Chew In The Lou Nine PBS

One might think that with Missouri being long distances from the nearest ocean, that good seafood is hard to come by in St. Louis.  Well, that's not the case!  (and no, we are not pulling it out of the muddy Mississippi either!).  There are some stellar seafood restaurants and chefs in town, including our guest, Chef Heidi Skye Hamamura, owner of Taberu.  Oh, it's also Lent in St. Louis, so, FISH FRY SEASON!

Surprise! It's a double podcast drop day here at Chew In The Lou!  We figured if we are going to debut our new "A Delicious Day In Your Neighborhood" feature, and start with Kirkwood, it's only fitting that we drop a Webster Groves episode at the same time!  Give these episodes a listen, and then head over to Chew In The Lou on social media and tell us what we missed!  

In a new feature on our podcast, Lydia and Joe once a month will be talking about a local St. Louis neighborhood, and highlighting some of the long term food pillars, heavyweights, hidden gems, and up-and-coming establishments in that neighborhood's food scene.  Welcome to "A Delicious Day In Your Neighborhood".  First stop?  Kirkwood.  

Lydia and Joe look back on some of their more loving and memorable Valentine's Day meals, including in Joe's case when he screwed up the first Valentine's Day with the woman who would luckily stick around and become his wife.  This all leads up to a creamy and sweet conversation all about chocolate with master chocolatier Brian Pelletier of Kakao Chocolate, who finally answers the question for us: Is white chocolate really chocolate?

Have you given up on your New Year's resolution?  Yeah, us too.  Maybe it's because you set out to a goal to NEVER do something, as opposed to setting a goal of trying to do MORE of something, like trying more plant-based foods in 2022.  Let's explore that topic, with local plant-based eating expert Caryn Dugan, aka, STL Veg Girl!

Many folks across the St. Louis region kick off the new year with food related resolutions.  Eating healthier, cooking at home more, or cutting out alcohol in the month of January.  To explore this trend of "Dry January" a little more, we stopped in for a visit at The Mocktail Lounge on Main Street in St. Charles to try a few non-alcoholic libations.  Instead, what we got was a tremendously human story about recovery, motivation, and community.  Of course we sampled some tremendously fancy and fun mocktails too...