The Pittsburgh Dish
Do you really know the food scene of Pittsburgh?! The Pittsburgh Dish introduces you to the people, places, and recipes that make our regional cuisine so special. By sharing personal stories, weekly recommendations, and community recipes, we aim to inspire you to connect with local taste makers and experience the unique flavors that shape our city.
The Pittsburgh Dish
043 A Culinary Year in Review with Doug Heilman
(01:14) Join Doug Heilman, as he shares a heartfelt, behind the curtain 'year in review' of The Pittsburgh Dish, with you as an essential part of our success story.
(04:35) Plus, get ready for an enticing culinary recommendation from our friend Kanika, with the unique diner experience at the Chop Shop in Butler, where traditional American classics meet creative twists, like roasted strawberry milkshakes and duck confit.
(06:15) We’re keeping the flavors coming with a final recipe of the year, a personal family favorite of Chef Ben D'Amico: Great Aunt Rose's braised calamari, a simple yet cherished holiday dish that carries rich emotional ties and versatility.
We'll be taking a short winter break. But rest assured, we’ll return soon in 2025, ready to continue celebrating the rich and diverse food culture of our region.
Welcome to The Pittsburgh Dish. I'm your host, Doug Heilman. Want to get a little nebby this week and know how our show performed this entire year. I'll be sharing a year in review, Craving diner food with a twist. Our friend Kanika has a spot for us up in Butler. And want one more recipe for your seafood repertoire? Chef Ben D'Amico shares great Aunt Rose's calamari. All that ahead, stay tuned.
Doug:As The Pittsburgh Dish comes to the end of its first year, I want to take a moment to thank all of our advertisers and sponsors throughout the year. First off to the good folks at Islay's and Beano's for being our premier sponsors on the first 10 episodes, along with folks like Jimmy from Scott Township, Laureen from Pittsburgh, Jane from Irwin and John and Zita of Chip and Kale, who all signed up to be monthly supporters on our website. With their help, we were able to cover most of our production and distribution costs on our hosting site, Buzzsprout. Thank you. We're quickly wrapping up our first year in 2024. And if you're like me, you might get a little nebby at times. You might be wondering who else listens to this show, or does anyone else listen to The Pittsburgh Dish, and I'm happy to report we have some statistics that I'm excited to share with you. Recently, a few of our top listeners shared their end of year Spotify review, showing that the Pittsburgh Dish was somewhere in their top list of podcasts that they're listening to, and I have our overall stats from our hosting service, Buzzsprout. So here is the rundown. First off, let's thank all of our guests on the show. We posted 42 full-length episodes with interviews, recommendations and recipes. In 2024, The Pittsburgh Dish was streamed or downloaded over 11,000 times in 41 countries and 578 cities. In addition, each of our new episodes garners about 111 listens or downloads in the first seven days that it's out, and, from our hosting service data, that puts us in the top 25% of all podcasts. Thank you so much for listening.
Doug:I thought it might be interesting also to let you know where everyone is listening. 89% of the time it's on a mobile device, and 45% of you listen through Apple podcasts, another 18% through Spotify and about another 11% prefer a web browser, so that might be our website, or something like wish 99.7 FM. And what about followers? Where are you following us? Well, thank you so much for the nearly 1600 folks following us on Instagram, another 330 on Facebook and, interestingly, in the podcast streaming services 172 of you follow the show directly in Apple podcasts and 147 of you follow the show directly in Apple Podcasts and 147 of you follow the show on Spotify for those same immediate updates and downloads. Thank you all so much, and if you're not following the show, please do so. Finally, I thought it might be good to turn around and tell you all who we're following and listening to.
Doug:There's a lot of local support and inspiration that we've garnered throughout this year and I'd be remiss if I didn't keep those people in the mix. First off, I'd love to thank Chad Medved of I'll Call You Right Back Podcast. Chad does a weekly show and he's been doing it for years, interviewing just a breadth of interesting people through our region. If you're not following and listening to his show, you through our region. If you're not following and listening to his show, you really should.
Doug:We've also got inspiration from Rick Sebak's Gumbands and Shelly Danko Day's With Bowl and Spoon, and we've also received tremendous support from other podcasters, like the YaJagoff podcast. John and Rachel have both been on the show, as well as Megan Harris, Sophia Lo and the crew over at CityCast Pittsburgh. Again, they've been on the show, I've been on theirs, and I give the CityCast crew big credit for doing a daily podcast. Oh my goodness. And with that I want to say thank you to everyone that's been on the show, contributed to it and that is listening and following everything we're doing. Thank you all so much for such a great first year of The Pittsburgh Dish. Keep listening, following and spreading the word as we highlight the amazing food scene of our region. Thank you Up next if you're looking for diner food, but with a bit of a twist, our friend Kanika of that Curry Smell and the Indian Somm has a special place for us in Butler.
Kanika:Tony and I were at a farm store in Butler, Butler County. We actually had a wonderful place. We had a wonderful dinner at the Chop Shop in Butler. It's a classic American diner, but their dishes were all with a twist and I loved it. I had this roasted strawberry milkshake which I've never seen done before. It was so amazing. And then I had this duck. It was confit and grilled and there were different parts of it. It was like a crispy skin. There was a sandwich in a sandwich, and this is Butler.
Doug:And a classic American diner, roasting strawberries and duck confit. Yeah, crispy.
Kanika:And it was so amazing. And Tony had this pasta, which was all homemade. It was amazing. And this is like and it's such a cool place too. There are old car signs and like gas signs everywhere. And a cool place too. There are old car signs and like gas signs everywhere and it just was amazing and I feel like we will be going there back again.
Doug:It was awesome, the Chop Shop.
Kanika:The Chop Shop.
Doug:All right, we need to go there.
Kanika:We absolutely do. Yeah, that was great and it had a lot of a very big vegetarian menu too.
Doug:Oh, that's always good, Kanika. Thank you so much for being on The Pittsburgh Dish.
Kanika:Thank you so much for having me.
Doug:You can find out more about the Chop Shop on their Instagram handle or website at Chop Shop Butler, and you can follow Kanika on her two Instagram handles. The Indian Somm and That Curry Smell. Are you looking to add one more seafood recipe to your holiday or regular repertoire? We recently sat down with Chef Ben D'Amico of Market District and he leaves us with one final recipe of the week for this year. And, Ben, I know you're doing mega recipe industrial type cooking for Market District, but when you come home and you cook for your family, is there an everyday simple recipe that you love to make that you could share with us?
Ben:I mean, I don't know if I have a simple one, I think I have a holiday one, this braised calamari. Braised calamari yeah, A lot of people for holidays will do the fried calamari and it's very easy and calamari is not an everyday ingredient.
Ben:Well, you told us you do the feast of the seven fishes. Is this one of the dishes that comes up? And you could buy the frozen calamari and you just cut it up and it's very simple because it's one pot. Okay, so it's onions and garlic and I do mushrooms and some um peppers or harissa, something a little spicy, and then I add the calamari, pull it out, add in the tomato sauce and just braise it down for two to three hours. So it's an easy process. It's only a couple ingredients, but that's one that I love and my family loves. My son won't touch it.
Doug:Is it a family tradition? Did somebody else make this? It is.
Ben:My great-aunt Rose made it for us in her recipe in her honor, and so it's great because you could just eat a bowl of it or put it over sauce or mashed potatoes, so that's one of my favorite ones. You don't just have to eat it during the holidays either. It's just usually you find that abundance of seafood around December, when people are spending and having those celebrations.
Doug:Great Aunt Rose's braised calamari Sounds delicious. It's a wonderful must try, chef Ben. Thank you so much. Thank you, and thanks for being on The Pittsburgh Dish. That's our show for this week. We're going on a short holiday and winter break, but we'll be back really soon with more fresh episodes. In the meantime, we hope that you catch up on some of our past shows, and thanks so much for listening.
