Foodie's Paradise With Arroe Collins Arroe Collins

"Food has a far deeper meaning than providing fuel for your body. Cooking with intention feeds your soul. It warms your heart, conjures good memories, and brings people together." -award-winning pit master Moe Cason Fire up the grill this summer with legendary pitmaster and Nat Geo host Marlando "Big Moe" Cason. In his debut cookbook, Big Moe's Big Book of BBQ (National Geographic; May 7, 2024; $30.00 U.S.; ISBN: 9781426223525; hardcover; 240 pages), Cason reveals the secrets to fantastic barbecue, along with 75 mouthwatering recipes passed down through his family for generations. Drawing on the self-taught knowledge that's made him a barbecue competition success, Cason offers expert guidance, from how to smoke ribs like a champion to selecting the best cuts of meat and types of wood for optimal flavor. Whether you're craving the perfect Texas brisket, fall-off-the-bone pork ribs, pork shoulder, or picnic-worthy accompaniments like a secret ingredient mac and cheese that wowed TV host, comedian, and entertainer Steve Harvey, mint-and-cilantro limeade, and moonshine peach crumble, Big Moe's Big Book of BBQ will help you master the art of the grill right in your backyard. In addition, Cason offers expert guidance on different types of smokers and grills, filling the pantry with time-tested spice rubs and marinades, selecting the perfect cut of meat, and more.

Every living thing must solve an equation. How much nitrogen to eat, how much sodium, how much phosphorus, etc. The body solves that equation by taste and flavor -- by making living things crave what they need. Our appetites are linked to nutritional requirements. Taste: The Flavor of Life, a new docuseries on Curiosity Stream, explores the world of taste and how deliciousness unites us with the rest of animals in surprising ways.

For example -- Organisms need salt for their cells to function properly. If a food has salt, the taste receptor sends a signal to the brain, creating pleasure. The umami taste receptor rewards animals for finding nitrogen, an element that’s essential for building proteins and genes. Sweet taste receptors encourage animals to find foods with enough sugar to fuel their daily activity. Taste: The Flavor of Life traces the impact of taste from animals’ first steps on land to top Michelin star restaurants!

Taste: The Flavor of Life comes from biologist Rob Dunn and is inspired by his book Delicious – The Evolution of Flavor and How It Made Us Human (co-written by Monica Sanchez). A Professor at NC State University, Rob leads the Public Science Lab, a group of scholars from diverse disciplines who work to make new discoveries about daily life. His research has been awarded more than ten million dollars in grants from more than twelve different sources for work in 20 different countries. An avid writer, Rob has published many articles in National Geographic, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal among many others, as well as seven books including The Wild Life of Our Bodies and A Natural History of the Future.

It wasn’t long before Debbie Wilson-Berment discovered that the kitchen was where she wanted to be. As a young girl growing up in Trinidad and Tobago, she would often help her mother, Alma, an accomplished and award-winning chef, prepare family meals, as well as dishes for her mother’s catering clients. By the time she was 16, Wilson-Berment, who is known professionally as Chef Sagajo, had clients of her own and a steady stream of requests for the beautiful special occasion cakes she made. 
 
You’ll find more than just sweet treats (but you can find those, too) in Chef Sagajo’s first cookbook, THE SAGAJO EXPERIENCE: Recipes for Lifestyle & Entertaining (Virago Global Publishing, February 14, 2024). She goes beyond a cookbook, showing you how to create moments, not just meals—a feeling she learned from her mother and continued with her family. You will find page after page of easy-to-follow, yet elegant, recipes, but she extends her culinary canvas beyond the plate. She offers suggestions about other ingredients that make meals memorable, such as the settings you choose, the stemware you use, the flowers you display, the styles (formal or informal) you create, the wines you select and, most importantly, the people you choose to gather around the table.
 
She provides an amazing smorgasbord of delicious menu ideas (with accompanying recipes) for some of life’s more common gatherings, such as family dinner, lunch (or tapas) with friends, breakfast in bed and those special occasions when you pull out all the stops with a menu that includes beef brisket, whole roasted red snapper, roasted duck, spatchcock chicken and Chilean sea bass. You can also find tips on food and wine pairings and a helpful “In My Pantry” guide, which lists all the ingredients that you will need. 
 
Her recipes and tips for entertaining are easy to follow whether you are a seasoned chef or an aspiring cook. Beautiful, eye-catching photos throughout the book bring the meals to life, as well as the family and friends who gather around her table, including her husband, grandchildren and three children, Sasha, Gabrielle and Jonathan. (Her children are the inspiration behind her professional name and brand. Sagajo--pronounced sah-ga-joe—is an acronym from the first two initials of each of her children’s names.)
 
Since that early start in her mother’s kitchen, Chef Sagajo has gone on to a successful career as a private chef, a pastry chef, a culinary educator and now, an author. Her dishes reflect the rich Caribbean flavors of her early roots along with the cooking traditions she learned while training at top culinary programs in the United States. She calls her style Caribbean meets Mediterranean. She hopes her recipes will inspire others to gather, entertain with joy and adopt an approach to life that has long guided her personal and professional path: “Life is meant to taste and celebrate.” 

All bets are off as Food Network's test kitchen opens up its doors late night in the new eight-episode series Wildcard Kitchen, where fan-favorite chefs put their money where their mouth is during a high-stakes culinary card game. In each episode, host Eric Adjepong takes over the test kitchen after hours with an exclusive invitation for three chefs to bring $5,000 to play across three hands of his underground culinary poker game. The competitors, who all know each other well, have scores to settle and personal stakes to lose as they battle to create dishes based on the cards they are dealt and bet using their own instincts and cold hard cash. The luck of the draw determines the dishes and cooking time, while wildcards deal unpredictable challenges into the mix that test the chefs like never before. From surf-and-turf with peanut butter to live crab with kimchi, anything can happen in Wildcard Kitchen as mystery guest judges use blind taste tests to determine who walks away the high roller with bragging rights and cash from their fellow chefs. Wildcard Kitchen premiered Tuesday, March 12th at 9pm ET/PT on Food Network. "Wildcard Kitchen makes viewers feel like they are behind-the-scenes for an exclusive late-night poker game with their favorite chefs," said Betsy Ayala, Head of Content, Food, Warner Bros. Discovery. "The competition and good-natured trash talk is fierce, funny and unlike anything Food Network has offered." 

Enter National Geographic’s 50 States, 1000 Eats: Where to Go, When to Go, What to Eat, What to Drink by legendary editor, writer, photographer, and speaker  Joe Yogerst. Joe gives you many diverse recommendations in the United States and Canada.  Included are the can’t-miss restaurants; as-seen-on-tv food trucks, diners, and cafes; and delicious regional delicacies. There’s fascinating food history and expert travel tips for where to stay and things to do and see while on the foodie trail. And of course there are hundreds of mouthwatering images from NatGeo.

Getting Grilled with Curtis Stone focuses on the intersection of food and culture. Filmed and recorded at Chef Curtis Stone's 60-acre ranch in Malibu Canyon, guests from the world of film, television, music and sports will cook alongside Curtis while also discussing everything from current events to memories of family meals and favorite dining experiences. Sunny Side Up Productions, the chef's production company that brought "In the Spirit with Lindsay and Curtis," "Cooking with Curtis," and "Travel, Cook, Repeat" to HSN+, is behind this production, alongside executive producer and three-time Emmy winner Rob K. Silverstein. Guests have included Sebastin Maniscalco, Teri Hatcher, Akbar Gbajabiamila, Brian Austin Green & Sharna Burgess, Lindsay Price, Chelsea Peretti and Joel McHale. New episodes stream every Sunday.