The Mind of a Chef - 3 ª Season

From PBS - Ed returns to his roots in East Brooklyn, where as a Korean kid in New York, he was surrounded by an eclectic mix of cultures and cuisines that inspired how he cooks today. Spending time with other chefs who have roots in one cuisine but have veered away from their assumed culinary paths, Ed explores the meaning of origin in the city where his life and career began. Ed and Ivan Orkin stop by one of the city's oldest "appetizing" stores and head back to the kitchen to cook their versions of American cuisine (Japanese-Jewish and Korean-Southern). Alex Stupak shows why a white kid from Boston should be cooking Mexican, and Ed pays a visit to his mom in New Jersey for a lesson on how to cook Korean comfort food.

From PBS - American cuisine has come to be known as much more than just burgers and hot dogs. Ed and Pok Pok's Andy Ricker head to Sunset Park -- Brooklyn's Chinatown -- for some exotic ingredients, then head to the kitchen to make jop chai, a Thai stew. Ed plays with some local by-catch in that most American of cities, Houston, Texas, with chefs Chris Shepherd and Paul Qui, making a crispy fish fresh from the gulf and Filipino kinilaw. A sweat-inducing crawfish dinner in a Vietnamese joint exemplifies how Creole, Cajun, Mexican, and Asian flavors blend with the gulf's bounty, effectively creating an entirely new American cuisine.

From PBS - Fire is the most elemental part of a kitchen -- without it, food would simply be eaten, never "cooked." And yet in the post-Nouvelle-Cuisine age, food and fire have become distant from one another. Ed travels to Argentina to visit Francis Mallmann, the country's most esteemed chef and the godfather of open-flame cooking, on his private island nestled in the foothills of the Andes. While on La Isla for three days, Francis and Ed create a feast that reunites the simplest -- and arguably the best -- ingredients and cooking techniques. Armed with fire, smoke, meat and salt, Ed relishes this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

From PBS - Ed got his start in NYC, but now calls Louisville home and home is where the heart is. He discusses how living and working in Louisville have inspired, influenced and changed him over the past decade -- Louisville is where he gently put aside his classic French technique and decided to do something all his own. Working with chef Kevin Ashworth from Ed's restaurant Milkwood, the chefs experiment with farmers market finds, allowing a view into how a new dish is created. Ed then delves into Louisville's fried chicken scene and cooks up his own version with North Carolina chef Ashley Christensen. Finally, honoring the woman who kept him in Louisville in the first place, Ed uses the city's German heritage as inspiration to cook hasenpfeffer for his wife, Dianne.

From PBS - The Bluegrass State offers a rich culinary history that rivals that of America's more well-known food destinations. A few ingredients come to Ed's mind when he thinks about his adopted state: country ham, sorghum and smoke. Ed visits Nancy Newsom, still making her family's ham with their century-old recipe, with Southern food historian and Atlanta chef Linton Hopkins. Then it's off to Owensboro with homegrown chef Ouita Michel to make a dish featuring two more local ingredients: smoke and spoonbill caviar. Yes, caviar from Kentucky. And finally, Ed places Kentucky's most prized crop -- sorghum -- on a pedestal and creates a decadent ice cream with the viscous, sweet, earthy amber syrup.