Hey Ryan Reynolds here wishing you a very happy half off holiday because right now Mint Mobile is offering you the gift of 50% off unlimited. To be clear that's half price, not half the service. Mint is still premium unlimited wireless for a great price.
So That means Half day. Yep. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 for three months plan equivalent to $15 per month required. New customer offer for first three months only.
Speed slow under 25 gigabytes, networks busy. Taxes and fees extra. Cementmobile.com. Ah, DSW, birthplace of the humble brag. Here, the shoes are so good, no one would ever know how little you paid if you didn't go telling everyone that is.
And with never-ending options for every style, mood, and occasion, all at really great prices, we'll definitely give you something to brag about.
So go ahead, stock up on fresh sneakers from your favorite brands, or try those boots you always secretly knew you could pull off. Find the shoes that get you at prices that get your budget at DSW stores or at dsw.com. Let us surprise you. Good morning. I'm Jane Pauley, and this is a special edition of Sunday Morning.
It's the food issue. our annual tasting menu of mouth-watering stories, whetting our appetites for Thanksgiving. If you've already done your holiday grocery shopping, you may have noticed that when it comes to nutrients lately, One is being pushed, promoted, and plugged above all others. Protein. It's seemingly everywhere we turn.
So this morning Lee Cowan asks, Is protein good nutrition or just the latest fad? How much protein should you eat per day to maximize muscle growth? Protein is today's dietary discussion. An obsession, really. The protein train has been coming for a while.
Is there kind of a limit to how much you can put in before? You start degrading the taste. protein and its pervasiveness. Ahead. on Sunday morning.
Leah Michelle became a household name for her spicy starring role on the hit TV series Glee. But her path to stardom began on Broadway, and now she's back, taking her place at the table with Tracy Smith. Yes. For me, look. Leah Michelle has been on and off Broadway for 30 years, but she's hungry for more.
I will have a pizza in my dressing room waiting for me after we open an opening night. You need a pizza. Yeah. Later on Sunday morning, Leah Michelle eating it up. Sauerkraut.
It's tangy, packed with vitamins, and more and more of us are sweet on it, as Jonathan Vigliotti will attest. No baseball hot dog is complete without it. But Sauerkraut's true story goes way beyond the bun. If you've never tried it, it's wonderful. A fresh world of flavor and fermentation.
is bubbling up. That's coming up. on Sunday morning. We all have them. favorite foods that make us feel good.
even if they're not necessarily good for us. We've asked Susan Spencer to explore one of life's mysteries. Just what is it about comfort food? Sugarpie, I'm always thinking about you. From mac and cheese to mashed potatoes to your favorite fresh-baked pie.
We all know the power of comfort food. You know, it almost like can transport us to another time or another place in our transport us to another time and place. I believe that's true. The truth behind comfort food. Later on Sunday morning.
And there is much more on our menu. Throughout the morning, David Pogue will share what we're calling Feeding the Soul, stories of people helping people through food. Martha Teischner drops in on a main cafe helping to keep local journalism alive. One order at a time. Moraka offers us a sampling of some favorite presidential meals from history.
Faith Saly shows how food influencers have helped turn charcuterie into edible works of art. Nancy Giles explores the African-American roots of that global phenomenon, Korean fried chicken. Connor Knighton on an unlikely spot to share beloved family recipes. and more.
now serving a decidedly delectable Sunday morning for the 23rd of November, 2025. and we'll be back after this. Yeah. Of all our national holidays, it's possible none embraces the idea of comfort food more than Thanksgiving. But why do we find dishes like these more comforting than others?
Susan Spencer has some food for thought. Sugar Pie, I'm always thinking about you. This bakery in Vermont is home to 50 different types of pie, each one somebody's favorite comfort food. You were quoted as saying if comfort food were an Olympic sport I'd be a contender. Yeah, I was pretty sure I'd get a gold medal.
Well I love to envision different varieties of comfort foods and then make them into pies. From classic apple to maple cream, a key ingredient is nostalgia, says Suzanne Tomlinson, the owner of Poorhouse Pies. Take the chicken pot pie.
So chicken pot pie is one of my very favorite comfort foods and it's probably because my mom used to make it with me and I still remember her and I remember the smell of her kitchen and her hands making it and it connects me to her. But what defines a food as a comfort food? I think something that gives you that warm and fuzzy feeling like, oh, my stress is going to be relieved and I'm going to remember a time when I felt safe and loved. How many pies do you make a day? Anywhere from 150 on our slower days to up to over a thousand around the holidays.
Every pie contains memories, but certainly that's not all it contains. Is there anything that you couldn't put in a pie? I don't think so. This is our pulled pork mac and cheese pie. Say mac and cheese pie.
As you can see, the sucker weighs three and a half pounds, so you're feeding your family with that. That's right, pulled pork mac and cheese pie. And no, it will not be found in the lean cuisine aisle. You're not going to run a marathon after eating that. Certainly not.
No. I'm never going to run another marathon ever again. Do all comfort foods have high sugar, high fat, salt? When we think comfort food, we don't We don't see people reaching out to broccoli. Dr.
Uma Naidu, an author and nutritional psychiatrist, says the sugar in comfort food hits our brains in the same pleasure center as street drugs do, making us feel instantaneously happy. And sugar is almost more powerful in certain studies than cocaine. That's an amazing assertion that sugar is as powerful as cocaine. When someone tells me that they're addicted to sugar, I do take them seriously. Being addicted to comfort food usually means eating more of it, which she says is of course a bad idea.
In the short term, you may feel calmer or better, but in the longer term, it's going to wreck your mental clarity, your focus, your cognition, and actually. It won't feel good. Is there a culture that has comfort foods that are not high in fat and sugar?
So if you look at kimchi or bibimbap, these are Korean comfort foods, let's say, right? And these have, you know, vegetables incorporated into them and at their core. Then you also have Indian cuisine like dao, that's like a lentil dish. And the spices are so delicious. It's a nice plant-based option.
Plant-based option is a key refrain for Stephanie Sassos. This is Comfort Food Season, right? That's right. A registered dietitian and head of the Good Housekeeping Institute Nutrition and Fitness Lab. We are making roasted cauliflower mashed potatoes.
This is not on everyone's list for comfort food. No. She says most comfort food, even a butter-laden classic like mashed potatoes, can be made healthier by a simple tweak or two. In this case, just add cauliflower. But is the key here just sort of not mentioning this?
I mean, I think it depends on the crowd, right? Yeah. You could do a surprise. Let's see what everyone thinks about. Surprise, cauliflower.
the true surprise was in the tasting. Really? It's actually pretty good. That's not bad. No, but it's got to be better than not bad.
I think it is.
So how do you feel about comfort food? I love them. I love comfort foods. I think they're... You're not supposed to admit that.
No, I'm only human. What message would you have to comfort food lovers as Thanksgiving approaches? Enjoy in moderation. Make them with someone you love. You know, pass it on.
They are passed from generation to generation. I love to feed people their comfort foods. It's one of the building blocks of a healthy diet. And it's having a moment. Lee Cowan now with a heaping portion of protein.
At the Nasonville Dairy in Marshfield, Wisconsin. Little Miss Muffet might not recognize her Curds and Way anymore. Back when she was sitting on her tough head though, she was quite the trendsetter. Whey, the watery byproduct of curdling milk. is packed with the one ingredient that Americans today Can't get enough of.
Hey, I got you guys protein shakes. Awesome. I love protein. I know you love protein. I love protein too.
Yeah, protein rocks. Call it a craze, a trend, a fad? Whatever it is, Lego MyProtein Eggo. Protein is the macronutrient of the moment. Protein popcorn from a Kardashian.
Are we really doing this right now? Yes, we are. These aren't popcorns, they're protein popcorn. Last year, approximately 71% of consumers identified protein as the single nutrient they most frequently try to eat. which gives master cheesemakers like Ken Hyman The real Cheshire Grin.
If this was a baseball game and you had a nine-inning game, we are barely in the third inning. This is a whole new ball game. Whole new ball game. Whey used to be drained and fed to pigs or used as fertilizer. And the way itself?
It's right there. But today. Its protein content is so valuable. The cheese it comes from is almost secondary. Oh my god, you have to eat so much protein.
Proteins from whey. or from plants or animals. are essential for building muscle. For those on GLP-1 weight loss drugs and those who are older, consuming added protein is actually recommended. Introducing new protein balls, packed with protein added.
So that's an appetite that corporate America has been more than happy to feed. Won't discount. Yummy, all in your tummy. But here's the thing: sometimes protein doesn't taste that good. Alyssa Buckaloo is Vice President of Innovation and Quality.
at General Mills, near Minneapolis. The folks who brought us the Pillsbury Doughboy. and Betty Crocker. The company's test kitchen has been pretty busy making protein tasty. General Mills has more than 350 protein-fueled products.
Including Annie's protein-packed supermac. Mm-hmm. and Progresso's Pit Master Protein Soups. It is very hearty. It'll really fill you up.
And this year, it even started adding protein. to its 80-year-old stalwart. Cheerios. It still tastes like Cheerios. Really, the goal is to make sure that people love the taste and they can get the protein benefit, but they're not tasting the protein.
But it got us wondering: do we really need to add more protein into things? It's a great question. We definitely know that consumers are seeking more protein. And even though many adults are getting enough protein, they're not necessarily getting enough. Varieties of protein, whether that's coming from plants like pea protein or from animals like.
When we say protein, protein, protein, it's like that's important, but that's just one of 50 nutrients we need. Joanne Slavin is Professor of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Minnesota. Scientists say a 150-pound man, for example, should get around 55 grams of protein a day. for women? It's a little less.
But according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. adults are eating about 20% more. than what's recommended.
So you don't even need two of these to get to your recommended dietary allowance of protein. And if your body isn't using it, she says, It's just extra calories and you're going to gain weight. One other thing to consider. Just because it says added protein on the label, she says. doesn't necessarily make those products magically healthy.
Ultra-processed foods with protein. Or still. Alter processed foods. Do I want to put protein in beverages? Do I want it in stack foods?
I'd rather you just enjoyed your food. You'll get enough protein. She says a few eggs, a handful of nuts, and yes, good old-fashioned cheese. will likely get you most of what your body needs. But for those who require or want more protein, Ken Hymen remains thankful for the wonderful Profit Center that is.
The Humble Dairy Cat. The only thing we haven't sold is the moo. If I could sell the move, we'd sell the move. Throughout the morning, David Pogue will be sharing stories of people helping others through food. starting off with a very special woman in Pennsylvania.
Desiree Murphy Morrissey has lived through some tough times. Being very young and working and going to school and being married, I had to rely on SNAP. I had to rely on food pantries. And then in 2001, I had a devastating fire. We lost everything.
Somehow, those experiences primed her for kindness. Once you felt a pain, you don't want anybody else to feel that pain, so you do whatever you can to lift other people as you climb.
So during COVID, as local food pantries shut down, she offered her backyard as a storage spot for their pallets of food. It wasn't supposed to be direct service. And then we had one little Latina lady who walked down my street and she said, Is this free? Can I have some? We kind of looked at each other and was like, Sure, go ahead.
She said, Can I call my sister? I was like, Okay. Murphy's Giving Market was born right here in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. We didn't think we would be here five and a half years later, but we kept seeing the need and need didn't change. 81, 82, or chentaitres.
It's like a food pantry started not by a nonprofit or a government, but by one concerned citizen. It's not just about giving them the food, it's about helping to lift them up. giving them dignity, letting them know they're cared for.
Next. Two years ago, the market moved from Morrissey's backyard to a dedicated building, staffed mostly by volunteers and stocked by donations from supermarkets, city food banks, and individuals. But it's still nothing like traditional food pantries where each customer gets a pre-packed bag. Thank you. This should be a grocery store, but they can take their stuff themselves.
They can make their own choices. Today, Murphy's Giving Market is the biggest food pantry in the county. Recently, its popularity has been growing. for all the wrong reasons. It started with You know, January 2025, you know, nutrition programs were rolled back, Head Start and federal school programs are being threatened.
All those rollbacks roll down to us. That hurts our people in our community. It's a lifeline for about 400 families, including Ashley Wright. I am a nurse but I lost my job last week, so... I'm just trying to like make it keep the faith.
As for Desiree, this isn't even her real job. I sleep about three to four hours a day. She's a special needs coordinator for the city of Philadelphia. She also has a husband and five daughters. I just don't understand why it's your job to fulfill this incredibly desperate need.
How can you go home and see a need and not help?
So that's kind of how I feel. Like it's my social responsibility. I have to do something. If the mark of a great restaurant is longevity. Two of the greatest in history can be found in Madrid.
But which of them is really the oldest? That, as Seth Doan explains, depends on who you ask. Bring both the celebrities. Oh. On a Friday night this month, diners at Botine did not seem to care.
It was after 11 p.m. We were trying to get reservations here. It was difficult. We are fully booked until the next year. They've had this attention for decades, says owner Jose Pepe Gonzalez, who still remembers his father's expression after a 1987 phone call about their Guinness world record.
Gonzalez is the third generation of the second family to own this 300-year-old restaurant. Thank you, Grandfather. And family recipes abound. Had you the second pig just to? No, I should have.
My mother-in-law m is from Sardinia and she makes an amazing suckling pig. Whoa, well, okay. I think um I don't want to go there, but I think this this is better. This should have been better than my mother-in-law. Yes, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. One of the secrets is tarragon-infused white wine. Oh my god. and being cooked in their continuously burning wood oven. I think it's almost as old as the restaurant, maybe.
Over there you can see the engraved the year of the building. 1725. But there's another year, an earlier one, advertised across town. You've got 1702 on the sign in front of you. And everywhere we have 1702.
But now you're trying to prove it. That's right. Irene Guinales believes Casa Pedro may be older than Botin. It's been in the family for at least 10 generations. And before working in the restaurant each weekend, they never missed the family meal.
They say Casapedro's old documents were burned during the Spanish Civil War. But Irene's book-loving husband Jorge was digging around. And suddenly, Irene, I found a document that proved that the restaurant was. Was alive in seventeen fifty. Tracing further back to 1702 is another hurdle, but there's no doubt there's history here.
All these secret ways were used during the Civil War in Spain. Quenales took us under the restaurant to the wine cellar. Are you going to behave or not? To see the bottles her father bought to mark special occasions, a gesture she says that always makes her cry. Oh no.
For he in wine is his type.
So he has bought a s the The present bottles of the day as his nephews, my son and my brother's son.
Sorry. No, it's uh so emotional for you. This place is your family and This place is our life. It's a life her son Gonzalo, who's in hospitality school. Hopes to carry forward.
So It's a matter to demonstrate that my Grandfather was right. We'd come to Spain's capital thinking we'd find a business story about sheer competition. but we're surprised by what we heard. How much of that attention is because you're the oldest restaurant in the world? Unfortunately, a lot.
You say unfortunately people come. Because I want them to come here because of the food I will serve here. This is not some vicious battle, but rather a story about family pride and tradition. And okay, yes, some very good food. The man is healthy.
For those of us sweet on a sour sort of cabbage, Jonathan Vigliotti is serving up something savory. What you got there, sir?
Sour cut Sunday. Yeah. There's always room for sour in Waynesville, Ohio. Where also you're gonna find a baked with sauerkraut in it. From sundaes and pizza to donuts.
The tangy condiment, best known in the U.S. atop hot dogs or, in a Ruben sandwich, sauerkraut, gets entree status at the city's annual Sauerkraut Festival. If you've never tried it, it's wonderful. The celebration first began in 1970, a town with German roots honoring the Eastern European staple. It smashed with pretty doggone good.
Doggone good, but long misunderstood. Just ask Sander Katz, whose cabin tucked away in the mountains outside Nashville, Tennessee, is always bubbling with kraut. At its simplest, sauerkraut could just be cabbage and salt. Katz has written several books on fermentation, including Sauerkraut, earning him the nickname Sanderkraut. I spend like, you know, five minutes turning the vegetables and then massaging them.
The final step: jarring and fermenting, a natural weeks-long process where good bacteria turns it sour. It's a relative of pickling, but without the vinegar. What does sauerkraut mean? The German word sauerkraut just means like sour herbs or sour greens. Sauerkraut was first born in China, where workers building the Great Wall fermented cabbage and rice wine, a method that evolved into Korea's spicy kimchi before traveling west, where Germans fermented their own variety using salt.
The ultimate practical benefit of fermentation has been for people in temperate regions with limited growing seasons to be able to preserve some of the vegetable bounty to feed them through the winter. Only in plant foods do you find vitamin C, and vitamin C deficiency, you know, in the course of human history has been a huge problem. Captain Cook fed sauerkraut to his sailors to prevent scurvy, helping make the exploration of the Pacific Islands possible. The list of health benefits continues to grow. Eating bacteria-rich foods, which can help to increase biodiversity in the gut, can potentially even improve mental health.
This is our new walk-in cooler. We call it Greenland. Greenland. Greenland. Real Pickles, a co-op in Greenfield, Massachusetts, shreds half a million pounds of cabbage into $2 million a year.
We are in a section of the warehouse that we're using as a fermentation room. As head of marketing, it's Kate Hunter's job to pitch kraut. I walk through that front door. And immediately you have that smell. Today you're smelling cabbage.
Likely the remnants of a lot of garlic processing, some ginger processing. Oh, yeah. On kimchi days, it's very, very strong smelling here. Other flavors include turmeric and chili, but they're top seller, the award-winning original recipe. Just five ingredients, cabbage, salt, caraway and dill seeds, and the right amount of fermentation.
We're here to check on the pH levels of our sauerkraut. What's the key number? Anything below four. That's a good batch. That's a great batch.
Another batch, ready to digest. Put it on your hot dog for an easy transition into the fermented world, but pretty soon you'll be putting it on your salad or you'll be eating it right out of the jar. I mean, it's... That's good. Uh It's not presidential politics on Moraka's mind.
It's the presidential pallet. I hope you are hungry. It depends. If you've ever wondered what former President Richard Nixon ate on special occasions, and really who hasn't wondered, Ask Bennett Ray. At first glance, this looks like a delicious dessert, something strawberry.
Yeah, sadly, there's no strawberries. This is ham mousse, a favorite of Richard Nixon's, a Pat Nixon recipe that we're gonna try. Ray hosts the online series Cookin' with Congress out of his Claremont, California kitchen. I'm meeting like the president for an entire day, and today it's Teddy Roosevelt, the man, the myth, the legend. Where he recreates the recipes of politicians past and present.
Cheers. Cheers. Richard eats his hammock. This is not for the faint of stomach. I'm not happy.
So this is it? This is it? This is the book? Ray was first inspired by this 1989 South Dakota Centennial Cookbook. A gift from his wife's grandmother.
I saw all these recipes, right? It was from congresspeople, senators, lieutenant governors, governors, H.W. Bush. from Al Reagan and they were all Terrible. It made me laugh so hard seeing these like very serious politicians with their very serious recipes for like happy ham and wine jelly.
I just fell in love with it. Cumin coriander, garma salad. And so he's cooked and consumed everything from Congresswoman Ilhan Omar's little mocha hot dishu. To former rep George Santos's Carbonara with Snowpeas, to former Senator Larry Craig's SuperTuber. Senator Larry Craig made me shove a hot dog through an entire potato.
But it was when Ray decided to eat like all of America's former presidents that he was cooking with gas. had this idea to really have the first-hand experience of what it feels like To eat like them and see what I discover. Lunch, four lamb chops, turtle soup. Things got heavy when he ate like President William Howard Taft for a day. How heavy?
8,200 calories heavy. Every meal was a feast. I mean, starting with 12-ounce steak. For breakfast. For breakfast, yes.
Steak for breakfast, like alarmingly popular. In the 19th century. Yes, yes. But his doctor had actually told him: you need to cut down two 12 ounces from your regular 24-ounce steak in the morning. Wow.
Okay. We were in the kitchen with Ray when he was preparing President James Garfield's favorite starter.
So this is James Garfield squirrel soup. Yes. And it actually looks terrific. Ooh, it smells good. The 20th President was in office for five months when he was shot in July of 1881.
Garfield lay dying for almost three months. They tried to use this soup to revive the president whenever he was on his deathbed. Excellent. Pretty good, right? I'm sorry that President Garfield didn't live longer to enjoy this more.
You might be asking where one finds the main ingredient in squirrel soup. That's where Ray's father comes in. He always keeps three or four gray squirrels in the freezer. And it's kind of cool because he's from Western Pennsylvania, James Garfield from Ohio.
So you're pretty much getting the exact kind of squirrel that would have been around in the 1880s. Very nice. And it made me forget about Richard Nixon's ham moose. Yeah, sorry I had to just don't look that way. Why have shrimp on a salad when you can have shrimp inside?
While eating like politicians might seem like a niche, for Bennett Ray, it's the culmination of two of his lifelong ambitions. And by the time I was six, I really wanted to be a chef and the president of the United States at the same time. This is about as close as I can get. I don't have the bona fides to do either one, but. I think you found a way to thread that needle with this project.
Yeah. KFC is the subject of this story. but not the KFC you're thinking about. With Nancy Giles, you're in for a crunchy feast. At New York City's Madison Square Garden.
Nice. People are showing up for more than just the home team. I love the Knicks and I love Pawd Chicken. It turns out Korean fried chicken has a fan base of its own here at Chef Judy Jews Soulberg. It's good.
Perfect for the game. I'm serving to the masses. This is no longer niche.
Now that I'm able to serve Korean food in some of the largest arenas in the world is absolutely a pinch-me moment. In the United States, chain restaurants serving this chicken have multiplied by 22% this year alone. It's delicious. The sweet and the spice. Bonshan is one of those chains.
Suzy Tsai is the CEO, overseeing nearly 500 locations around the globe. We're in Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar, and near Salt Lake City, Utah, where, for the curious, the Korean-American population is less than 1%. What is it that makes Korean fried chicken So Popular, so special. The way we fry it, the way we season it, our fried chicken is ham-battered, double-fried. We fry it very crispy.
Right. And on top of it, we're able to add sauces, whether it's spicy, whether it's soy. giving it a signature taste and sound. There's actually contests going on who can make the loudest crunch sound. People love eating and just sharing how they eat now.
Um Suzy Tsai says it's part of a growing appetite for Korean culture. I can destroy the hunters. For good. From movies and TV, and beauty, it's everywhere. And there's just been this huge demand and following for Korean food.
But get this: the recipe for Korean fried chicken comes from an American cookbook. Dating back to African American soldiers during the Korean War. Many of them were from the Jim Crow South and served in segregated units and there are actually records that they actually shared their food with the locals. I'm proud of my people. I love that.
I think it's amazing, you know? This kind of became a cultural exchange because, you know, when you're away from home and you're fighting a war, what do you want? You want comfort. It's so poetic, isn't it, to see that this comes back to the United States after all of these different iterations. Yeah, I mean, I love that.
It's kind of a full circle moment, like literally, because it's come back around the world in this amazing way and in a type of popularity, unseen. Today, Korean fried chicken is served spicy or sweet in casual or upscale settings at restaurants like Autoboy and Coco Doc in New York. where it's served with caviar and champagne. It's a popularity that amazes Chef Judy Ju. I grew up in Jersey and I was embarrassed by my lunchbox.
It's incredible that these flavors that I grew up with that I was once embarrassed about are now going mainstream. It still is an education, but People's first foot into learning about a culture is usually through the food. It's their stomach that drives them. They end up in a Korean restaurant, and they usually go for a food that seems familiar. Like fried chicken.
Isn't that amazing? And again, food can bring so many things together. Definitely. Yeah. Korean fried chicken.
bringing cultures around the globe around the table. You've got to use your fingers on fried chicken. That's another thing about fried chicken. This is David Polk. Fire apple for three.
It's another busy night at the Community Kitchen Restaurant in New York City. where dinner is a ten course parade of exquisite dishes. like cured egg yolk with radishes, turnips, and pea shoots, served over West African fonio grain and poured over with hot broth. Or hibiscus poached pear with molasses cookie crumble and creme anglaise. And the price for this unforgettable meal?
We wanted to charge people what they could afford. We have a sliding scale of $15, $45, or $125. No questions asked, you pay what you can. Community Kitchen is the brainchild of food justice writer and advocate Mark Bittman. His perfect restaurant would embody three ideals.
Sourcing great food from farmers who know what they're doing and care about what they're doing, treating workers with dignity and respect. And then the real trick. making that widely accessible. Is this fine dining? I think it's a type of fine dining.
Maybe like rustic fine dining, you know what I mean? There are places where some of the ingredients are. Unrecognizable. You look at that and you know it's a carrot. Chef Mavis J.
Sanders has worked at Michelin-starred restaurants. It sounds like you did put some thought into what I can serve that will serve everybody in all. Income ranges. Obsessively. At this restaurant, nobody knows who's paid what.
Somebody was sitting at the bar and they said if there was one of these on every corner, Uh, the world would be a better place, and I was like. Bet. That's a testament. Mark Bittman knew that the restaurant would lose money. Private donations made it possible.
You can't serve delicious, nutritious food, pay people well, at prices everybody can afford. And make a profit? No, you can't. And if you can figure that out. Call me if anyone can figure that out.
Community Kitchen is a limited time pilot. That closes in mid-December. After that, Bittman hopes to open a permanent version in Manhattan and beyond. Every city can support something like this. For Chef Sanders, it's been a very successful experiment.
you're gonna leave here nourished, but also like It's around amazing people who are having a good time. I want people to be able to leave these doors and walk out feeling like a better human. With Martha Teischner, we pull up a chair at a new cafe in Maine. where the specialty of the house is news. These sinful looking blueberry pancakes and this nice, noisy, foamy latte.
Would you believe they are rescuing journalism? in and around Camden, Maine at least. Lobster country. What were you living? I was just reading about the snaps benefits and different food pantries in the area.
At the Villager Cafe, customers can have their breakfast or lunch with a side of news. a weekly newspaper called The Midcoast Villager. The cafe subsidizes the paper. The newsroom is one floor up. Throw in the rent from all the other tenants in the building, along with revenue from the inn next door.
Same ownership. It all helps. From the business standpoint, it achieves sustainability. At one time, Reed Brower owned almost all of Maine's newspapers before selling most of them off. They usually come for breakfast.
In September 2024, he merged four weeklies. into the Mid-Coast Villager. The café opened this past April. but not just to make money. The accountability issues, local sports and all that stuff is important to a lot of people.
I don't think that's enough to sell and keep newspapers. alive right now. I think it has to revolve around community and what better way to serve community than to invite people here for food and to mix all this stuff together. How often do you see the owner of the newspaper and members of the staff? hanging out with readers over breakfast.
We're present, we're visible, we're real. We're not behind a screen. Kathleen Capetta helps Brower run what they both see as an experiment in rebuilding trust in news. Would it work if the food wasn't good? Absolutely not.
No. It's good, classic diner food, but a little bit elevated, which is, I think, kind of like our paper. Deputy editor Alex Seitz Wald is the face of the newspaper. We love highlighting those efforts and highlighting regular people. When he parks himself in the cafe on Friday mornings.
So this is a very focused initiative that we're all very serious about. To hear complaints. It wasn't in the village. And we let you folks know about it. Story tips.
And we'll put you on a ship coming up to Knobscott Bay to seriously. Whatever. Having a place where people can vent or can say something and have it be heard, I think, is really valuable. I think what we could have done better. Seitz Wald was an NBC politics reporter in Washington, D.C.
for a decade. Before taking a chance and a pay cut to work for the Midcoast Villager. Yeah. in a field where two newspapers die every week.
Okay. How's the villager doing? Circulation revenue, we're told, is forty per cent above what all four papers it replaced took in.
So, promising. I'm quite glad that I still have a newspaper to work for. Glenn Billington is a local news lifer. the optimistic ad salesman and a columnist for the Midcoast Villager. just as he was for one of its now defunct predecessors.
You have the look of the paper. You have Vern who's everywhere. That's Vern.
So Vern is Midcoast Maine. He sure is. Look at his sou'wester. He's got the hat that you wear when the wind blows from the southwest and it brings rain. And he's got the telescope.
Vern's looking at the future of newspapers. What I see here is old-fashioned People sitting down at tables eating and talking and looking at each other eye to eye. You're picking up or putting down. But I can't regret what I did to fall in love. What I did for Eat, drink, and be merry, a special edition of Sunday Morning.
Here again is Jane Pauley. Leah Michel starred in the hit TV show Glee for six seasons, earning both Emmy and Golden Globe nominations.
Now she's back where her career began and sharing a table with Tracy Smith. In 1965, the original musical Funny Girl was playing at Broadway's Winter Garden Theater, starring someone who knew her way around a song. That same year, a guy named Joe Allen opened a place a few blocks away. It was the place to be for Broadway stars like Al Pacino and a host of others. Plus, they served a mean cheeseburger.
The burgers are still there, and so are Broadway's elite. Joe Allen for dinner. Leah Michelle has been coming here since her Broadway debut in the 90s. I just love this place so much. What would you eat if you had?
A burger. A burger. I mean, it's always so good.
So good here. Oh my God. But when we met her, she wasn't in a burger mood. Florence Fassy. She had a show to do.
Leah Michelle is starring in the musical Chess. Never make a Promise, promise, take a little long. In the show, she's a brilliant strategist for two world champion chess players, played by Aaron Devait and Nicholas Christopher. Chess is a love triangle. A spectacle and a chance for the stars to raise the roof at the Imperial Theater.
Never guessed it this way. It's the same place where Michelle made her Broadway debut in 1995 in Les Miz at the age of eight. Her parents weren't showbiz people. Dad owned a deli. And before she auditioned, they had no clue their daughter could sing.
And as we were leaving, I turned to my mom and I was like, I'm gonna get this. I think I'm gonna get this. And she said, things like that don't happen to people like us. Mama! Yeah.
Mama.
Okay. In this case, mom was wrong. Glea got the part and went on to even greater heights in the musical Spring Awakening and later became a household name with the hit TV show Glea. Not bad. When you touch me like this, when you hold me like that, it was gone with.
She hit a few bumps along the way, among them a difficult pregnancy with her first child in 2020. and flack on social media that she acted like a diva back in the glee days. But things looked up in 2023. She was asked to step into the shoes of her idol, Barbara Streisand, and take over a struggling revival of Funny Girl. I think that we all grow as we get older.
It's hard being in an industry where there is such a spotlight on these Phases and times in your life. What was the pressure like to take over? It was the first time that I was really sort of in the spotlight after everything that had happened to me personally. I wanted to finally show everyone that I could play this part and play her really well. Get ready for me, love, because I'm a cover!
I simply got a match what I have to come and know! Buddy oh no. Long story short, she killed it and turned a sinking show into a hit. despite suffering a miscarriage during her run. And when she was approached about doing chess, she told producers that having another baby came first.
And so my husband and I ended up doing IVF, which was in its own right very intense and challenging. But I, you know, we got pregnant and had our daughter, who is. wonderful and wild and um And then they, you know, said, would you like to do the show? And I was, absolutely. I could be.
Ain't it someone else? This story into someone else.
Now the 39-year-old mother of two is back where it all began. Serving up another knockout performance with a sigh of gratitude. What do you think that eight-year-old girl would think? Back in that same theater. I think that she'd be so proud and she would just say, thank you, because that's all she wanted and it's still what I want.
My love for what I do was definitely reignited during Funny Girl and I'm very grateful for that. But I'm so happy to be here and to be home. We all love a legendary comeback, and Degree Original Cool Rush is back and better than ever. Cool Rush isn't just a scent, it's a movement, a fan favorite that delivers bold, fresh vibes and all-day sweat protection. Whether you have a man that spends hours in the gym, heads into the office early, or is just trying to stay fresh on a long day, Cool Rush has their back.
Head to your local Walmart or Target and grab Degree Cool Rush, the fan favorite scent from the world's number one antiperspirant brand. If we knew more about our sleep, What would we do differently? Would we go to bed at a consistent time or take steps to reduce interruptions to our sleep? With the all-new sleep score, Apple Watch measures your bedtime consistency, interruptions, and sleep duration. Then, every morning it combines these factors into an easy to understand score from 1 to 100.
So you'll know how to take the quality of your sleep from good to bad. Yeah. Excellent. Introducing the new sleep score on Apple Watch, iPhone 11 or later required. Faith Saly has taken a deep dive into the world of food influencers.
And what she's found is Well, not exactly your grandmother's cheeseboard. From giant grazing tables packed with delectable delights to Halloween scarecuderie featuring frighteningly fleshy cheese-filled fingers, culinary content creators have taken the art of the cheese or charcuterie board to new heights. I love the beautiful charcuterie. Yeah. Wowzer, Dowser, Dowser!
Why is this such a big thing online? When you're scrolling on Instagram and you see beautiful food, it's It makes you hungry. It is beautiful to look at. And I think that people love to share photos of their food. Marissa Mullen launched her Instagram That Cheese Plate in 2013.
what started as a passion project became so successful that Mullen quit her job to take it full time. Is there any limit to this charcuterie craze? I I haven't seen it yet. She's written cookbooks, arranges cheese tasting and events, and teaches classes. I'll do a little salami fan.
like this one last weekend in New York's Hudson Valley.
Now, we should probably mention the word charcuterie traditionally refers to meat, a combination of the French words for cooked and flesh. But as Mullen explains, When a trend takes over, it forms a life of its own. And in the States, it's like. Anything you put on a board can be called charcuterie. Things like crude deté, Candy.
I mean, come on. Even guys, this incredible pasta-themed charcuterie board I made. Holidays provide a special opportunity for creative flair. I've created the charcuterie wreath, which is a Christmas wreath-shaped charcuterie board. For Thanksgiving shark turkey.
For Valentine's Day, I always love to do the Bremine plate. Which is like I love a good cheese pun. But while charcuterie is party food here in the States, it's much more to the French. I mean, in France, we eat charuterie for breakfast, we eat charcuterie for lunch, we eat chocolate for a snack in the afternoon, or you eat charcuterie at dinner parties. I love it.
And people will drive miles and miles and hundreds of miles. To go and get a good chakutari. A specific sauceant. Danielle Ballou is one of the most celebrated chefs in the world.
So If A board. has a display of food items, but it does not have meat. Is it charcuterie? No. Not for me.
So what is the history of Charcoutri? Where why did the French start it? Because The beauty of chakraturi is that you can preserve it. I was born and raised on the farm. And in February, when it was the coldest month, that's where you slaughter the pig and make charcuterie for the whole year.
Arteur de Aine is the chef charcutier for Beluze restaurants and makes all of their charcuterie in-house.
So we have a terrain of pork and morels, we have the pate compagnes, we have a terrain of guinea and pistachio. Each one different, representing different regions using different cuts of meat. That's so delicious. Is very good. Perfectly cooked.
And um I'm sure then all are Camera I'm in. I'd like to taste it too. We're taking a break. Yeah. In the end, whether you're talking about meat or cheese, whether you call it charcuterie or not, eating these artistic creations is really about the eating.
I always say the cathartic part is just ripping it up, just, you know, destroying your work of art and eating it. you know it's like a it's like a that's the goal life and death cycle It's David Pogue again. After twenty six years in the Air Force, Brigadier General John Mischel settled in St. Louis with his wife to look for a new gig. We kind of naively jumped into the food truck business.
What we figured out is 80% of food trucks fail in four years. But where do you learn the food truck business? It's not like there's a training school.
So we approached the Department of Labor and said, Can we work to build an apprentice program?
So we created the first certified mobile food truck apprentice program in America. It's open to anybody, it is free.
So far, he's trained 60 entrepreneurs. But some of the most promising candidates were people who were struggling. They had no money to buy a truck.
So we said, well, we have these trucks. Why don't we just start to put them in your hands?
So if we spend $70,000 on a truck, you just pass back over five years. At the end of five years, we're going to give you the title of your truck. Growing up about 13 years old, I lost my dad.
So I was kinda lost growing up, just hanging out with the wrong people. doing their own things. Demetrius Gower, known as Big Mechi, wound up getting arrested for marijuana possession and carrying a gun without a license. Darkest moment was probably me going to jail, kind of woke me up and was basically like, you got to do something different with yourself or you're going to keep going down this same road and you're probably not going to come back from it. Michi had always loved cooking.
Michelle's food truck program seemed like a golden opportunity. How was he? As a student, his smile is so radiant and so memorable, and there is a warmth to him, so we became quite fond of him very quickly. Big Michi's burgers, fries, chicken, and salads were such a hit that he's now opened a restaurant too. There actually is no TV story.
I just wanted one of your famous burgers! The awards rolled in. We won best chef, best restaurant, best catering, best burger, and best wing.
So, yes, sir. Dude, you're 28th. 28. It was super humbling, yes, sir.
So far, Michelle has launched seven people who've been going through tough times. Three more will hit the road this spring. When we look back at our lives and go, what did we spend our God-given talents and energies and passion on? We'll trade off the dollars and trust that we'll do the right thing, build value in our community, and hopefully inspire some other people to do the same.
Some hand down beloved recipes the old-fashioned way, writing them down on paper. but, as Connor Knighton discovered, there are those who prefer them set in stone A healthy half a cup. At her home in Racine, Wisconsin, Michelle Robinson is cooking up a chicken spaghetti casserole, just like her mother Karen used to make. The reason we eat this every Tuesday is because you guys eat it. Just about every Tuesday.
Every time you make it, you feel like, oh, I was just living up to Grandma's standards and not. Yeah, there is a little pressure. It's been eight years since Karen Nelson passed away. She was known for her cheery disposition and love of cooking. Every time we have it we think of her and then we start telling stories about her.
It's always fun to reminisce then, you know, she's never forgotten. But should a family member ever forget the casserole recipe, they need only pay a visit to the nearby cemetery. Where the instructions for Karen's famous chicken spaghetti have been etched on her headstone. When you were thinking of recipes, was this the clear winner, you think, to go on the clear stone? I mean, if you think of grandma, all you see is chicken spaghetti.
You wouldn't think of anything else. While memorializing a death with a dish is certainly unusual, It's not unheard of. You're now, though, aware that there's sort of like a small community of folks who do this, right? I feel like we should go on vacation together or something like that. This is delicious.
Yeah. Right. When you're strolling through a cemetery, are you now always on the lookout for an interesting headstone? Oh, absolutely. Author and archivist Rosie Grant has assembled an entire cookbook of headstone recipes that are to die for.
We all have that dish our parent made for us or a loved one made for us as a kid that when we eat it, we're taken back to that. And something that's very practical about a cemetery gravestone is that you'll get this recipe from the gravestone and it's now preserved for these generations. While pursuing her master's in library science, one of Grant's professors encouraged her to create a TikTok account focused on a niche topic. For Ghostly Archive, she chose unique gravestones. In one early video, Grant decided to make a cookie from a gravestone she'd stumbled upon online.
I'd imagine if it ended up on your gravestone, it's gotta be a pretty good cookie, you know?
So I'd posted the process on TikTok of just like, what's it like to make these gravestone cookies? And I should say like my world overnight blew up. It was like crazy the response from people. She soon learned about a cheese dip recipe in Iowa. And a carrot cake recipe in California.
Oh my gosh, that's so good. The Spritz cookies that started it all can be found in the Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, atop the headstone of Naomi Miller Dawson. Was she known for her cooking? She was known for her baking. She really her cookies were our favorites.
Naomi's son Richard and his niece Niela brought a box of cookies for me to try.
Okay, all right, I'm gonna go with Christmas tree. A Christmas tree, that was her favorite shape.
Okay. Well, I thought they were delicious. Thank you, Naomi. Wow.
They elicit different tasting notes for those who knew and loved the original chef. Look at you! Simple sugar cookies become bittersweet. And does it remind you of her when you eat these? Not only when we eat them, you just have to smell them baking.
It brings back the memories of Christmas past and different holidays and events. My mother Valerie, um she would make this soup for us. Whether it's a mother's chicken soup or Kay's famous fudge, A cherished recipe can help keep a memory alive. They were just like very giving people, and I can't help but think that that's why, whether it was their decision or their family's decision to do a very extraordinary gravestone, because they were just in their universes, very extraordinary people. I wish I had gotten to know all of them, they're all wonderful.
Looking for Thanksgiving meal tips? We have just the recipe on our website. Thank you for listening. Please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning. This is the story of the one.
As a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing facility, he knows keeping the line up and running is a top priority. That's why he chooses Granger. Because when a drive belt gets damaged, Granger makes it easy to find the exact specs for the replacement product he needs. And next day delivery helps ensure he'll have everything in place and running like clockwork. Call 1-800-GRANGER, clickgranger.com, or just stop by.
Granger for the ones who get it done. Can you Rolling. It's finally crazy. The Paw Patrol is on a roll to the North Pole. A Paul Patrol Christmas, the brand new holiday special premieres Friday, November 28th at 8-7 Central on CBS and streaming on Paramount Plus.
