Small Bite: A Culinary Collab with Katie Parla & Bar Marco

Hey Everyone, we're coming back from summer vacation and thought you might have an appetite for more great food stores. Enjoy this 'small bite' as we head back into full episode mode. 

Find out Bar Marco's full story in our upcoming Episode 025, debuting 8/5/24!

Transcript

Doug: 0:00

Hey, it's Doug and we're returning from summer break, so we thought we'd leave you a little appetizer to warm up for our next episode. Here is an excerpt from our friend, andrew Heffner. So, andrew, I have this sort of off-the-wall question as I was researching your Instagram handle. I have been following Katie Parla for a while and I didn't realize she's amazing. She is, but I didn't realize how I came to know her, and it was because she was at Bar Marco. How did that happen?

Andrew: 0:33

That's great. Yeah, she's somebody we had like followed and known about, really loved in the restaurant because she's had a series of really terrific books. That's right, and we had so already, like the kitchen had been reading stuff, using recipes, sort of just interested in what she's doing broadly. A few years ago she did a book about food of the Italian South and on her book tour came to Dea Noyes but somehow she probably through mutual friends maybe reached out to be like hey, if you guys are around, you should come. So the whole kitchen and I went to that event and got to meet her chat about, you know, the things in that book, certainly something we we had been using already and it was so fun. And then she's just a pro and remembered all these different little corners of the world where she's traveled, and so when she was getting ready to put out the her most recent book, which was all about the food of the Italian islands, she reached out to ask basically if she could come do an appearance with us. Amazing, and it was so fun.

Andrew: 1:29

It was last summer. Yeah, we, you know we do lots of events and a decent amount of them are just ticketed open to the public things. This was more involved than usual because of how much partly, I think just we have so much respect for her, yeah, real sense of place in history, and how much she can distillate what particularly rome, but really all of italy, is for folks who maybe haven't been there. I don't know as much, and so we really poured over.

Andrew: 1:54

What menu items can we do that fit this? What wine should we bring in? You know that are italian, islandy, and what sort of cocktails are going to be, you know, know, good representation of that. And and then it was such a fun time because it's, of course, quite a bit of just our regulars came in and I think there were probably a chunk of folks who came just cause they knew bar Marco, yes, and then have a much more elevated experience because Katie is a, you know, fount of of knowledge about all these things. But then also people came because they know her yeah, they've seen her on.

Doug: 2:25

TV or read her books regularly on TV, and I do. I love her style. If folks are not familiar, she is not going to the most obvious places. No, she is finding and showing you where you really should go when you visit Italy.

Andrew: 2:41

Yeah, she's oh, it's I. She does even like formal tours. You can have her take you through places and I'm, oh man, I cannot imagine a better way to get to know a place than probably going with her. Yeah, what an experience. Yeah, yeah, we were so, so happy to even get that kind of a offer and such a fun thing to do.

Doug: 3:10

And, you know, hopefully the next time she's in the area we'll get to go see her again. So much fun, andrew. Thank you for that. Yeah, of course You'll learn a lot more about Andrew and his establishment, bar Marco, on episode 25. Be sure to tune in.