Welcome to Three Ingredients
What can you do with three ingredients? More than you’d think. Some of the most delicious dishes are just that simple.
But we’ve got an entirely new kind of dish. Stir three lifelong friends together, add a lot of laughter and you have the perfect recipe for lively conversations about food, travel, chefs, the state of the restaurant industry… everything, in fact, that has to do with great eating.
Most mornings, when we’re all in Los Angeles, we take a walk and discuss everything under the sun. Recently an acquaintance said rather wistfully, “I wish I could listen in while you’re talking.” And just like that the idea for this podcast was born.
We have no agenda, no outline. We just set off on our walk and start talking. What do we talk about? You never know: it’s a totally unfiltered conversation. We almost always surprise ourselves and I’m pretty sure we’ll surprise you.
Who are we? Well, if you’re looking at the photo above — taken by our friend and Bloomberg food editor Kate Krader when we were at Copenhagen’s Slurp Ramen Joint — that’s Nancy Silverton in the middle, which is pretty much where she always is … in the middle of the action. Whether she’s traveling the world opening a new restaurant with the acclaimed Mozza Restaurant Group or perfecting a new recipe out of her kitchens in either Los Angeles or Panicale, Italy, Nancy is a culinary force to be reckoned with.
She’s written and published nine cookbooks and her tenth, The Cookie That Changed My Life: And More Than 100 Other Classic Cakes, Cookies, Muffins and Pies That Will Change Yours, was just released this fall. And that’s really what her food tends to do: changes lives.
Ruth Reichl’s the one hiding in the corner. She’s good at hiding; when she was the restaurant critic of the New York Times she wore a lot of disguises. Here’s one of them.
She went on to be the editor of the late, lamented Gourmet Magazine. Now all she does is write books and a substack called La Briffe. And, of course, go on long walks.
On the left, that’s Laurie Ochoa. She's the general manager of Food at the Los Angeles Times, which happens to be where she first started working as a restaurant editor and writer with Ruth. It's also how she met Nancy when Ruth sent her to report on the opening of Campanile, the groundbreaking L.A. restaurant Nancy started with Mark Peel. After Ruth went to the New York Times, Laurie became food editor of the L.A. Times. She also co-wrote Nancy's sourdough cookbook, "Nancy Silverton's Breads From the La Brea Bakery."
When Ruth became editor of Gourmet, she brought Laurie to New York as the magazine's executive editor. Laurie moved back to Los Angeles to become editor-in-chief of the alternative newspaper LA Weekly and eventually returned to The Times as arts and entertainment editor. Last year, she returned to what her late husband and restaurant critic Jonathan Gold used to call "the small, happy world of food." A world that's not so small anymore.
Why are we doing this? To be honest, because these days we all travel so much we’re rarely in the same place at the same time. This is our excuse to have a morning walk at least once a week. And we’d like you to come along.
Why would you want to? Because between us we have a couple hundred years of experience in the world of food and we’re very opinionated people.
What can you expect? Recipes, discussions of new ingredients, dispatches from the far corners of the food world, guest appearances by various friends from all over the world…. and a very good time.
It is absolutely free. Paid subscribers will also get bonus content: recipes for the dishes we talk about, restaurant suggestions, sometimes a short extra walk. So lace up your shoes and come join us. We promise not to put you to sleep.
Find new and past episodes of “Three Ingredients” at threeingredients.substack.com/podcast
Oh to slurp just one more briny oyster with the beloved Jon Rowley. A cherished memory was watching Jon train the wait staff at Old Ebbitt Grill (15th Street, Washington DC).
You three legends have definitely knocked it out of the ballpark with this one! Wish I could afford to give everyone in my old, but re-resurrecting food bookclub a subscription. How about a group rate?
The photo of incognito Ruth is right out of the Cindy Sherman cast list. Awesome look, Ruth. I hope the meal was as inspiring.