Added 6.12.18. Bite into this: in-vitro meat as a real-meat, more-humane alternative to fare from the slaughterhouse.  More ostrich meat in your diet, along with fish raised indoors, and tasty, satisfying wheat-less bread “baked” through fermentation of raw ingredients. Let’s chew on a few more things. How do we make tomatoes great again, and advance real sustainability in the way we foster the world’s food supply, all as cooking becomes more an intersection of art and science – rather than just an art, as in years past? The food of the future and the future of food are closely intertwined, as Milt and his guests reveal in this 2010 conversation. Guests are Josh Schoenwald, author of “The Taste of Tomorrow: Dispatches From The Future Of Food;” Chef Chris Koetke, Vice-President of Strategy and Industry Relations at Kendall College and its School of Culinary Arts, and the late Chef Homaro Cantu, who trained with the legendary and innovative Chef Charlie Trotter, and later opened the restaurants Moto and iNG in Chicago.

Added 6.12.18. Milt in this 2011 interview debriefs Sara Anson Vaux, who taught religious studies and film at Northwestern University and authored the treatise, “The Ethical Vision of Clint Eastwood.” She contends Eastwood’s films, while broadly understood to be ripping good stories, also cover important ethical, religious, and philosophical grounds which should not be given short shrift. She and Milt delve into motifs in Eastwood’s ouvre including divine judgement and the hereafter, reconciling terrible misfortune with a divine presence, and the moral implications of war. The proceedings are further enlivened by audio clips of various signal moments from some of the Eastwood films under discussion.

Added 6.5.18. Was the U.S. Civil War really inevitable, or was the firing of the first shots of battle in Charleston in 1861 more contingent – upon a series of events and circumstances that might very well have played out differently? Milt in this 2011 conversation digs deeper into the roots of that epic conflict, with two distinguished guests. One is Adam Goodheart, lecturer in history and American Studies, and Director of the C.V. Starr Center For The Study of the American Experience, at Washington College in Maryland. He is also author of the bestseller, “1861: The Civil War Awakening.” Also joining in is Bruce Levine, then professor of history and African-American studies at University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Among his published books was, “Half Slave, Half Free: The Roots Of The Civil War.”

Added 5.29.18. Milt sits down with three Chicago restaurant industry denizens to discuss the ins and outs of the business. They are GianCarlo Nardini, co-owner of Club Lago; Michael Taus, then chef-owner of Zealous; and Liz Van Leeuwen, then front of the house manager at Avec, a Mediterranean dining establishment. They dine out on a broad menu of topics including how to read – and sometimes – console your customers; handling difficult diners; the glories of communal seating, octopus and eel; and where to get the best steak dinner in Chicago.

Added 5.22.18. Never one to shy away from the classics, Milt in this 2012 episode delves into what comprises the canon of classic American fiction. His guests are Professors of English Priscilla Perkins of Roosevelt University and Kenneth Warren of the University of Chicago. Together they delve into questions such as “what makes Nathaniel Hawthorne great?