By Larry Dietz-
I’ve never been a big fan of food shows on the radio. Usually they’re centered around recipes, with hosts or guests who are so chirpy and upbeat that I can’t take them, or their recipes, seriously. Or there are the solemn your-body-is-a-temple and good-food-is-its-fuel hosts who only make me want to rush out and dive into the biggest burger I can find.
Then there’s Evan Kleiman. She’s a wonderful cook in her own right at her Angeli Caffe in Hollywood, where she serves one of the more original rustic Italian menus in the United States. Angeli has garnered deservedly great reviews.
Evan is just as good on radio as she is in the kitchen. Her “Good Food,” broadcast on public radio’s KCRW-FM on Saturday, is a treat for anyone who cares about food and happens to live within range of the signal of the Santa Monica based station. You also can access her shows, including archives of past broadcasts at the KCRW website: www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/gf
One of her recent features was Evan interviewing a young man who has, since shortly after birth, no sense of smell, and therefore no sense of taste. To hear a person who has made her career from providing great-tasting food discuss intelligently the issues of a life with no taste whatsoever made me pull over in my car to listen without the distraction of driving.
Kleiman also features on-air restaurant reviews by Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold of the LA Weekly, impressive on the radio as in print.
