590: From Top Chef to Kwéyòl / Creole with Nina Compton

14 May 2025 · 59 min

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Podcast Episode Notes: This Is TASTE - Episode 590: From Top Chef to Kwéyòl / Creole with Nina Compton

Episode Overview In this episode of *This Is TASTE*, hosts Aliza Abarbanel and Matt Rodbard interview celebrated chef Nina Compton, who owns three restaurants in New Orleans and recently released her debut cookbook, *Kwéyòl / Creole*. The discussion delves into Nina's culinary journey from St. Lucia to New Orleans, her experiences on *Top Chef*, and the creation of her cookbook.

Key Themes and Topics

  • Guest Introduction
  • Nina Compton is a renowned chef and owner of Compère Lapin, BABs, and Nina’s Creole Cottage in New Orleans.
  • Born in St. Lucia, she gained fame as a fan favorite on season 11 of *Top Chef*.
  • Her cookbook *Kwéyòl / Creole* captures her culinary journey across St. Lucia, Jamaica, Miami, and New Orleans.
  • Early Food Memories
  • Nina shares her fondest childhood memory of eating ripe mangoes at the beach in St. Lucia, highlighting the cultural importance of food and family.
  • Cookbook Development
  • Initially started after *Top Chef*, the cookbook evolved with a new co-author, Osai Endolyn, who helped shape the narrative.
  • The book emphasizes Creole cultures and the importance of documenting Caribbean cuisine.
  • Culinary Influence
  • Discusses how different cultural influences (French, British, African, Indian) shape St. Lucian food.
  • Nina talks about her exposure to Jamaican food, focusing on dishes like jerk chicken and plantain porridge.

Highlights from "Three Things" Segment

  1. Restaurant Recommendations
  2. Pig & Khao by Leah Cohen: Located in the Upper West Side, offers a blend of Southeast Asian cuisines.
  3. Abu Qir: A seafood spot in Astoria known for its Egyptian-style seafood dishes.
  1. Cookbook Discovery
  2. Menus by Brian: A collection of small cookbooks focused on dinner party menus and zero waste.
  1. Kitchen Updates
  2. Aliza discusses her new datang, a Taiwanese cooking tool, that allows for steaming and multi-cooking.
  1. Yuzu Co. Innovations
  2. Introduction of their new ready-to-drink line of beverages that showcases the versatility of yuzu.
  1. Political Note
  2. Aliza highlights mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani's plans to open city-run grocery stores in NYC.

Nina Compton's Culinary Philosophy

  • Nina emphasizes the significance of maintaining traditional recipes without modification, honoring her Caribbean heritage.
  • She discusses the duality of her identity as a chef—blending her cultural roots with her experiences in diverse culinary landscapes.

Key Takeaways

  • Culinary Identity: Nina’s journey illustrates the impact of geographic and cultural influences on cuisine.
  • Community and Heritage: The importance of sharing and preserving traditional recipes and the stories behind them.
  • Engagement with Food Culture: The excitement of seeing non-Caribbean individuals embrace and enjoy Caribbean recipes.

Conclusion Nina Compton's insights into her culinary journey and her experiences as a chef provide a rich narrative that celebrates Caribbean cuisine. The episode underscores the importance of food as a medium for cultural exchange and personal connection.

Additional Resources

  • Visit [TASTE Cooking](https://tastecooking.com) for more episodes and culinary insights.
  • Check out Nina Compton’s cookbook *Kwéyòl / Creole* for authentic Caribbean recipes and stories.

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Transcript

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0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. But I think the most satisfying thing about the book is also documenting our cuisine and our culture, but also seeing people that are not from the Caribbean try these recipes and get so excited. And that is the happiest thing for me because I'm getting people sending me messages of, I made the breadfruit pie, and they'll send me a picture, and I'm like, it looks perfect. This is Taste. I'm your host, Eliza Barbanel. Nina Compton is the chef and owner of three highly regarded restaurants in New Orleans, Comper Le Pen, Babs, and Nina's Creole Cottage.

1:08Born in St. Lucia, she honed her chops at many notable restaurants before appearing as the fan favorite on Season 11 of Top Chef. Nina's new cookbook, Quayol Creole, written with Osai Endelin, is a true standout, tracing her culinary journey from growing up in St. Lucia to cooking in Jamaica, Miami, and her adopted home of New Orleans. It's so special to have Nina in the studio to talk about making this book and her culinary career. And at the top of the show, it's the return of three things, where Liza and I talk about what is exciting us in the world of restaurants, cookbooks, and the food world as a whole.

1:46Liza, we're back. How are you? I'm good, Matt. How are you? I'm great. We're talking three things. Yeah. Do you want to go first? I will. I had an incredible meal at Pig & Cow in the Upper West Side. I just want to talk about it. I loved it. Yeah, I didn't know that they had a restaurant up there. Me either until I went. You know, Pig & Cow, legendary Lower East Side restaurant, opened in 2013. Chef Leah Cohen is the operator. And they opened in December in the Upper West Side. They're going to be opening in Philly later. So there's a nice expansion plan. And I just I really love Leah's cooking and she's going to be on the show in a future episode.

2:17And I mean, this is the kind of restaurant that does sisig, khao soi, Chinese chicken. She does rotis and there's a big old ribeye all on the menu. And what I like about it is she's cooking the foods of Malaysia, Vietnam, of Thailand and of the Philippines where, you know, her mother was born. And, you know, it's all feels it doesn't feel like there's a pan quotes around any of it. Each dish feels like it could be in a restaurant, a Malaysian restaurant, you know, in Chinatown, Manhattan, or it could be in a Thai restaurant in Queens. I just think the food is so delicious and flavorful. And Leah is such a scholar of the cuisine.

2:55She travels almost constantly. And I just I love that it's in the Upper West Side, which is a cool neighborhood. Like I was walking around and like there's a good restaurant to the Upper West Side. Yeah, this is good to know that there's another spot up there that I should go to. Yeah, I love it. It's Pig and Cow Upper West Side. What's your first one? Well, I'll do another great restaurant meal that I had recently. I finally got to go to Abu Kheer in Astoria. Have you been there before? I have been there. I went like before the pandemic. Yeah. So as you know, it's a legendary Astoria seafood spot, Egyptian style seafood.

3:27You go in, you walk up to the counter. Once you've been called up to the counter by the guys who work there, you choose your seafood of the day and then how you want them to cook it for you. And we got these giant Nigerian tiger prawns, like some of the biggest shrimp I've ever seen, which we had them do in this kind of house mustard sauce with huge chunks of garlic in it. Whole branzino, also really good calamari, perfectly crispy, like not too fried. And then because it's an Egyptian spot, you can also choose baba ganoush, like pita, Greek style salad, these kind of other additions for the table.

3:59And we walked in right when they opened for lunch on Sunday and immediately it was about to fill up. It's not a big spot, but it was like such a fun kind of rainy Sunday, like feast to start off the day. Also, the guys who work there are all really like fun and funny. And it was just like such a great meal. For sure. I was going to say the counter staff always when I went, I've been twice so friendly and cool. I remember getting a whole fish that had a kind of this really intense, almost blackened style seasoning on it. So delicious. I love that restaurant. Yeah, we did a brandino with that style and it had almost like a cumin-y orange kind of spicing on it.

4:33It's been open, I think, since 2015, but it feels like it's been a part of the neighborhood, I think, forever. Such a cool spot. I love Zabukir. I want to go back soon. Yeah. What's your next thing? My next thing is, do you know Menus by Brian, these little pop-up, not really pop-up, these small cookbooks? Have you seen it? I know you're linked with Indie Publishing with Cake Scene. No, but I'll check it out. I'm so happy that you don't know because I want to tell you all about it. I was up at Kitchen Arts and Letters talking with Matt Sartwell and just lovely, lovely afternoon just seeing all the great books.

5:04And he's such a terrific buyer of independent publishing. And he did his job. He's such a great hand seller of books. And I was at the counter and I'm like, so what else should I buy? And I was like looking at and he said, oh, Matt, buy Menus by Brian. And I was so impressed and I would love to have Brian. And honestly, I looked for his last name. I couldn't find it. I'm going to link to it in the show notes. So essentially he has done like 18 of these and the 35 page cookbooks and they're all based around a dinner party. So he gives you a shopping list and then he gives you each recipe in order.

5:40And the idea with the shopping list is there's zero waste. So he's introducing there's like maybe three recipes that use some of these products. So he's really thinking about one shopping trip, no waste. I'm just give you a couple of menus because they're beautiful. In issue number two or book number two, he starts with a gin and cointreau cocktail, moves on to spicy muscle soup, buttermilk brined roast chicken, frica salad with fennel and chilies, green beans with prosciutto and gremolata. And then to end, he's got a buttermilk panna cotta with fig and orange jam. It's like such a terrific menu.

6:14And I love the style of his writing. It's got a real vibe and tone to it. Beautifully produced books. These are menus by Brian. I'm linking to the show notes. You can buy them on his website or up at Kitchen Arts and Letters and other indie bookstores. I really want to talk to Brian. Brian, reach out. Let's talk. We're going to find him. I can't wait to check it out. What's your next thing? My next thing is like a huge development in my kitchen over the past week. Not double yolk eggs again, unfortunately. I loved that one. That video you did was so great. People still mention it to me. Like the double yolk.

6:47If you're listening, you don't know about this. There was like a three week period when every yolk in my kitchen was a double yolk, multiple cartons of eggs. That didn't happen. But something else cool has happened, which is that Shirley's dad got us a datang, which is a ubiquitous Taiwanese household item. It's like a steamer, but also a rice cooker and a double boiler. It does it all. It's really exciting. And we got one from Yunhai, which also comes with a little recipe book. So it has recipes for things like sweet potato congee or black sugar cake or lu rau fan, like braised pork over rice.

7:17and you make it all in the datang and you can actually do multiple things at once based on how you stack the components. So you can have rice going and then separately be steaming a fish at the same time. And when it was introduced in the mid twenties in Taiwan, a lot of Taiwanese households didn't have stove. So they would be, you know, cooking largely outside on coal. So this very like low use electricity, multi-purpose tool was kind of widely embraced. And, you know, Shirley's dad was saying that like every Taiwanese household should have one. So now my household has one too. and it's just been really fun to be steaming things over the past week or two.

7:51And I think especially going into the summer when you don't want to have your stove on, like it's really going to be a datang summer. For the past couple like mornings, we just have steamed buns for breakfast now because it's really easy to just set the steamer up, put everything in, and you can just walk away and it'll just kind of turn off when it's done. Making like steamed eggplant, lots of things like that. I love it. It's such a cool, cool rec. Yeah. What's your last thing? My last thing is Yuzu Co. And one of our favorite products, they do yuzu juice in concentrate. And I was up in Kingston talking to Angela Pinkerton at Pinkerton's, her terrific bakery.

8:25And she uses Yuzu Co. all over her menu. And so it's a name brand. We've talked about Yuzu Co. But they have a product that I'm really, really excited about. It's their first canned RTD ready to drink aid. They have a line of aids. They have a green tea yuzu aid and a sparkling yuzu aid. And I got to sample an early sample and holy shit, it's good. It's really, it's not too sweet. It's exactly at the level of sweetness and sour that you want. I love the branding in the can. It feels great in the can just to have crack the can and have some yuzu, some sparkling yuzu lemonade. And this is like, honestly, this is like made for Erewhon.

9:09I mean, it sounds really good. And I want to turn it into a shandy. That's my first instinct. Summertime shandy. Yes. Great rag. I'm going to, you know, NA shandies are good. If you pick the right NA. I believe it. Kind of like Jordan's NA Michalada story. Exactly. Great call back on that. Yeah. So I'm going to try one with an NA. I like it. What's your last thing? Well, my last thing is I have been out in the field volunteering for Zoran Mandani's My Role campaign. And I just want to use the podcast to say that I'm really excited about Zoran. I think that if you live in New York and you're trying to vote for an actually good mayor for a change for the city, like Zoran is really our guy on the food note.

9:47He has a part of his platform wants to open city owned grocery stores in every borough that would be selling wholesale price food. They wouldn't have to pay property tax in New York. So that would also be like a way to bring the cost down. He wants to make all the buses free and actually run fast, universal free child care, all of these things that I feel like as a New Yorker, I'm like, we deserve nice things. We deserve a city that actually is livable and works for us. And it's been really a little nervous, but also exciting to be like knocking doors and talking to people about Zoran. And I've just been really excited about that.

10:22So Zoran for mayor is my third thing. Yeah. I mean, the political angle here. I mean, any candidate who wants to fix the foodways in New York and wants to think about grocery stores and the way possibly let's think about that payroll tax we've been talking about a lot, like the way operators have to operate with that 30 % payroll tax. We've talked a lot about on the show. So thinking about restaurants and grocery store owners is terrific. Yeah, yeah. I'm really excited about it. I know that's not a traditional third thing. Hey, man, we host a show and we're just catching up right here. Yeah, that's my third thing for the day.

10:57And I'm just going to do a PS. I mentioned I was reading Jinwoo Chang's I leave it up to you I'd mentioned I got through half of it and I loved it I finished it it's it's so great and I hope Jinwoo will come on the show one day and we can talk about it because when when writing about the the restaurant family the literal family like generational you know families running restaurants and this one takes place at a Korean owned omakase restaurant that has a lot of Korean dishes on the menus as well I think Jinwoo did some terrific research. And I think in the acknowledgements, he thinks like 30 restaurants that had given him some some intel.

11:36If you if you're interested in restaurant culture and family, this is the book for you. It's called I Leave It Up To You. I wanted to just follow up on that. Yeah, thanks for sharing your 3.5 things. Thanks, Eliza. From February 20th to March 7th, dive into Canada's biggest culinary festival, Montreal en Lumière, an exclusive partnership with the McCord Stewart Museum and its exhibition, On the Menu Montreal, a restaurant story. The 2026 festival invites food lovers on a flavorful journey through time. Montreal's top restaurateurs will reimagine 65 years of the city's iconic astronomy, crafting inventive, nostalgia-inspired dishes with a modern twist.

12:20Prepare your palate, world-renowned chefs, including several Michelin star talents, will team up with over 80 of Montreal's finest local chefs to create unforgettable, one-of-a-kind menus. The full program is available at MontrealOnLumiere.com, presented by Lotto Quebec in collaboration with National Bank. This episode is brought to you by Aura Frames. If you're one of those last-minute shoppers, you might know the feeling. Ideas are running low and the clock is ticking. Here's a fun idea. Aura Frames. Aura Frames is the solution with a gift that feels personal, a little curated, and sent with love.

12:58And a gift that can be purchased in no time with a few clicks of the mouse. Aura Frames are great. They sent me one to check out, and it was really cool and dumb simple to set up. I loaded photos using the app, and it was displaying them instantly. There are no limits to the amount of photos you can load, and you can customize messages with each photo. And here's the deal. You can preload an Aura frame with photos and have it directly sent to that special person in your life, gift-wrapped and all. There will be no price tag, and you can include a personalized message. Think about it. All those photos from this past summer's family reunion delivered in a digital frame.

13:36That is pretty cool. For a limited time, save on the perfect gift by visiting AuraFrames.com to get$35 off Aura's best-selling Carver Matte Frames, named number one by Wirecutter, by using promo code TASTE at checkout. That's A-U-R-A-Frames.com, promo code TASTE. The deal is exclusive to listeners and frames sell out fast, so order yours now to get it in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Nina Compton, this is Taste. Thank you for coming on the podcast. My pleasure. I'm so excited to have you here. I love going to New Orleans and I love eating at your restaurants there.

14:17So this is truly a special delight for me. I'm excited to talk about your new book today. But before we get into that, I want to give just a little bit of context into who you are and how you think about food. I'm wondering if you could share an early food memory you have from growing up. Oh, my earliest food memory is actually a fun one. I'm from St. Lucia and it's a very small island. And every weekend we'd go to the beach with my family. And if it was mango season, we would take mangoes to the beach. And my favorite memory was going into the ocean and having a very ripe mango and dipping it into the salt water and taking a bite and the juices just dripping down my face.

14:59And that is like my fondest food memory as a child. I'm grinning so big right now because that sounds so delicious to me. And I love eating my fruit with a little bit of salt on that. I feel like that must be something you have to do just to try to replicate that. Yeah, it is just the best experience you can have. Sweet, salty, juicy, everything that you could love in one bite. And are you just chomping this mango like an apple? Yeah. Yeah. It's the best. It is the best. It must have been hard when you moved away and you didn't have access to the world's best mangoes. No, and mango season is really a fun time.

15:33It's in the summertime and everybody in the Caribbean gets so excited about it because the trees are laden with all these mangoes and the different colors. You know, you have some are like purple, some are yellow, some are red. So it's just beautiful to see. And just the smell of mangoes as you're driving through the island is the best. Wow. Do you have any tips on picking a ripe mango? It all depends on what kind of mango you like. Yeah. Because there's so many different varieties. So there's the mango long that stays green. It doesn't change color. So it's kind of hard to know if it's ripe or not unless you touch it.

16:10But then you have things like the Julie mango that are really, really small but super sweet. And they turn yellow with a little bit of pink and red. And that's when you know it's ready. I feel like if it smells good also, that's probably a good indicator. Well, I love that. I'm going to be wishing that I had a mango and an ocean to dip it into. Probably for the rest of my life. But today I want to talk with you about this book, Quail Creole. Is my pronunciation? Okay. It's a story of your life and your culinary career, and it kind of goes through four main places, St. Lucia, Jamaica, Miami, and New Orleans.

16:43Yes. I'd love to know how you came up with this idea for your debut cookbook and how each of those places kind of shaped you and your culinary career. Yeah, that's a really good question because I had started this book the first proposal after I did Top Chef. Wow. And people were hounding me. This is 2014. People were like, oh, you need to come up with a book. And, you know, you're hot up the presses. And, you know, people are like buzzing about you need to get a book done. And I had written this book with the co-author. And it didn't, it fell flat because it started becoming a Top Chef cookbook.

17:20and I didn't want it to be that. And during that time, during the proposal, I got the offer to the restaurant in New Orleans. And I said, I'm like, I don't really have time for this. I need to move and open this restaurant. I need to focus on that. And I got really busy. And after many years, then the pandemic hit, which I thought was going to be a month. And then it was two months and then three months. And, you know, it was a very strange time. So I said, you know, maybe this is the time to pick up this book again. And I got a different co-author, Osai, who is just brilliant. And she understands how my brain works and how to pull all the stories out of me.

18:02Because as a chef, I'm very to the point. And she's like, no, it just can't be mango with salt. It needs to be why do you put salt on it and evoke those memories. So she did a lot of pulling those stories and these emotions out of me. And then as we are framing the book, she said, I think we need to focus on the different Creole cultures throughout those areas that you lived in. And I never looked at it that way. It was just my journey as a chef. But she said, no, this is about you developing as a chef through Creole cuisine and how they're so different as you went along. And then bookending, of course, in the Creole capital, New Orleans.

18:40I think Osayi is such a talented writer and your collaboration, I imagine, must have been really special. And even in the book, you talk a little bit about bringing her to St. Lucia for the first time. What was that like? Well, she came and she was like, I'm just going to do some research on the island and really dive deep. And my mom still lives there. And my mom took around the island. They had lunch and they were just having the best time talking about the history. so that was really special for her to experience that time. Yeah, I feel like hanging out with the mom of your co-author on the book, you must hear a lot of good stories that way.

19:17And also your family is like so innately tied to the history of St. Lucia. Your father was the prime minister. What was that like for you growing up and then having the opportunity to kind of tell St. Lucian stories now? It's so funny because, excuse me, It's so funny because I always saw my dad as just my dad, never as a prime minister. And he was just very down to earth. He was never flexing. Do you know who I am? He was just, even in the public eye, he was never about that. He was just very approachable and he was about the people. So for me, when people say, what was your life like? I'm like, it was, I consider it pretty normal because we go to the beach together.

19:57We would go to the countryside. And it was never like this ritzy thing. was just being together as a family. So seeing what he did and what he achieved for the island, I'm really proud of that because I was a child and I didn't realize how much work he was doing and how much good he was doing until later in my life, realizing that he led St. Lucia from independence from Britain. A lot of things that he changed, he was a very big advocate for education, bringing schools, developing people. Yeah, absolutely. And then when you were on Top Chef, I feel like St. Lucia, the Caribbean, people were all kind of rallying behind you and watching it together.

20:37That must have been a really special experience. Well, being on Top Chef was kind of my moment that I realized that I could cook whatever I wanted because I had worked for a lot of very good chefs, but I always cooked their food. So being on Top Chef, it was being in a pressure cooker, it's very high pressure. But I realized, hey, I can cook my heritage, my food. And that became a big driving force for me of cooking and letting people know where St. Lucia is. Because so many people think it's next to St. Thomas. We're not even close to the Virgin Islands. We're further south. So a lot of people now, when they see me, they're like, you're from St.

21:19Lucia, right? And I'm so like still to this day shocked that people remember where I'm from because I had to really force that name so people could remember she's from St. Lucia. She's, you know, because a lot of people think, oh, you're from Jamaica, you're this, because everybody thinks the Caribbean is just one island. And I really wanted to make sure people knew where I was from and what the island does and what it's about. Yeah, if someone is listening and they don't know a lot about St. Lucia, how would you describe the food of St. Lucia to someone? Yeah, the food is really special. It's French, British, African, and Indian.

21:57And then you have also the native Indians as well. So it's a huge mixing pot. And when you look at different islands such as Martinique, that is mostly French and African, there's no British in there. You look at Barbados, it's mostly British. So each island is very, very different. And I think when people do their research, if they're going on vacation or they're going to a, I don't know, a Bajan restaurant or whatever it is, do a little bit of research because each island is very different and the influence is definitely present in their food. Yeah. And I think in this book, when you write about growing up in St.

22:36Lucia, then going to Jamaica and cooking there, like the food that you're exposed to, like having jerk chicken, like all of those different things. I think that's a good way of kind of showing the different kind of cuisines and cultures that are at play. Yeah, it is. Jamaica was really such a fun time. I think I was at the right age where I wasn't, I was mature enough to live by myself and explore and really dive deep into the cuisine, the music, the culture. And Jamaican people are very proud and they want to share that with you. And a lot of things that I didn't know existed because we don't eat cornmeal porridge.

23:15We don't eat plantain porridge. They have 15 different types of porridges and that's just a thing that they do. And we don't really eat that much porridge back home. But also having veganism as a forefront, you know, on the island is a very big thing. So just seeing ingredients that I grew up with prepared a different way was really special. Yeah, ackee and like all of that as well. We don't eat aki in San Lucia. And we had a huge, we still have a tree in my mom's by the kitchen. It's this massive tree. And we would have aki's, you know, just bursting out of the trees and we wouldn't eat them.

23:55She would give them away to the Jamaicans that lived in San Lucia. And when I moved back from Jamaica, I said, Mom, we got to keep some for ourselves because this is really good. So every time I go home, we have aki and saltfish for breakfast. That's so good. But most solutions don't eat Aki and salt fish. Yeah. I think also it was so interesting reading about kind of, you know, growing up in like a small island and then moving to this big city and you being on the bus and trying to find a place to sit. Yeah. It's kind of like that whole experience of how your mind expands. Yeah. It really is.

24:26I felt like I was a fly on the wall the entire time I was there because it's, there's so much energy and Jamaican people, you know, they have, they speak patwa. And it's English, but they speak so fast and it's all kind of chopped up. So for me, I would just stare at these people. I'm like, I don't understand. But now I do. But it's entertaining to watch everything unfold when I live there. Yeah, it is so special. And I want to talk about how you're speaking about Creole in this book, because I think that a lot of people probably think of it in terms of like the New Orleans, like French Black Creole.

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25:04But there's kind of multiple definitions. How do you kind of define those and break it up in the book? Well, it's really about showcasing the people as they migrated through the world and where they settled and how they left their imprint. And most of that was through food. So when you talk about gumbo, that came from Africa and ended up in New Orleans. And they basically, it was something that was basically modified in New Orleans. And it became very New Orleans where Africa's gumbo is very different. But when you see those things to the islands, a lot of things like the curry, curry came through the Caribbean, through people from India and, you know, that came and they brought their own spices and they settled there.

25:49So everything is speckled, you know, from the ancestors that came and left those things. So it's really a beautiful celebration of the dishes that survived so much time and we enjoy it and we keep it. We don't modify it. So somebody asked me yesterday, did I change any of the classic recipes? And I said no, because that is something that has been around for generations. I would not want to put a twist on ackee and saltfish or green fig and saltfish. It's good as it is. And I'm not going to touch it. And I want to be respectful about that. Yeah, I think this book is interesting because it is kind of like a historical artifact in some ways.

26:30You have these very traditional recipes. But then you're also doing things like catfish, which is not a fish that I think is very common in Jamaica. But that was something that was developed moving to New Orleans where catfish is just bountiful. And I said this could be a great application of putting the jerk on there. But I think the most satisfying thing about the book is also documenting our cuisine and our culture, but also seeing people that are not from the Caribbean try these recipes and get so excited. and that is the happiest thing for me because I'm getting people sending me messages of I made the breadfruit pie and they'll send me a picture and I'm like it looks perfect and that for me is the proudest moment because I'm like I did the recipes right because I don't like to write recipes I am uh by touch feel you know measurements are not really my thing but doing the book was that was definitely a huge learning curve for me because everything had to be measured because it had to be replicated by somebody else.

27:32Right. And someone who maybe hasn't made it before and doesn't know what it's supposed to look like. Right. Exactly. Yeah. I wanted to ask you about how you approach the recipe development for this book. Did you do it in sections or how did you kind of also find the time? You have three restaurants that you run. Well, I have a good team. Yeah. And we would test the recipes out. And then if it was really good, it'd be family meal. And some of the staff were really excited about, oh, this is going to be in the book. So a lot of the things are either developed through my journey. Some of those recipes are pulled from memory as a child.

28:07Things like my mom's soursop mousse, I replicated and I tried and tweaked and got it. My sister's cassava cookies. I'm like, hey, you made these for me. They were really good. Do you have a recipe? She's like, I just kind of eyeballed it. So a lot of those things were tweaked. And it was also fun having some of my staff do that because the things that I grew up with, like breadfruit and dasheen, they have never cooked before. So they were like really excited about how to cook these things and treat them. That makes a lot of sense. And also like talking about the way that a lot of these recipes are shared traditionally in an oral tradition or even the fact that you are cooking by feel.

28:45Yeah. How did you try to, you know, write everything down and get the measurements right? Well, it would be cut an onion, put it in a cup. The hard way. Yeah. You know, it's very hard. I think a lot of people think cookbooks are very easy to do, and they're not. It's a lot of work, and you've got to make sure every recipe makes sense, and it can translate to the home cook. I mean, a recipe like the curried goat is a very lengthy recipe, but I wasn't going to take any shortcuts because I wanted people to make their own curry spice and understand it's just not turmeric in a bag. It's a lot of things are in there as well.

29:25So having an appreciation for making curry goat is it's a huge undertaking, but it's worth it. Yeah, it's one of my favorite things to order when I go to a Caribbean restaurant, but I've never made it myself. And when I sat down and looked at the recipe, It made me like have so much more gratitude for the people who make it that I get to eat it from. It's really special. Curry is my comfort food. And, you know, when I go to a Caribbean restaurant and I smell those things, it just brings me so much happiness. Yeah. When you go to a Caribbean restaurant, like what are you smelling or tasting or looking for that makes you feel like, you know, it's going to be a good meal?

30:01Well, definitely if they're cooking curry, you can smell all of those spices. I definitely get curried goat, curried cheese, whatever kind of curry they have, I get that. Or oxtail, rice and peas, plantain in any form, whether it's fried, boiled, that as well. Yeah. Is definitely my happy point. Are you a patties person? I am. What's your favorite patty? It's beef. Yeah. Beef is just classic. You can't go wrong with it. I like a good beef patty, but my favorite local Jamaican place does a vegan lentil patty. That's a good one. It's spiced so perfectly. The lentils are like the perfect texture.

30:40It's my like favorite thing to order there by far. So you put cocoa bread or no cocoa bread? I do get the cocoa bread, but it's kind of a lot. It's a lot. To eat it like as the proper sandwich. So I feel like I get the cocoa bread. I eat maybe like a third of the patty in the sandwich. And then I just use the cocoa bread to like soak up the oxtail. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good move. I went to a friend of mine, Paul Carmichael, that has Bar Caboar. Yeah. And he has all of the patties and they are just a work of art. I've been really wanting to go to the restaurant. It's a beautiful... I've been there.

31:17This is my second time going. And it's going to be my second trip for the year. And it just opened also. Yeah. But I went last night and I had all the patties. And he has sauce that I told him, I said, I'm not really a sauce person, but this sauce is everything. So he's really taking dishes that are a little obscure and a lot of people that don't know Caribbean food. Like sauce is not normally on a menu. Yeah, I don't think I know what it is. Can you tell me? It's basically like pickled pork. And he does it beautifully with blood sausage and sliced cucumbers and parsley and lemon juice. And then he basically cooks the pig's head until it's tender and then you chop that up.

32:05So it's kind of like a room temperature chilled salad, if you will. But it's just a lot of flavors going around. It's beautiful. Okay, so I'll order that. I'll get all the patties. Is there anything else you think I shouldn't skip there? The okra is pretty good. And then he has the Salamon Gundy, which is a smoked fish dip with cassava chips that are perfect. That sounds really good. Yeah, he's super talented. I'm really happy to see him really elevate and not elevate, but really bring Caribbean food to this forefront in this beautiful, just beautiful food. Yeah, I think it's one of the restaurants that I've been wanting to go to the most.

32:44So the fact that it has the Nina Compton sign-off. Yeah, yeah. It has like a triple sign-off on it. Absolutely. Hi there. It's Matt, co-host of the show. We are currently running a This Is Taste listener survey, and we'd love to hear from you. Do you have a guest request? A restaurant you wish we'd visit to talk about on Three Things? What about a lesser-known cookbook author who deserves a spot in our studio chair? You can let us know by clicking the link in our show notes to complete the survey. It will only take a couple minutes, I swear, and will help us continue to make the best show possible.

33:20That's the This Is Taste listener survey, link in our show notes. Today's episode is brought to you by ButcherBox. As a food writer, I can be a little skeptical about subscription cooking boxes you hear about on podcasts. There's big talk about cooking simplicity, but you're usually left with disappointment after smashing that promo code. Now, Clayton, have you ever tried one of those subscription boxes? Yeah, Matt, my friend gave me a code for that one that has all the chopped vegetables in little baggies. I felt like a drug dealer trying to cook dinner. Yeah, man, I have so been there. ButcherBox is a true exception.

33:54I was sent a box of premium beef and pork and was blown away by the quality and variety. There was 100 % grass-fed pasteurized ribeye, tri-tip, and ground sirloin for my favorite at-home smash burger recipe. George Motes, you better watch your back. For pork, they sent me a beautiful center-cut pork loin for slow roasting. I was super impressed, and I haven't even talked about the ribs, which I cooked in my Instant Pot. There was a rub of salt, white pepper, and togarashi, and I pressure-cooked with water and apple cider vinegar. It was incredible. These ButcherBox ribs are amazing. For nearly a decade, ButcherBox has led the industry with meat and seafood that's antibiotic-free.

34:37As an exclusive offer, our listeners can get free protein in every box for a year plus$20 off your first box when you go to butcherbox.com slash taste. Visit butcherbox.com slash taste to get this limited time offer and free shipping always. That's butcherbox.com slash taste. Don't forget to use our link so they know we sent you. I want to talk a little bit more about the recipes in this book. So the Create Go is one of the project recipes. If someone is listening who's, you know, buying a copy, picking it up, are there any recipes you would recommend that they kind of start with? I mean, there's a couple.

35:16I think having like the hush puppies is an easy one, especially if you have kids. They're fun. I think getting the kids involved in the kitchen is also just a good thing to have, exposing them to something different. I think something easy like the coconut rice and peas is a good one. the jerk chicken, just making the jerk sauce, it lasts forever in your fridge or your freezer. And you could put that on fish, chicken, pork. It's just a good staple to have. So I think you can just start with anything. Just build it up. You know, don't start with the curry good off the bat. Just work your way into it.

35:55Yeah. I'm curious from the developing side, when you were working on the book, was there a recipe that took the longest to perfect? um it was actually the black cake because again i don't measure anything i'm not a baker so i had modified because i think that they wanted it in cups and i had it in grams or some whatever it was some something didn't get transferred properly to the right measurements and it was actually when we were doing the food photography and I told the food stylist, I'm like, oh yeah, this recipe is, I've made a thousand times. It'll be just fine. And we were baking the cake at Babs and the food stylist calls me up.

36:42He's like, it's not, it's like a soup. And I'm like, what? And I'm like, there's no way. I'm like, I've made this recipe. And we were shooting at my house. So I came down to the restaurant and I'm like, that's just so weird. And then I looked at the measurements um and i'm like oh the flour is off so thankfully we fixed it so but that was definitely anything with the baking that was i think the trickiest recipes for me i feel like that's always how it goes yeah i didn't know that you were shooting at your house yeah what was the whole like book photography process like because you have not only beautiful recipe photos but also like photos from all of the places in the book yeah so we we had casimo harris do the lifestyle photography so we did miami um jamaica new orleans andst lucia so he had never been to lucia as well and he was just in heaven seeing the beautiful plants and everything so i think when people come to a tropical island for the first time they're just you know it's like you you grew up like this?

37:46Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's just like, this is, this is crazy. He's like, everything is so vibrant and so green and so lush. And, um, took it, taking him to the market, taking pictures of all the produce and the vendors and the fishermen. So we had a really good time shooting that. And I said, I'm just going to shoot at my house because we have a, you know, a lot of space and I'm like, we'll just have the restaurant bring every day. we do 10 recipes and they would bring all the mise en place and we do some of the stuff at the house or we cook it at babs which is down the street and i remember when the stylist was bringing the prop stylist was she's like i'm gonna bring all the the plates and everything to the house i'm like yeah and she had this trailer attached to her car and i said audrey this is this is everything and she's like yeah there's also stuff in my car and we had thousands of forks and knives and plates and so many things and napkins and I'm like how do you pack all of this and she had it everything was on her laptop by item number everything was labeled she was so organized but it was just great seeing her get excited about oh we're gonna shoot with this I have the perfect pan for this and this fork and this linen and this plant.

39:13It was just very thoughtful styling. And it just made the book so much more vibrant, which I wanted. I wanted the book to scream Caribbean and be not flat. I want people to be like, I really want to make that recipe. Or when they open the book or they look at the book, they want, they can't get their hands off it. And I think that's something I wanted to make sure that was carried through from front to back. Yeah, I really think I had that experience. And, you know, I don't even have the physical copy. So I was just looking on my laptop, which is not normally how books shine. But between the photos and the recipes and also the illustrations that you have throughout.

39:53My sister did those. Really? My sister did those. So she's such a creative. And we were talking and she's like, oh, I could do the chapter openers. and she did the map and she did every single chapter opener. So it was just a really beautiful project and I'm so proud of it because it was a lot of work and there were so many times I would tell Usai, I just don't want to do this book. And she's like, come on, we're almost there, which was not true because we're probably on chapter one. But, you know, she was like really like encouraged, like let's, we have to finish this project. And it is daunting because you think about how many recipes you have to do and how each essay or each, you know, recipe opener has to make sense.

40:37You want to make people know what the story is, make them want to cook it. And it just can be, oh, the black cake is something we had during Christmas. It's going to be a little more meat on the bones. Right. And also the fact that you started the proposal a decade ago, more than that, it must have been like such a long process. But I think the result is it's like a family heirloom. The fact that your family worked on it together, the fact that it'll be in people's homes. Like, I think all of that care really comes across. Yeah. I want to talk to you about Top Chef a little bit. The fact that you first encountered New Orleans as a city when you were on Top Chef, I think, must have been such an unusual way to kind of get to know the city.

41:17Do you remember what your first impressions were like in that moment? Well, I remember when they said, it was like the week before we were going to film, they said the location is going to be in New Orleans. And I told my husband, like, oh, my God, I'm going to finally go to New Orleans. And I remember when I landed, we were in an area that did not look very New Orleans. It was some suburb where they held all the cast. And the next day we went to the French Quarter to the cast house. and I remember just driving and just being in silence but just looking at all the houses and the people and just everything and once we started filming I was exposed to Leah Chase, Emma Lagasse, Donald Link, David Kinch, so many chefs that I admired.

42:10I'm like I'm cooking for these people. I can't believe it. And somehow it always, when we wrapped and I told my husband, I'm like, I really want to figure out a way we can get back there. And it wasn't like a driving force, but it was always in the back of my head. Like there's some way I need to end up there again. And when we got the chance at the restaurants, we were so scared because it's such a big food city and there are so many impactful chefs and people know what they're talking about when they talk about food. And it's not just the chefs that are cooking professionally. It's also the home cooks.

42:49They know how to cook. People would bring you a quart of gumbo and it's the best gumbo you'll ever have. So when we got to move to open a restaurant, I was just like, this is pretty intimidating. And I didn't know how people were going to respond to us opening a restaurant. not being from New Orleans and it was a lot of buzz and I was I was really scared because everybody's like oh Nina Compton from Top Chef makes her return and I was just like I just want to come in very quietly but it wasn't the case but luckily the people of New Orleans are so lovely and beautiful and welcoming that they made they were so excited people were stopping us in the grocery store saying thank you for moving here and we're just like nobody's ever said that to us and it was just 10 years later we're still there and we we just love it yeah new orleans is my favorite it's maybe one of my favorite cities in the world i i have spent a lot of time there because my sister used to live there and i think when you are there you just couldn't be anywhere else there's such a distinct sense of place and i think that all of the people who live there know exactly who they are because they know where they come from and they know that New Orleans is such a special city for all of these reasons that you're talking about.

44:06So I feel like being able to kind of be a part of that city and contribute to it and learn from it must be just a really special experience for a chef like yourself. No, it really is. And I think Topshed did a really good job of their research on the challenges that we would do. It was very in tune with what New Orleans is about. and it was like a little educational tip for me doing the show of like what to expect and it was just a great experience and it led me back to New Orleans. So your first restaurant in New Orleans, Comper La Pet, you opened as you were moving there. Then you opened Bywater American Bistro, or Babs as it's called now.

44:47Later on, how did you approach that second restaurant once you were already like living in the city, had a better understanding of the scene? Well, it's a funny story. So we lived in that building where Babs is. Really? We lived upstairs. And it's a funny story because when we moved to New Orleans, I said, I want to buy a house with a rose garden in the garden district. I want to live on St. Charles or something, whatever it was. Uptown, yeah. I already had my mind set. And we looked at places. we had a realtor and we would it's too big or it's we wanted one story whatever it was like nothing really spoke to us and my husband said like hey we're running out of time we don't have time to be house hunting and opening a restaurant let's just sign a lease in this loft for a year end up being five years but the restaurant down below which is an Italian restaurant Maritza we we became regulars over there and we were thinking about doing a second restaurant you know just bring something to the neighborhood and the chef and his wife that ran the restaurant they said we're just tired we just want a break we just want somebody to take over the lease and we're just like we'll take it over and it was the best time.

46:11So we did a quick transition and took it over and it was great because we would just walk up one floor and we were home. So it's still going. I mean, we live a minute away from it now, but it's, yeah, it's still going. Yeah, it's so interesting. I feel like Bywater as a neighborhood, there's been so much development and like growth there over the years. Do you have your local spots in the neighborhood? Yeah, so there is Small Mart that is this cute little cafe and they have the best bagels. And that's a great one. There's also Petit Clouette, which is another cute little cafe. Bacchanal, Akamaya.

46:54Alma is a great, whenever I have friends in town, I go there for brunch. Amazing Honduran food. There's just so many places popping up now that it's really adding so much more to the neighborhood. Yeah, I think when people go to visit New Orleans, obviously a lot of people spend time in the quarter. They go to the Garden District, all of that. But I'm always recommending people go to Bywater for an afternoon and walk around. Go to like Music Box Village also. Which is, I don't even know how to explain it. I guess it's like a playground where all of the things make sounds. Yes. Is that right? Yeah.

47:29It's an interesting space to go. There's also Studio B that is incredible. So I always recommend people like there's a lot to do in that neighborhood, even though it looks a little bit spread out. But it's walkable. It's fun. And it's a legit neighborhood. Yeah, it definitely feels that way when you're there. I feel like New Orleans is a city of neighborhoods. Yes, it is. Yeah, I agree. So I imagine people must ask you if you would ever want to go back on a competition show. So I'm going to ask you that as well. I have been asked to go back and I wouldn't do it. They got me, they got me pretty close.

48:09A couple of years ago, they're like, we're going to have you. It was actually during the pandemic. They're like, we're going to be doing an international top chef that's going to be filmed in London. And we're going to have people from all seasons, from all over the world. And we really want to have you. And I started the process. And then I just said, no, I said, I don't think I want to do this. You don't have to go back through all of that. It's just a lot. It's a mental game. It's a physical game. I'm older, you know, and I'm good. I don't need to prove myself to anybody. I have great restaurants.

48:44I'm doing great. So I don't need to do that anymore. Yeah, I think that's a very, like, reasonable and smart way to feel about it. Yeah, I think it takes, like, probably a certain temperament to even do that one time, much less twice. And it's a lot. I think it's the hardest thing I've done because there's no way to prepare for it. Even though we knew that we'll be shooting in New Orleans, I'm like, oh, we're going to have a beignet challenge. No beignet challenge. We had a hot sauce challenge, which I didn't think about. So there are a lot of things that we thought we would have and we didn't have.

49:16And you don't have a cell phone. You don't have a recipe book. You're just going in with your knives and you're just, you're winging it. And it's fun if, you know, if you can do that, but it's a tough, there are no days off, the schedule can, we could wrap super late and then we could start filming at 5 a.m. So it's, your body's out of whack. So it takes a toll. I don't regret doing it, but. You did it. Yeah. Yeah, I did it. I'm good. Yeah. If the pandemic projects were between going back on Top Chef and starting this cookbook again, I'm glad that you started the cookbook again. Same. Same. So I want to talk a little bit about the book tour.

50:00I know that you're here in New York right now for part of it. What do you have planned and what does it feel like to get to be in the celebration stage? It's beautiful. We did an event in Brooklyn with BEM last week. We're big fans of BEM. They just came on the show recently. Yeah, they are just doing, they're just, the energy is so beautiful. And the energy in that brownstone was beautiful. It was all Caribbean women that came. And it felt like I was surrounded by my sisters. They were just glowing and happy and complimentary. and so when you see that the excitement that people have getting this book and getting to meet you or take a picture it's really great so you know it's not a full city we're not doing every city we're just doing some selective cities for now and hopefully do some more in the fall but right now we're doing New York then I'm doing Chicago in May Miami of course in June and then I'm doing the Caribbean in the summertime.

51:08Oh, that's going to be really fun. What's the New York event that you're doing tonight? So we're doing a JBF platform, James Beard platform tonight. And that's just going to be a casual conversation with Osai and some small bites from the book. That sounds really nice. Yeah. I feel like we didn't really talk about Miami and all of the cities that we've talked about, but I guess what did Miami bring to you as a chef? it's so funny because Miami when I moved there I could not get my footing for some reason as a chef, as a person moving there, it was just very hard for me to get stabilized and my sister was living there and she had she went to UM so she had her fan her core group of people and I didn't because I was working And I remember I told, I said, I'm going to give it one year.

52:05And we hit October. And I'm like, in December, I'm leaving. And then Miami Carnival came out. And I went to these events and I saw my people. And then I started making connections. And then I'm like, okay, Miami is not so bad. And then 14 years later, I was still there. So understanding Miami was really instrumental for me as a chef living in the States and understanding how impactful Caribbean cuisine is and seeing people use yucca and conch and, you know, turmeric and coquette milk in these restaurants. And I'm like, this is beautiful. And also seeing things through a Latin, Afro-Latin lens, which I have never experienced living in the Caribbean because it's normally French, African, Indian.

52:59But then seeing people use plantains as tostones, which we don't normally do. But just seeing how they use those ingredients differently was so intriguing. but being surrounded with also people from Haiti, people from Cuba, Jamaica, Barbados, San Lucian, and you also had Nicaragua. You also had Belize. You had people from Honduras, Colombia, Peru, and just being exposed to those cuisines was, I couldn't ask for anything better because it was, the food was so energizing and so much flavor and just so different and so fresh. and I was just constantly learning. So that's what kind of kept me there for so long.

53:44Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. And it's interesting to me. I feel like Miami, similar to New Orleans, is a very singular city in the United States. And when you go there, it feels like you could be in all of these different countries. It's the only place I've been in the U.S. where people speak Spanish first, no matter who you are, which I love and I think is so much fun. But I had never been there because I grew up in California. So it's like, you know, flying all the way across the country. But once I moved to New York and I went to Miami, I was like, oh, Miami is incredible. And the food I've had there is like the best food I've had.

54:15Yeah, there is every cuisine you can get. Every cuisine. And it's, again, that's another city that is really about time and place where you know where Miami is. It's not going to Kentucky where you could be like, where is this? Miami is very specific. Just like New Orleans, you can just look at the buildings, the architecture is the same way that that is Miami. Yeah, I totally agree. And also similar to New Orleans, everyone in Miami will remind you that you're in Miami. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. They're proud. Yeah, very much so. What are you going to do when you go back to Miami? I'm cooking with my best friend.

54:54Really? Yeah, so we met at Scarpetta and at the Fountain Blue. We reopened it in 2008. And it was just a crazy time. And it was a billion-dollar construction to revamp it. And this was the height of the recession. We're just like, these people are crazy to do this. And it was such an over-the-top opening where we had the Victoria's Secret fashion show. It was like the opening night. And you had all these celebrities. And you had people like Mariah Carey. The restaurant was still under construction because we had opened a week after the opening of the hotel. and we had a like a construction curtain over the front door and we'd be like testing the food and we had Alex Rodriguez came in and he said oh are you guys serving lunch and the general manager was just he didn't want to say no and he's like of course like have a seat and he comes back he's like A-Rod wants lunch and we're like we we don't have a menu like we're still testing the stuff and he comes back he's like oh he just wants a Caesar salad we're like we don't have any romaine we don't so we're like running around the hotel trying to get this stuff and I guess he loved it so much that he told other celebrities so then the next day like Mariah Carey comes in for lunch and we're just like Jesus Christ what is going on here but it's something I'll never forget so So we've been friends since that day.

56:27And so we're going to be cooking in his restaurant. Wow. What did Mariah Carey eat? Do you remember? I think she went like roasted chicken, no oil and like steamed vegetables. OK, yeah. But it's it was a wild time. Miami is a crazy place. Well, I'm excited that you get to go back. It sounds like it'll be a lot of fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To close today, I want to play a little rapid fire taste check game with you. So I'll give you some questions. You're going to play favorites and tell me what comes into your head. Okay. Okay. Your favorite ice cream flavor? Pistachio. Ooh. Your favorite late night snack?

57:05Doritos Cool Ranch. I'm really glad you specified the flavor because it does matter. It does matter. It does. It does. Your favorite cookbook right now that isn't your own? Ooh. Ghana to the World. That is a beautiful book. And I know Eric very well. And I got his book at the Philly Chef Conference two weeks ago. And everybody was like going to lunch and like popping around the city. And I went up to my hotel room and I sat and I read it cover to cover. And I texted him and I said, this is a beautiful book. It is just, it's so personal and it's so needed. And it just, it really touched me. Well, I love that book and I love hearing that story.

57:49I hope you found lunch afterwards. Yeah. Something from St. Lucia that you wish was easier to find in New Orleans. Breadfruit. Your favorite New Orleans restaurant that isn't one of your own. That's not fair. I know. That is not a fair question. You could do a couple if you want. People would kill me. Are you going to plead the fifth? You could not say. Yeah, there's just too many. Okay. How about a favorite New Orleans bar to go to? Bar. That's a tough one, too. Well, I like Juho of the South. That's a good one. Chris Hanna does a really remarkable job at the bar. Okay, I don't know if you're worried about getting in trouble with the Mardi Gras cruise, but I was curious if you have a favorite parade to go to.

58:37Well, that's a hard one, too. I think I enjoy Muses because it actually comes by the restaurant. So the first year we open up, compare, we would see the parades, and you see like the big shoe. Yeah. Do you have any of the shoes? Yeah, we have quite a few shoes. Wow. So, okay, for people who are listening, they throw high-heeled shoes off. Yeah, and they're glitteratied. Yes, yes. I like aspire to catch one of those shoes. When you catch a shoe, it's the most amazing thing. And you have to be careful not to let it hit you in the head also. Okay, final question. a scene from like a book or a movie that you wish that you could magically eat in real life?

59:22It would be Casino, where Robert De Niro says, he goes into the kitchen and he opens the muffin and he says, I want you to count every blueberry that goes into the muffin. So you want to eat it, not count all the blueberries. Yeah, exactly. That's such a good one. And Nina, thank you so much for coming on the show. My pleasure. This was so fun. Thank you for having me.

1:00:14And make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep updated on all cool things in the world of taste.

From the publisher

Nina Compton is the chef and owner of three highly regarded restaurants in New Orleans: Compère Lapin, BABs, and Nina’s Creole Cottage. Born in Saint Lucia, she honed her chops at many notable restaurants before appearing as the fan favorite on season 11 of Top Chef. Nina’s new cookbook, Kwéyòl / Creole, written with Osayi Endolyn, is a true standout, tracing her culinary journey from growing up in Saint Lucia to Jamaica, Miami, and her adopted home of New Orleans. It’s so special to have Nina in the studio to talk about making this book and her culinary career.
And, at the top of the show, it’s the return of Three Things, where Aliza and Matt talk about what is exciting them in the world of restaurants, cookbooks, and the food world as a whole. On this episode: Pig & Khao, from Leah Cohen, is doing really interesting things on the Upper West Side, get to AbuQir in the Little Egypt section of Astoria, Menus By Brian is the coolest cookbook series. Also: A development in Aliza’s kitchen and it’s steaming, the great Yuzu Co. has a new line of drinks, NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani wants to open city-owned grocery stores. And as a P.S.: I Leave It Up to You by Jinwoo Chong is one of the most-representative restaurant culture novels in recent times. 
Do you enjoy This Is TASTE? Drop us a review on Apple, or star us on Spotify. We’d love to hear from you. 
 

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