The Dine One Six

We’re back!! It’s been a long road back to the podcast for us (Max and Neill) but we are so excited to get going again. WE already have a bunch of interviews recorded and will get back to posting them every two weeks. This week we re-launch with an interview with Molly Dennis. Molly has worked all over Sacramento (and the country) and know works for Diageo, a liquor distributor which is responsible for putting some of the most interesting and tasty spirits behind all your favorite bars in the city. We talk about her history in hospitality, including her start at Red Robin, her favorite liquor brand stories and watching the craft cocktail boom come to Sacramento. Email us: max@dineonesix.com neill@dineonesix.com IG: @dineonesix

To say Oliver Ridgeway is well traveled is a gross understatement. After getting his start washing dishes in his dad’s restaurant, at 20 years old he got a job cooking on the Queen Elizabeth II cruise liner, which traveled from England to New York city. That ship took him all over the world over two years, and taught him how to cook and how to organize. That organization would be vital as he went on to cook for Athletes and VIP sponsors at the Olympic Games in Sydney Australia 2000 and the Winter Games in Utah in 2002. But his cooking travels didn’t stop there, New Orleans, the Caribbean, New York at one of it’s finest hotels, Santa Fe, Oliver honed his skills and his management cooking for the rich and famous in high pressure environments. Now he is the Chef/Owner of the upscale but welcoming to all Sacramento haberdashery, Camden Spit & Larder, which serves as a place where you can have a beautiful anniversary dinner just as easily as you can grab a burger and a salad before a Kings game. Listen to Oliver’s amazing journey across the globe and how he ended up settling down in Sacramento, making a name for himself as one of the most respected chefs in town. Visit Camden Spit & Larder's website and Instagram Follow Dine One Six on Instagram Email us: max@dineonesix.com or neill@dineonesix.com Visit our website dineonesix.com

Billy Ngo of Kru Contemporary Japanese Cuisine got his start at an old-school Japanese restaurant on Broadway in Sacramento, spending hours washing dishes and painstakingly preparing shrimp for the week’s service. After a stint at Mikuni he understood how sushi could become something that mixed his passion for creativity and attention to detail. Billy headed to culinary school in San Francisco and came back to work at The Kitchen for a year, where he learned the importance of good ingredients and good relationships with purveyors of fish and produce. Then, at just 23 years old, Billy opened Kru on J street, which quickly became recognized as one of the best and most creative sushi spots in town. A decade later Billy moved Kru into its current, much larger home on Folsom Blvd. and it remains one of the hottest restaurant reservations in town. Billy fills us in on sushi eating etiquette, talks about his early attempts at a Michelin star, why he loves cooking japanese and french cuisine, how he seeks to let the ingredients speak for themselves and how a burger permanently ended up on the menu at one of Sacramento’s most acclaimed sushi restaurants. Recently, his high level of skill and execution, matched with his creativity and drive to please his guests has garnered Billy a finalist nomination for the James Beard Awards “Best Chef in California.” Visit the podcast website at dineonesix.com Follow us on Instagram Comments, questions or suggestions? Email us at max@dineonesix.com or neill@dineonesix.com

Greg Gearhart and Victor Mihalchuk were sipping coffee and having lunch with their colleague Cameron Tyler of Moonracer films when they thought, “the food scene in Sacramento is so amazing…what if we filmed it.” That nugget of an idea launched what is now one of the most beautiful celebrations of Sacramento and its food you will ever see called Breaking Bread. On Tuesday September 5 there was a very special premiere of the amazing limited series and the next day we sat down with Greg and Victor to talk about how the project came together, their experiences filming it and the amazing food they got to eat. Breaking Bread gives you wonderful, open conversations with some of Sacramento’s best chefs and takes you behind the scenes of what makes the culinary scene in Sacramento so special. You will laugh, cry, get goosebumps and get that warm feeling of awe and appreciation when you watch this series. It is absolutely stunning, and we are proud to bring you a conversation with two of the gentlemen who made it happen. The first episode aired last night. You can watch Breaking Bread on KCRA 3 the next two episodes air: Sunday September 10, at 9 p.m. Sunday September 17, at 9 p.m. You can also watch on the Very Local app. Download it for free on your phone or streaming device. Visit Moonracer films website and Instagram Visit the podcast website at dineonesix.com Follow The Dine One Six on Instagram Comments, questions or suggestions? Email us at max@dineonesix.com or neill@dineonesix.com

Ben Roberts grew up in Grass Valley where he loved skateboarding and punk rock. He dreamed of getting out of the small town but had no real plan, but after he met his future wife at a record shop, he followed her to Sacramento as she went to UC Davis and he looked to take any job he could find. That is the perfect recipe (pun intended) for a young kid to make his way into a kitchen. He got his start at R15 and then Shady Lady where a mentor showed him the right books to buy and Ben dove in head first. He soon realized that he wanted to cook beautiful, amazing food, and he knew that The Sellands group was a great place to do that. He made his way to Ella, where he worked for several years and became a jack of all trades, including making woodfired pizza for family meals. Eventually, he left to start his own mobile pizza business with a trailer and woodfire oven. He grinded in the heat of Sacramento for more than 4 years before he got an opportunity to open the storefront he occupies today. His pizza manages to be both classic and unique at the same time, but it’s without a doubt one of the best slices you’ll find anywhere in Sacramento. Visit Pizza Supreme Being's website and Instagram Visit the podcast website at dineonesix.com Follow us Instagram Comments, questions or suggestions? Email us at max@dineonesix.com

Alison Clevenger moved from Arizona to Oregon to go to culinary school without ever checking out the campus, her mom just signed her up, drove her up there and dropped her off. That move set her life on a course where she would land in Sacramento and ultimately help build one of the premiere sweet treat destinations in the city, Ginger Elizabeth’s. Alison talks about taking naps on giant bags of flour, the growth of Ginger Elizabeth, perfecting the perfect ice cream sandwich (in Max’s opinion,) what it was like to leave her best friend and venture out into the more male dominated culinary world, making pastries for Ella, Sellands and The Kitchen and ultimately how she helped to relaunch a Sacramento culinary cult icon Doughbot donuts. Alison has since moved on to her next culinary adventure and we can’t wait to see what she does next but rest assured wherever she lands the creations will be stellar and we will drop whatever we are doing to try them. Visit the podcast website at dineonesix.com Follow me on Twitter and Instagram Comments, questions or suggestions? Email me at max@dineonesix.com

Taylor Lovelace is the head chef at J.J. Pfister Distilling Company but her love affair with cooking started when she interned at The Kitchen while in culinary school. It was actually years before when she would chauffeur her parents to the famed restaurant that she got to try the food when the staff would feed her the menu in the back of the restaurant while her parents dined. Taylor went on to hit Sacramento hot-spots like Localis, Echo and Rig and Camden Spit and Larder before landing at J.J. Pfister as the head chef. Now she spends her time elevating sandwiches and salads into saucy flavor bombs. We answer many important questions in the episode from which is better: waffles or pancakes? What does M.C.B. stand for? And what makes a good sandwich? Check out JJ Pfister’s website and Instagram Visit the podcast website at dineonesix.com Follow us on Instagram Comments, questions or suggestions? Email us at max@dineonesix.com or neill@dineonesix.com

Eddie Torres learned the power of food connecting families at an early age when he would have Sunday dinners with more than 20 members of his extended family, most of whom lived in the same apartment complex. But it wasn’t until the great recession, which buckled the car industry where he was working, that he decided to go to culinary school. After school he bounced around town until making his way to Ella pretty quickly, starting at the bottom and working his way up to the line. Then, he heard from his boss that Kelly McCown was taking over at The Kitchen and looking to build his team. Eddie tried out and ended up working at The Kitchen for 6 years, working his way up to sous chef. Eddie talks about the intensity, the craft, the precision and the joy that it took to work at one of Sacramento’s most prestigious restaurants. Today he is back working with his good friend Ben Roberts who owns Pizza Supreme Being helping put out some of the best pizza in Sacramento, while he works on his own concept of a Puerto Rican inspired restaurant. Photo courtesy of @jamiecardenasphotographer Eddie’s instagram Visit the podcast website at dineonesix.com Follow us on Instagram Comments, questions or suggestions? Email us at max@dineonesix.com or neill@dineonesix.com

Max and Neill sit down with Rebecca Campbell, owner and chef of Sac City Brews in Tahoe Park. They talk about Rebecca’s unconventional and even accidental move to running a kitchen. It’s not often you find someone with two Masters degrees running a kitchen, but she has taken her background in community development to create an amazing spot for the neighborhood of Tahoe Park and frankly for all of Sacramento. She talks about how growing up on a small farm in the foothills gave her an appreciation for the small farmers she works with today and how it took her years to realize that she is actually not just analytically minded but also a very creative person and it shows in her food. And we talk a lot about the creative twists on classics like: tater tots, nachos, wings, paninis and more. Visit Sac City Brews website and Instagram Visit the podcast website at dineonesix.com Follow us on Instagram Comments, questions or suggestions? Email us at max@dineonesix.com or neill@dineonesix.com

Today we talk about the wild world of cheese! How does blue mold bloom? Does what the animal eats change the taste of cheese? Strange food combinations to eat with cheese, headless spiders that create a rind on cheese. All these questions and odd facts are answered and discussed with our guest Julie Cassotta. Julie is a Certified Cheese Professional and one of only eight people with that certification in Sacramento. That means she knows her stuff when it comes to cheese. Julie creates gorgeous cheese and charcuterie boards year round under the name Cellar Door Platters and built her small business through social media to where she is a full-time cheesemonger. We also talk about stops she had at Block Butcher Bar, Whole Foods and Franquet. Check out The Dine One Six on Instagram and our website Episode resources: Check out her website to order your holiday cheese board! Julie’s Instagram Here are all the cheeses we talked about! -Smokey Blue from Rogue River Creamery -Vacherin Mont d'Or -Jasper Hill Creamery in Vermont- Harbison -Bailey Hazen Blue Jasper Hill creamery with dark chocolate -Langres (cheese you pour champagne on) -Mimollete (Halloween cheese) -Coro foods salami

Jonathan Kerksieck has been working in restaurants in Sacramento for 30 years. He got his start making pizza at original Pete’s out of high school. He considered culinary school but a conversation with Rick Mahan when he was working at Paragary's and set his course on learning to cook by working long hours in kitchens all over Sacramento. After all that training, head chef jobs, running hotel food programs and even doing food research and development, Jonathan met an old colleague who helped him open Cacio in the Pocket/Greenhaven neighborhood. Jonathan said it’s “like the Cheers” of the neighborhood, only Cheers wasn’t serving delicious Italian cuisine. Cacio website, Instagram, Facebook Sac Bee top 50 restaurants Visit the podcast website at dineonesix.com Follow me on Twitter and Instagram Comments, questions or suggestions? Email me at max@dineonesix.com

This week Max throws back to an episode of his college podcast where he talked to Nicole McDavid, the garden coordinator at the Capital Public Radio garden. McDavid tends to the large garden which produces roughly 2,000 pounds of produce per year to the Associated Students, Inc. food pantry and other food banks. McDavid does it all using organic gardening techniques and passes on her 10 years of experience with urban farming to listeners. Wondering what to plant this fall? When to water? How to have your garden be organic? What to do after your tomato plants have sucked all the nitrogen out of your soil? This is the episode for you! Visit the podcast website at dineonesix.com Follow me on Twitter and Instagram Comments, questions or suggestions? Email me at max@dineonesix.com