PBS’s new foodie show “The Food Flirts” premieres July 28 and will air Fridays at 10 pm on WGBH. The show follows the Brass sisters, Marilynn and Sheila (ages 75 and 80) on culinary adventures around Boston, Massachusetts. The sisters will explore multicultural restaurants and create recipes that you can easily make in your own kitchen.
Here’s what we know about the show so far:
The Brass sisters grew up with home cooking
Marilynn and Sheila Brass grew up in a Jewish enclave of Withrop, Massachusetts. The girls learned to cook from their mom Dorothy who regularly made delicious home cooked meals and baked goods. Marilynn and Sheila have fond memories of baking with their mother every Friday. While waiting for dough to rise, their The Brass parents also instilled a sense of multicultural appreciation in the girls. They often rented the third floor of the house out to guests from different ethnic backgrounds and encouraged the girls to learn about the world and the people in it.
The Brass sisters got into the food business
Always inspired by their mother’s home cooking, the Brass sisters began collecting family recipes that were often handwritten and handed down for decades. With more than 200 recipe collections the sisters compiled many in a book. Marilynn founded a community affairs office at Cambridge’s Charles Stark Draper Laboratory before becoming a consultant for WGBH cooking shows. Sheila worked as a fashion designer before becoming the Administrative Coordinator for the Vice President of national programming at WGBH. Soon the sisters with big personalities got their own show, “Baking With the Brass Sisters”. They appeared on several television shows on WGBH and on the Cooking Channel as well as appeared on radio programs.
The idea for “The Food Flirts”
The Brass sisters have always had big personalities. Behind thick rimmed glasses Marilynn is chatty with a bawdy sense of humor. Sheila is the quieter of the sisters but can shock with her one liners. The idea for “The Food Flirts” came about over dinner at the famed Japanese restaurant Morimoto. The sisters had dinner with Bruce Seidel, the former head of programming at the Cooking Channel. It was actually the first time the sisters ate sushi. While discussing the excitement of eating food from different cultures the plan was hatched for “The Food Flirts”.
“The Food Flirts”
Marilynn and Sheila bring their outgoing and vivacious personalities to “The Food Flirts” as well as their enthusiasm for creating recipes. Each half hour show consists of the sisters “flirting” their way into the kitchens of popular Boston area restaurants. The 2 restaurants visited during each show offer entirely different types of foods. In the first episode Marilynn and Sheila visit Dosa-n-Curry, an Indian restaurant in Somerville and Mainly Burgers, a gourmet burger restaurant in Cambridge. The second episode brings the sisters to Mamaleh’s Delicatessen, a modern Jewish deli on Kendell Square, and Shojo, a Chinese restaurant known for its noodles.
During the third segment of each episode the sisters combine ingredients from the 2 restaurants and create a home cooked recipe that viewers would be able to make in their own home kitchen. In episode 1 the sisters create “dosa cheeseburgers”. In episode 2 the sisters create pastrami ramen kugel. “The Food Flirts” is set to air 6 episodes but it won’t be surprising if the show continues. The concept of creating multicultural recipes, the Brass sisters’ desire to make home cooking popular again, and the Brass sisters’ delightful personalities are a recipe for success.
Follow Us
