PERFECT PAIRING
Brass sisters em bark on culinary exploration on W GB H’ s‘ Food Flirts’
Longtime Cambridge residents Marilynn and Sheila Brass, aka “The Brass Sisters,” have been Boston-area food world fixtures for many years. Now ages 75 and 80, respectively, these sassy recipe scribes have authored multiple cookbooks, starred in television shows for the Cooking Channel and WGBH, and regularly make food-related appearances for radio shows, festivals and even museums, where they show off holdings from their 8,000-strong collection of historic cookbooks and rare culinary antiques.
Now with their new television series, “The Food Flirts,” premiering Friday, these plucky sisters show you're never too old to learn new tricks, try new bites — and get a randy rise out of the kitchen staff.
“We still work every single day,” said Marilynn Brass. And there's no sign they're slowing down.
“The Food Flirts,” which debuts on WGBH Friday at 10 p.m., is a series of six (so far) hourlong episodes that follow the Brass Sisters as they descend on hip Massachusetts restaurants like fierce fish out of water, bat their eyes at chefs one-third their age, and charm their ways into kitchens to discover ethnically diverse eats that are different, delightful and delicious.
The idea was spawned over dinner with producer Bruce Seidel at Morimoto, the famed high-end Japanese restaurant from its eponymous “Iron Chef.” Despite decades spent writing about food, the sisters begrudgingly admitted they had never tried sushi. So they did, much to their delight, and the seed was planted for a show that would trail the ladies as they check overdue culinary experiences “off their bucket list,”
Marilynn Brass said.
The result: Enthusiastic eating experiences, some light sibling squabbles, and plenty of brassy Brass Sisters joshing. Think Romy and Michele as very hungry bubbehs.
“Ever since I met them, I fell in love with them,” said Seidel, former head of programming for the Cooking Channel, which produced the 2011 hourlong special “The Brass Sisters Celebrate the Holidays.”
“Their passion is infectious,” said Seidel, whose Hot Lemon Productions is behind the new series. He's currently looking for funding to support more episodes. “They continue to reinvent themselves. And what we want to do now is bring together cultures through food.”
Each installment of “The Food Flirts” takes the gals to two restaurants, each representing a cuisine with a different cultural heritage. In a third segment, the sisters return to their home kitchen and create an original recipe, one that can be easily replicated by the viewer, that brings together elements from both of the earlier eats.
For instance, the first episode follows the pair to Dosa-n-Curry, an Indian-oriented restaurant in Somerville, and Mainely Burgers, a gourmet patty sizzler in Cambridge. The Brass Sisters wind up creating their own dosa cheeseburgers. In episode two, they visit Mamaleh's Delicatessen, a modern Jewish deli in Kendall Square, and Shojo, a funky Chinatown eatery known for its noodles. The women wind up inventing a pastrami ramen kugel.
“It's a celebration of cultures,” said Marilynn Brass. Though the sisters say they “try to be apolitical,” they do consider it important to share stories that reflect America's multiculturalism — especially since their own story is rooted in the immigrant experience. After all, the show's concept is sort of an American metaphor: The sisters stir different cultures in a melting pot to create something new. And they have long been inspired by the stories of their own ancestors, who came to the States from Russia and Eastern Europe to give their children a better life.
The sisters grew up in a triple-decker in a “Jewish enclave” in Winthrop, where they learned the love of cooking at their mother's knee. Thus began a journey
that led to a James Beard award nomination (for their book “Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters”) and a national reputation as home cooking experts. Last year they were honored as “Food Heroes” by the city of Cambridge, where they've lived for decades.
Their parents also encouraged the girls to expose themselves to different cultures; the family would often rent out the top floor of their Winthrop triple-decker to tenants whose experiences out in the wider world helped to “broaden their horizons,” said Marilynn, who helped launch an anti-racism workshop when she worked at the Cambridge YWCA during the height of the 1960s civil rights movement.
Though “Food Flirts” focuses on culture-hopping culinary combos, the sisters themselves are the most prominent scene-stealing pair. They are each different flavors of fabulous. Marilynn, who founded the community affairs office at Cambridge's Charles Stark Draper Laboratory and was a longtime consultant for several popular WGBH series, is more immediately chatty and bawdy, delivering clever bon mots from behind thickrimmed spectacles. Sheila, a former fashion designer and administrative coordinator to WGBH's vice president of national programming, is sweet and sly, the kind to keep a little quiet — then catch you off guard with a nonchalant remark about a swoon-worthy chef's bulging bicep.
They're both proudly “single by choice,” said Marilynn. “At this age, most men are looking for either a nurse or a purse.”
But advancing age has actually made them bolder flirts than they were before, adds Sheila, recounting the tale of an octogenarian who recently tried to pick her up at the grocery store. Therein lay the charm of “The Food Flirts,” a spicy sister act that says you're never too old to stay spry, curious and creative. Life tastes better that way.