Grant Achatz, author of Alinea

David talks with chef, author, and multiple-James Beard award winner Grant Achatz about his new book, his restaurant Alinea, in Chicago, and cooking restaurant food at home. They also discuss Grant’s surviving stage IV tongue cancer, which has left him, at least for now, unable to taste.

read by Elissa Altman
recorded live on January 18, 2007

Food writer and humorist Elissa Altman reads her essay about the challenges her father faced when bringing back to Canada Jewish contraband: chicken fat and chopped liver. Still, she says, it never stopped him.

read by James Sturz
recorded live on January 18, 2007

Novelist, essayist, and food writer James Sturz reads his sensual and occasionally erotic piece about the pleasures of flesh—both animal and human—and the sometimes disquieting similarity between them.

read by Gary Allen
recorded live on January 18, 2007

Gary Allen, food history editor at Leite’s Culinaria, reads two of his essays at the first “Talking With Your Mouth Full” reading event in New York City.  The first is about the pleasures of eating bananas while on vacation and the second is about the unusually delicious burritos of a rotund, not-exactly-clean cook.

read by David Leite

David Leite reads his essay about the trials and tribulations, not to mention the indigestion, that comes from being a food writer with an expense account. While it may seem like a dream job, it does come with pitfalls, even for a marathon eater like David.