Gazpacho, galette and grilled tomato sandwiches are on the menu for JEM Dining’s Edgy Tomato Fest booth at the Aug. 22 event.

This Saturday will conclude a week of tomato-centric dishes and drinks at the Edge District restaurant, which marked three years in business this spring.

Tomatoes get edgy, A. Schwab rocks out and Playhouse is gonna be so ‘fetch’

Co-owner chef Josh Mutchnick and chef Jamaurin “Vino” Wright joined me on the podcast this week to talk about their approach to cooking, creative reuse in the kitchen and more.

They also talked about their culinary backgrounds and a few of Wright’s “side quests,” from cooking for his five children to smoking chickens with mulberry wood harvested from his backyard. 

Mutchnick shared stories of plentiful seafood — sometimes sourced from “a guy” on the side of the road — growing up in Mobile, Alabama. 

“We would get it and go home and eat West Indies salad, like a crab salad. And so I was very fortunate to have that in my life,” he said. 

(He now has another “guy” aka an urban microfarm that supplies the restaurant with some of its locally-grown tomatoes: Green Leaf .)

We go into the details of JEM’s popular vegan arancini, the “showstopper” Filipino adobo style short rib, the bread pudding and the panzanella they will serve during the week of Edgy Tomato Fest.

Regular listeners will not be surprised to hear which restaurant is Mutchnick’s go-to for staff dinner at the restaurant. It’s one we hear about nearly every week. I also shared about my favorite “server breakfast” from my restaurant days.

Finally, the two make a big announcement about a brunch service soft launch coming soon. 

Listen to the full episode below.

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