It’s Lunar New Year, and Spoonie and Tongs are making Vietnamese spring rolls for “The Big Taste." Their biggest challenge? Trying to stay up late to celebrate the holiday! Between noisemakers, dance parties, and a little help from the listeners, will they make it to midnight?? Chef guest Calvin Eng joins the fun and talks about his family’s Cantonese traditions and favorite recipes, and kid guest Milo shares his favorite Korean rice cake soup, Tteokguk! 

Calvin Eng is the chef & owner of Bonnie’s, a Cantonese-American restaurant in Williamsburg. Brooklyn born and raised in a traditional Chinese family, Eng had the dream & goal of opening a restaurant for the last decade, but only in recent years has he realized how important it is to pursue Cantonese food and dive deeper into the dishes of his heritage. Bonnie’s has received positive reviews from The New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Eater and Bon Appetit. Eng is a 2023 StarChefs Rising Star, 2023 James Beard Best Chef: New York State Semifinalist, 2022 James Beard Emerging Chef Finalist, 2022 Food & Wine Best New Chef and 2023 Forbes 30 under 30. 

Spoonie is excited for her show all about Nigerian food and can’t wait to make chuk chuk candies! But she keeps getting interrupted by a super fan of “The Plate Show”, Canastasia, the can opener. Spoonie is flattered at first but will she be able to keep her cool... even though she’s ready to fly off her handle? Author and cook Yewande Komolafe shares her favorite Nigerian food from growing up, and kid guest Lexie tells us all about Jollof rice and moin moin that she eats with her family. 

 Yewande Komolafe is a Berlin-born, Lagos-raised and Brooklyn-based food writer, stylist, recipe developer and cookbook writer of My Everyday Lagos: Nigerian Cooking at Home and in the Diaspora which released on October 24th, 2023. After years working in restaurant kitchens around the country, Yewande transitioned to food media. Her work has been featured in outlets like Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Whetstone, Saveur and Food52, in addition to books Waffles + Mochi: Get Cooking! (based on the Netflix show), Sheetpan Chicken by Cathy Erway, and Why We Cook by Lindsay Gardner. She’s currently a staff writer at The New York Times, where she writes a monthly column and published the popular feature “10 Essential Nigerian Recipes.” Yewande lives, cooks and gardens in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters. 

Spoonie is excited to make challah bread for her beloved Aunt Mitzi, the oven mitt, but is astounded to realize just how long it takes. Will Spoonie finish before Aunt Mitzi arrives? Special guest Elyssa Heller joins to talk about Jewish food, both traditional and modern, and kid guest Juliet shares her favorite food, latkes, for the Jewish holiday, Hanukkah!

Elyssa Heller started Edith's as a pandemic-born sandwich shop inside of the Brooklyn institution, Paulie Gee's pizzeria. Named after her Great-Aunt Edith, Edith's was supposed to last just six weeks and was started with $8,000 of savings. The pop-up immediately went viral, its twists on classic Jewish comfort food enabling Edith’s to become a permanent jewel-sized sandwich shop in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. Edith's brings global Jewish flavors to the forefront of New York's culinary landscape and offers food influenced by the Jewish diaspora, exploring the flavors and cultural experience of Jewish cuisine. Elyssa's goal with Edith's is to create an empire built on delicious sandwiches, bringing global Jewish food to everyone.

A born and bred Chicagoan (but New Yorker for the last decade) Elyssa grew up on smoked chubbs and loved spending Sundays at the deli with family. She is a retired Canadian volleyball player and graduated from Queen's University. Elyssa lives in Brooklyn with her dog Murray (named after Bill) and you can often find her behind the register slinging sandwiches.

If you love The Plate Show, check out this new podcast: Keyshawn Solves It! Today is Keyshawn’s 10th birthday and it’s full of surprises! What started out as a birthday mystery party turns into a real mystery.

Keyshawn Solves It is produced by GBH Kids and distributed by PRX and PBS KIDS. Funding is made possible in part by Black Public Media. Keyshawn Solves It was originally developed under a grant from the Department of Education. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government. The project was funded by a Ready To Learn grant [PR/Award No. S295A200004, CFDA No. 84.295A] provided by the Department of Education to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Spoonie LOVES corn, so she can’t wait to make succotash, a Native American dish, for today’s “big taste”.  But there’s just one problem, their trusty kitchen plate is missing! How can you have “The Plate Show” without the plate?! Detective Sherlock Spoonie and Doctor Tongs to the rescue. Special guest Kevin Noble Maillard shares stories about his food traditions as a member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, and kid guest Watehronhine tells us about her favorite foods and ceremonies from her Mohawk Native American community.  

 Kevin Noble Maillard is the author of Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story, a children’s picture book illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal. Originally from Oklahoma, Kevin is a member of the Seminole Nation, Mekusukey band. He’s currently a law professor at Syracuse University, a contributor to the New York Times, and lives with his family in Manhattan.

I flip, you flip, we all flip for…pancakes!  Join Spoonie as she explores different types of pancakes from all over the world. Spoonie is all ready to make super fluffy buttermilk pancakes - yum!- but will friend and fellow utensil, Spatty the spatula be able to get over his nerves in time to flip Spoonie’s pancakes for “The Big Taste”? Special guest Reem Kassis joins and tells us about qatayef asafiri, stuffed pancakes eaten during the month of Ramadan, and kid guest, Anoushka, who shares her favorite appam pancakes from Kerala, India too!  

Reem Kassis is a Palestinian food and culture writer and author of the best-selling and award-winning cookbooks, The Palestinian Table (2017), The Arabesque Table (2021) and the children’s book, We Are Palestinian (2023). Her writing regularly appears in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post in addition to various news outlets, magazines and academic journals. She grew up in Jerusalem, obtained her undergraduate and MBA degrees from UPenn and Wharton and her MSc in social psychology from the London School of Economics. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and three daughters. 

Spoonie is doing a show about street food from around the world but keeps getting distracted by a delicious smell coming from outside her kitchen window. Can Spoonie stay focused long enough to get through her podcast? And will she ever get the chance to taste the street food she so desperately wants to try? Celebrity chef Pati Jinich shares her favorite Mexican street foods, and kid guest Gavi talks about the Malaysian curry puffs he loves making with his grandmother.  

Pati Jinich is the Emmy-nominated Mexican host and executive producer of both La Frontera, her PBS Primetime docuseries that reveals untold stories from the US-Mexico border and Pati’s Mexican Table, which has brought Mexican flavors into American homes for more than 10 years. A James Beard award-winning chef and former political analyst, Pati has made it her life’s work to build greater understanding between her two home countries: Mexico where she was born and the United States where she currently resides and is raising her family. In addition to her television work, she is a New York Times contributor and bestselling author with 3 cookbooks, including her most recent Treasures of the Mexican Table: Classic Recipes, Local Secrets. 

It's cold outside, so to warm things up Spoonie is doing a show about Caribbean food. She’s making jerk chicken, but Tongs is nervous about trying spicy food. How will they handle the heat in the kitchen? Celebrity chef JJ Johnson shares his own jerk chicken recipe, and kid guest Leia talks about her favorite food from the Dominican Republic...platanos!

Cultural tastemaker, family man and renowned American chef, JJ Johnson is most recognized for his innovative approach to African Caribbean cuisine. His work has earned him numerous accolades, including the James Beard Foundation Book Award and a two-time spot on the Nation’s Restaurant News Power List. He has been featured on a variety of TV shows including Food Network’s Chopped, Netflix’s Street Food and Selena + Chef on HBO Max and hosts his own show, 'Just Eats with Chef JJ’ airing for its fifth season on TV One's network Cleo TV this fall. Chef JJ's highly anticipated cookbook, The Simple Art of Rice: Recipes from Around the World for the Heart of Your Table, will be released in September 2023. At FIELDTRIP, JJ’s rapidly growing multi-unit fast casual rice bowl concept, he champions sustainability, working with local rice farmers and producers to source the freshest ingredients. With four locations throughout New York City, he is a community advocate for food justice and equity raising awareness within the industry.