On today’s THE FOOD SEEN, Michael Harlan Turkell hosts a special one-hour episode devoted to The Food Book Fair. Founder Elizabeth Thacker Jones will talk about all of the exciting additions to this year’s lineup, as we’re joined by a few of those guests in studio. Oliver Strand, a NYTimes coffee contributor, and Lars K. Huse of illustration and coffee, discuss their upcoming FBF Coffee Crawl . Melia Marden, chef/owner of The Smile, discusses her new cookbook, Modern Mediterranean. Christophe Hille, owner Northern Spy Food Co., will be on the FOOD + LABOR panel, touches on the “living wage” injustices of working in the restaurant industry. This episode has been sponsored by White Oak Pastures. Thanks to Cookies for the show's theme music.

"Coffee just moved the needles in a way that no other topic ever has. People were just so engaged after my first article, and I was really interested in that. People really don't know a lot about coffee." [5:15] -- Oliver Strand on THE FOOD SEEN

"I try to make things as simple as they can be, and as best as they can be- whether it's for the restaurant or my cookbook." [28:15] -- Melia Marden on THE FOOD SEEN

"Restaurant work is not like clerical work or office work... a restaurant is like a little military operation. If one person doesn't show up, it's harder to make the ship move." [46:00] -- Christophe Hille on THE FOOD SEEN

David Weber, President of the NYC Food Trucks Association (NYCFTA), and founding member of Rickshaw Dumplings, and joins THE FOOD SEEN to discuss a pressing matter. The NYPD has recently been asked to enforce a 1950’s Transportation Department regulation that states, “no vendor, hawker or huckster shall park a vehicle at a metered parking space to offer merchandise for sale from the vehicle”, effectively threatening the food truck street presence in Midtown Manhattan, as well as in all 5 boroughs. Kim Ima, owner/operator of Treats Truck, and a trailblazer of the food truck scene, calls in to discuss how this effects not only our cityscape of food, but how it compromises the integrity of many truck’s business models and tests the limits of their faithful customer base.

* photo by Cinzia Reale-Castello

On today’s hour-long special edition of The Food Seen, we treat our time with Tom Colicchio (rhymes with “Radicchio“), not as an interview, but more so, as an apprenticeship to learn from his summers cooking in 1000-person weekend “churn and burn” establishments, to haute dining in Manhattan. He’s built an empire around the idea of culinary Craft. How does this Top Chef define success? How does he stay relevant? Two 3 star reviews by the NYTimes, 10 years apart, both cite the complex simplicity that he makes looks easy. Still, Tom believes, “you’re only as good as your last dish”. Even more important than feeding his diners, Tom now sets his sights on eliminating hunger in this country. The film, A Place At The Table, produced by Colicchio and co-directed by his wife Lori Silverbush, seeks to foster the “food insecure” past the subsidies that have made calories cheap and nutrition expensive. Get hungry to end hunger! This program was sponsored by Heritage Foods USA.

"I don't have anybody I would consider a mentor because I never stayed in one place long enough." [24:25]

"When you're cooking for 30 years - you start wondering whether you're still relevant and how to maintain relevancy. You don't want to go out." [42:15]

"50 million Americans are struggling to put food on the table - they don't know where the next meal is coming from." [55:15]

"I believe that most chefs believe that food is a right we should have like air and water." [61:02]

"We have to make hunger a voting issue. If our politicians are not going to help solve this problem - I think they need to be labeled as 'pro hunger'" [62:50]

--Tom Colicchio on The Food Seen