Forks and Fishes: The Bear special with culinary producer Courtney Storer

Today’s episode is all about The Bear. We’re joined by culinary producer Courtney Storer to break down the behind-the-scenes of Season 2, which is now airing on Hulu. Courtney is a Los Angeles-based chef who’s many credentials include running the kitchen at Jon & Vinny’s. Courtney is, in a nutshell, one of the main reasons why The Bear feels like such an accurate representation of restaurant life, and why it’s resonated with so many inside and out of the industry. We talk about her experience working with actors to ensure they’re moving around the kitchen believably, how she went about creating the gut-wrenching chaos present in the already iconic Feast of the Seven Fishes episode guest starring Jamie Lee Curtis, and how important it was to her to do right by Chicago’s legendary culinary scene. Courtney is wise beyond her years and we also get into some heavier topics like mental health in the kitchen, how our personal trauma informs our beliefs about ourselves, and why so many chefs have no problem taking care of others, but have a really tough time taking care of themselves. In Part 2 we’re joined by Father Sal. We give our overall takes on Season 2, and discuss things like who gave the best performance, which episode made us cry the most and is Rick Bayless an idiot for saying the show set the industry back 20 years. In Part 3, we let our creative juices flow and pitch our best ideas for how we think The Bear should open Season 3, Episode 1. If you’re afraid of spoilers, I recommend listening to Part 1 with Courtney and saving the rest of the pod for after you’ve seen the show. Helpful links: Courtney's Instagram https://www.instagram.com/courtney__storer/?hl=en The Bear on FX https://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/the-bear Queen Street https://resy.com/cities/la/queen-st?date=2023-07-07&seats=2 Yang's Kitchen https://www.yangskitchenla.com/