Culinary school office hours, one question at a time.
Chop Chat Chew archives the live Q&A events of an online culinary school. Instructors including Fran Costigan, Char Nolan and Dan Marek read out submitted questions and answer them one at a time, on problems like flat aquafaba, a stand-in for cashew cream and baked salmon a family's kids refuse to eat.
PRESS PLAY
Chop Chat Chew is built from the live events of an online culinary school, and it leaves them as they were. Each one is a working session. An instructor opens with a greeting and a few reminders for enrolled students, then reads out the questions that came in, naming whoever sent them, and answers each one. Different instructors lead different episodes, and each has a specialty. Fran Costigan introduces herself as director of vegan pastry and as co-creator and lead instructor of the Essential Vegan Desserts course. Her sessions stay with the sweet end of plant-based cooking. Sorting through liquid sweeteners, she says rice syrup is one she loves but not for cakes, and lists maple, agave, date syrup and molasses as other options. For a student allergic to cashews and sunflower seeds, she suggests silken tofu, white beans and agar agar. She recalls working as pastry chef at Angelica Kitchen, when there were far fewer choices. In an episode titled 'Can This Dessert Be Saved?' she explains that an agar-thickened dessert often just needs longer cooking. Then she shows a gluten-free graham cracker crust of her own that did not turn out right. Dan Marek, who gives his title as director of plant-based culinary, works through a mixed batch of Ask Me Anything questions. He fetched an onion to walk through the cut, offers sumac as a spice option, and suggests a seitan version of corned beef for St. Patrick's Day. When a question moves into fish, he mentions that it has been passed to Eric Wynkoop, whom he calls more of an expert on fish. Eric Wynkoop calls his slot office hours. He takes on a parent whose kids will not eat baked salmon, explains how plant-based milks and added sugar affect browning, and suggests tahini as a whole-food source of fat. Char Nolan, an instructor based near Philadelphia, mixes technique with coursework advice: shoot a finished dish in natural light at a 45-degree angle, and watch the video on sautéing mushrooms without oil. She fields a question about aquafaba that came out flat. Asked how to become a food writer, she answers with a story from her own past, and she signs off with a line about the city of brotherly love and sisterly affection. The tone is warm and plainspoken throughout, with little production polish, just an instructor working through a list of questions. What a listener gets is specific: a fix for one real kitchen problem after another.
Made for: Suits a listener who cooks plant-based at home or is working through an online culinary course and wants direct answers to specific problems like substitutions, sweeteners and knife cuts. Also suits someone looking for vegan dessert options beyond the usual cashew cream.
What sets it apart: There are no interviews and no scripted lessons. Each episode keeps the shape of a school's live Q&A, with one instructor, a list of named questions and practical answers. Because the instructor changes, each session has its own specialty, from Fran Costigan's vegan pastry to Dan Marek's wider plant-based cooking.
Join our chef instructors and special guests from the cooking, medical, and literary world for a discussion of a variety of topics and recipes, as well as your questions. All episodes were originally live broadcast events, as found on https://rouxbe.com/live-events
Medicinal-tasting graham crackers send Fran Costigan toward cinnamon; your kitchen mistakes might get a second act.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A vegan pastry Q&A turns spring weather and audience questions into practical guidance on sweeteners, creams, and aquafaba.
Early spring gives this PlayNext episode an apt frame: Fran Costigan is in Philadelphia, talking vegan pastry while freeze warnings push the forecast into the 20s. From there, the live Q&A settles into the practical choices behind dessert making without dairy or eggs.
A practical office-hours episode turns kitchen frustrations into small experiments, from miso salmon to tahini and roux technique.
The episode treats office hours as a practical sweep through everyday kitchen fixes, starting with baked salmon that is not winning over kids and branching into plant-based swaps, samosas, roux technique, and equipment choices.
Baking technique with kitchen-tested clarity.
A working chef's classroom, from stock to sous vide.
Héctor and Beto dissect Mexican grammar, slang, and news in native-speed Spanish conversations.
Small habit changes meet hands-on AI experiments.
Chef instructor discusses vegan dessert techniques, including ganache and egg replacements, for Valentine's Day.
Chef Dan Merrick answers student questions about plant-based cooking, explaining the difference between broth and stock and suggesting sushi recipes for a dinner party.
Chef Dan Merrick answers student questions about recipe development and plant-based cooking during office hours.
Fran Costigan, Director of Vegan Pastry at Ruby Online Culinary School, uses a live Q&A to talk through early spring desserts, blood orange, lemon cupcakes, thyme, rosemary, and frozen backup desserts.
Chef instructor Char Nolan gives cooking tips and answers a student's question about food sticking to a frying pan.
Chef Eric Weinkoop answers a listener's question about making salmon more appealing for kids, suggesting miso paste and soy-based marinades.
A chef instructor demonstrates how to properly cut an onion and a mango during a live Q&A session.
Chef Char Nolan answers a viewer's question about making aquafaba and provides tips for achieving stiff peaks.
Fran Costigan reduces chickpea liquid by half, then whips it into sturdy vegan meringue.
Eric Weinkoop recalls a gallon of vanilla extract rising from $100 to $200 within months.
Char Nolan answers Ruby students' February questions with practical guidance on assignment photos, mise en place, pizzas, potatoes, Brussels sprouts, and peanut butter.
Fran Costigan hosts her 10th annual Valentine's Day live event for Ruby's Essential Vegan Desserts course from her Philadelphia kitchen, framing the day around comfort, budget and dairy- and egg-free desserts.
Eric Wynkoop, director of culinary instruction at Ruby, answers seven viewer questions in this January 20th office-hours session, starting with whether cooked chicken can be frozen.
Dan Marek and Char Nolan, both Ruby instructors, lay out a playbook for teaching plant-based cooking, starting with Char's pop-up dinner for 12 people after her 2015 graduation.
Chef Dan answers audience questions about preserving fresh herbs and clarifies the difference between tapioca starch and cassava flour.
Chef instructor Dan Merrick answers a student's question about cooking tofu in the Forks Over Knives course, offering tips on flavor and texture.