Broken Bread

Roy explores the power of cooking to rehabilitate those on the margins of society and the organizations taking a chance on those who need it most. He spends time with Father Greg Boyle of Homeboy and Homegirl Industries, the pioneer of socially minded food enterprises focused on transitioning former gang members from lives on the street to lives in kitchens. Roy also visits Mar Diego, a food entrepreneur who has opened Dough Girl, a pizza shop in the San Fernando Valley employing local kids struggling with drug use and homelessness. Additionally, the episode features L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti shedding light into workforce models with a purpose.

Roy meets the individuals bringing healthy and affordable food options into South L.A. communities that lack access to fresh food. Roy also visits with vegan grocer Olympia Auset, whose startup Süprmarkt delivers healthy and affordable food to the doorsteps of her community. Finally, Roy visits Earle’s Hot Dogs, a vegetarian hot dog cart that has grown over its 30-year history into a multi-location brick and mortar shop, now a staple of a community hungry for healthier options.

Roy explores future culinary landscapes looking forward to a world affected by climate change. He spends an evening with chefs Henry Fischer and Anna Rose Hopkins from Hank and Bean who make a surprising plant-forward dinner featuring non-traditional protein sources like crickets and jellyfish. Roy also visits with Ethan Brown of Beyond Meat, a company pioneering the plant-based replacements for our favorite burgers and sausages, and Vegan Hooligans, a pop-up restaurant in eastside LA’s Eagle Rock making classic American diner food out of entirely plant-based ingredients.

Roy breaks bread with chef Wolfgang Puck, journalist Patricia Escárcega and restaurateurs who are working to address the worker exploitation, high food prices and unsustainable financial models that have long defined the restaurant industry.

Roy explores seed sovereignty with Kristyn Leach, a farmer in Davis, California, harvests vegetables with kids in Compton and sits down for a heart to heart with the legendary chef and activist Alice Waters to discuss the food war that has been raging for decades ensuring we protect the right to grow, eat and exchange crops.

After learning more about the buried history of the Chavez Ravine neighborhoods where Dodger Stadium now stands, Roy is inspired to meet the people actively preserving Latinx cuisine in L.A. He explores Kernel of Truth, a tortillería in Boyle Heights and seeks out some of the city’s top taco makers who are using food and flavor as a form of resistance.