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All You Can Eat: Ringing in the Lunar New Year with Asian-American Desserts Feb 07, 2024

Show notes

In many Asian families, the highest compliment you can offer a dessert is, “it’s not too sweet!” Bringing in flavor profiles from Asian cultures like pandan leaves, black sesame, and ube, bakers around the Bay are reimagining Asian- American dessert offerings. There’s choux pastry covered in almond crunch and filled with durian cream or a thumbprint cookie with an umeboshi plum center. On the next edition of All You Can Eat with KQED food editor Luke Tsai, we’ll talk to bakers and cookbook authors about Asian-American desserts and the role they play in Lunar New Year celebrations.

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‘The Blinding Future of Nuclear Weapons’ with Journalist Sarah Scoles Feb 06, 2024

Show notes

The United States is in the middle of a massive modernization effort of its nuclear weapons, as tensions rise globally, from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to expanding arsenals in China and North Korea. Journalist Sarah Scoles set out to understand the U.S.’s biggest reinvestment in its atomic infrastructure in decades by talking with the people who work on them daily, scientists at nuclear labs. In the process, as she documents in her new book “Countdown,” she interrogates our need for these weapons and their impact on war — and peace. She joins us to share more about the science, technology and philosophy of nuclear weaponry.

Guests:

Sarah Scoles, journalist; author, "Countdown: The Blinding Future of Nuclear Weapons" and "Making Contact: Jill Tarter and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence."

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Alameda County DA Pamela Price on a Progressive Approach to Rising Crime and the Recall Against Her Feb 06, 2024

Show notes

Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price was elected into office in 2022 on a reform platform to root out racial and socioeconomic disparities in the county justice system and end mass incarceration. But as Oakland contends with a surge in crime and as brazen robberies and assaults shake residents, Price has become the target of a well-funded recall campaign from those who say criminals are emboldened by a lack of consequences. We talk with Price about her vision for the office and the recall campaign against her.

Guests:

Pamela Price, district attorney, Alameda County, California; civil rights attorney.

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Hybrid Work is Still a Giant Experiment Feb 05, 2024

Show notes

“The vibes around the return to office are not good,” says the New York Times’ Emma Goldberg, a business reporter covering workplace culture. Tens of millions of Americans — one-fourth of the workforce — are in hybrid work limbo four years after the pandemic’s onset. Across white-collar sectors, the expectations around how often workers are in-office vary workplace by workplace and even team by team. While many are grateful for the flexibility and routines they’ve formed working from home, managers are feeling the strain of near-empty offices on innovation and team morale. And when workers do go in, they navigate the uncertainty of commutes, which co-workers will be there and whether they’ll find a quiet place to work. We’ll talk about the strife between workers and managers and how different workplaces are addressing this. And we’ll hear from you: Are you a hybrid worker? What’s your experience been?

Guests:

Emma Goldberg, business reporter covering workplace culture, The New York Times

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How The Nation’s Biggest Peach Grower Went Bankrupt. And An Update on the Damage from the Storm Feb 05, 2024

Show notes

Hundreds of thousands of people lost power in the Bay Area, streets were flooded and trees were uprooted, crushing houses and cars as winds gusts reached as high as over 100 mph in Sunday’s storm. But some of the most feared impacts, such as flooding from the Guadalupe River in San Jose, didn’t happen. We check in on how the Bay Area fared in the storm.

Guests:

Ezra David Romero, climate reporter, KQED

The nation’s largest grower of stone fruit, Prima Wawona, is shutting down leaving 5,400 workers out of a job. Four years ago, a private equity firm bought up two major stone fruit growers in Fresno to create the peach power house, which claimed it produced five times more peaches than the entire state of Georgia. Last fall, Prima Wawona shocked the Fresno community by declaring bankruptcy, blaming too much debt, bad weather, and rising costs among other factors. The former CEO has since sued the company claiming the failure was caused by poor management and unnecessary spending on consultants. We’ll talk about what the company’s stunning demise means for Fresno and what the increased interest from private equity in agriculture means for the future of farming in California.

Guests:

Antonio De Loera-Brust, director of communications, United Farm Workers

Daniel Gligich, senior reporter, The San Joaquin Valley Sun

Rod James, reporter covering private equity, The Wall Street Journal

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How Cable TV Shaped Our Viewing Habits, Industries – and Identities Feb 02, 2024

Show notes

More and more TV households are cutting the cord and moving to streaming. In 2023 alone, pay-TV providers lost more than 5 million subscribers. But now that streaming companies have a robust subscriber base, rates are rising and commercials are making their way back into programming. Historian Kathryn Cramer Brownell says that when cable companies tried similar tactics in the 1980s, the government stepped in to protect consumers. So why hasn’t that happened with streaming? We’ll take a look at the history of cable with Brownell to understand how the cable tv model set the foundation for our current media landscape and what consumers can do about it.

Guest:

Kathryn Cramer Brownell, associate professor, Purdue University - author of “24/7 Politics: Cable Television and the Fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News”

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Journalist Investigates her Hidden Family History, from Chinatown Gangs to the Hollywood Screen Feb 02, 2024

Show notes

On a visit to her grandmother’s house, journalist Maya Lin Sugarman unexpectedly discovered a trove of screenplays written by her uncle Galen. She was shocked to learn that one of the screenplays was turned into a gangster movie starring Rob Lowe, and even more shocked to learn that it was based on Galen’s real life experiences as a young gang member in Oakland’s Chinatown. Maya’s podcast “Magnificent Jerk” explores the shadows of family history, spotlights a slice of the Bay Area’s past that few seem to want to discuss, and searches for understanding in the gaps between fact and fiction. We talk with Maya about her uncle’s wild screenplay and what she learned trying to excavate buried secrets.

Guests:

Maya Lin Sugarman, journalist, host and executive producer of the podcast “Magnificent Jerk”

William Gee Wong, journalist; author of “Sons of Chinatown: A memoir rooted in China and America”

Brian Wong, Oakland Chinatown resident; friend of Galen Yuen

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Palestinian Journalists on Reporting in a War Zone Feb 01, 2024

Show notes

Wearing blue vests labeled “Press,” journalists in Gaza risk their lives to document and publicize a war that’s killed more than 28,000 people. At least 85 journalists are among the dead – 78 of whom were Palestinian. Because Israel and Egypt have denied foreign journalists entry into Gaza, the burden of on-the-ground reporting falls predominantly to Palestinian journalists, who work amid airstrikes, intermittent cell and internet service and an abiding fear for the safety of their loved ones. In December, the Committee to Protect Journalists labeled the post-Oct. 7 conflict deadlier for media workers than any full year of conflict, anywhere, since it began keeping track in 1992. We’ll speak with journalists from Gaza about what it means to report, amid trauma and loss, a story they’re part of.

Guests:

Rushdi Abualouf, Gaza correspondent reporting from Istanbul, BBC

Mai Yaghi, correspondent based in Gaza, AFP

Adel Zaanoun, bureau chief in Gaza, AFP

Youmna ElSayed, English Correspondent in Gaza now speaking from Egypt, Al Jazeera

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How Should We Memorialize COVID 19 Feb 01, 2024

Show notes

San Francisco resident Kristin Urquiza has spent the past two years advocating for a national Covid memorial for the million-plus people who died from the disease, including her father. She co-founded Marked By Covid to push for a memorial that will not only speak to our grief, but also encapsulate the conditions and decisions that led to so many deaths. Urquiza shared her journey with the podcast 99 Percent Invisible for a recent episode called, “Don’t Forget to Remember.” We’ll talk about what it means to memorialize our collective traumas and what a Covid memorial should say.

Guests:

Chris Colin, Bay Area-based journalist - his recent story, "Don't Forget to Remember," appeared on the podcast, 99 Percent Invisible

Kristin Urquiza, co-founder, Marked by Covid - daughter of Mark Urquiza, who died from Covid June 30, 2020

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The Culture and Future of Youth Tackle Football in California Jan 31, 2024

Show notes

Governor Gavin Newsom pledged this month to veto a bill that would ban tackle football for children under 12. Sponsored by Sacramento assemblymember Kevin McCarty, the bill was designed to protect children from the potentially debilitating long-term effects of repeated head injury. But even as evidence of its potential harm mounts, youth football culture in California is deeply ingrained, with the state producing talented players and successful teams year after year. Advocates for youth tackle football say that it fosters community and camaraderie, and provides access to education and upward mobility. We’ll look at the culture – and future – of youth tackle football in California.

Guests:

Kate Wolffe, health care reporter, Cap Radio

Albert Samaha, investigative reporter, Washington Post; author, "Concepcion: Conquest, Colonialism, and an Immigrant Family’s Fate" and "Never Ran, Never Will: Boyhood and Football in a Changing American Inner City"

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