The gourmand's guide to visiting (or hosting visitors in) LA. Plus, Botanica's Heather Sperling on her unique journey and the state of food media.

We’re joined on the pod today by none other than Father Sal. As you know, dear listener, Father Sal doesn’t actually live in Los Angeles, but when he does visit our city, which happens often, he always comes prepared with the most thorough itineraries humankind has ever seen. If planning were an Olympic sport, Father Sal would take home gold, silver, bronze, and perhaps even the cutest leotard award. As a gesture of our goodwill to you, dear listener, we’re going to talk today about how to craft the perfect itinerary when visiting LA or when hosting out-of-town visitors. He’ll walk me through his latest plans, and I’ll critique them from a culinary perspective to make sure he’s not taking just another basic bitch visit to LA, but really getting into the guts of what makes  our city’s food great right now. Consider this the Gourmand’s Guide to Visiting or Hosting Visitors in LA.  We’re also joined today by a restaurant owner who has been a very vocal voice in recent conversations on the tough times restaurants have been having of late. You may have seen her piece in The LA Times breaking down where every cent of a dollar goes once you’ve spent it at a restaurant. It’s Heather Sperling of Botanica in Silver Lake and, honestly, this was such a fascinating conversation, I had to break it up into 2 parts. Today, we’ll be hearing about the path that led her to opening Botanica, and next week we’ll dive into the nitty gritty of owning and operating a restaurant in LA’s rather draconian regulatory environment. Heather actually worked in food media for a long time, and today’s portion of the interview includes some great insights on what we’re losing as the food media universe continues to hemorrhage dollars and therefore journalists.  Helpful links: Our free newsletter LA FOODSTACK https://thelacountdown.substack.com/ Botanica https://botanicarestaurant.com/ Heather Sperling on IG https://www.instagram.com/heathersper/?hl=en This episode of The LA Food Podcast was produced with the help of: Adam Skaggs Tiffany Perez Tim Bertolini -- Get 10% off on all purchases at House of Macadamias with the code "LAFOOD" https://www.houseofmacadamias.com/pages/la-foods -- Get 10% off your first order of wagyu beef at First Light Farms using the code "LAFOOD10" https://www.firstlight.farm/us/