Copper & Heat Podcast
Copper & Heat is a podcast exploring the unspoken rules and traditions of restaurant kitchens through the stories of people that work in them. Independently produced in Portland, OR and Santa Barbara, CA.
Copper & Heat challenges the exclusionary systems that cooks and chefs have been upholding for generations. We focus on issues that underpin and enable exclusion in the restaurant industry that many don’t. question. We’re focused on starting conversations with the people that are working through these issues in restaurant kitchens every day.
Season 4: Value
In this season of Copper & Heat we're exploring the concepts of value and craft in the world of food. Why are some cuisines considered more valuable than others (and therefore command a higher price point)? Is food art, craft, or both? Why is restaurant labor considered "low-skill" and undervalued?
Listen: Season 4 trailer | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | Google Play
Season 3: Pre-Shift
Named for the pre-service meetings where staff get all the updates and specials, Season 3 focused on the issues hospitality workers face every day that were made even worse by the pandemic. Each episode is advice, tips, tricks, and frameworks from experts on how to deal. Some of the topics in this season include:
Setting boundaries and negotiating raises and promotions
Coping with stress and supporting others through mental health challenges
Understanding DEIA, privilege, and bias
Collective action and unionizing in hospitality
Listen: Season 3 trailer | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | Google Play
Season 2: Overhead
“Storytelling by professional restaurant workers to demonstrate how badly the economics of restaurant labor need disrupting.”
From questioning long-standing traditions like the tipping system, to adapting to new trends like the explosion of food delivery apps, each episode of Overhead tells the story of a restaurant approaching their business in a way that is different than the norm. Some of the stories in this season include:
Understaffed and contending with current immigration policies with Teresa Montaño in Los Angeles, CA
Changes in take-out and when tech gets involved in food at Homeroom in Oakland, CA
Sharing finances with employees and open book management at Mei Mei in Boston, MA
Finding value in a meal and in restaurant work at Kin in Boise, ID
Listen: Season 2 trailer | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | Google Play
Season 1: Be A Girl
“...a deep dive into the exclusionary traditions around gender, identity and femininity in the kitchens of fine-dining restaurants.”
Be A Girl is a sound-rich, serialized narrative focused on the question: why do women only represent 19% of chefs, and 7% of head chefs, across the culinary world?
Through co-creator Katy Osuna’s experience working in Michelin-starred kitchens in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the stories of other kitchen employees, we explore how the pressures of traditional masculinity in kitchens impact the people that work in them.
The eight episodes in this season weave together:
Katy’s personal narrative
Discussions with cooks who have worked in some of the country’s most elite restaurants
A conversation with Katy’s old boss, Chef David Kinch
A panel discussion between Chefs Dominique Crenn, Reem Assil, and Tonya Holland hosted by The New York Times
Listen: Season 1 trailer | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | Google Play