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The Pittsburgh Dish
065 Summer Roadtrip with The Great American Recipe, Season 4
A culinary road trip across America reveals the heart and soul behind three of this season's Great American Recipe contestants on PBS, each bringing their unique cultural heritage and personal journeys to the kitchen.
(00:35) From the warm hospitality of Durham, North Carolina, Fran Wescott welcomes us into her Southern kitchen where traditional local ingredients meet global influences. "I am, at heart, a Southern cook, but I've got all these layers on top," she explains, describing how travel and cultural exploration have transformed her approach to cooking. Fran's Summer Vegetable Orzo with White Pesto perfectly demonstrates her layered culinary philosophy while highlighting her belief that meals are as much about gathering around the table as they are about the food itself.
(13:01) The journey continues to Columbus, Ohio, where Filipino-American Rex Alba balances the rich, flavorful traditions of his homeland with his passion for fitness as a former American Ninja Warrior contestant. Rex's Bistek Tagalog recipe offers a window into authentic Filipino cuisine with its tangy soy-calamansi marinade and red onion rings, while his story reveals the personal motivation behind his health journey.
(23:41) Our final destination takes us to Spokane, Washington, where Suwanee Lennon's extraordinary story unfolds. From growing up in a Thai leprosy village to coming to America alone at age 13, Suwanee's resilience shines through in her innovative cooking. Her Thai Basil Pesto brilliantly fuses Eastern and Western culinary traditions, complete with her expert tip to use the often-discarded basil flowers for maximum flavor.
These three home cooks represent the mosaic of American cuisine – where traditional recipes evolve through migration, adaptation, and personal experience. Be sure to follow their culinary journeys and discover more recipes that tell America's diverse food story. Season 4 of The Great American Recipe premiers July 11th, 2025 on local PBS stations and streaming on the PBS app.
Hey Pittsburgh Dish listeners. We have a special episode this week, a sort of summer road trip. We're heading out of town to get new recipes from three amazing home cooks that will all be featured on this season of The Great American Recipe on PBS. You might remember that I spent last summer competing on the show and it was a wonderful experience. So when I started seeing the trailers and announcements for season four, not only did it bring back a flood of memories, it got me a little bit nebby to want to learn more about these newest contestants. So let's get to it. First up, we're heading a bit south to Durham, north Carolina, and getting to know Fran Wescott. Let's give her a call. Hey, Doug, this is Fran. Hey, Fran.
Fran:Let's give her a call, hey.
Doug:Doug, this is Fran. Hey, fran, how are you?
Fran:I am well. Thank you for inviting me.
Doug:Oh, I am so excited to be talking with you today. I will say just as a side note I know you've been following each other on Instagram for a while and then when I saw that you were part of the cast, I'm like yes, oh, that's so exciting.
Fran:I know it was so much fun. It was an enormous amount of fun to be acquainted with the show and to talk to people about and to go through that whole process. So it was. It was by binge watching. Great American Recipe, I have to say, Doug American Recipe, I have to say Doug, one of my favorites.
Fran:Not to put any pressure on you, I was just so excited to learn about the show and to learn about you a little bit too, and in that thing about that program, that we really get to know people through their food, don't we?
Doug:That's right. Well, I am so excited for you being part of season four of the Great American Recipe on PBS. You're one of the eight home cooks that were chosen from across the country and we're talking just before the premiere on July 11th. How are you feeling right now?
Fran:You know you've been sitting on the Secret and it's about to be broadcast now you know you've been sitting on the Secret and it's about to be broadcast. It's so exciting, but you know what's really funny and my family are sort of having a hard time wrapping their heads around this. I need to see it because I feel like I have no idea how it's going to turn out.
Fran:Did you really? Yeah, and it's funny because I was there. But then we're concentrating on what we're doing and maybe what our neighbors are doing, and like there are eight worlds happening all at once, and so I can't wait. It'll give me an opportunity to learn more about what happened in the studio with my new friends.
Doug:That's right, I love that. Happened in the studio with my new friends, that's right, I love that. I remember all of the cameras staring at me and I only really knew what went on in my world. So I hear you, when you watch this show you're going to be like, oh, that's what happened with neighbors A, b and C and I honestly don't remember some of the dishes. Until you know, until I saw the show, you know what everyone made.
Fran:You know we were so fortunate to have, you know, met one another and gotten to know one another when the cameras weren't weren't on, and I know you had that experience too. Um, but it was. It was beautiful anticipation when we finished doing a challenge and we were, I was excited to find out, like you said, what was happening across the studio and not not just you know what happened in the moment, which was exciting, get to hear a little bit about the story behind it and and that's just so unique and lovely about this experience and about this program.
Doug:I think it's such a huge part of the show. I did want to ask you. I understand you live in Durham, North Carolina. Is that where you hail from? Is that where you grew up?
Fran:It is, and there aren't too many of them. But that's a beautiful thing about Durham is that my dad was actually born here. I grew up here, I left for a number of years for college and then for, you know, my first jobs. But Durham has always attracted, you know, really beautiful, diverse communities and people and industries, and so we are fortunate to have a gorgeous heritage of a variety of cultures, you know.
Doug:I can imagine that it definitely shaped some of your cooking. Did you start cooking at an early age or, you know, were folks cooking for you? What was cooking life like as a youngster?
Fran:As a youngster I chiefly enjoyed eating and boy howdy. You know, my dad used to get some grief from some of his friends because he had three daughters and his friends would always say you know, you're lucky, you're not feeding three boys. And he'd look at me squarely and say you have no idea? Oh my, because I had. So I loved food.
Fran:So when you ask my, my cooking life, it had as much to do with sitting around the table and enjoying the food as it did cooking it, and we were never discouraged from playing in the kitchen. But my mom was largely a pragmatic cook. You know she loved culture around the table, she loved going out to eat. We loved to travel as a family, but as far as getting food on the table, it was not her joy, it was her duty that she happily fulfilled, because we ate breakfast every morning and we ate as a family, and even when we didn't eat anything more than like a BLT in the evening, we'd all sit around the table and catch up and sort of listen in on what the adults had to say, maybe catch up with what the kids had to offer.
Fran:So yeah, it was as much about the table culture as it was about the cooking of food. But I fell in love with cooking as a teenager, just loved it. It was like developing sort of a set of magic tricks, because there weren't a lot of teenagers who were cooking. So I did have fun with that.
Doug:Oh, so great, and tell us a little bit more about your cooking, like what are some dishes you're known for? In fact, what I'd love to do is ask for a recipe today.
Fran:Oh boy, oh boy. Well, I you know it's funny because I think I think the recipe that I would offer is actually a really good sort of metaphor for my cooking, because if you think about it in terms of layers and dimensions, the fundamental layer is that I grew up in the South and the South has a and it's not exclusive to the South, but in the Southern cooking that I grew up with, it was all about local ingredients and local food heritage. But then you add these additional layers of lived experience and travel and influences of visiting cultures and indigenous cultures, and so I am, at heart, a Southern cook, but I've got all these layers on top, so I think that does a pretty good job.
Doug:I love that. I think I just saw you and keep me honest, maybe it was your son. You were trying to do like a gyro shawarma with chicken in the oven using a cabbage head or something. Is that right?
Fran:Yes, you know what, doug? I just love a good failure, an epic failure.
Doug:Well, it looked like fun, it was.
Fran:And I think that's another piece of the puzzle for me is that, if it's not, you know, I have often told my family, even before you know, we started cooking. They're young adults Charlie's 23 and our daughter, Margie, is 26. And from the very get go, you know, and I promised that it would not be toxic and that they were not required to clean their plate, but we would, just, we would give it a go, we would give it a go.
Doug:So that was a fun experiment.
Fran:It was so lovely because we did actually get the giggles a little bit, and what's more is it was non-toxic and it was an enormous amount of fun, and so we did eat that night.
Doug:Very good yes. I mean failures are actually just learning experiences, aren't they?
Fran:They are, and they are comedies.
Doug:Of course. All right, Fran, I am going to bring us forward. I would love it if you would share a recipe with our Pittsburgh Dish listeners. Do you have something up your sleeve?
Fran:We do, I do. You know I mentioned that I love drawing on local produce and local ingredients, but I love also a little bit of an international twist. And I think in another life, doug, I was Italian, so the recipe that I have in mind is a summer vegetable orzo with a white pesto. So the white pesto is a little bit lighter. It still has that verdant quality that a traditional Genovese pesto does. But have you ever cooked with a white pesto?
Doug:I am not familiar with a white pesto. Can you tell me a little bit more about it?
Fran:Sure, it's a base of ricotta pesto, can you tell me a little bit more about it? Sure, it's a base of ricotta, and then you can add all different kinds of, because of course, pesto means roughly translated and gosh I think one of your castmates would be able to correct me, but I think it means pounded.
Doug:Yes to crush. To crush is what Marcella taught me.
Fran:Marcella. God bless her. She's my other favorite.
Doug:And I have so many.
Fran:So it's you add these pounded, these crushed ingredients into the ricotta, and the ricotta acts as a sort of binding agent that then melts into whatever pasta you use it over right.
Fran:So, I know right. So I generally add, like, since we're in summer, it would be both yellow squash and zucchini grated, and then a really light, maybe even a sweet onion whatever kind of onion you know turns the dial for you and then in the pesto itself, I'd probably use the ricotta, and then maybe some sort of either reggiano or Parmesan for a little bit of additional salt, right, and that kind of nutty quality, and definitely some lemon zest. And then, as far as the green that you want to use, I say, go nuts and see whatever you have in your garden or in your windowsill if you don't have a garden.
Fran:Yes, Right, so what kind of what's your go-to summer herb?
Doug:Well, I do have a lot of basil going crazy right now.
Fran:Oh yeah, that's a good one. And dill I love dill, I love dill. And dill is pretty good with this too.
Fran:Yeah, and you just do, you just toss that in the orzo then you do, and you be sure that you salt adequately the orzo, any pasta you use I like orzo, it's almost like a sort of the risotto kind of quality, but be sure it's well salted water and then drain it just about maybe a little less than a minute before it's actually done done, and then you'll have already mixed up whatever you're crushing in with the ricotta and then you mix the ricotta in with the orzo as it sort of finishes cooking.
Fran:If you're thinking about it and feeling fancy, you reserve about a half a cup of pasta water, some of that salty, starchy pasta water to kind of help it melt right, but it's not a big deal, if it's not melting, it'll still be warm in the pot and then serve it either next to a protein I'm a big believer in protein because I'm a woman of a certain age and then a nice grinding of some sort of a salty nutty cheese on top so that it sort of lifts out those sweet summer flavors of the zucchini and the onion.
Doug:This sounds terrific and it really puts anybody's summer garden to good use. I love a recipe like that, oh.
Fran:I'm so glad.
Doug:Fran, I want to thank you so much for that recipe as well as for your time. I wish you nothing but the best on this season of The Great American Recipe and everything else you have going on in your food world. Thanks for talking with us today.
Fran:Thanks so much, Doug. I appreciate you and it's been a lot of fun.
Doug:You can follow Fran on Instagram at Fran Wescott or visit her website, franwescottcom. Up next, a little closer to home, we're driving over to Columbus, Ohio, to talk with Rex Alba. Good morning, Doug. Hey Rex, how are you Very good? How are you, oh, so good? Thank you so much for taking some time and being on The Pittsburgh Dish. Thank you so much, it's my pleasure. Well, hey Rex, I want to just say congratulations on being one of the eight new home cooks on this season of The Great American Recipe. I am wondering how you're feeling right now, right before the show premieres.
Rex:I'm a little nervous and at the same time I just want to see the fruits of our labor, Because it was hard work and lots of footages. We'll see how they bring it up together in the final product.
Doug:I'd love to know. I know you reside in Columbus, Ohio now. Is that where you grew up?
Rex:So I grew up in the Philippines. Okay, we moved here in Columbus Ohio 20 years ago with my wife, so this is my second home and I'm loving the Buckeye State.
Doug:And when you think about what you're bringing on to the show. What influences did you carry on with some of your recipes, some of your heritage or some of your regional cuisine?
Rex:Yeah, mostly I'll be showing the viewers mostly Filipino dishes, but of course in the show we have to also represent where we live, so there's going to be a touch of the Buckeye state too.
Doug:Oh, I love that. When you were in the midst of the production, was there anything that was kind of a big surprise to you?
Rex:Yes, there's a little change this season compared to yours, so it's exciting. There's a couple of changes, so it can be fun Okay. There's a couple of surprises.
Doug:Oh, I love that. On a personal level, behind the scenes, how did you feel the camaraderie was with the cast? The friendship building, how did that go?
Rex:It's amazing and you can't believe it. Like just after a week and we bonded together, we just clicked and right now we're like family, we still communicate with each other and we're supporting each other. It's not like a competition where you drag down a competitor. It's more like we cheer for one another and support each other.
Doug:I'm so glad to hear that and I knew the feeling. It was quite similar on season three, so I'm so happy to hear season four is sort of in the same way.
Rex:I think the way they do casting and all the you know and how they really cast the contestants, I think it has something to do with it, because they really brought in really good people and supportive ones. So I'm really glad I'm part of it.
Doug:I agree, you know. I'll tell you. What I was surprised about in my season is that we rarely, if ever, got to taste each other's food or see each other's food and I remember watching last summer was really the first time I got to really see some of my competition's dishes up close. Did you find that to be the case in your season?
Rex:So in the first few episodes, you know we're still trying to get a feel of how the set is. If they're, you know they're real lenient or they're strict, because they need to judge right away after you cook. But after a few cooking sessions we were able to grab some of our dishes and share it with our contestants backstage. Oh, that's good In a holding area.
Doug:yeah, yes, yes, oh, I know that holding area.
Rex:A lot of time there.
Doug:Rex, I would love it if you could share one of your dishes with our audience here on the Pittsburgh Dish. Would you happen to have a recipe that you could tell us about?
Rex:Yes, I would like to share this recipe, which I wasn't able to showcase in the show because of time constraints. We call it Bistek Tagalog or we can just call it beefsteak. I mainly use beef tenderloin or beef skirt. Then you cut it in squares or rectangle, you marinate it for three hours with our local soy sauce. We have our uh citrus fruit we call calamansi, but you can use lemon for it as a substitute. But I can. I can get the calamansi in packets and a little salt, a little uh, of course, a lot of garlic, by the way, and then a black pepper. So you marinate for three hours, to at least overnight.
Doug:And does that tenderize it? I imagine with that acid it helps to tenderize the meat a bit.
Rex:With the meat we're using. It's very tender.
Rex:The tenderloin is. So you know you don't need a lot of cooking time for that, that's true. And also the beef skirt. And the beef skirt I tried to use like a tenderizing hammer, but with the tenderloin you don't need to do that, you just marinate it. So after you marinate for a certain amount of hours, take it out from the marinade. Then you brown each side with a cooking oil and then lightly brown just then remove it from the heat. And now you saute the garlic and then you saute some onion rings red onion rings, oh okay.
Rex:Once the red onion rings is translucent, you take it off and then you put back the marinade, together with the beef the brown beef, yes and then you let it simmer for a bit, let the juice come out, and then you can add a little bit of a red wine, just to have a contrast, a little bit of brown sugar, and if you want a little bit more tangy taste, you can add more lemon to it or the calamansi packets, and then black pepper, white pepper, and after that you just let it simmer. After maybe about five, 10 minutes, you remove it from the heat, you add your red onion rings and that's ready to serve. It's really, it's really smells good and the taste it's different, because you really can taste the marinade from it.
Doug:So it sounds like it's all done on the stovetop, all the cooking, correct?
Rex:Yes, all of it's done on the stovetop.
Doug:Okay, and then would you typically serve this over rice, or how would you plate it up?
Rex:So normally we eat it with rice. Of course we Filipinos we like our steamed rice. So yeah, in the Philippines we eat rice three times a day, so that's served well with rice, white rice and you can. Always there's a little bit of sauce, but it doesn't need to be saucy, because you want the juice and the oil of the beef to come out a little bit. That way, you know, you can taste its flavor.
Doug:I love that. It sounds delicious, Rex, Thank you so much. And easy and easy too. Thank you so much. It's easy and easy too. Oh, very good. You know, we have a couple of great Filipino chefs and cooks here in Pittsburgh and I will be also looking for this dish and see if it's on any of their menus.
Rex:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was planning on showcasing it in the show, but with the limited time I can't do the marinade, so but this time at home you can do it.
Doug:Yes, I understand that time limit. Oh my gosh. I did want to ask another question. I noticed something that they posted on the show about you sort of being a an Olympian track star, or something it's got me thinking is a fitness and important part of your life. Yes, it is.
Rex:I actually competed on a nbc's american ninja warrior and season nine. My goodness, yeah and uh, and I'm also. I also do crossfit at least three to five times a week. And uh because, because my, because my mom, uh, died because of a heart problem and when I was in my 30s I began to feel some symptoms in my neck and I gained some weight. Moving from a third world country to the US, you know, food is so cheap, you just scourge. But it wasn't really good for my health and I decided to change my lifestyle and that really helped me mentally and also in everything I've done. If I didn't change my lifestyle, I wouldn't be able to do this, because you also gain confidence from it?
Doug:Yes, and I imagine it really did change in your cooking as well, maybe going back to some more traditional dishes or home cooking and healthier food. Is that right?
Rex:Yes, yes, I mean there's also a dilemma there, because our Filipino dish, I mean I can't really tell you that we eat clean all the time, but I have some dish that also involves a lot of veggies and all those stuff. So I mean I love to share those sometimes I love that.
Doug:Yeah, I think my friend Rafael Vencio he's a Filipino chef. I love that. Yeah, I think my friend Rafael Vencio he's a Filipino chef. I love here and he loves to fry things. So I hear you.
Rex:It's not all healthy. No, no, I tried to. I even got a certificate from Harvard. They offer because I'm a physical therapist, so they offer culinary medicine, so I have that certificate, but it involves a lot of plant-based cooking, so it's more like towards healthy cooking. It's a dilemma between do you want to stick with the Filipino way of cooking or you want to change your way?
Doug:of cooking I think you're tapping into. It's always about balance, right? You want to have that good food and you want to have a good long life. Yes, yes, perfect, yep, rex, before I let you go, if folks want to find and follow you on social media or anything else you're using, could you give us those handles?
Rex:Yeah, so on Facebook I have Rex Alba or Bisdak Chef, so B-I-S-D-A-K Chef, and that's also my handle on my Instagram and also on YouTube.
Doug:Perfect. Rex. We want to wish you all the best on season four of the Great American Recipe on PBS and thank you so much for spending some time with us on the Pittsburgh Dish.
Rex:Doug, it's my pleasure to be in your podcast and I wish you the best, and I really admire your platform. It's very professional and I'm really happy that I'm so ecstatic that you have me here in your podcast, and I wish we can collaborate sometime here in Columbus or in Pittsburgh. I would love that. Thank you so much, doug, and to all you viewers and listeners. Thank you so much and God bless. This is Rex Alba from Season 4 of the Great American Recipe, and you're listening to The Pittsburgh Dish.
Doug:For our final trip. We're heading to the Pacific Northwest, in Spokane, Washington, to talk with Suwanee Lennon.
Suwanee:This is Suwanee Doug. How are you? I'm great. How are you? I'm good, Thank you.
Doug:Thank you so much for taking some time to join us on The Pittsburgh Dish.
Suwanee:Oh yes, of course. Of course. I'm delighted that you invited me.
Doug:I just want to jump in and say welcome to the Great American Recipe family and congratulations on being part of season four. How are you feeling right now as we lead up to the show premiering?
Suwanee:Oh, thank you so much for the invitation into the family. I feel so great. I feel extra nervous as well, but I'm excited. I think it's you know the two and two go hand in hand the nervousness and the excitement. I'm sure you probably went through all the gamut of feelings as well, sure you?
Doug:probably went through all the gamut of feelings as well. You've been through it, I know I'm so like. I wish I could have like allowed a phone a friend, you can come and ask me anything ahead of time, but I know they don't do that.
Suwanee:No, they don't. I know it's part of surprise, part of the, I think, being authentic as well, you know.
Doug:Right. Well, Suwanee, I'd love to share with our listeners a little bit about yourself. I know you reside in Spokane, Washington. Is that where you grew up?
Suwanee:13 by myself to Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I was sponsored by an American woman who met me in my village as a small leprosy village which we can talk about briefly. Later on, too, Went to school university, Wisconsin Minnesota area, met my husband, who was military for 22 years, and then, of course, with that we moved all over the world and ended up being in Spokane as one of our second assignments and within two years we knew that we wanted to settle down here and set roots deep here, because it was a great hub for us, a small enough town to raise family and I was starting to get really connected with the community. It just felt like it would be a good place to build a home. But we eventually had to move away with the military. But we kept our home here and then we ended up coming back when he was done and we've been here about six years. Spokane is home now.
Doug:Oh, so great.
Suwanee:I've never been to Spokane so maybe that'll have to get on my bucket list now I think so.
Doug:I think so too, when I'm just thinking about it. I'm sure it holds true for you. You've been to so many different places now in your life. How has that influenced your cooking and what you're bringing to the show?
Suwanee:My base, my foundation, is always Thai, and then from there with different influences, you know, from around the world. I bring that into my Thai and always try to bring a Thai twist into a certain dish. Still, I'm still respectful of each cuisine's traditional recipes, but once I learned that, I love to infuse it with my own touch, my own twist, a little bit of Thai here and there, and that's exactly what I did for the show too. I had a lot of traditional dishes, thai dishes, as well as some of the dishes that are of my own twist in there, especially with the regional, local, local dishes, local recipes, because in my area, the Pacific Northwest, we're just so full of fresh food and fruit and vegetables, seasonal fruit and vegetables all the time, so it's pretty incredible to just infuse all of that into my Thai cooking.
Doug:So exciting and in fact I'd love to get a recipe from you today for our listeners. But I know you mentioned earlier that sponsorship. Can you tell me a little bit more about early life in that village that you grew up in?
Suwanee:Sure, absolutely. I grew up in a small leprosy village. Leprosy is a disease that broke out 60, 70 years ago and then with that the government round up all those who were infected into different colonies in Thailand, kind of like a lot like COVID. When it broke out, you know, everyone was quarantined. So these colonies or villages were the quarantine places for those infected with leprosy. And so the village that I grew up in, my aunt and uncle, had leprosy, so I was adopted by them from infanthood and then I grew up there and those that have leprosy the older generation, the first generation live within those villages and they have their own families and children and grandchildren. I'm a result of that. I'm the second generation of people that grew up in those villages. We don't have leprosy, but only the first generation, but the second, third and fourth generation, we just continue the cycle of life within these villages.
Suwanee:And so back to how I came to the US.
Suwanee:A leprosy doctor, who's like another mother figure to me, came to my village to do all her leprosy work, the community projects and different things that she does for these villages.
Suwanee:She brought an American woman to my village with her and then I met the American woman and we just connected right away and she started talking and asking questions about me through leprosy doctor and just over the course of two and a half years, she made a decision to bring me to the US for better opportunities, for better life, also for safety as well, because within these villages there were government officials who were in charge, and a lot of them a few of them abused their powers and would just take advantage of young girls and their parents just didn't have the power or the ability to take care or protect them. And so, yeah, I was in danger of that, and so the leprosy doctor told my mom to help if she could, and she did, and she ended up doing all the paperwork and, yeah, did all the hard things that brought me to the US and instantly, overnight, she became a single mom and at 13, I was living in a new world I didn't know anything about my goodness, what an incredible story.
Doug:Suwanee, thank you so much for sharing that. I'm so glad that you were able to come to this life in this, this new place, and it sounds like you've really thrived.
Suwanee:You know, meeting your husband and then traveling the world well, you know you have to adapt, as all of us, as humans, we can choose to adapt or we can choose. You know that sink or. Well, you know you have to adapt, as all of us, as humans, we can choose to adapt or we can choose. You know that sink or swim saying you know, I didn't really have a choice and I had a great family. My American mom was incredible, super nurturing. She had a great family, great community that just wrapped their arms around me and helped me. And, yeah, I couldn't have, I didn't do it by myself, you know. And so, yeah, I've, yeah, definitely a blessed situation that I was in, I'm in, I'm still in.
Doug:Well, I have to just say you are one of those great stories that I've heard through the Great American Recipe. I mean, we all come with our different backgrounds cultural, situational and whatever and it's just incredible to be able to bring that forward to others to help a greater understanding. So thank you for that.
Suwanee:Yes, thank you, Doug. It wasn't always easy telling my story. You know, of course, as a child I grew up in a village, in a community where we were ostracized and oppressed and suppressed, and so we weren't allowed to have a voice to speak. So I carried that with me, not knowing that, you know, have a voice to speak, so I carried that with me, not knowing that, you know, I was free to speak, as I wasn't taught. You know, as children we weren't taught to speak up or anything. So when I came to the US I didn't embrace that, I did not use that until just years and years later, when you understand like this is a powerful, unique story and the people who didn't have a voice are the people that I want to stand up for, to speak up for, and telling my story is also telling their stories.
Doug:Yes, so well put. And the other thing that I appreciate is that all along you also have kept some of those roots to the food and to what you're cooking today, so you've really never lost that identity of where you come from. So thank you for carrying that Thai cuisine forward.
Suwanee:Yes, of course, and it was out of necessity as well, doug Thai food versus American food, I mean. I'm not dissing American food at all, but you know, coming from the very flavorful palate and a lot of flavorful and the change as a child, as a teenager, I'm like I I need my thai food. You know I also mentioned on yeah, I mentioned on the show I hope they show it where I said if I don't get my thai or asian flavors within two or three days, I get very tangry.
Doug:You know that hangry oh, I love that term well, speaking of which we should maybe get into a recipe of yours. Do you have something that you could share with our listeners today?
Suwanee:And again, it's my way of infusing Thai and a little bit American, a little bit of Europe, Italian in there. So instead of using Italian sweet basil, I'm using Thai basil in there with a little bit of white pepper. So here I go again. You know, my infusing my own Thai flavor is just to get that pop in there, because Thai basil has a stronger, bold, spicy flavor in it and the white pepper just adds that nice little earthy touch to the recipe.
Doug:Okay, so are those still kind of the equal amounts you'd use with the regular Genovese basil, but you're just swapping it out for the Thai basil. Oh, actually.
Suwanee:No, I add a little bit more because I also focus on the flowers of the basil as well, because there's a lot of concentration of flavors there. So, yeah, I focus, I don't, I don't the flowers, you know, people would normally just snap it and throw it away, do not throw that away. That's a goodies, those are all the goodies. And you know, we have Thai basil seeds that we use in recipes as well, so it just makes sense to use the flower.
Doug:The flower part. I have to say I've never used the flower part, so that is so fascinating to me. I've always found that Thai basil in my palate. It feels a little stronger in a good way, almost a little more anise-y or licorice-y. How do you compare it to?
Suwanee:That's exactly it, kind of licorice-ish.
Doug:Licorice-ish? Yes, I think that's it.
Suwanee:Yes, exactly so, and a little bit of heat in there as well, compared to the sweet basil.
Doug:Well, we'll get a recipe from you for this Thai basil pesto and Suwanee. How do you like to then serve it? Are you still mixing it in with a pasta, or is there any other application you like to use this for?
Suwanee:This recipe is actually very diverse. You can use it for so many different things. I've used it in pasta. I also have a recipe on my site with shrimp pasta to use this pesto sauce, and of course that pasta has a little bit of Thai flavors in there and I love it. I love food from around the world and when I infuse my Thai flavors in there I just love it even more. So I can have those recipes. I'll give you the Thai basil pesto and then I'll link to the pasta to use the pesto sauce in. Yeah, thank you.
Suwanee:And then I use the pesto sauce in.
Suwanee:Yeah, thank you. And then I use my pesto sauce in rice, like in a rice bowl, a little bit of grilled shrimp or smoked salmon. Use it on bread, on bagels yeah, it's so diverse and you can just use it in so many different dishes. Yeah, it's adaptable.
Doug:I love it. It sounds so good, so good.
Suwanee:It's just, yeah, it's adaptable. It sounds so good, so good, it's pretty safe.
Doug:All right, Suwanee. Well, thank you so much for that Thai basil pesto recipe. We will certainly link it to our blog so our listeners can check it out and have that additional link to your site. And while we're at it, could you remind us if folks want to find and follow you beyond the Great American Recipe? What are your social handles or website?
Suwanee:You can find me at simplysuwaneecom. That's my website and my social are connected with the same name simplysuwanee on Instagram and simplysuwanee on Facebook and, yeah, you can find all the goodies over there and on my website. I also have newsletter sign up if people want a weekly update of the happenings, some of the behind the scenes of the show and new recipes and also Thai cooking tips as well.
Doug:Ah, so fun. I have been following you for a while and there is a lot of good stuff out on your website. Thank you, doug. All right, suwanee, we are wishing you all the best on season four of the Great American Recipe on PBS. I'll be watching for you. Thank you so much, suwanee. Thanks so much for your time today and for being on the Pittsburgh Dish.
Suwanee:Thank you, doug, you have a great day.
Doug:All right, you too, suwani. Bye-bye. That was Fran Wescott, Rex Alba and Suwanee Lennon three of the eight newest home cooks competing on season four of The Great American Recipe on PBS. We'll post their recipes on our recipe blog at wwwpittsburghdishcom. The new season of the Great American Recipe premieres Friday, july 11th on local PBS stations. For us here in Pittsburgh, that's WQED. You can also stream the show on the PBS app. We're wishing all the best to these newest home cooks and we'll be watching. And that's it for this week. Thanks so much for tuning in, and we'll be back again with another fresh episode really soon.
