Obsessives: Pizza
    Published: Aug 27, 08
    An oven built by hand, tile by tile. Four pizzas on the menu, with no fancy-pants toppings. Anthony Mangieri does one thing at Una Pizza Napoletana, and he does it the very best way he can.
     
  • Obsessives: Absinthe
    Published: Aug 26, 08
    It’s very simple: alcohol, wormwood, and some anise characteristics. But not simple at all: The carefully calibrated mix of aromatics and herbs that goes into the absinthe made by Lance Winters of St. George Spirits took extensive testing to get just right.
     
  • Obsessives: Honey
    Published: Aug 26, 08
    Sonoma County beekeeper Serge Labesque treats his bees with respect, though that’s probably not all that’s needed to save the world’s swarms from Colony Collapse Disorder. The sticky stuff’s far-reaching power includes healing burns and adorning a fine panna cotta recipe.
     
  • Obsessives: Wedding Cake
    Published: Aug 25, 08
    Wedding cake designer Shinmin Li started baking wedding cakes after training in fine art. It’s not that jarring of a change, if you think about it. Li owns I Dream of Cake in San Francisco, and spends her time obsessing over cake consistency, design details, and whether her clients will eat the finished product.
     
  • Obsessives: Sake
    Published: Aug 25, 08
    Beau Timken of True Sake is proud to be called a sake samurai. His fanaticism comes across in his enthusiasm for junmai, daiginjo, and ginjo, and he rails against those who encourage libation without education. Take the hint: learn from Beau.
     
  • Obsessives: Bread
    Published: Aug 18, 08
    Craig Ponsford, founder of Artisan Bakers and chairman of the Bread Bakers Guild of America, discusses the intricacies of kneading, starters, and fresh bread. Plus: the quest for holey bread. And the money question: What, really, does artisan mean?
     
  • Obsessives: Tea
    Published: Aug 11, 08
    Tea: It’s so much more than a small afternoon pleasure. Connoisseur James Norwood Pratt puts tea in context, as not only “one of the world’s greatest handmade works of art,” but an antiwar palliative. Along the way, he weighs in on Starbucks, tea bags, and water quality.
     
  • Obsessives: Offal
    Published: Aug 4, 08
    Chris Cosentino, chef at San Francisco’s Incanto restaurant, is an offal evangelist. He’s the one people turn to when they have questions about parts of the animal beyond tri-tip and sirloin. Here, he talks about the lost connection between pasture and plate, the ways that both PETA and the USDA have gone off course, and the joys of possum-eatin’. Plus: He escorts us through a full offal dinner.
     
  • Obsessives: Seaweed
    Published: Aug 4, 08
    Meet John and Barbara Stephens-Lewallen: They harvest seaweed. Operators of the Mendocino Sea Vegetable Company in Philo, California, the Stephens-Lewallens are farmers/fishermen of another stripe. Their catch includes bladderwrack, sea lettuce, kombu, and nori.The couple reveals the culinary delights of seaweed tea and fried seaweed. And Chef Eric Tucker of Millennium Restaurant demonstrates what someone can do with a little sea palm.
     
  • Obsessives: Jam
    Published: Aug 4, 08
    Jam maker June Taylor has a rabid following in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she creates and sells her preserves. Here, she explains how she makes marmalade, including the mysteries of natural pectin, the importance of instinct, and the economies of scale in artisanal production.
     
  • Obsessives: Coffee
    Published: Aug 4, 08
    Arno Holschuh, barista at Blue Bottle Coffee in San Francisco, discusses the big and the little: the surface area of the bean, the thousand small cuts that will kill your espresso, and why Starbucks is not so bad.