Kitchen Curious with Vivian Howard

Episode 2

Pasta

Vivian explores how pasta stretches small amounts of flavorful meat into satisfying meals, a practice that spans cultures and centuries. Joined by "noodle man" Dan Pashman, host of The Sporkful and creator of the cascatelli pasta shape, she embarks on a Charleston noodle crawl that includes stops at Top Chef finalist Shuai Wang's King BBQ and her own restaurant Lenoir. Vivian meets nutritionist Christine Byrne to settle the whole grain versus regular pasta debate before heading home to prepare pantry-friendly recipes like anchovy spaghetti and a modern Hamburger Helper.

Episode 3

Fats

Roots are the original comfort food. Long before butter or cream, they fed us, filled us, and kept well when nothing else would. Vivian argues that roots still show up for us today—steady, affordable, and quietly beautiful when flashier produce fades. With a quick relish of raw beets and sweet potato, she even makes store-bought hummus feel party-worthy.

Episode 4

Root Vegetables

In this episode, Vivian makes the argument that root vegetables are the OG comfort food and positions them as a set of ingredients that continue to be here for us today when other, flashier produce is not. With a simple relish of raw beets and sweet potato, Vivan renders a tub of store bought hummus party-worthy. Our deep dive into one root leads us to the produce section of Walmart where Vivian and nutritionist Christine Byrne search for roots like radishes and yuca as well varieties like beets with their greens intact with a focus on how the color of the root relates to its nutritional value. We follow the sweet potato thread on a visit with Jenny Brulé, chef and entrepreneur, to the lab where she developed an instant sweet potato product. We see the process of taking a sweet potato from raw to instant and discuss the idea of what makes a food processed as well as how her instant sweet potatoes address the challenge of getting more orange and yellow foods in our diets. Back in the ch

Episode 5

Pickles

In this episode Vivian does her best to make pickling accessible. Using bagged mixed salad she shows us how anybody willing to employ a little elbow grease can make their own kraut and how that's not only a way to prepare something good for your gut and specific to your taste but also a way to save money. With Christine at the grocery store, Vivian talks through the vinegar section, pointing out which vinegars are good for pickling or not and why. She then raises the questions of vinegar as a health tonic and fermented pickles for gut health. Vivian heads to the Mt. Olive Pickle festival just thirty minutes up the road for an entertaining afternoon of competitive pickle eating and quick pickle conversations of all kinds. Back in the church kitchen, Vivian continues to demonstrate the ease of pickling with the recipe for Red Weapons or quick pickled tomatoes, an ingredient that has become a building block of almost every dish she makes.

Episode 6

Fruit with more to give

In this episode, Vivian takes a low-hanging approach to food waste by focusing on one subject, fruit with more to give. After she laments the fact that she slices and packs apples for her kids lunch only to unpack them brown and uneaten at the end of the day, Vivian shows us how to turn those apples into oatmeal that her kids will eat. Down in Charleston, Vivian and her nephew, Sam Levine, cook together in Vivan's restaurant, Handy and Hot. Vivian concocts a simple syrup using ginger scraps and apple cores and Sam turns it into a delicious and colorful matcha drink. Back in Kinston, Vivian is joined by the Li Sisters who literally wrote the book on food waste. For once, Vivian doesn't have to cook. Instead she gets to watch in amazement as the sisters make something unexpected and delicious with the less than perfect food they find in the walk-in. Back at the church, Vivan tosses together a sheet pan dinner using smooshy, sad grapes, bratwurst and Brussels sprouts.

Episode 7

Beans and Rice

In this episode, Vivian gives beans and rice the credit they are due. While highlighting the fact that they are affordable, shelf stable, easy to cook and undeniably healthy, Vivian throws together a novel hoppin' john salad with canned peas and cooked rice dressed with a hot bacon vinaigrette. Vivian joins Christine at Piggly Wiggly to talk dried beans versus canned and brown rice versus all the other rice. Christine also explains why beans and rice eaten together are a complete protein and why that matters when we make dinner. To add local color to the combination eaten round the globe, Vivian visits Tidewater Grain in Oriental, NC and lays eyes on the beginnings of Eastern North Carolina's rice revival as well as the charismatic characters and surprising hobby behind it. Before leaving, she suggests a crop rotation that includes beans, which would not only return nitrogen to the soil but would give Tidewater Grain the opportunity to offer a "complete protein." On the way home Vivian

Episode 8

Your Freezer

In this episode, we learn to appreciate our freezers for the workhorses they are. After an explanation of the way her family once used their "locker" to store spoils from the garden and her mom's early version of meal prep, big batches of vegetable beef soup, Vivian shows us how to put together frozen burritos from leftover Mexican take-out. It may sound lame but there is nothing like opening your freezer to find a perfectly tasty lunch made from something you paid for but were likely to throw away. After making the most of our leftovers, we go to the freezer section of Piggly Wiggly with Christine to compare frozen varieties of ingredients with their canned counterparts for sodium and other preservatives. In her church kitchen, Vivian unveils her method for making upside down turkey, veggie rice bowls for her kids' lunch. An easy way to parcel out full meals that save on time in the long run, these rice bowls are a new way to think about meal prep. Because when it comes to food the Fr