New Worlder

• Episode 111: Garima Arora

  Garima Arora is the India born chef of the two Michelin star restaurant Gaa in Bangkok, Thailand. She is the only female Indian chef with two Michelin stars. Garima has been working tirelessly to awaken the transformative potential of Indian cuisine both in India and abroad for many years. She developed a non-profit called Food Forward India, that documents, discover and catalogue the diversity and complexity of Indian food and the culture surrounding it, and is also a judge on MasterChef India, one of the most wide-reaching culinary television shows on earth.In our conversation, we speak of how the perception of Indian food has changed since she opened the restaurant. I spent two months in the country when I was 25, traveling on 3rd class trains everywhere, going from the Himalayas in the north to Goa in the south, and the border with Pakistan in the west to Varanasi in the east. Aside of being one of the most impactful periods of my life, I tasted so many things that were new to me and I haven’t seen since. Indian food, the cuisine of a massive landscape with hundreds of ecosystems and more people than any other country on the planet, was, for many years, reduced to a handful of curries and breads outside of the country. It’s so vast and rich and has been bottled up within India for so long, but suddenly it’s starting to spread. This is very much a big moment for Indian food outside of India. Tresind Studio in Dubai was just awarded 3 Michelin stars. Semma in New York was named the best restaurant in the city by The New York Times. And within India there is a lot going on too, not just with fine dining restaurants, but at the street level there is an energy there that is growing by the day. This is a cuisine, sorry not a cuisine, but thousands of them, that have been overlooked for far too long.Aside of trying to juggle parenting with chef life and her early career as a journalist, Garima talks about her work at Gaa. She tells us about the historic Thai house that was moved in pieces to Bangkok and reassembled with the help of a modern architecture firm to create the setting of the restaurant. She tells us how she cooks the Thai fruit durian on a tandoor oven as her main course, which sounds like one of the most delicious things ever.READ MORE at NEW WORLDER.

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• Episode 110: Maru Molina

  Maru Molina lives in El Salvador, living somewhat of a nomadic lifestyle. She has a weekly pop-up event called Cocina de Jardin, where the events are held in both wild and urban settings around the country. Maru's work on the project over the past five years is very impactful. I believe it is having an impact. She has been holding weekly events that connect consumers with healthy, nutritious food grown by local producers, often right on the farms. They are physically seeing, tasting understanding where their food comes from. She recently expanded the concept with Finca Sylvestris, an experimental farm on the slopes between two volcanoes, just outside of San Salvador. Aside of giving her new altitude ingredients to work with, she also has a formal space for Cocina de Jardín events, which occur there twice a month. It’s given her an entire new understanding of her work.It is a very pivotal moment in the history of El Salvador. Even though there are serious concerns in the way the government has behaved itself, the country has opened up wildly and people are genuinely optimistic. I saw it the last time I was there I saw it. I felt it. It was as if a heavy burden had been lifted. As Maru and I discuss, this moment is an opportunity to build something better and lasting because it might not come again. --Host: Nicholas Gill ( https://www.instagram.com/nicholasgill2 ) Co-host: Juliana Duque ( https://www.instagram.com/juliduk/)Produced by Nicholas Gill & Juliana DuqueRecording & Editing by New Worlder https://www.newworlder.comEmail: [email protected] more at New Worlder: https://www.newworlder.com

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• Episode #109: Evan Rail

  Evan Rail is based in Prague, in the Czech Republic and is prolific food and travel writer, and has covered beer and spirits for many years. His latest book is called The Absinthe Forger: A True Story of Deception, Betrayal, and the World’s Most Dangerous Spirit.Evan and I have been crossing journalistic paths for many years. We both have written for the New York Times Travel section for a long time and we also have an interest in food and drink, though in very different parts of the world. But we now have the same agent and last year, said agent, sent me a copy of Evan’s new book before it came out and I couldn’t put it down.For one, absinthe is this intriguing spirit and I’ve always been fascinated by it. It has this rich history that inspired all kinds of great art, but then it got banned in much of the world a century ago and there’s always this desire for things that we cannot have. The book is part history lesson about the absinthe story and part true crime novel about this forger that was creating and selling what he alleged were highly sought after expensive pre-ban bottles of absinthe. Evan describes this entire absinthe underground that exists, this community of enthusiasts who want to taste history, and how actual lost bottles are occasionally being tracked down and being rediscovered in chateaus and estate sales. It’s a great read and I highly suggest getting a copy.Read more at New Worlder.

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• Episode #108: Carolina Colque & Sergio Armella

  Carolina Colque and Sergio Armella are the owners of Ephedra Restaurant outside of San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. Let me be clear when I say that this is a very unlikely restaurant. Two young, local Atacameños with no cooking experience, have opened a tasting menu restaurant in the Atacama Desert, the driest place on earth. It’s not even in the main town, San Pedro de Atacama, but in an ayllu, a traditional community a dozen kilometers away. I urge you to just go to their Instagram page right now and look at the food they are making and the ingredients they are working with. It will blow your mind.The Atacama Desert, in the far north of Chile, is a special place. I have been there a few times over the years. The scenery is unreal, almost lunar at times, but it is the flavors there that have always excited me. In a place with little rain, most of the plants grow slowly, into large shrubs with brittle branches that develop one-of-a-kind flavors. There are also fruit trees, leguminous pods and fragrant flowers that only come out when there is a hint of moisture in the air. This is the kind of landscape Carolina and Sergio are working with.Before starting the restaurant, Sergio’s cooking experience consisted of a Neapolitan pizza business they tried out during the pandemic, then he staged at Geranium, the 3 Michelin star restaurant in Copenhagen, which is extremely technical, for a few months. What makes Ephedra special is their will to create a distinct experience in the place they are from. These unique ecosystems, not to mention the cultures that support them, are what makes Latin American food special.Read More at New Worlder.

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• Episode #107: Bruna Fontevecchia & Max Wilson of Anchoa Magazine

  Bruna Fontevecchia and Max Wilson are the cofounders of the food magazine and platform Anchoa. The magazine, which began in Argentina, has tried to create a space for deeper stories about food in Latin America. There is little to no mention of fine dining chefs or restaurant rankings. The magazine covers anthropology and ecology with food, the things that we eat and drink and how they are made, as the connecting tissue that unites them all. Bruna is the editor and Max is the designer and as you will hear, the process in building each issue is very organic and flows with the rhythm of the region, which is in constant flux.While the magazine’s coverage began in Argentina, where Bruna is from, it has gradually spread to rest of Latin America. Plus, the last two issues, #4 and the just released #5, are bilingual, in both English and Spanish. Part of that decision is to get more people to read it, though part of it is logistical, in just getting it on the shelves of bookstores and newsstands in different parts of the world. Anchoa is part of a new wave of gastronomic journalism in the region, where small print magazines are finding life as large print publications gravitate more towards digital publishing. There’s also Chiú in Ecuador that started recently, as well as several other small publications.In the interview they describe the challenges in exposing people to these kinds of stories and are continually experimenting with new forms. They have a digital only part of the magazine and a podcast that releases sporadically. They also just released a 20-minute short film called El Sueño del Vino, about ancestral winemaking methods in northern Argentina, in Cafayate, and the battle to preserve them. Please check out what they are doing. Pick up issue #5, I even have a photo essay in it about fish in the Peruvian Amazon. Request your local bookstores with lively food sections to stock it. The more engaged the world can become with the depths of cuisine in the Americas, the better it will be for all of us.Read more at New Worlder

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