A former head writer for “The Simpsons” is teaming up with one of New Orleans’ most celebrated chefs for a dinner where the menu is a mystery until the plates hit the table. Bill Oakley and Turkey and the Wolf chef Mason Hereford are co-hosting a Culinary Curiosity Dinner this weekend, with seven dishes drawn from far outside Louisiana served at the Irish Channel sandwich shop that made its name reinventing the humble lunch classic.
According to NOLA.com, the dinners take place at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 25, and Saturday, Sept. 26, at Turkey and the Wolf, with Hereford interpreting seven dishes from elsewhere while Oakley emcees and shares Simpsons stories between courses. Oakley, a former Simpsons writer and showrunner who co-wrote episodes including “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” and “Bart vs. Australia” and won three Primetime Emmy Awards, also wrote for “Futurama” and “Portlandia,” per the same report. He has since built what NOLA.com describes as a second career in food exploration and curation, organizing curiosity dinners around the country with chefs he curates for their distinct local dishes.
Oakley won’t say what’s actually landing on New Orleans plates. NOLA.com reports he declined to share the Turkey and the Wolf menu, though he did rule out one contender: Cincinnati chili, the cinnamon-and-clove-spiced sauce sometimes made with cocoa powder and ladled over spaghetti or hot dogs, will not appear. What he will say, per the same report, is that the dinner excludes local New Orleans dishes entirely, sticking to his stated formula: the menu is mostly things from far away, as Oakley told Rough Draft Atlanta ahead of a similar dinner in that city.
How the Curiosity Dinner Concept Traveled to Louisiana
Oakley’s pitch to himself in every city he visits is simple, as he put it in a newsletter post: “In every city I visit, I ask myself (and the locals) “What can I eat here that I can’t get anywhere else?”” according to Bill Oakley’s Substack. That question has taken him through Portland, Austin, Cincinnati, San Diego and Greensboro before Atlanta, and this year the tour landed him in New Orleans, where NOLA.com reports he visited with his daughter during her spring break, sampling fried chicken at Willie Mae’s, a James Brown po-boy at Parkway Bakery and Tavern, and a collard green melt at Turkey and the Wolf itself.
The New Orleans stop is part of what Oakley’s Substack calls Culinary Curiosity Dinner Season 2026, sponsored by Stumptown Coffee, which kicked off with events in Baltimore and Kansas City in April. Oakley’s Substack identifies the “ever-popular Curiosity Dinner stalwart” — deep-fried Akron sauerkraut balls made with chopped sauerkraut, ham or sausage, and cream cheese — as part of the Kansas City events, and NOLA.com also lists the dish among the recurring courses that have proven popular on the tour.
Turkey and the Wolf’s Sandwich Legacy Sets the Stage
Hereford is a fitting collaborator for a dinner built on subverting expectations. Turkey and the Wolf is known for upgrading sandwiches with unexpected ingredients like potato chips tucked inside, per NOLA.com, a style that helped earn the Irish Channel shop a spot atop Bon Appétit’s list of the best new restaurants in America. Sources differ on when the sandwich shop first opened its doors — NewOrleans.com dates the opening to 2016, while Bon Appétit places it in 2017 — but both agree it launched in the Irish Channel and quickly became known for its fried bologna sandwich. Hereford has since opened two more concepts, Hungry Eyes and Molly’s Rise and Shine, and operates Hot Stuff as well, according to NOLA.com. His debut cookbook, “Turkey and the Wolf: Flavor Trippin’ in New Orleans,” became a New York Times bestseller, per NewOrleans.com.
The pairing between Oakley and Hereford didn’t happen by accident. NOLA.com reports that Barry Enderwick, creator of the online project Sandwiches of History, connected the two, and Oakley has worked with a run of award-winning chefs and restaurants on his current tour — from Noelle Prater, a James Beard Award nominee at Detroit’s Marrow in the Market, to Aaron Franklin at Austin’s Franklin BBQ Backyard, according to the same report.
A Second Career Rooted in an Internet Meme
Oakley’s path from Springfield to supper clubs runs through one of his most famous pieces of writing. NOLA.com reports he wrote the Simpsons scene known as Steamed Hams, in which Principal Skinner passes off fast-food hamburgers as his own cooking, and that Oakley has called it the biggest internet meme tied to the show — one that was even named meme of the year in 2018, per the same report. He has since launched something called the Steamed Ham Society, and told NOLA.com that food became his second career partly because of opportunities the internet itself opened up.
Tickets for the New Orleans dinners are priced at $120 per person and available through billoakley.com, according to NOLA.com. Oakley teased the collaboration on social media, writing on Bluesky, “Tickets to my collab Culinary Curiosity Dinner with the incredible Mason Hereford at his Turkey and The Wolf in New Orleans!”
