The Unbearable Lightness of Being Hungry

In memory of Kerby Craig, here's the podcast I recorded with him in 2014. I listened back to this episode after I heard about Kerby being gone and it made me re-remember all these great things from that day, so I thought I should share these stories again, in tribute to Kerby and his enthusiasm for cooking, Japanese food culture and hospitality … As a 15 year old, Kerby Craig was fascinated by the world of restaurants – seeing a chef breakdancing in the middle of service (!) confirmed for him that this was the industry that he wanted to work in. By accident, he ended up at the original Tetsuya's as a teenage apprentice chef and, after stints in Sydney and overseas, later helped Koi earn a hat in The Good Food Guide. To mark this achievement, he actually got a chef's hat tattooed on his neck – an act that was memorably referred to in Terry Durack's review of Ume, the restaurant that Kerby opened after his time at Koi. ("That's a hat you can't take off him," Kerby's manager told Durack at an event. "That's a hat I would never take off you, Kerby!" replied the Herald food critic.) Despite earning acclaim, Kerby's experience with the industry has endured some rough lows – including the business failure of Koi – and opening Ume was "very very stressful", he says. "I don't know how we got a loan!" Also in this podcast, Kerby chats about his own adventures dining from Kyoto to Fukuoka – and enjoying the next-level hospitality of Japanese establishments. If you'd like to support me on Patreon, head to patreon.com/leetranlam. From $1.50 a week, you'll get access to my weekly podcast and newsletter, where I cover all the good things I'm consuming: the best food stories I've read, food podcasts I've listened to, what I've been eating and I also dive into what I've been working on. Plus a lot of enthusiasm about Japanese food culture, too – from Tokyo favourites to the birthplace of soy sauce and my favourite Kyoto food shop.

"I literally got here and the first two weeks, everybody quit." Despite this challenging start to becoming Momofuku Seiobo's executive chef, Paul Carmichael has since scored many awards (both Gourmet Traveller and Time Out named him Chef of the Year) and he's been called one of the world's greatest chefs by his boss, David Chang. The restaurant has received two glowing reviews in The New York Times and been ranked as one of the best places to eat in the world by Besha Rodell in Food & Wine. Paul isn't about basking in the acclaim, though. "You've got to become comfortable with failing," Paul says. "We'd make something, it'd be shit." Then, after a lot of work, it becomes great. At Momofuku Seiobo, he's created a one-of-a-kind menu that reflects his upbringing in Barbados. The food is also a way to represent the Caribbean, which people often reduce to holiday-spot stereotypes. "I feel like the way they talk about it, they talk about it like a club," he says. For Paul, it's his life – not a gimmicky theme – so throughout the podcast, we talk about dishes from the region: like coucou, which his mother makes with a special stick that's older than Paul; and roti that originated in India and ended up in Trinidad – which he grew up eating as a kid. A lot of these dishes have travelled. "It had an origin somewhere, but this is where it ended up being," he says, "The Caribbean is 500 years of fusion. Maybe that should be the name of my book." Migration and colonisation also shaped the cuisine – as did slavery, which isn't as far into the past as we'd like to think. The chef doesn't want to "elevate" dishes that have generations of history, but also show that you can present a dish that's rice and vegetables and prove how it can belong in one of the city's top restaurants. "It looks like a pile of goop - but there's so much that goes into it," he says. Paul also talks about how people still turn up to Seiobo thinking it's a Japanese restaurant (five years after Paul introduced his Caribbean menu), how he lived off supermarket specials while Seiobo was closed during the lockdown, using "mum tricks" to stretch Seiobo's budget in its current COVID-adapted incarnation (where staff also wear face masks in the colours of the Barbados flag). We also talk about his favourite budget meal, what to order at his favourite Chinese restaurant – as well as tougher topics: like having to deal with blatant racism and the cops pulling a gun on him just for asking for directions. We also cover the media pressure of taking over a highly acclaimed restaurant, too. This podcast was recorded last year, but is especially relevant now with Momofuku Seiobo announcing its last service for late June. I loved talking to Paul on this episode, I hope you enjoy this podcast, too. Support me on Patreon (from $1.50 a week) and you'll get a bonus member-only Crunch Time podcast - where I round up the latest food news and also talk about what I'm eating, reading and writing (with bonus details on projects I've worked on – from podcast interviews to food stories): https://www.patreon.com/leetranlam.

They're not obvious candidates for making beer: wattle, strawberry gum and leftover sourdough from Ester. Topher Boehm turns to flower cuttings and other NSW-only ingredients to create wild ales for Wildflower, the Sydney brewery he runs with brother-in-law Chris Allen. They've named beers after their children – including the wild-raspberry-flavoured St Phoebe, which was selected over 1500 drinks to be named Australia's best beverage. And his curiosity with fermenting has led to Topher brewing 200 litres of soy sauce in a barrel, just for fun. Maybe his revved-up creativity shouldn't be a surprise – Topher once had 70 home-brewing experiments on the go in his apartment (until his wife fairly decided that perhaps that was just a little too much to co-habitate with). So how did Topher go from making frozen sandwiches for his family in Texas – and studying astrophysics and considering a career in shoemaking – to brewing beers that are found in 10 William Street and other top bars and restaurants around Australia? It's a pretty surprising path that also involves a really sweet love story (and a literally stinky town in New Zealand). You don't have to be a deep beer nerd to enjoy this episode, as Topher is a great storyteller – just listen to the unbelievably "epic" tale behind the coolship vessel that's being made for his spontaneous beers. The vessel has survived bushfires and flood – intense conditions that literally swallowed a truck belonging to the Blue Mountains blacksmith who is making the coolship. And while Topher has learnt about beer from hanging out in Europe and the US, he is keen to create a beverage that gets its flavours from sources you can only find in his home state. "We were calling beer local, but it was made that way from where it was brewed, not the ingredients it was from," he says. Which means Topher is especially interested in bush foods, like saltbush, and is experimenting with the idea of bringing back his sold-out St Phoebe run using native raspberries. This episode actually features two parts: one recorded in January (before the pandemic) and a part two that sees us catching up remotely a few months after lockdown sets in. We also cover historical aspects of beer: it's the reason for the world's oldest recipe and, despite its cliched blokey image today, it was actually women who traditionally were brewers. (Go back to Ancient Egypt and it was women who tended to beer.) PS The cherry beer you hear fermenting in the background is actually now available from Wildflower (it's delicious)!

Shinobu Namae runs one of Tokyo's best restaurants: L'Effervescence. It has two Michelin stars and is known for its sustainable focus (nearly everything served to diners comes from Japan, even the cheese) and the menu is inspired by everything from McDonald's fried apple pie to world peace. Even the dish names are memorable (you can order something called 'Hurrah')! Namae-san has worked for Michel Bras in Hokkaido (the story behind this proves that overeating in New York is always a good thing to do) and he was Heston Blumenthal's sous-chef at The Fat Duck. Even though Namae-san grew up with an American-influenced diet, the chef has devoted his career to showcasing Japanese ingredients, from the artisanal wheat in the oven-baked goods at his cafe, Bricolage Bread & Co., to the menu at L'Effervescence. (The story behind the Japanese cheeses at the restaurant is pretty surprising.) He also talks about some of the memorable food he's had around the world – including his experience at Alice Waters' Chez Panisse, which he calls one of the best meals of his life. (He also has a sandwich inspired by her on his menu at Bricolage.) This episode was recorded when the chef was here last year, for Tasting Australia.

Angie Prendergast-Sceats once was an olive oil judge, where she had to watch out for vintages that tasted like "rancid feet" and "baby vomit" (such references really did appear on the flavour chart that's deployed in these contests). But for the last three years, she's been the culinary director and head chef of Two Good, which used recipes by top chefs (Peter Gilmore, Christine Manfield, Ben Shewry) to create soups and salads that would be sent to women in domestic violence shelters. You'd order two soups: keep one and the other would be donated to someone in a refuge. The food was cooked by women from shelters, who were paid above-award wages to do so. In her role, Angie would oversee this work – and there some memorable/hilarious times when they did their cooking in a nightclub's not-so-conventional kitchen – and she also ran Two Good's Work Work program, training long-term unemployed women, refugees and disenfranchised people to help them get jobs. It was far from the aggressive stereotype of a kitchen where you could yell at someone to hurry up with the carrots; in working with people who might not know how to hold a knife or are still dealing with trauma, cooking 1000 meals a week is a different kind of challenge. We also talk about Angie's recipes – which appear in the new Two Good cookbook, her memorable trips to Japan (where she had nine bowls of ramen in five hours and visited a 1000-year-old miso shop) and what she's doing next with her Angie's Food enterprise.

Josh Niland can make fish scales taste like sugary cereal and fish eyeballs resemble prawn crackers. In his hands, seafood can become Christmas ham, mortadella and caramel slice. He can even turn calamari sperm into something you'd want to eat (no really)! His creative, waste-free approach to using every fin and scale is a response to the typical method of ditching 60 per cent of everything caught from the sea ("How is that 40 per cent of a fish is getting all the credit?") and his innovative thinking is showcased at his acclaimed Saint Peter restaurant, Fish Butchery shop, and within the pages of his new publication, The Whole Fish Cookbook. Niland's interest in food started not long after he was diagnosed with cancer at age eight. His mum's chicken pie and the excitement of food media offered comfort after intense chemotherapy treatment – he even pinned pictures of chefs he admired on his bedroom wall. These well-known figures later ended up applauding him when he won Best New Restaurant for Saint Peter at the first national Good Food awards. Before opening Saint Peter with his wife Julie Niland ("Julie and I thought about this restaurant for so long – in every single meal that we ate together"), Josh worked at Est., Glass and Fish Face and shares the many "hectic stories" of his culinary education. A crab-eating competition, funnily enough, led him to being mentored by Fish Face's Steve Hodges, and ultimately inspired him to open Saint Peter (which landed Niland multiple Best Chef honours and a World Restaurant Award nomination alongside Massimo Bottura and Dan Barber). It's fascinating to talk to Josh about everything from the Starlight Foundation wish he was granted as a kid to all the unending possibilities he sees in every scrap of seafood (from cultivating single-origin bottarga to using fish fat like butter in desserts). Many of these ideas are featured in his book, which René Redzepi calls, "an inspiring read, something to return to again and again", and are compelling even if you don't eat fish. (That said, I'm hoping Josh can be convinced to bring back his self-saucing potato scallop one day.)

Sweet and sour cane-toad legs. Multiple cat recipes. A deadly cocktail you're not meant to serve. These are some of the fascinating (and deliberately provocative) things you'll find in Eat The Problem, the 544-page book by American artist and curator Kirsha Kaechele. It's part cookbook and art project, with an impressive list of collaborators (including chefs Dominique Crenn, Peter Gilmore, Christine Manfield and Enrique Olvera) and pages that are filled with creative ways of dealing with invasive species (pig's eyeball margaritas or starfish-on-a-stick, anyone?). Eat The Problem is also the inspiration behind an exhibition of the same name at MONA, Hobart (running until September 2) and a guest dinner series happening on August 6 at Melbourne's Vue de Monde, Byron Bay's Harvest on August 7 and Brisbane's Urbane on August 8. Kirsha is the perfect candidate for imaginatively addressing pests, given that she grew up on Guam, which was overrun with brown snakes – the "rock star of invasive species". They even landed coverage in The New York Times and inspired WTF solutions (paracetamol-laced mice were dropped from parachutes to deal with the snake problem). Also, her wedding dress was made out of invasive deer, she carries a cane toad purse and thinks we should make candles using fat from culled animals. Thinking sustainably comes naturally to her and it was her plan to hold a zero-waste food market at MONA in 2013 that helped kickstart the Eat The Problem project. Kirsha is fascinating to talk to and she approaches the issue of sustainability like no one else – instead of being overly serious and dour, she addresses environmental issues with plenty of invention and an unmissably bright palette (the feasts that launched the Eat The Problem exhibition, after all, took place on the world's biggest rainbow-coloured glockenspiel). Even her cutlery designs, which force people to share their food or feed someone across the table, are meant to provoke conversation and social interactions. She also talks about her 24 Carrot Gardens Project and her favourite places to eat and drink in Hobart (and Sydney, too).

Tokyo isn't the most obvious place to seek out pizza, but the wood-fired slices here are better than anything you'd find in Italy. That's what chef Luke Burgess believes – and it's a case he makes in Only In Tokyo, the new book he's co-authored with fellow chef (and Japan-o-phile) Michael Ryan. In the podcast, we really nerd out about Tokyo's best pizza spots (from the life-changing Savoy to new favourite Pizza Studio Tamaki, both photographed by Luke for the book). We also talk about the book's other Tokyo highlights (from the city's best egg sandwich to a truly next-level kaiseki restaurant), as well as discoveries that aren't documented within its pages – from a four-seater noodle joint hidden behind a pastry shop to a Norwegian-inspired bakery in a traditional part of Tokyo. (The Japan talk begins at the 16:29 mark.) We retrace Luke's fascinating career path, too: from his start at Tetsuya's, his time at Noma (where he bumped into Ben Greeno) and the launch of his memorable restaurant, Garagistes – along with the opening of MONA, it helped usher in a new wave of interest in Hobart. He talks about how he ended up buying $17,000 worth of lamb for the restaurant and why he closed Garagistes (despite being awarded Best New Talent by Gourmet Traveller). Outside of his guest chef appearances (he recently turned The Dolphin into a falafel joint), he's currently working on a Tasmanian farm – so he has good recommendations for dining in Hobart and beyond (to add to his extensive Tokyo-visiting suggestions)! PS Shout-out to Trisha Greentree and the crew at 10 William St for letting us record this podcast upstairs at their ace wine bar. PPS If you're keen for a signed, personalised copy of Only In Tokyo, check out Luke's online shop.

Imagine being a 16-year-old working in a Western Australian gold mine. This was Mark Best's life, straight after high school. It was a tough way to earn money as an electrician, so he eventually left. "I arrived in Sydney and found myself unqualified for above-ground work." He ended up even deeper underground, claustrophobic and covered in fibreglass and varnish, trying to install battery packs on submarines at Cockatoo Island. "I literally will die if I don't do something with my life," he told himself. So he decided to cook professionally. Not long after this career path detour, he won the Josephine Pignolet Young Chef of the Year award. In 1999, he opened Marque, where he maintained three chef's hats for 10 consecutive years and was honoured with a Breakthrough Award by The World's 50 Best Restaurants. By the time of Marque's final dinner in 2016, many impressive people had worked in Mark's kitchen: Isaac McHale (now running The Clove Club in London) and Mette Søberg (current research chef at Copenhagen's Noma) spent formative periods there. Of the talented locals (Victor Liong, Daniel Pepperell, Brent Savage, Adam Wolfers, Pasi Petanen, Hanz Gueco, to name a few), three would win the Young Chef of the Year award: Dan Hong, Daniel Puskas and Lauren Eldridge. We talk about "The Pesto Years" of the 1990s, how travelling throughout France inspired Marque's beginning, the history of his calamari risotto dish, trying times in the kitchen ("I may have held a sausage to someone's head"), the memorable last dinner at Marque and why he chose to close the restaurant. We also cover: his current role as a World Restaurant Awards judge, what it's like developing menus for cruiseships (which he does for his Bistro by Mark Best business) and his appearance on The Final Table, Netflix's cooking contest. After getting hate mail from doctors while on Masterchef, he decided to take a different onscreen approach on The Final Table (SPOILER WARNING: we talk about that show's ending, from 53:15 to 58:12 on the podcast). It was also surreal to discover his fellow competitors owned his cookbooks. (Turns out he's quite qualified for above-ground work after all.)

Would you line up at two AM in zero-degree weather, just for a croissant? People would regularly do that all the time, purely for the chance to try Kate Reid's pastries. The New York Times, after all, said her croissants are "the finest you will find anywhere in the world, and alone worth a trip across the dateline". Other fans include René Redzepi, Nigella Lawson and Helen Goh. Originally, Kate spent over a decade pursuing her dream job of being an aerospace engineer for Formula One car racing. She was the only woman in her role (and in fact, there wasn't even a female toilet where she worked). But when her career aspirations crumbled, and her life in London proved hugely isolating, Kate took solace in obsessive weight loss. Her eating disorder left her dangerously ill – she was six weeks away from dying – but her recovery was a key part of her starting Lune Croissanterie in Melbourne. It was inspired by a pivotal (and entirely impromptu) visit she made to Du Pain et des Idées in Paris. After a stint at the boulangerie, Kate started selling her own croissants from a tiny space in Elwood. The blockbuster reaction was incredible (people would arrive hours before opening, with movies on their iPad to pass the time), and has since led to Lune Croissanterie opening in Fitzroy and the CBD. Even the French newspaper Le Monde has given Kate's croissants an endorsement. But she is as upfront about the lows of her career as well as the big-time highlights. I really loved talking to Kate: she's so engaging, friendly and very honest. Catch Kate being interviewed by The New York Times food editor Sam Sifton, about The Power of Obsession for Melbourne Food and Wine Festival on March 9.

How to make cider from 300-year-old pear trees, what it's like to work alongside Dan Barber at one of the world's best restaurants and how it feels scoring Gourmet Traveller's Sommelier of the Year award – Caitlyn Rees can give you a first-hand account of all of these standout experiences. When she was at Fred's in Sydney (where she served fascinating wines from the Adelaide Hills to Armenia), she was singled out by Gourmet Traveller as Australia's best sommelier in the magazine's 2018 restaurant guide. And because she won Melbourne Food and Wine Festival's Hostplus Hospitality Scholarship, she ended up doing time at three places on her worldwide wish list: Relae in Copenhagen (a Michelin-starred restaurant that upended her expectations about how chefs and wait staff should work together), Dan Barber's Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York (her behind-the-scenes stories about this acclaimed restaurant are truly amazing) and helping Eric Bordelet in Normandy, the ex-Arpège sommelier who collects fruit from centuries-old trees to make his famously great cider. She also talks about the "rough red" that her grandfather made (and how it was her first encounter with booze), her time at Momofuku Seiobo (another wish-list job of hers), why she left Fred's (even though she loved working there) and what she's currently doing at Cirrus. Plus, a tragic story about suitcase wines and we hear her list of favourite places to eat and drink in Sydney (including the restaurant where she's spent practically all of her birthdays).

"You can't f--k with the matzo ball soup." That's what Adam Wolfers learnt from his grandmother. Etelek, his pop-up restaurant, is inspired by the chef's Eastern European background. It's a history that draws on memories of his grandmother tending to six pots on the stove at a time, as well as his grandfather Julius' time as a concentration camp survivor (an extraordinary tale that's been documented by Steven Spielberg). Carrot schnitzel, scallop pretzel puffs and honey cake with wattleseed honeycomb are just a few of things you'll find at Etelek, which is running at Potts Point until New Year's Eve. It's named after the Hungarian word for food and the pop-up has previously travelled to Melbourne and Canberra, and featured locally at Ester, Casoni and The Dolphin, gaining a following for its parsnip schnitzel and amazing langos bread. Even the most anti-carb person will be converted by Adam's dishes, which has basically served as an atlas of bread from Yemen, Hungary, New York over the years. In fact, he uses a sourdough starter from his time at Monopole and made his name working in other Brent Savage restaurants, such as Bentley and Yellow (Adam helped turn Yellow into a vegetarian hatted restaurant, known for its eggplant steak and pickled kohlrabi and enoki). Adam also talks about his previous life as a jetsetting European handball player (in fact, he had to get his hip replaced after a career-ending injury) and, given the brilliant "everything bagel" that was on his menu, he weighs in on the neverending New York vs Montreal bagel debate, too. Plus, we chat about coming up through the ranks while mentored by Peter Doyle, Mark Best, Pasi Petanen and Brent Savage; his history with Bar Rochford's Louis Couttoupes, and whether Adam's langos bread is like Hungarian pizza. Make sure to check out Etelek before it winds up its Potts Point pop-up on New Year's Eve and keep an eye out on Instagram to see what Adam and Marc Dempsey have planned for Etelek in 2019.

Jowett Yu was working at Tetsuya's – then in the Top 5 of the World's 50 Best Restaurants – but couldn't even afford a bed. It was a wild time (just listen to the memorable "pep talk" that head chef Martin Benn gave when the restaurant reached #4 on the list) and the kitchen was full of upcoming stars: Daniel Puskas (Sixpenny), Clayton Wells (Automata), Phil Wood (Laura), Luke Powell (LP's Quality Meats) and Dan Hong – who Jowett bonded with, because they basically had the same haircut and similar cultural backgrounds. Together, Dan and Jowett would go on to open Lotus, Ms.G's and Mr Wong together. At Lotus, there was the momentous night they launched David Chang's Momofuku book (and cooked for both Chang and Alex Atala), Ms.G's involved a memorable American research trip (where Jowett ate something that resulted in the "best 30 seconds of my life") and Mr Wong, which was an "intense" experience where he'd finish work at 3am and clock in again at 9am. Jowett then opened Ho Lee Fook in Hong Kong (an experience that earnt him a "lecture" from his mum and a major grilling when he put her dumplings on the menu – but even she ended up a fan of the restaurant). Here, the chef has experimented with fascinating vegetarian dishes, like typhoon shelter corn and celeriac char siu. More recently, he's launched Canton Disco in Shanghai. Jowett also talks about growing up in Taiwan (and his visits to his totally boss grandmother's farm: she could look at an egg and tell when it would hatch – and be totally right) and his love of Hong Kong's Belon (he compares chef Daniel Calvert's cooking to the rise of Beatlemania). When you consider that Jowett ended up in the kitchen as a 14-year-old because he essentially didn't want to be a dishwasher (and he made the smart move avoiding a career in journalism, too!), there's no doubt that he's had a fascinating career.