From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy Podcast
A weekly food and culture podcast from writer Alicia Kennedy, who talks to writers, chefs, and more about their lives, careers, and how food fits into it all. www.aliciakennedy.news
Wed, May 25, 2022
A Conversation with Millicent Souris
You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy, a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture, about their lives, careers, and how it all fits together and where food comes in. This week, I'm talking to Millicent Souris, someone I have long wanted to make my friend. Millicent is to me just wildly cool. She talks about food equity and drinking bourbon, and there was no one I would rather talk to you about the dichotomy of being politically engaged with food justice, and also stocking your pantry with very nice olive oil. She's also one of my favorite food writers period; her pieces in Brooklyn Based, Bon Appetit , Diner Journal —they kind of redefined the genre. As a longtime line cook who now runs a soup kitchen and food pantry in New York City, she's someone who simply knows food—its highs and lows and is cool as hell. Did I say that already? Alicia Kennedy : Hi, Millicent. How are you, Millicent? Millicent Souris: I'm doing all right. How are you, Alicia? Alicia : Did I say your name right? Millicent : Yep! Alicia : Actually, we should have done that before. [ Laughs. ] Millicent : I know. Yeah, my name is Millicent. And is Alicia correct for you? Alicia : Yes. Alicia is correct. Millicent : Great. Alicia : Yeah, I'm Alicia sometimes, but only if you're a Spaniard. [ Laughs. ] Millicent : Fair, I'm not going to pretend… Alicia : Yeah, yeah…well, can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Millicent : Yeah, I grew up in Baltimore County, north of Baltimore City, and in Towson, Maryland, and Lutherville, Maryland—which is of course home to John Waters and Divine, and also in North Baltimore County. So my dad's parents had immigrated from Greece, so I grew up eating Greek food. And then my mom's family had a dairy farm, so I grew up drinking—when I was up there—unpasteurized milk, which I would say about 10 years ago, I made the connection was raw milk. And country food, you know—my grandfather would grow his own corn and tomatoes and zucchini, and that would be summertime. We ate a lot of crabs in the summer, because it's Maryland, and then also, like, oysters were definitely a part of my mom's family. Like we'd have oysters stuffing and raw oysters at Thanksgiving, because her dad would bring them and shuck them. But then also because it's the ’70s and ’80s, straight-up shitty American processed food, was a gift, you know, for our household because my mom worked and my dad worked, and there's three of us. And, you know, even on the farm, my uncle and his wife, they
Wed, May 11, 2022
A Conversation with Andrea Hernandez
You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy, a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture, about their lives, careers, and how it all fits together and where food comes in. Today, I'm talking to Andrea Hernandez, the oracle behind the newsletter Snaxshot , which explores food and beverage trends with humor, broad insight, and gorgeous graphics. Nothing about the conversation went according to plan. I had to reschedule because of Puerto Rico's archipelago-wide blackout, my usual recording software wasn't loading, my laptop and Andrea's AirPods were dying, and we went totally off the prepared script to discuss the limits of tech that doesn't cross borders, having to be self-motivated as independent workers, adaptogens, commodification of culture, and much more. Alicia : Hi, Andrea. How are you? Andrea : I'm good. I'm actually doing good. [ Laughter. ] Thanks for asking me, how about you? Alicia : I'm good. I'm good. I know, you've had some power problems lately. Andrea : I was honestly, yesterday, I was like, Oh, God , because yesterday, I woke up with no electricity. And then at night, the power went out too. And I'm like, I don't know if we're gonna be able to do this. I was gonna have to— I don't know if tomorrow will be okay. But thank God, there's been no issues. I don’t wanna jinx myself. [ Laughs. ] Alicia : Right. Well, yeah, we rescheduled this because there was a blackout in Puerto Rico and then there have also been problems in a lot of other places as well. It's interesting, because someone messaged me in the Pacific Northwest, in Oregon, and was like, “We're having bad weather, I don't know if the power is going to hold.” And I feel like this is something that's underestimated and that's not as discussed, I think, because people in New York and LA don't have these problems right now, you know, and so I did want to talk to you about that, about how do you get your work done, and how do you keep your kind of resolve because also, as independent writers—as I know, of course—we are self-motivated completely with kind of, these unpredictable issues that happen. Andrea : Yeah, it really sucks at times when, at night, because it's like, well, I don't really have anywhere else to go. My phone has been sort of like what I default to, which is, like, so funny that you put yourselves in these positions, like I've literally, like, learned to do like, writing on Substack on my phone, which is like the most tedious thing—I wish they would like improve upon that experience. But I'm also, you know, before my laptop battery died, I will literally use my phone as a hotspot, for whatev
Wed, May 04, 2022
A Conversation with Angela Garbes
You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy, a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture, about their lives, careers, and how it all fits together and where food comes in. Today, I'm talking to Angela Garbes, the author of Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy , and the new Essential Labor: Mothering As Social Change . We discussed how her past as a food writer continues to inform her work, what mothers who are creative workers need to thrive—spoiler, it's basically what all workers need to thrive—informal knowledge building, and the significance of having an unapologetic appetite as a woman. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or adjust your settings to receive an email when podcasts are published. Alicia : Hi, Angela. Thank you so much for being here. Angela : Thank you so much for having me, Alicia. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Angela : Sure. I grew up in rural Central Pennsylvania. So—people can't see this—but this is roughly the shape of Pennsylvania, my hand. And I grew up here in what I call the ass crack of Pennsylvania. And it was a very small town, about 4,000 people. And I was one of very few people of color. And my parents are immigrants from the Philippines. You know, I would say that from a very young age, I was, like, born different. But, you know, we have a fairly typical…like, my parents are both medical professionals. So we had a pretty typical, I would say, fairly typical as you could get, middle class upbringing. And as far as what we ate, I look back on it now and I think of it as like a perfect combination of like 50 percent American, quote unquote, American convenience food, like a lot of Hamburger Helper, a lot of Old El Paso soft shell tacos, a lot of Little Caesars Pizza, a lot of Philly cheesesteaks. And then the other half we ate Filipino food: sinigang, adobo, arroz caldo, tinola... and, you know, I remember my dad, like, hacking up pig's feet, you know, I would come downstairs and he'd be cooking up things like that. And so when I look back on it now, I think it was—I mean, I love Filipino food so much. But I also, I mean, I love all kinds of food. And I kind of eat anything. And it's partly, I think, because I was just exposed to a lot of things. But my parents, you know, we lived in this really small town, and they couldn't get all of the ingredients that they wanted to make traditional dishes. But they kind of improvised with what they had. And because they were so committed to cooking Filipino food, sort of against the odds, I would say, you kno
Wed, April 27, 2022
A Conversation with Jami Attenberg
You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy , a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture about their lives, careers and how it all fits together and where food comes in. Today, I'm talking to Jami Attenberg , the author of seven novels, including the best-selling The Middlesteins . Her latest book is a memoir called I Came All This Way to Meet You , which grapples with ideas of success and living a nontraditional life. We talk about the ups and downs of the writing life, along with her move from New York to New Orleans, why she chose to write a memoir right now, and how the pandemic has shifted her relationship to travel. You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy , a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture about their lives, careers and how it all fits together and where food comes in. Today, I'm talking to Jami Attenberg , the author of seven novels, including the best-selling The Middlesteins . Her latest book is a memoir called I Came All This Way to Meet You , which grapples with ideas of success and living a non-traditional life. We talk about the ups and downs of the writing life, along with her move from New York to New Orleans, why she chose to write a memoir right now, and how the pandemic has shifted her relationship to travel. Alicia: Hi, Jami. Thank you so much for being here. Jami : Hi. It's so nice to meet you. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Jami : Yeah, I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. I’m 50, so I grew up in the ’70s. And I'm Jewish, and so there was an emphasis on deli when we could get it. There wasn't a lot of deli going on out there where I grew up. I grew up in Buffalo Grove. So closer to Skokie is where they, where you can get deli. And then, a lot of Italian food. A lot of pizza. I don't know if you've ever heard of Portillo's before. That is an amazing Chicago chain, and the Italian— Oh. I want it right now, just thinking about it. They had this croissant sandwich with Italian beef that was really delicious. My mother would be upset to hear me say this, I do not reca
Wed, April 13, 2022
A Conversation with Daniela Galarza
You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy , a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture about their lives, careers, and how it all fits together and where food comes in. Today, I'm talking to Daniela Galarza , the writer behind The Washington Post's Eat Voraciously newsletter, which goes out Monday through Thursdays offering suggestions for what to cook for dinner. We discussed how she went from pastry kitchens to food media, writing recipes for a broad audience with plenty of substitutions, and walking around Walmarts to see what kind of ingredients are available everywhere. Alicia : Hi, Daniela. Thank you so much for being here. Daniela : Hi, Alicia. Thanks for having me. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Daniela : I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, a few different suburbs. And my mom immigrated to the U.S. in her early adulthood, and my dad from Iran. And my dad moved from Puerto Rico to the mainland in—when he was 9 or 10 years old. And they met in Chicago and realized they had—I guess, they both loved to cook. Or they both loved food. And so growing up, I ate a lot of both of those cuisines, and also a lot of things that they kind of made up together. And then, when I started going to school, I started—my brother and I, who’s younger than me, started complaining that we weren't eating enough American food. I loved the Puerto Rican food and the Iranian food that I was eating. It's interesting that I, as a kid, just wanted macaroni and cheese and, from a box. And, I don't know, hot dogs, and—What else? Oh, and baked pastas. I wanted all of this Italian American food, which was so foreign to my parents. And they did their best to try to figure out what we would eat. That manifested in really interesting mas- ups. My dad's take on spaghetti and meatballs was spaghetti, really, really overdone spaghetti in, I think, a canned tomato sauce, and then a fried pork chop on top. And it would get cut up for me. Yeah, there were a lot of translations into American food that I ate. Alicia : Wow. Well, and you've had such a long and varied career in food. So I wanted to start at the beginning. Why food? And how did you start your professional career? Daniela : I don't know how I always knew I wanted to work in the food, in food, somehow doing something with food. I think I always gravitated towards the kitchen. It wasn't always a happy place in my home. I just loved eating. Something I get
Wed, April 06, 2022
A Conversation with Robert Simonson
You're listening to “From the desk of Alicia Kennedy”, a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays I'll be talking to different people in food and culture, about their lives, careers and how it all fits together and where food comes in. Today, I’m talking Robert Simonson, a contributing cocktail writer at the New York Times , Punch, and other outlets. He’s the author of many cocktail books, including one of my favorites, A Proper Drink: The Untold Story of How a Band of Bartenders Saved the Civilized Drinking World We discussed how he went from theater critic to cocktail writer, the methodology behind 2016’s A Proper Drink , launching his newsletter The Mix , and the non-alcoholic beverage scene. Alicia: Thank you so much for being here, Robert. Robert: Oh, it's my pleasure. Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Robert: Yes, I grew up in a small farming community in Wisconsin. It had the name Eagle with about 395 people in it. And my parents had moved there for a change of pace and their lifestyle, and we lived on a working farm. So my mother had a huge vegetable garden and my father raised pigs and other animals, so I kind of grew up knowing where all the food came from, all the vegetables came from our garden, all the meat that was in the large freezer in the basement, had once been living on our land, and we sent it away to a butcher and it came back. So I guess this kind of gave me a sort of a trusting attitude towards food, which is perhaps not well founded or well founded and how you look at it. I was very lucky in that respect. My mother was a good cook. She made a lot of, you know, home meals, mainly Germanic, the kinds of things that you would get in Wisconsin. And of course, you know, you eat a lot of cheese out there; you eat a lot of bratwurst. One thing we did every summer that I did not realize was special until the last ten years is, we took one of our pigs and we roasted it whole over a spit and we invited all the family over and we had this day-long pig roast. I think at the time as a kid, I probably thought it was pretty gross. But now of course, you know, that's, that's a very cool thing to have. Alicia: [ Laughs ] Well, when did you end up coming to New York then? Robert: I came to New York in 1988. I came here to go to graduate school at Hunter College. Alicia: Nice. And what did you study? Did you study journalism? Robert: I had studied journalism and English Literature at Northwestern University in the Chicago area. And I came here with the quixotic idea of getting a master's degree in dramatic criticism, which is not, you k
Wed, March 30, 2022
A Conversation with LinYee Yuan
Today, I’m talking LinYee Yuan , a design journalist as well as the editor and founder of MOLD magazine, which approaches food and the future from a design perspective. It’s one of the most innovative food magazines out there, with a global scope and an honest relationship to unpleasant realities like hunger, waste, and even fecal matter. We discussed how the magazine came to be, how its point of view has been forged, and its trajectory from the microbiome toward its sixth and final forthcoming issue about soil. Alicia: Hi, LinYee. Thank you so much for being here. LinYee : Hi, Alicia. I'm so thrilled to be here with you today. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? LinYee : I grew up in Houston, Texas. I am a first generation Chinese American woman, and I basically ate all the things that kids in the ’80s ate in the United States. So Lunchables. I was obsessed with Cookie Crisps. I did the whole Pop-Tarts, all the things. But the difference is that my mother is a dietitian. And I just grew up knowing that those things were kind of foods that were just kind of special foods. So I would often go to friend’s houses to access those things. And because I'm Chinese American, we would typically eat some kind of Chinese-ish every night. My father is a man of ritual. And so, he's not super into being very exploratory with his kind of daily meal. So often growing up, my job when I got home from school–’cause I was a latchkey kid, ’cause it’s the ‘80s—my job was basically to make the rice. So I had to go into our chest freezer and dig out cups of rice, wash the rice, and then put it in the rice cooker. So that was very much kind of my experience growing up. My father was an avid gardener. And because I grew up in Houston, Texas, we had access to the water. And his other passion in life, besides gardening, is fishing. And so oftentimes, we would have fresh vegetables, fresh fruits from the garden, and fresh fish that my father had caught and then scaled and then cleaned and put them in the deep freezer. So that's basically how my parents still eat today. They do a lot of fish. They do rice at every meal. When the season is right, they eat a lot of vegetables and greens from their own garden. But we also would do at least a weekly trip to Chinatown to get Asian greens and other pantry staples that I grew up eating. Alicia : And so, what first interested you in food? Can you give us kind of a bio, a rundown of your career? LinYee : Well, I've always been interested in food, in the sense that food was always the centerpiece of any sort of familial gathering. As a child of immigrants, we would always make an excuse to come together over a meal. So whether that was just kind of weekend dim sum
Wed, March 23, 2022
A Conversation with Eric Kim
You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy , a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture about their lives, careers and how it all fits together and where food comes in. Today, I'm talking to Eric Kim , a staff writer at The New York Times food section and author of the just released cookbook Korean American . I've admired Eric from afar via social media, as well as his beautiful essays. And it was a thrill to finally get the chance to talk to him and find out that he comes from a literature background, which explains the beautiful writing. We discussed how he came to food, the way his cookbook took shape during the pandemic, going viral with gochujang glaze, and his relationship with meat. Alicia: Hi, Eric. Thank you so much for being here. Eric : Hi, thanks for having me. It's so great to finally meet you. Alicia : I know. It's so great. I'm meeting so many people that I've wanted to meet for a long time. [ Laughs .] Eric : Yeah. It's kind of funny. I won't say the person's name, but we have a mutual friend. And anytime I want to say something to you, I say it to this person instead of just—I should just DM you and be like, ‘Man, that latest newsletter was great.’ But instead, I just tell your friend and hope that they tell you. Alicia : Yeah. I mean, we can be friends. We can be friends. That's ok. [ Laughs .] Eric : So great to meet you, though, seriously. Alicia : For sure! Well, can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Eric : Yeah, sure. I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, in the suburbs. My parents moved there in 1983. And they've been there since. And I was there till I was 18. And I ate mostly my mom's food. She was a cook. She cooked a lot of Korean food, Korean American hodgepodge dishes. And I think when I got old enough to drive especially, but even before then, when I kind of was tall enough to stand at the stove, my brother and I were latchkey kids. We ate a lot of convenience foods. And I think that's a big part of my life and my nostalgia. It's become a theme in my work, because I just love these memories of these frozen meals actually span so much farther than myself. And I think about this all the time, actually, my—the way my micro life has macro resonances. And so you just say one thing, like ‘Remember this?’ And then thousands of people are like, ‘Yeah, me too.’ And almost always they are children of imm
Wed, March 16, 2022
A Conversation with Sandor Katz
You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy , a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture about their lives, careers and how it all fits together and where food comes in. This week, I'm talking to Sandor Katz , whom you likely know from his books Wild Fermentation , The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved , The Art of Fermentation , Fermentation As Metaphor , and now Sandor Katz's Fermentation Journeys , which maps fermentation practices around the world, to show how traditions that preserve abundance have been maintained. It's perhaps my favorite of his books, because it tells so many stories through fermentation and introduces you to so many people around the world. Katz has become a legend for his work, but he maintains humility as a conduit of knowledge rather than a keeper. His approach is a real inspiration to me. It was wonderful to get to talk to him about how he organized this book by substrate rather than nation, that why he names the ills of neocolonialism, and a lot more. Alicia: Hey, Sandor. Thank you so much for being here with me today. Sandor : It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Sandor : Well, I grew up in New York City, on the Upper West Side. And we ate all kinds of things. I feel very lucky that my parents liked different kinds of foods. They liked vegetables. We ate lots of different kinds of fresh vegetables. But I mean, I would say that my mom did most of the day to day cooking. She had her repertoire. I remember she liked to make pot roast. Sometimes she made great lasagna, but also lots of kind of simple things that she would leave me a note as I got older, just to reheat something. ‘Set the oven to this temperature, put this in the oven.’ My father also liked to cook. He was more of the classic weekend chef. But that also meant that he could be—He was very creative in his cooking. And he's 87 years old now. And he still loves to cook. And we were in New York City, and we ate Chinese food a lot. China-Latina food, the Cuban Chinese restaurants, we ate them a lot. My mother's parents, who I was close with growing up, were immigrants from what's now Belarus. And my grandmother was a great cook. And she would come over from time to time and make blintzes for us, I mean, she would make dozens of them. And we’d eat some fresh, and then she’d wrap them up and put them
Wed, March 09, 2022
A Conversation with Sarah Lohman
You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy, a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture, about their lives, careers and how it all fits together and where food comes in. Today, I'm talking to Sarah Lohman, a food historian, and the author of Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine . We discussed how she went from art school to historic cooking, making a career as a blogger, and how she defines American for the purposes of her work. Alicia: Hi, Sarah. Thank you so much for being here. Sarah: Well, hello, Alicia. Good morning. [ Laughter .] I feel we’re both still a little just rolled out of bed. Yeah, I did put a face on for you. Alicia: Thank you, I put a face on as well. I was completely ready to have this conversation and was sitting at my laptop at like 10:50. Like, ‘All right.’ And then at 11:01, I looked up and was like, ‘No!’ [ Laughter .] Sarah: It's fine. I'm just here with my tea. Just getting a start on the day. We're just gonna have a lovely chat, as per usual. Alicia: Well, can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Sarah: Sure. So I grew up in Hinckley, Ohio, which is a rural town about, oh, like 30 miles south of Cleveland. So Northeast Ohio. So I actually grew up in the house that my dad lived in from a teenager onwards. My grandmother gave it to my mom and dad the year that I was born. And so, that was how my family was able to have a little bit of property. And when I was growing up there, it was really pretty rural. I didn't have any really close neighbors, and we had a couple acres of our own. As far as what I ate, some of it was regional and some of it was at—the crap that we got fed in the ’80s and 90s that I look back on, and it's just totally remarkable. Do you remember things like Squeeze-its and Gushers? And I'm like, ‘I guess we just didn't know better back then.’ But those were real foods that we ate. And my mom was an exceptional cook. But it was very Midwestern. We did do some lasagna. We did do some chili, nothing particularly spicy. And then, kind of the regional cuisine in Northeast Ohio is very Eastern European. So there was also a lot of pierogi action. There would be some chicken paprikash, some beef stroganoff, those kinds of things. I think the most sort of resonant experience I had with food growing up is that my mom was an award-winning baker. So basically, as soon as I could stand, I was baking with her. Iit's funny, I didn't realize that baking was hard until food reality TV started coming out. All the chefs were like, ‘Oh, no, I don't ba
Wed, March 02, 2022
A Conversation with Kristina Cho
You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy , a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture about their lives, careers and how it all fits together and where food comes in. Today, I'm talking to Kristina Cho , author of the cookbook Mooncakes and Milk Bread . We discussed how studying architecture has influenced her recipe work, moving from the Midwest to California, and why it was so important for her to pay homage to the Chinatowns of the United States. Alicia: Hi, Kristina. Thanks so much for being here. Kristina : Hi, so excited for this podcast. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Kristina : I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, technically, the suburbs, but my grandparents—And it's also where my mom and all her siblings grew up, but they grew up in Chinatown of Cleveland. And so, I ate a lot of Chinese food growing up, which makes sense. My family is a Cantonese Chinese family from Hong Kong. So I ate a lot of Chinese food. But I also ate a lot of, I don't know, I would say the classic Midwestern staples, ’cause my mom was always interested in learning how to make, I don't know, I guess American food and figuring out a way to make it palatable for my family that loves Asian flavors. Alicia : Well, how would she do that? Kristina : So there's two recipes in my mind that always stick out to me that are kind of this really interesting fusion. She makes this really great meatloaf, which I haven't had in a long time. But we had meatloaf a lot growing up. And her glaze on it, rather than just ketchup or whatever else you put in it, she would do ketchup in oyster sauce mixture. And she would put bread crumbs and green onions inside of the meatloaf. So it had a lot of that sweetness and also the umami flavors from oyster sauce. And also her—I call it Mom's spaghetti. Or Chinese spaghetti. Again, it's ketchup again. I think my mom probably growing up was like, ‘What's ketchup? I need to figure out how to use this in everything.’ She loves it. But her version of spaghetti, spaghetti bolognese was ground beef, ketchup, oyster sauce again. And later on in life when I described it to other people, there's a Filipino version of spaghetti that's very similar to it. So I just find that recipe very interesting to compare with other people's kind of immigrant history, Americanized version of classic American recipes. Alicia : And you grew up cook—around cooking and food. And it's always been a significant part of you, your life as you write in your book Mooncakes + Milk Bread</e
Wed, February 16, 2022
A Conversation with Jenny Dorsey
You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy , a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture about their lives, careers and how it all fits together and where food comes in. Today, I'm talking to Jenny Dorsey, a chef, food writer and executive director of Studio ATAO , a nonprofit think tank that works on changing inequitable systems in food and beyond. We discussed how she went from business school to kitchens, cultural appropriation in fast casual restaurants, and launching a newsletter as a way to find her voice in writing. Alicia: Hi, Jenny. Thank you so much for being here. Jenny : Thanks for having me. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Jenny : Yeah, of course. So I was born in Shanghai, but I grew up in New York. Both my parents were getting their PhDs at Albert Einstein University up in the Bronx. So I feel when I was little, I ate a lot of just food at home. My family was definitely the ‘Why would you ever eat outside? You're wasting money’ sort of vibe. So everything was at home. There was a lot of eggs and a lot of breads. And of course, every meal has to have a veg. So I kind of grew up with a lots of vegetables and never really understood that idea of like, ‘Vegetables are gross. Kids don't like vegetables.’ I think pea sprouts are my favorite vegetable in the world. Ate a lot of tomato and egg growing up; I think that's a classic Chinese staple. So things that were easy for young 20-something-year-old parents that had no cooking experience and worked all the time to make. Alicia : [ Laughs .] Did you grow up in the Bronx, or did you grow up in a different borough? Jenny : Yeah, we grew up essentially in the student's compound within the Bronx. So there was some other, yes, children of fellow students that I hung out with. I felt we occasionally were actually able to go out and be with the rest of the Bronx. But a lot of times we were kind of confined in this little area, and so didn't really honestly get as much interfacing with the world outside as I think would have been beneficial to growing up, unfortunately. Alicia : Yeah, no, I remember Albert Einstein College from driving past. I went to Fordham. So I remember just being like, ‘Ah, the signs.’ That's all I know of it. I'm like, ‘Oh, the signs for Albert Einstein on the Pelham Parkway.’ [ Laughs .] But that's so interesting, to grow up in that kind of environment with—and that's interesting, because I think when we think of the Bronx, we think o
Wed, February 09, 2022
A Conversation with Preeti Mistry
Today, I’m talking to Preeti Mistry , a chef, host of the podcast Loading Dock Talks , and an activist for equity in hospitality. We discussed how they ended up a chef and closing their really well-received Oakland restaurant Juhu Beach Club, being on Top Chef , launching their podcast as an antidote to the whiteness of food media, and more. Alicia: Hi, thanks so much for being here. Preeti : Thanks for having me. Alicia : I think it's wild that this is the first time I'm interviewing you, because I feel like we've been following each other on Twitter for a long time. [ Laughter .] Preeti: I know! I was thinking that. I was like, ‘I don't think we've actually had a conversation that wasn't in 140 characters or DMs.’ [ Laughs .] Alicia : Right. [ Laughs .] Well, I'm excited to finally have that conversation. So can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Preeti : Well, I was born in London, and then we moved to the U.S. when I was five. I mean, I pretty much just ate Gujarati vegetarian food, traditional Gujarati vegetarian food, which is like dar, bhat, rotli, shaak, which basically means dar is dal. Bhat is rice. Rotli is whole-wheat flatbread, and shaak is just whatever vegetables are in season or that my mom cooks in various different ways, from things that are super saucy and spicy to things that are more of like a dry stir-fry. Could be okra and potatoes, which I was not a fan of as a kid. I liked the potatoes, not the okra. Or spinach, or eggplant, or cauliflower. You name it. And then, I really craved everything that wasn't that. I was super curious about what my family calls ‘outside food.’ And I always wanted outside food. I was just curious. I just wanted to know what other things, you know? You watch TV, and you're like, ‘What is Ponderosa ? What happens at a steakhouse? I need to know. Red Lobster.’ I mean, especially the meats and seafood and stuff that I never experienced at home, or at anybody else's home. And my parents were not about to take me there. At least I mean, you don't know. But my parents were not going to take me to those places. I mean, mainly because we didn't have enough money to go to Red Lobster and my mom would just never even step foot inside. She’d just freak out. She's a very staunch vegetarian. My dad eats chicken and lamb and some other random things. I helped him try a scallop once. He was pretty excited about it. He enjoyed it. But yeah, I mean, so then it was like McDonald's, Taco Bell, that kind of stuff when it wasn't traditional Gujarati Indian food. And we would go out to Indian restaurants, which was the first
Wed, February 02, 2022
A Conversation with Karon Liu
Today, I’m talking Karon Liu , a food writer at the Toronto Star . I’ve long been a fan of his work and perspective, which is accessible but has an eye toward sustainability; has humor and deep understanding, but is authoritative in his perspective. We discussed how he got into food despite never cooking growing up, shifting definitions of authenticity, and being a writer who can convey the totality of Toronto to an international audience. Alicia: Hi, Karon. Thank you so much for being here and chatting with me today. Karon : Thank you very much, Alicia. I'm a longtime listener, first-time caller. Alicia : [Laughs.] Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Karon : Oh, my God, my origin story. I think my origin story is quite different from a lot of your previous guests. I feel when you ask a food writer what their relationship with food was early on, they'll say like, ‘Oh, I used to gather around the dinner table with my grandma for Sunday night dinners. And it was such an important part of the week. And I would be in the garden. I would watch my mom cook. And it was so important in my formative years.’ And mine is the complete 180. I think a lot of kids who grew up in the early ’90s were, who were raised on television and were latchkey kids, we just completely absorbed all the junk-food commercials that were blasted at us. So what I think about what I ate growing up, it was all the golden brown, deep-fried junk. So it was a lot of pizza pops, which I think is—the American equivalent would be Hot Pockets. Mini-microwave pizza, Kraft mac and cheese. Sorry to be a Canadian stereotype, but I did eat Kraft mac and cheese growing up. Instant ramen. A lot of that. But I lived with my grandmother, as well, in our house, and she was an amazing cook. She cooked a lot of really fantastic Cantonese dishes, but I didn't really appreciate it back then. I think a lot of immigrant children growing up in Canada, or in the U.S., they were—they wanted to assimilate into ‘American, Canadian culture’ so much that they kind of looked down or didn't appreciate the cooking of their heritage as much. And I remember my grandma making fantastic stews, and all these really big beautiful steamed fish and these fermented things and pickles and stuff like that. And I didn't appreciate it because I wanted McDonald's and burgers. That’s what I ate growing up. [ Laughs .] Alicia : Well, I'm the same way when people ask me about this. There is a lot of beautiful, great food that I ate. But I also, all summer, was responsible for me and my brother and would just boil cheese tortellini. I would be horrified—I ate meat then, but when my mom accidentally bought the meat tortellini, I would want to
Fri, November 12, 2021
A Conversation with Frances Moore Lappé
Frances Moore Lappé, with the 1971 publication of the first edition of Diet for a Small Planet, eventually changed mainstream conversation on food by popularizing the reality that hunger was a human-created problem—not an issue of food scarcity, but of distribution. Now, in the new edition for its 50th anniversary, there is updated information on hunger as well as urgent writing on the climate crisis. (I have a recipe in it, and we partnered to make this conversation public.)Here, we discuss what has influenced Lappé’s work over the last 50 years, how her thinking has shifted, and how we still need to reframe the significance of protein if we’re going to save the planet. Listen above, or read below. Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappé was released in 1971, making the statistic that 80 percent of farmland provides only 18 percent of calories through livestock a rallying cry for better, more equitable agriculture systems. This book gradually grew to sell over 3 million copies and irrevocably changed the way we talk about food, hunger, and culture. Fifty years later, there is a brand-new updated edition, out now, to meet the urgency of our current environmental moment. Visit dietforasmallplanet.org to learn more and get your copy. Alicia: Hi, Frances. Thank you so much for being here today. Frances: Thank you so much. I love it. Alicia: [Laughs.] How are you? Where are you? You're in Cambridge, Massachusetts? Frances: I'm in Belmont, which is just very close to Cambridge, where our office is. But I'm working at a cottage in my home now because of the COVID isolation. Alicia: Well, can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Frances: [Laughs.] I grew up in Cowtown, literally called Cowtown as a nickname, Fort Worth, Texas. And the stockyards were never far from my smell distance. That was the ’40s and ’50s. And we ate meat at the center of every meal. ‘What's for dinner, Mom.’ ‘Oh, pork chops, or meatloaf,’ it was, that was the center of the meal. And, I mean, we ate healthfully in the sense that my mom never got on to the processed foods. White bread was a really big deal when I was growing up. We had a big, white bread factory on the way to town. You could smell the smell. But my mom always served us whole wheat bread. When she made after school cookies, she always put in a lot of nuts and things that were good for us. But generally, we ate the typical diet, but we—without the soda pop in the fridge, we never had that. But it was pret
Fri, November 05, 2021
A Conversation with Bryan Ford
Listen now | Talking to the 'New World Sourdough' author about going from blogging to cookbook, TV, and podcast projects. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Fri, October 29, 2021
A Conversation with Melissa Clark
Listen now | Talking to the New York Times staff writer and prolific cookbook author about creativity, learning from chefs, and how to test a recipe so it becomes classic. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Fri, October 22, 2021
A Conversation with Paola Velez
Listen now | Talking to the star pastry chef about narratives of success, ingredient accessibility, and creativity. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Fri, October 15, 2021
A Conversation with Nigella Lawson
Listen now | Talking to the cookbook author and TV show host about her upbringing, creativity, and being generous on social media. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Fri, October 08, 2021
A Conversation with Rachel Signer
I met Rachel Signer years ago while we were both freelancers living in Brooklyn. We were at a press dinner for a restaurant called Gristmill, which I just checked on: It’s now sadly closed. We’ve kept up with each other’s careers ever since on social media, and I’m so thrilled to see her memoir—ˆ You Had Me at Pét-Nat , a beautiful and enthralling work that enacts Signer’s restlessness and eventual homecoming—in the world and discuss her life in Australia, where she’s making wine, raising her daughter on a farm, and continuing to show the world the significance of natural wine. We discuss how she defines natural wine, leaving New York City, how she maintains such vivid memories to write from, and more. Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Rachel. Thank you so much for being here. Rachel : Hey, Alicia. Yeah, thanks. Happy to be here. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Rachel : Yeah, I love this question. I grew up in Arlington, Virginia. And a typical weekday dinner was a dish called salmon patties. And the salmon came in a can. And I think it was probably lightly floured and seasoned, and shaped and then kind of fried in a pan and served alongside peas or broccoli. And I loved it. I definitely really liked that dinner. And I imagine for my parents it was good, because it probably took like 12 minutes to make. And my mother grew vegetables. And I remember in the summer there being a lot of corn, corn on the cob. I remember there being tomatoes, and all of those summer veggies. And also very important—sorry, I have a cold. Very important meals were around Jewish holidays. So we would have a beef brisket, which I'm pretty sure would have been a Passover dish. Because you don't eat flour around that week, so you tend to have a roast meat. My mom would braise it with Heineken. It had to be Heineken. And she would sip half a can as she cooked. And then kugel , which is an egg noodle pudding. That happens around the New Year. I also was a vegetarian from ages 12 to 20, which was, honestly, sort of a random decision. I only started reading all of the kind of literature, like Diet for a [Small] Planet , after I'd made the decision. So I don't quite know where it came from. I was not a very model vegetarian. I subsisted on granola bars, bagels with cream, and quesadillas for a long time. That’s what I ate. Alicia : [ Laughs .] Yeah. I love that. And then you came to natural wine eventually. And I'm going to jump a lot. And I'm sure we'll work our way backwards. But I wanted to ask, how do you define natural wine? Because I think it's important to have how you think of it first before we
Fri, October 01, 2021
A Conversation with Andrew Janjigian
I burst into the Zoom with Andrew Janjigian —a writer and the baker behind the newsletter Wordloaf —as though he were an old friend, telling him about my drama with the dentist that was happening that day and explaining precisely how much I was already sweating despite the early hour of our interview. There are some people whose energy, even virtually, I just like and how I express this like is, frankly, by extravagantly complaining in the hopes of amusing the other person. This is all to say: Andrew is very smart and cool, and I was excited to talk to him. He has done so many things in his life, and it is all wildly impressive. He’s worked as an organic chemist, got a master’s in biology with a focus on fungi, and then ended up at America’s Test Kitchen, where he was the resident bread expert. That led, eventually, to Wordloaf, where he makes sourdough approachable. We discussed it all. Listen above, or read below. Alicia: Hi, Andrew, how are you? Andrew: I am very well. How are you? Alicia: I'm good. Thank you so much for being here. Andrew: Sure. It's great to be here. Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Andrew: Sure. Ok. So, I grew up in a Boston suburb. And I live in Cambridge now, so basically in Boston. And what I ate was—I come from a big Armenian family, and Armenians are pretty serious about their food and their cooking. A gathering of any two or more Armenians is basically an excuse for a feast. And holidays and parties are sort of studies in excess. So there was a lot of food and a lot of cooking and recipes between my mother and my grandparents and my aunts and uncles. And so, I was exposed to kind of people who love to cook pretty early on. And beyond the Armenian stuff, my mother is a very good cook. And she was pretty adventurous, sort of, as interested in experimentation and research as anyone, and I think that's where I started having the same sort of tendencies. I grew up in the era where it was sort of where cooking shows were all on PBS, and Julia Child, if you didn't know how to cook and all those sorts of things. It was a time when food culture was just starting to become mainstream. And my mother was a part of that. I think that kind of sums it up. Boston was not particularly interesting in terms of food at the time. It's definitely improved since then. Alicia: [Laughs.] How has it improved? What's changed in Boston? Andrew: Well, I think it's mostly that the culture has grown to support the presence of just more interesting restaurants. I mean, I'm sure there were plenty of restaurants in, within cultural enclaves. But when I was growing up, you didn't know about them. There probably were fewer then, simply because there wasn't the support. But I think Boston is kind of a provinc
Fri, September 24, 2021
A Conversation with Erin Alderson
I loved talking to Erin Alderson because I think we have a similar mission that we go about in different ways, and that mission is to just get people to eat more vegetables. (Her recipe-driven way might work a bit better, if her 134K Instagram followers are any indication.)It’s also fascinating to me to hear about those folks who came up in the heyday of food blogging about how self-publishing both has and hasn’t changed. Alderson didn’t approach blogging the standard way, though, by making herself into the main character and putting food second, and that’s why it’s not so surprising that she’s quit that world to put out a recipe zine instead, guided by seasonality and inspired by dinner parties, called Cook Casual . We talked about how she came to the decision to launch a zine, how she came to be vegetarian, and why she reminds animal-rights vegans about farmworkers. Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Erin. Thank you so much for being here, Erin : Thanks for having me. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Erin : Yeah. So, I am originally from the Midwest, I grew up in Illinois, Central Illinois, and was there until I was about 27. I was very surrounded by corn, soybeans, pretty much, was what we were surrounded by. And I did not eat the best. It's kind of funny, because I feel people in food are—have all of these rich histories, and they have family members who are really into food. And I ate McDonald's growing up.That was kind of my family. My mom cooked some, but it wasn't a huge part of our household. And so yeah, it was a lot of fast food. And we were always on the move. So it’s, I don't really have this rich childhood history with food. And then, it wasn't until I was really well into college that I started connecting more with food. Alicia : Right. What made you connect more with food? Erin : My dad had a heart attack when he was 45. Alicia : Wow. Erin : Yeah, so that was kind of a big wake-up call for our family. My mom's a nurse. And so she was really, already well into trying to bring in more fruits and vegetables into the house and everything. And then finally, when my dad had his heart attack, it was kind of like, ‘Oh, s**t.’ I was 20 at the time, I think? And so, it was definitely a big—’Ok, I need to start taking care of myself more.’ And so, I really dove into eating, just trying to figure out like, ‘Ok, what does my body need?’ It definitely was not always the healthiest path at times, but it's kind of what kickstarted up until now, really. Alicia : Right. Right. And when and wh
Fri, September 17, 2021
A Conversation with Dr. Hanna Garth
Listen now | Talking to the author of 'Food in Cuba' about how agriculture works on the island, what makes for "a decent meal," and more. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Fri, September 03, 2021
A Conversation with Tunde Wey
People assume I’ve interviewed Tunde Wey —the artist, writer, and cook whose work has been the subject of other people’s award-winning profiles—before because I’m a big public fan of his work, but I hadn’t felt myself properly prepared. His work touches on everything from racism to immigration to colonialism to capitalist extraction, and I didn’t really know my way into a focused interview. I was nervous, basically. But I think we had a good conversation, one that gets at a lot of issues with food as a lens toward bigger systems and problems. In many cases—most cases, if I’m honest—I’m doing an interview in order to work out a problem I’ve been thinking about, and this one was no different. We waded into whether food can really be an agent of change in a capitalist world, because I’ve been wavering on that idea myself, and Wey has the economic knowledge to discuss why it isn’t so in depth. Listen above, or read below. Alicia: Hi, Tunde. Thank you so much for taking the time. Tunde: Thank you. (:07) Alicia: And I know you are in Lagos, now. Can you tell us about how that's going, what you're doing there? Tunde: Oh, I'm actually not in Lagos. [Laughs.] I was supposed to fly two weeks ago, and my COVID result didn’t come in time. So I just pushed for my flight till a couple of months from now. Next month or something. Alicia: Ok, cool. Well, can you tell us about where you grew up and what you ate? Tunde: Yeah. I grew up in Lagos. I ate regional Western Nigerian food, I guess. So I'm Yoruba, so I ate Yoruba food. My mom is Edo, so I ate that food as well. My dad is also part Efik, so I ate that as well. So I'd Yoruba, Efik, and sort of the Delta region food, so Edo, Itsekiri food. And then we ate, I guess, white food too. Alicia: Which white food? Tunde: When we were growing up, we used to call it breakfast things. But when I came here, then it was lunch meats and s**t like that. So sausages and hams and stuff like that. So, we ate that. So it was a mix. We usually would eat that on Sundays. My dad would cook, and we'd go out to this store. My data would buy a whole bunch of things, and then he'll cook. Pasta. My mom would mix s**t like beef stroganoff, just random s**t. She went to school in England, so she came back with certain notions around food. So, we have those kinds of things. And growing up in Nigeria, I came from a middle-class background. It wasn't out of the norm for folks to eat that kind of stuff. So cereals and pancakes, stuff like that. Plus, we also watched a lot of American television with that kind of stuff on the TV. Alicia: Right, right. Yeah. And you self-identify as an artist, a cook and a writer. And I wanted to ask, which were you first and how did the rest come? [Laughter.] Tunde: Which was up first? [Laughs.] Alicia: Yeah, y
Fri, August 27, 2021
A Conversation with Hannah Howard
Hannah Howard , author of the memoirs Feast: True Love In and Out of the Kitchen and the forthcoming Plenty: A Memoir of Food and Family , is a wildly generous writer. She gives of herself and her experiences with such vulnerability and verve, to the point that I wanted to ask her if she is holding something back for herself. The new memoir chronicles becoming a wife and a mother, as well as leaving the restaurant and food retail world for writing. She spends time with women in food that have influenced her life and work, but haven’t yet gotten their major accolades. It’s a beautiful testament to the complications of a life of food and words. We talked about why she’s drawn to memoir, how becoming a mother has changed her writing, and the differences between writing and working in restaurants. Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Hannah. Thank you so much for being here. Hannah : Thank you so much for having me, Alicia. I'm a big fan, so I’m very excited that you asked me. Alicia : Well, can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Hannah : Absolutely. I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, with a food loving mom who loved to cook and try new recipes for new cookbooks. So we didn't often have the same thing for dinner twice, which was kind of disappointing when I loved something. But one of my best childhood memories is just our Saturday morning grocery procuring pilgrimages, where we would go to our local farmers market. And we'd go to Ma Stallone's, which was this tiny Italian grocery store owned by Mrs. Ma Stallone, who would be making fresh mozzarella in her arm. She had these big arms that would be flapping along, and she would give me a taste. And we would go to this little Egyptian grocery store and stock up on olives and halva, and just just go home with all these goodies. And it was so exciting to see what my mom would concoct from them. Alicia : [ Laughs .] That's really an exciting way to grow up, I think. Wow. Hannah : I feel really lucky. Alicia : Yeah, yeah. I was thinking recently about my mom, how on Long Island we didn't have that kind of abundant diversity of things, and when-one day my mom was obsessed with cooking with bulgur wheat, and we went to a million stores and no one had it. But yeah. [ Laughs .] And then you went on to study creative writing and anthropology at Columbia. So, how did food become such a major force in your life? Hannah : I really have always loved food. Hanging out in my mom's kitchen always felt like a great place to be. I loved restaurants. I felt the kitchen was at the heart of where the action was. And in college, I wanted to have a job. And I was reading Kitchen Confidential
Fri, August 20, 2021
A Conversation with Cathy Erway
Cathy Erway came to food writing through home cooking and that’s also how she has maintained her career. It’s a pathway that is rarely tread anymore, as restaurants have become so central to how we talk about and think about food. But Erway has stuck to her guns and somehow carved out a space for herself as someone who cares about where food comes from, both in terms of the actual land it was grown in and hands that tended to it, as well as with regards to cultural significance. We discussed how she came to create her food-writing niche, the way she framed her cookbook The Food of Taiwan , and how she told readers to use the entire chicken in Sheet Pan Chicken . Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Cathy. Thank you so much for being here. Well, can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Cathy : Yeah. So my parents were living in Brooklyn Heights when I was born, and then they moved to a town in New Jersey in Essex County called Maplewood. So that's when I was a baby, like 2. So, that's where I grew up. And I remember—well, my parents always cooked a lot. But if we did go out to eat, I remember in the earlier sort of part of my childhood, we would go into the city. And sometimes we would go to Chinatown or something like that. But then over the years gradually, my parents became more attuned to where some other Chinese—not some other because there was no, not really much of a Chinese American community were in our town. So they figured out where some of these spots were and where some of these good restaurants that they wanted to go to were, and had more of a Chinese American sort of community of families that they would go to. And for a while there, we were going to like dim sum every weekend with this sort of clan of just Chinese American families that were sort of eating buddies. Very important to have. And then we would also get-there's tons of great pizza and Italian food where we lived. Great bagels. The kind of New York stuff. We would try everything. There's a new Ethiopian place, we would try it. There was a Malaysian place, we would try it. So yeah, I mean, I'm pretty blessed in that sense. [ Laughs .] Alicia : For sure, for sure. And you don't have formal culinary training, but from your blog, Not Eating Out in New York , which you turned into a book, to your cookbook, The Food of Taiwan , and then your latest cookbook, Sheet Pan Chicken , you've made food and cooking your life. So how did that happen, and was it what you intended to do? Cathy : Oh, gosh. I mean, I guess, yeah, I have no full formal culinary training. But I've always sort of tried to focus on home cooking, and try to show my real practical home cooking, like through my blog, Not Eating Out in New York.
Fri, August 13, 2021
A Conversation with Mayukh Sen
It’s almost funny that I haven’t had Mayukh Sen on my podcast yet. But the truth is, I’ve been waiting for his book, Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America (out November 2—preorder it!) , to be available so that we could discuss it in all the glory I knew it would achieve. Here, he presents what we discuss is an Almodóvar-esque constellation of women who all moved to the United States and made their mark on its cuisine—to various ends. Their stories are rendered cinematically, richly. It’s a book you can’t put down until you finish. It’s an absolute triumph that challenges popular and dull liberal assimilationist narratives. In full disclosure, Mayukh and I are good friends. But I think that only enriches this discussion of his work and especially this text. We discussed how food media has and hasn’t changed over 100-plus years, what it’s like to receive Establishment accolades at a young age, and how teaching food writing at NYU has influenced his work. (I didn’t end up quizzing him on Best Actress winners since 1960, but I trust he’s still got that knowledge.) Paid subscribers can listen and access the full transcript. Alicia : Hi, Mayukh. Thank you so much for being here. Mayukh : Thank you for having me, Alicia. [ Laughter .] Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Mayukh : No, I can't. Yeah, so I grew up in suburban New Jersey, two towns: Edison and North Brunswick. So most of my food memories from my childhood revolve around my mother's home cooking. So my mother is an immigrant from the Indian state of West Bengal, just like my late father was. And so, every night for dinner, she would cook some sort of Bengali meal that had rice and dal, some sort of vegetable preparation, and then a non-veg protein. So those were most of my memories, kind of just her home cooking. We didn't really go out to eat at restaurants very much. I grew up comfortably middle class, I'd say. But I don’t know, there's something about the etiquettes of going out to eat at restaurants that just seemed very foreign to our family. So what we considered luxury, when I was growing up at least in the ’90s and the aughts, was places like P.F. Changs and Cheesecake Factory. Bertucci's was a really big event in our family to go there, but that was kind of the extent of our restaurant-going experiences. So I didn't really grow up with a sense of what it was like to go out to eat at restaurants and partake in the culture in that way. Alicia : Do you maintain the kind of eating at home that you grew up with, that your mom gave you? Mayukh : I am such a bad cook in general that I find that a lot of those kinds of dishes are probably too involved for me to pull off a
Fri, August 06, 2021
A Conversation with Peter Hoffman
There are eras of the recent culinary past that I was only able to experience through reading magazines and retroactively digging into cookbooks, and what I find most exciting was the development of farm-to-table “New American” cuisine in New York City. How chef and author of What’s Good? A Memoir in Fourteen Ingredients Peter Hoffman came to be a major figure in that development through his restaurants Savoy and Back Forty is an absolutely fascinating story, thanks to his candor and ability to self-critique. The book also explores the significance of certain ingredients, showing how local ecology and cuisine develop hand in hand. Going back through the transcript to get this conversation ready for publication made me realize how deeply it dug into my psyche, that I have been thinking about its themes ever since we spoke in mid-July. This conversation forms the foundation of a lot of my forthcoming essays, because it is a rich and generous one that I know I will revisit again and again. We discussed the cultural significance of the embrace of olive oil in the U.S., why it’s important to name Palestinian cuisine, and how difficult it is to run a restaurant while maintaining one’s ideals. Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Peter. Thank you so much for coming on today to chat. Peter : Yeah, it's wonderful to be taking this time with you, Alicia. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Peter : Yeah. So I grew up in Bergen County, New Jersey, a suburban town just over the George Washington Bridge from the city, where most parents commuted and traveled into the city. But my dad was a dentist. And so, he was locally based. My mom taught little pre-K, and then taught moms how to play with their kids in educational ways. And so, she did that locally as well. And our food, it was interesting, sort of what the food world was like there for us. My mom was born in Germany. She was an émigré from Hitler's Germany. And so, there were some strong European influences in some of the dishes, but clearly in the sensibility. And so, she was not one to embrace industrialized food for the most part, and really cooked with real ingredients and insisted on that in many ways. It's not like she was cooking German dishes. She was 10 when she left Germany, and actually got her culinary grounding from the Joy of Cooking , which her mother-in-law gave her when she married my dad, since she needed to know how to take care of her darling son. She was always grounded in good ingredients simply prepared. There was no Jolly Green Giant in our house. There was no Wonder Bread. When I was a young teenager, health food stores started to pop up. And she was packing me rice cakes and little gorp combos as part of my lunch. So my parents also brought us into the city a lot to experience the diversity of life and
Fri, July 30, 2021
A Conversation with Roxana Jullapat
I’ve been thinking a lot about waves of interest in biodiversity and decolonization of various ingredients, and so it was the perfect time to talk to baker and co-owner of L.A. restaurant Friends & Family Roxana Jullapat about her book Mother Grains: Recipes for the Grain Revolution . Because who is really experiencing the grain revolution? And when will we revolutionize and decolonize global food systems, instead of just providing more artisanal choice to those with money? Jullapat, who came up in some of the most influential farm-to-table restaurants on the West Coast, understands these issues better than most. We discussed how she came to bake with artisan grains, how we can think about flour differently, and how she managed to write a cookbook while still working in the bakery. Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Roxana. Thank you so much for taking the time today to chat. Roxana : Hi, Alicia. Thank you so much for inviting me. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Roxana : So I was born here in the States, in California, to be more precise. But I actually moved to Costa Rica, where my dad was from, when I was just two. So my foods were just the foods of any typical Latin American kid, starting with tons of tortillas made with nixtamalized corn, of course. Tamales, tropical fruits like the ones you probably eat every day. And we actually start drinking coffee at an early age also. And then, of course, normal kids stuff, like, a spaghetti with tomato sauce and rotisserie chicken and all the things that kids like. But for sure, there were a lot more vegetables than you would imagine because there's just that access to produce everywhere year round. Alicia : And what was it about bread and pastry that drew you into working with them? Roxana : When I decided to take a break from schooling, after I got my bachelor's degree, and before I commit—I was supposed to go to grad school. I was like, ‘Ok, let's do something manual. I need to use my hands and not study all day.’ And I went to cooking school, and I thought I was just gonna cook like any normal cook. At the time, I was vegetarian. And I had a real hard time in cooking school working with animal products. Really, really tough. I'm like, ‘Wow, this is so much blood.’ I remember having my first bite of steak that I had in a long, long time, like years probably, in cooking school. And so, bread and pastries seem so natural, right? These are ingredients that I’m not defensive about, ingredients that I use all the time even though there's a lot of dairy. But I was a vegetarian. And also my family, starting with my great-grandmother and my mom even, there's a lot o
Fri, July 23, 2021
A Conversation with Camilla Wynne
Camilla Wynne’s new book Jam Bake: Inspired Recipes for Creating and Baking With Preserves can make anyone believe they can make jam—even me, a person classically impatient with all matters of preservation. But it also goes a step further by helping you figure out what to do with those jars of jam, thanks to Wynne’s training and experience in pastry. From nostalgic whipped shortbread cookies with a thumbprint of jam to mango cream pie, it can change how one approaches fruit in the kitchen. We talked about how fruit has changed since our grandparents’ time, how she found a style for teaching preservation, and what makes people afraid of jam. Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Camilla. Thank you so much for being here. Camilla : Thank you for having me. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Camilla : I love this question. I feel very lucky. Well, I don't know if I feel— I grew up in Edmonton, Alberta. So in the prairies, in Canada. I left when I was 18. I don't know, as a teenager, if I felt so lucky. But I feel very lucky about what I got to eat. So I had a set of grandparents in the country, two hours north, who gardened, on the farm that my mom grew up on. And so I got to eat a lot of homemade, homegrown food. And then my grandparents in the city had emigrated from Europe. And so, they grew totally different varieties of stuff in their garden and made totally different homemade foods. And they were both delicious. And there was this huge variety. And then at home, which I think is unusual for a kid in the ’80s, is my dad was the cook. And I complained a lot looking back on it during the period—they were separated for seven years—that my mom only made like five things. But retrospectively she was a working mom going to university and she made my five favorite things, actually. So it's great. But my dad was a super creative cook. He never followed recipes and he shopped all over the city, Asian grocery stores mostly. And he was a truck driver, so he’d go to the Italian store and the Mediterranean bakery and stuff. And they'd always be giving him things. I always try to give delivery drivers something now actually for that reason. Alicia : [ Laughs .] Wait, what were your five favorite things that your mom named? Camilla : Lipton’s Chicken Noodle Soup. Ichiban ramen. Cheese tortellini with butter. Well, I guess this doesn't count as making ‘em. Little Caesars pizza. Alicia : I've actually never had Little Caesars, but people tell me it's good. [ Laughs .] But that's interesting. I used to e
Fri, July 16, 2021
A Conversation with Mariana Velásquez
I got dressed up to talk to Mariana Velásquez for this interview. From experiencing the elegance of her cookbook, Colombiana: A Rediscovery of Recipes and Rituals from the Soul of Colombia alone, I knew I had to wear a nice dress. Then I browsed her apron collection, Limonarium , and saw ever more style expressed. But there’s also substance, in the exploration of the regional foods of her native Colombia, the recipes for foods she grew up with and adapted to her life in New York City, and the styling, which is drowning in light and dripping in color. Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Mariana. Thank you so much for being here. Mariana : Hi, Alicia. It's a pleasure being here today. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Mariana : I grew up in Bogotá, which is the capital of Colombia. And it's a city perched up 9,000 feet up in the Andes. And it was a pretty urban life growing up. However, I had the gift of going out to the country on the weekends and over holidays to my grandparent’s little farm in the flatlands near Venezuela. And we grew up eating arepas, which are these great delicious corn cakes. Pan de yucas, which are also baked—you got flour and cheese biscuits. And lots of fruit, lots of tropical fruit. I feel like my childhood was all about smoothies and juices and desserts, and kind of going outside and picking mangoes for the—from the trees. Alicia : And you write that you never wanted—your mother never wanted you to be a cook. But at 18 you were working at Sierra Mar in Big Sur. So what was it in your upbringing that led you to that at such a young age, too? Mariana : Yeah, I mean, I realized pretty early on at about 12 or 14, 13, 14, that food had so much power. And in my family, the table has always been the center of it all. And so, I wanted to do something that really had a beginning, a middle and an end. That satisfaction that you get from cooking that it's pretty instant. You prepare a beautiful meal, and you see it. And the satisfaction from people enjoying it happens, and it's right there. And so I wanted to do something that I was good at. And I started to feel a lot of pleasure from the process of cooking. So I sort of ventured into the world and against my parent’s opinion back then, and started cooking in restaurants and exploring that life in the kitchen. Alicia : And what did you enjoy about it? What kept you there? Mariana : I love the process, the meticulousness, the—that exercise of finding ingredients and turning them into something. Making that scene, the beautiful plating, the ritual of
Fri, July 02, 2021
A Conversation with Amber Mayfield
Amber Mayfield really knows how to work: She has started her own event hosting company, called To-Be-Hosted, as well as an annual magazine about Black food and drink called While Entertaining. The self-published magazine is printed on thick, beautiful paper and packed with essays, recipes, playlists, and ideas for hosting that come from some of the coolest folks working in food and drink right now—some that are huge, and others that Mayfield wants to see get more attention. Because I love independent publishers, I wanted to talk to her about how she got into this business, what her vision is for a vaccinated world, and her vision for the next issue of the magazine. Listen above, or read below Alicia : Hi, Amber. Thank you so much for coming on today. Amber : Yes, thank you for having me. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Amber : Yes. So I grew up in Rockland County, New York, in a small town called Nanuet. And I come from a very athletic family. So I was always an athlete growing up, so I ate pretty clean and balanced meals. I mean, most of my more exciting and vivid food memories come from holidays and gatherings and just country ham and mac and cheese and candied yams and cookouts with ribs and grilled sausages. So those are the things that stick out. They’re a little bit more exciting, that occasion type of eating. Alicia : And now you live in New York? Amber : Yes. Now I am in New York City. Which was always my goal growing up, was to be in the city and have that more what I thought was glamorous and exciting, and what I now know is just hustle and bustle and regular. Alicia : Well, what made you interested in food and begin publishing While Entertaining magazine and launching To-Be-Hosted ? Amber : I mean, so many things. Growing up, I always loved parties and holidays and gatherings because I think I was always excited to see family and friends and even more excited about—that's when the more interesting food and flavorful food was going to come out, was through these events. I loved eating and dancing and laughing. And as I got older, I was like, ‘Ok, well, what does that mean as a career? I don't really know.’ Did you ever watch 30 Rock back in the day? Alicia : Of course, yeah. Amber : Ok, so you recall Kenneth the page ? Alicia : Uh-huh. Amber : So I was a page. That was my post-college job, ’cause I was like, ‘This is perfect. I can literally bounce around the company and figure
Fri, June 25, 2021
A Conversation with Taffy Elrod
I’ve been following the chef and writer Taffy Elrod on Twitter for years, and right now she’s having a moment. From teaching virtual classes while the restaurant she owns in the Hudson Valley with her husband has been closed to working with Rancho Gordo on a bean recipe booklet, she’s been making the most of a weird moment for a chef accustomed to working with the public. We discussed her mostly vegetarian upbringing, studying at the Natural Gourmet Institute, and the thin line between hospitality and hostility. Listen above, read below. Alicia : Hi, Taffy. Thank you so much for coming on today. Taffy : Hi, Alicia. Thank you for having me. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Taffy : Yeah, sure. I grew up in southeastern Michigan, in Ann Arbor. My folks were from the Detroit area. And what I ate is [ laughs ]—mainly, the main story of what I ate is that I grew up in that healthy, whole food hippie home. [ Laughs .] Whole food, meaning the foods, not the store, because that didn't exist in our area yet. So I grew up eating a lot of brown food. Brown rice and millet. And gosh, lots and lots of beans and tofu. And then sort of these re-engineered foods that—my grandmother was the head of the household and the vegetarian. So, she would make things like stuffed cabbage without the meat, and all kinds of things like that. And then, that was our mainstay. And then there were a few other things. My dad, his family's from down South. My dad's African American, his family's from down South. So sometimes with him, then my brother and I would eat completely different foods, because we would suddenly be having, gosh, be at McDonald's or having pizza or something. But for the most part, it was that sort of healthy hippie dippie, earthy, Earth mama food. Alicia: What made your grandmother be vegetarian? Taffy : I mean, she was way ahead of her time. She would probably be an amazing influencer if she were here right now. She did it for two reasons. One, being ethical. She loved animals and didn't—she grew up on a farm and didn't like hurting animals. And two, she just had health problems in her mid-30s. She was a typical, sort of—not typical, but she was living, I should say, a typical sort of suburban working class life and—in Detroit. And she had health problems. And that through her research, she came up with this solution to her health problems of changing her diet, changing her lifestyle. She cut out all alcohol. She stopped smoking cigarettes. She cut out white sugar, she cut out white flour. She became vegetarian. And I mean, of course, there was a movement at that time that she was a part of. She worked in this—
Fri, June 18, 2021
A Conversation with Hannah Selinger
I knew I wanted to talk to writer Hannah Selinger when she was openly angry that her Eater essay “ Life Was Not a Peach ,” about her experience working for David Chang, wasn’t included in Best American Food Writing 2021. The rule is that we writers aren’t supposed to comment on whether we’ve been snubbed for an anthology or an award, even when it’s a clearly egregious way to keep a highly critical essay out of the canon, in an anthology edited by a fellow chef. So we talked, not just about the anthology, but about her culinary and wine studies, her generalist approach, and being a year-round Hamptons resident. Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Hannah. Thank you so much for taking the time out to talk today. Hannah : Thank you for having me, Alicia. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Hannah : Yeah, I had sort of a weird upbringing. I was born in New York City. And when I was seven, my mom moved to Massachusetts. So I actually came back and forth every other weekend between New York and Mass until I was 17. So, I grew up— Alicia : Wow. Hannah : Yeah. I grew up in a small town called Newburyport. It used to be Massachusetts’ smallest actual city. It's right on the New Hampshire border. What did I eat? My mother was a very, I would say, not inventive cook. So we had this cookbook called 365 Ways to Cook Chicken . That was something she was really dedicated to. Bottled salad dressing and a lot of steamed vegetables, because that was very in vogue in the ’80s. My father, who lived in New York, was a little bit more adventurous. And he was more into cooking different kinds of meat and vegetables. But I would say that we were a pretty prototypical ’80s family. Nothing very interesting going on. Alicia : Right. Well, growing up between Massachusetts and New York is interesting in terms of the rivalry there. Do you have more of an affinity for one over the other? Hannah : I have some pretty good stories. My father passed away, but he was a diehard Yankees fan. And my mother is from Massachusetts, and has always been a Red Sox fan. And I used to wear a Yankees Starter jacket to school in Massachusetts and was teased, I mean, just beyond all get out. Alicia : Right? Of course. I remember that moment when Etarter jackets were so popular, and my mom wouldn't let me get one. Hannah : They were very cool. Alicia : Yeah. [ Laughter .] But you write about such a wide range of topics. Not just food and wine and travel, which kind of go toget
Fri, June 11, 2021
A Conversation with Krystal Mack
Listen now | Talking with the interdisciplinary artist and 'Palate Palette' editor about hyper-specificity and locality in her work on Black foodways in Baltimore. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Fri, May 28, 2021
A Conversation with Dianne Jacob
Dianne Jacob has been writing since the 1970s, and she brings the perspective of someone well-versed in the industry to her book Will Write for Food , the fourth edition of which just came out this week. In the text and her online writing, she demystifies what is often thought of as the romantic world of food writing for anyone who might want to break into it. That’s required paying attention to how the industry has evolved in the last twenty years, especially, as people have moved away from restaurant reviewing and toward online work. We discussed what drew her to food writing, how she’s adapted to a digital world as a self-described “print snob,” and how she defines diversity. Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Dianne. Thank you so much for coming on today and taking the time out. Dianne : Thank you. It's my pleasure. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Dianne : Sure. I grew up in Vancouver, Canada. And my parents were refugees. They came there in 1949 to escape Mao. They were from China, born and raised. So we grew up there, because my mother was British, and she could get into Canada, it being part of the Commonwealth. I think, in the beginning, my parents did not know anything about cooking because they had servants in China. But eventually, they missed their food and they had to figure out how to make it. There were a lot of phone calls with family. And I grew up eating three, maybe four or five kinds of food. Iraqi Jewish food, Bombay, Baghdadi Jewish dishes. Chinese dishes. My mother loved to make Japanese food as well. And every once in a while, she would attempt Western food, which she put her own spin on. Sometimes that went well, and sometimes it didn't. [ Laughter .] Alicia : And what got you interested in food as something to spend your life focused on? Dianne : It took a while to figure out why. But I think what it came down to is that, is because of my parents. They had a very weird background, and they didn't fit in anywhere. They didn't fit in with the Jewish community. And they didn't fit in with the Chinese community, because they weren't Chinese. They still wanted to express their identity, and they expressed it through food. And it was really, really important to them. My mother cooked every day. My father was in charge of pickling things and making leben, which is the Arab yogurt. So, they had a garden. And it was a major focus of their life. So I think I just took that for granted for a long time. And I didn't really understand that it was also a major focus of mine. Alicia : How did you learn that it was? Dianne : It was when I became self-employed. Before, I had a lot of different kinds of jobs as an editor and repo
Fri, May 21, 2021
A Conversation with Karla Vasquez
Karla Vasquez is a writer and keeper of culture documenting the women who are keeping Salvadoran food tradition alive in the United States. Her project SalviSoul is putting oral tradition down on paper so that it can’t be lost, and it also points to the significance of specificity when discussing Latin American traditions: The U.S. considers the Latinx community a monolith, when it is actually wildly diverse. I wanted to discuss with her the inspiration behind this, her experience so far working on a cookbook proposal, and how she expresses her voice authentically on social media. Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Karla. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat today. Karla : Of course! I'm so happy to chat with you today. Alicia : [ Laughs .] Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Karla : Yes. So I grew up in L.A. It's where I am right now. And I grew up in a very Salvadoran home. So, that meant a lot of—yeah, a lot of the Salvadoran staples. A lot of polea, a lot of rice, a lot of tortillas. The occasional carne asada over the weekend. Because we were new immigrants in this country, the food was really what told me we were from El Salvador because we didn't have things that I saw other Latino families had around in L.A. There wasn't tacos at the party. It was pupusas. It was tamal de pollo. Yeah, it was a very Salvi-saturated food upbringing. Alicia : And so, what led you to working in food and founding SalviSoul ? Karla : [ Laughs .] There were a few things that led me to this work that I'm doing now. And I guess I can summarize them by pointing to three reasons. I mean, the fact that my family are just storytellers, and this was—we carried our histories through storytime. So I think wanting to do good storytelling just became a part of just legacy that my family has. When we would sit at the table, when we would have dinner time, it was automatic—we were going to know, we were going to find out more about where we came from and our histories. So apart from that, a huge reason that led me to SalviSoul and to starting this work was because I had a very personal experience with my health. I became a person who had to deal with a chronic illness. I am a Type 1 diabetic. And in my early 20s, when I was diagnosed, there were a lot of doctors who had good intentions. And a lot of what they said to me were, ‘Diabetes has everything to do with food. And you're Latina, and Latinos eat very poorly. So we would advise you not to eat XYZ.’ And as I mentioned, my upbringing, food was what told me we were from somewhere else. So when I got to experience my culture, it
Fri, May 14, 2021
A Conversation with Julia Turshen
Do I need to introduce Julia Turshen to a food crowd? Her cookbooks are best sellers and she’s written for everyone. Before I made my foray into food writing, I envied her quite a bit for seemingly having achieved all my dreams far before I was ready or able to do so, despite the fact that we’re the same age. In this conversation, I wanted to understand her approach to creating “healthy” recipes and what inspired the one vegan chapter in her new book, Simply Julia , but I also wanted to discuss how privilege has manifested in her career and why she’s stepped away from the spotlight to work on a farm. Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Julia. Thank you so much for coming on today. Julia : Thank you so much for having me. This is very exciting, and I appreciate it so much. Yeah, thank you. Alicia : Of course. Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Julia : Sure. I've listened to, I think, all of the interviews you've done. And I love this question so much. I love hearing everyone's response, so this is just very surreal and exciting for me to answer. So I grew up in Manhattan until I was about eight. And then my family moved to the suburbs, about half an hour outside of New York City. And I was raised by my parents, my mom and my dad, who both worked full-time since way before I was born. So I was also very much raised by my babysitter, Jenny. And I would say the food I ate growing up, I ate a lot of food outside of our house. We depended on Chinese takeout a lot. We ate a lot of pizza. We ate a lot of Jewish delicatessen food, Ashkenazi, all different, chicken soup and knish and that kind of stuff. My family loves a diner. [ Laughter .] Lots of bagels, and occasionally McDonald's. I was a chicken nugget kid. And I would say the food in my family's home—I was thinking about this, and I feel like it was divided between three basic food groups. Or not food groups, but items or themes. So there was a lot of packaged diet food. There was a lot of SnackWell cookies , Boca Burgers, stuff like that. In our house, there was a lot of food purchased from prepared food stores, so containers of pesto pasta, stuff like that. And then there was also Jenny's cooking. And this was the food that I loved the most when I was a kid. Jenny's food that she would mostly prepare for herself and share with me is the food that I feel, I guess, one of the foods I feel most deeply connected to. And it feels, I don't know, especially important to talk about right now because Jenny is from St. Vincent, which I'm sure you're aware of because of where you live. But there was just, or there continues to be, this really crazy <a target="_blank" href="https://ww
Fri, May 07, 2021
A Conversation with Aja Barber
Aja Barber and I have been following each other online for years, while we were both working various jobs and trying to get anyone to pay attention to our work. Contrary to how most people are taught these things work, we only got anyone to pay attention when we started our own independent ventures: for me, this newsletter; for Aja, her incredible Patreon . She also has a book coming out, called Consumed: On Colonialism, Climate Change, Consumerism & the Need for Collective Change . Her work on the subject of mindless fashion consumption and waste has many parallels to mine on food, which is why I was so excited to discuss it with her: In both discussions, classism is used to defend cheap goods that rely on extraction from the Global South. In both discussions, personal feeling is made to be more significant than political and economic reality. Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Aja. Thank you so much for taking the time out today. Aja : Thank you for having me. It's nice to finally chat. We've been Twitter friends for close to a decade. But this is the first time we're talking. Alicia : It's amazing, and I love it. How are things over there in the UK right now? Aja : Well, you know what, everything's better when spring comes. That's the reality, is that the—there's more sunshine. It gets really dark here during the winter, and when you're already in a pandemic and you can't see friends and you don't really feel like going out, it just—it was a hard winter. So, things are feeling way more positive just because there's more sunshine. And things tend to be sort of loosening up here. Of course, still being precautious. But it feels more hopeful. So you've caught me on one of my better days. Alicia : [ Laughs .] I'm so glad. This week, I think we're switching from—to summer, basically. If you came to Puerto Rico from a temperate climate, you wouldn't notice the seasons. But since living here, I noticed the changes. And I think we got two weeks of winter, where I could sit and work and not be sweating all day. But we're back to that. From 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., it is definitely hot all day. [ Laughs .] Aja : My family's in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. So, I totally get- Both : Yes. [ Laughter .] Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Aja : So I'm from Northern Virginia, right outside of D.C. I’d say it's like zone 6 on the tube, basically. So Northern Virginia, DC Metropolitan. And I grew up eating a lot of plants and fish, because my parents are actually pretty healthy and pretty progressive as far as food goes. And I was definitely the kid t
Fri, April 30, 2021
A Conversation with Irene Li
Irene Li is a hilarious writer on serious issues, which I discovered when she sent me her piece, “ 8 Totally Achievable Ways to Show Up for Racial Justice… When You’re White and Own an Asian Restaurant! ” She’s also the chef of the former restaurant Mei Mei in Boston, which has become a packaged dumpling company, as well as a project manager at Commonwealth Kitchen, where she’s helping Black and Latinx restaurant owners make their businesses work better for them. We discussed how her social justice work influences her cooking, and vice versa, as well as her new job. Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Irene. Thank you so much for coming on to chat today. Irene : Thanks so much for having me. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Irene : Yeah. So I grew up here in the city of Boston. And my family is Chinese American. And so, we ate lots of Chinese food at home and also all the other things that a kid can find to eat in Boston. So tons of grilled cheese and pizza and mozzarella sticks. Cheese was a big theme. And we ate kind of more classic Chinese homestyle food for dinner every night, like white rice and stir fry. And it was a while before I figured out that not everybody ate that at home every night. So I definitely remember some sort of consciousness around that developing at some point for me. Alicia : Well, what did that consciousness kind of mean for you? Irene : Well, I think there were the points where I started going over to friends’ houses and realizing that there was not always a rice cooker on the counter but always a microwave. But having a lot of fun with trying different foods, and bringing friends over to try food at my house, I feel like I was really lucky in that the friends who I had were always really interested in eating what was going on in the Lee house. Rice porridge, like shee fun or zhou, is a big feature of my childhood. So if you need to make a big pot of something and you only have a little bit of rice, that's how you do it. And one of my favorite memories is taking the turkey carcass after Thanksgiving, and making a big pot of rice porridge out of that. And I have some great memories of my friends and I just lying on the floor of my house on this really plush rug, because we had just eaten so much rice porridge and we couldn't bear to move. So there was a lot of that. [ Laughter .] Alicia : Well, you are now a chef. And you work at your family's restaurant. But you did a lot of other things before you decided to do that. Can you tell us kind of what you did before
Fri, April 23, 2021
A Conversation with Ronna Welsh
Ronna Welsh, owner of Purple Kale Kitchenworks in Brooklyn and author of The Nimble Cook , is an expert at using waste that others wouldn’t think twice about throwing in the garbage. I wrote about her cookbook when it came out in 2019 for Edible Brooklyn , and I was most taken with the recipe for garlic skin vinegar. This was a book in the vein of Abra Berens ’s Ruffage and Samin Nosrat’s Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat that took an old-school approach to recipes: Here, you’re taught how to cook, how to use ingredients, rather than just how to make some specific dishes. It is invaluable. We recorded at the end of 2020, but because of myriad technical difficulties, I’m running it now because it’s only just been stitched together. We discussed her path to being a teacher, her approach to food waste, and true sustainability. Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Ronna. Thanks so much for taking the time. Ronna : Yeah. Hi. Alicia : Thanks so much. Ronna : Thank you. Alicia : Yeah, for those listening, we've had some technical snafus today. But we are getting through it. So, Ronna, can you tell me where you—about where you grew up and what you ate? Ronna : I grew up outside of Philadelphia, in the suburbs. And I don't recall much about what I ate. Well, food was really important. We were really big eaters in my family. What I most remember is holidays and holiday food and Jewish holiday food in particular, and the stuff that my mom made for those holidays. But growing up, we ate a lot of convenience foods day to day. We relied on canned vegetables and powdered mashed potatoes. My mom worked. So for her, the luxury of getting dinner on the table in an instant was really valuable, was really important. High school years, we ate a ton of frozen meals and canned soup. So I grew up eating, really a voracious eater, but with very little experience cooking. Alicia : Right. And so, how did you end up as a professional cook? Ronna : Almost by accident, because I was in my twenties and a graduate student in Texas at the University of Texas. And I was in a field that was really academic, really cerebral. I was in my head a lot, and became disillusioned with my studies just at the point where I was finishing a degree. And one day stumbled into a friend of a friend, who told me that she was leaving her job as a cook, and did I want to apply? So as I was finishing my graduate degree and writing my master's thesis, I also took this job in a sweet little café in A
Fri, April 16, 2021
A Conversation with Jackie Summers
My fiancé is making me a martini as I put together this interview with Jackie Summers , and I think he’d appreciate that. What we have in common is that we are writers and boozehounds. But Jackie is much more than that: He was the first Black distiller to be licensed in the United States since Prohibition, to make his delicious Sorel liqueur , and is a fabulous public speaker on matters of equity in hospitality. I first came across him when I was assigned to write about Sorel, and I’m thrilled that we’ve been in touch ever since. But I’m more thrilled that we got to have this conversation about his work. Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Jackie. Thank you so much for taking the time out to chat today. Jackie : Absolutely. It's a pleasure to talk to you. How have you been? Alicia : Oof. Fine, good. A lot of work lately, which is a double-edged sword, as we all know. [ Laughs .] Thankfully, people are getting vaccinated, so hopefully things will be different soon, but just kind of missing inspiration a lot. How have you been doing? Jackie : Like you, I have been busy doing the pandemic. As you said, it's a mixed blessing in that the way in which you're busy is not always the way in which you anticipated. Alicia : Right. Yes. Well, how did you anticipate being busy, and how are you actually busy? Jackie : I had all of these plans for 2020, which did not happen. And things went entirely different directions, which I'm sure we'll get into in this conversation. Alicia : Yes. Well, can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Jackie : So I was born in Queens, even though my company is called JackFromBrooklyn . The interesting part about the story is my father was Muslim, and my dad—my father was Muslim and my mom is Christian. So right off the bat, there was no pork in the house whatsoever. My mom and dad had a conversation early in their marriage that they were just going to worship their gods and not ever discuss it. But there was just no pork in the house. And I remember having this revelation. We were on a road trip; I was five or six years old. And the family stopped at a Bob's Big Boy diner for breakfast. And I smell bacon for the first time. And I said, ‘Mom, what is that?’ And my mom said, ‘Well, that's bacon, son.’ And I said, ‘Mom, can I have some bacon?’ And she kinda looked at my dad, and I could tell that the look—the look, in retrospect, said, ‘We're not at home. Technically, yes.’ And my mom let me have bacon for the first time. You remember that scene in Close Encounters , where h
Fri, April 09, 2021
A Conversation with Dr. Badia Ahad-Legardy
When the opportunity to interview Dr. Badia Ahad-Legardy upon the release of her book Afro-Nostalgia: Feeling Good in Contemporary Black Culture (next Tuesday) landed in my inbox, I couldn’t say no. To discuss food with a literary scholar? Of course . There is an entire chapter on food in the book, relating current expressions of Black identity in cookbooks and restaurants to past Black power movements. It is illuminating, especially in its discussion of Bryant Terry’s Afro-Vegan , for making connections that would usually go unstated, because—simply put—we so rarely see literary scholars or critics talking about food. It is vital and necessary. We discussed the under-sung deliciousness of carob, the “complicated space of food studies,” food and the Black Lives Matter movement, and the cultural role of the restaurant. Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Badia. Thank you so much for taking the time out today. Badia : Thank you for having me. I'm excited. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Badia : Sure. So, I grew up in Chicago in the Hyde Park community. So, I think it was made perhaps most famous by Barack Obama. That's where he lived in Chicago. But we were there long before Barack Obama got there. [ Laughter .] My grandparents actually migrated to Hyde Park in the 1940s, so it's where I grew up and where my mom grew up and so forth. So yeah, that's where I grew up. It's really interesting, because I have actually very few recollections of what I ate between the ages of, I guess, between when I was born and nine years old. And I was thinking about that, like, ‘What did I eat in those years?’ And it's so interesting, because my parents got divorced when I was nine. And I literally cannot remember the foods I ate prior to that. I don't have a recollection of what my mother cooked during that time. But after that, we moved in with my grandmother once they divorced, and I remember so many of those meals. And it's, I guess, a cliché, but my grandmother was an amazing cook. And my favorite food was okra. [ Laughter .] One of the few people who's really attracted to, I guess, the slimy texture. I really loved okra. She would make these wonderful Parker House rolls that I used to schmear with a ton of butter and grape jelly. And desserts, of course. So I think five-flavored pound cake was my favorite. And interestingly, my aunt, who was also living with my grandmother at that time, she was and is a naturopath. And so she would take me to the health food store and buy me all kinds of treats. And my favorite ones were the carob covered raisins and the root beer sodas that were clear because they weren't—they didn't have the artificial coloring, so they tasted just like root beer. So, those were my favorite things to eat growing up. Alic
Fri, April 02, 2021
A Conversation with Emily Stephenson
I met Emily Stephenson one day years ago at a café right by our then-apartments in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. She had emailed me because I was an editor at Edible Brooklyn at the time and wanted to discuss my work. I was jealous of her work, though, because she developed recipes for cookbooks. Eventually, we collaborated on the Food Writers’ Workshop , along with Layla Schlack, attempting to demystify food media for a bigger group of writers through a ticket price of $13.50. Emily has since written two brilliant cookbooks with her own name on them: Pantry to Plate and The Friendsgiving Handbook . We talked at the end of last year, when Pantry to Plate was coming out, and I wanted to hear about her decision to leave social media that has become such a big part of being a writer and cookbook author. (This was the second to last of my interviews done with poor internet, so please excuse any audio glitches.) Listen above, or read below. Alicia: Hi, Emily. Thanks so much for coming on to chat. Emily: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Emily: Sure, I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. We grew up eating—we had a lot of takeout and fast food, for sure. We also—I've been thinking a lot about this, like, service that no one I've talked to has ever used, but kind of like saved my family since both my parents worked full time. It was called Market Day, but basically, kind of like a Costco, Sam's Club thing where you order in bulk, but then pick it up and buy it at the school. And so like, once a month, we would go and just pick up a bunch of boxes of frozen entrees and stuff that then would help with quick meals during the week. Neither of my parents are super into cooking. And were just, you know, stressed with having two kids and time jobs. But my mom is also super into gardening. And so like in the summer, you know, she would grow green beans and tomatoes and stuff. So we would have that for a couple months a year. There was a really great farmers’ market in the town where I grew up, but because it's the Midwest and the climate doesn't really allow for like an abundant farmers’ market, you know, for more than maybe like three or four months a year, that was kind of like just limited to the summer. Alicia: Right, right. And so how did you get into food? Because I know you went to culinary school, you worked in restaurants—what was your path— Emily: No, I didn’t go to culinary school Alicia: You didn’t go to culinary school! Emily: It started as just like an interest. I think from just watching a lot of Food Network in like junior high school I got, like, into cooking as
Fri, March 26, 2021
A Conversation with Mark Byrne
When I talked to Mark Byrne for my piece “ On Booze ,” I was so excited by the free-flowing conversation that I knew I had to do a proper interview. He’s a journalist turned distiller who has co-founded Good Vodka , made from coffee waste. While it hasn’t turned me into a vodka martini person (nothing could rip me away from gin), it is a gorgeously vanilla vodka with a rich mouthfeel that has changed my mind about the spirit. Someone once told me vodka is simply a “feat of engineering.” Good Vodka proves that’s not necessarily true. We discussed how he made the decision to leave magazines (an easy one, it seems), how corporate booze green- and virtue-washes their real planetary impacts, and how alcohol can become sustainable again. Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Mark. Thank you so much for coming on. Mark : Thank you for having me. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Mark : Yes. So, I kind of bounced around a little growing up. I was born in Southern California, and then moved to Kenya when I was very young and lived there for several years. And then we moved to Appleton, Wisconsin, which is a paper mill town in northern Wisconsin, in the early ‘90s. And then in the late ‘90s, moved back to Africa, this time to Zimbabwe for a year. And then back to Appleton. And then Appleton is where I graduated from high school, and then I never went back. Alicia : Oh, ok. [ Laughs .] And what kind of food was present during those times bouncing around? Did you get a good sense of the kinds of differences and cuisines from those different places? Mark : Yeah, definitely. I mean, in Kenya, obviously the food was very regionally specific there. For I think about a year, we lived in a little village called Igunga, which is in the western part of the country, near Lake Victoria. And that was a very rural, very, very rural village. And so, that was kind of traditional Luhya food. I don't know. I just struggle to describe it in any way other than kind of maize-based staple dishes. And so, that was what we had over there. When I moved to Appleton, obviously, that was a very different type of cuisine. [ Laughs .] Culture shocky. So, Appleton—there's a lot of malls and fast food and stuff like that. But my dad had actually been a chef when he was younger. He'd been the head chef of a restaurant in St. Louis, and he was a very confident, competent cook. I've never seen him open a recipe book in his life. He was the main cook in our household. I would say it was pretty traditional fare. I mean, he liked French food a lot. He was a Francophile. And, so I'd say on good nights we'd have a filet mignon with a couple of side dishes. An
Fri, March 19, 2021
A Conversation with Jenn de la Vega
I met Jenn de la Vega at The Brooklyn Kitchen in 2017, when it was still in Williamsburg but wasn’t operating as its old self. She came on to do prep for a fundraiser there after Hurricane Maria, for a burgeoning nonprofit meant to keep the hospitality industry on the archipelago afloat. She was working, and still works, as an editor for the seminal food zine Put a Egg On It . Her attitude was so chill that she adapted easily to the work and the vibe—no questions asked, no ego fluffed. As I discovered in our interview, that’s how she does everything: with a plan, with chill, with good yet assertive vibes. Jenn has catered extravagant weddings, developed recipes for cookbooks (namely with the brilliant Nicole Taylor), and made a big pivot from working in tech to do it all. Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Jenn. Thanks so much for coming on. Jenn : Hi, Alicia. Glad to be here. Alicia : How are you? How are things? Where are you right now? Jenn : I'm in Brooklyn, New York. I would say sleep is not easy to come by these days. But I'm happy to report that I got my first vaccination last week. Alicia : Nice! As a food service worker? Jenn : As many things, yeah. [ Laughter .] I'm glad that New York is moving along. Alicia : Yes, they are moving things along and that's very nice to see. Jenn : It is awkward. I'm sorry that I said anything because I do see people online being like, ‘I got vaccinated!’ and then people are like, ‘How? How did you do it?’ Also, persistence. It’s been refreshing. Alicia : No. I mean, for me, it's ‘everybody needs to get vaccinated.’ Who really cares how they go about it? We just need to freaking do it. But I'm happy to hear that you're on the road to immunity. [ Laughter. ] It's going a lot slower here, but I'm happy New York is on the mend. Jenn : Yeah. Alicia : Yeah. Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Jenn : Sure. I grew up in Hercules, California. It's a small Bay Area town on the coast of San Pablo Bay. I read some history recently, because I'm starting to write a little bit about this little town. And it used to be a dynamite factory in the 1800s, so it had a key part in a lot of gold rushing, I think. Alicia : That's wild. Jenn : I know. It was a lovely little town. And my grandparents, aunts and uncles all lived within 20 miles in El Sobrante, California, and what I ate as a child is very different from what was available and around. My folks loved food. My grandma had a bustling garden full of fruits and vegetables. I liked carrots because they were
Fri, March 12, 2021
A Conversation with Reem Assil
Listen now | The chef and community organizer talks occupation and moving to a worker-owned model. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Fri, March 05, 2021
A Conversation with Emily Gould
I’ve been following Emily Gould’s writing for so long that I can barely remember a pre- Emily Gould time in the internet discourse. She has been an influence and a role model, if I’m being honest, and her vulnerability, honesty, humor, and growth have been so wonderful to watch over the years. She’s done so much: personal blogging, Gawker blogging, a memoir ( And the Heart Says Whateve r ), her two novels ( Friendship , Perfect Tunes ), and her essays at The Cut and other outlets. She’s also been a publisher, with Emily Books, which focused on first-person women’s writing. Food comes up everywhere, even when not the focus—even when it’s maybe just buying a bottle of water when you shouldn’t, when the money’s not really there. It’s there in her models of domesticity and adult living. We talked about all of that, and she gave me great advice on a recent situation that transpired on Twitter , and I’m very grateful to her for that openness. Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Emily. Thank you so much for taking the time out to come on. Emily : Oh, it's my pleasure. I'm so excited to talk to you. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Emily : I grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland. I had the experience that I think a lot of people around my age had where I was raised by parents who had kind of been a little bit hippie-tinged in their — the way that they thought about food and eating, and had sort of gone through phases of — like my mom had every single cookbook that Mollie Katzen has ever published, from Moosewood to The Enchanted Broccoli Forest. And so it was a combination of that kind of sort of cheese and bulgur casserole type of ‘70s vegetarian food, and also the food that my parents had grown up eating, which was a sort of — I don't know. I remember my mom's sort of classic, weeknight dishes when I was growing up were stovetop mac and cheese with bread crumbs on it and a side of broccoli, steamed broccoli with lemon and butter, which is actually an totally awesome meal. Yeah, just stuff like that. Not a lot of meat in the rotation. A ton of pasta, because it was the ‘80s. I mean, my mom's a really good cook. My dad is the son of assimilated, very assimilated Jews from Long Island who — my grandmother really did not cook at all. And her one signature dish, other than a brisket that she would make for Passover, but her other signature, maybe a dinner party dish that she would make is chicken that was somehow basted with I would say French dressing, the orange kind that comes in lemon. Disgusting, overtly disgusting. But they were great at ordering all of the right things from a deli. Tha
Fri, February 26, 2021
A Conversation with Helena Price Hambrecht
When I heard about the informational website KnowYourAlcohol.com , which launched early this year, I wanted to hear from who’s behind it. As I wrote about in “ On Booze ,” I’m pretty fascinated by how spirits are made and the culture around them. The very fashionably designed site provides really simple explanations for how the spirits industry works, and who is working against the conglomerate ownership, lack of transparency about ingredients and sourcing, and how bigger brands are now adopting “indie” aesthetics to trick the eye. The site was developed by Haus in partnership with Good Liquorworks (the folks behind Good Vodka). Haus, a line of apértifs developed by Helena Price Hambrecht and her husband, Woody, was made out of a desire to capture botanicals with the grapes they were growing on their California farm. Now they sell them direct to consumers across the United States. We discussed how she got into this business, how they developed the brand, and why it’s important to her to bring transparency to booze. Listen above, or read below. Alicia: Hi, Helena. Thank you so much for coming on to chat today. Helena: Hi. Thanks for having me. Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Helena: I grew up in a food desert in rural North Carolina, which may be surprising because I live on an organic farm now. But I, you know, I was raised in a small town, it was the 90s when organic produce hadn't quite made its way across America yet. And, you know, I had a mom who made $11 an hour and we ate a lot of processed food. I was pretty much made of processed food until I was in my twenties and moved to California. Alicia: Why did you move to California? Helena: I knew that I needed to get out of North Carolina. I'm the daughter of a Norwegian immigrant. So I'm this, you know, I'm this interesting mix right of Southern and Scandinavian. And I just, I knew there was a bigger world out there and I needed to go find it and in the south wasn't quite for me. So as soon as I graduated college, I kind of picked a place on a map, and moved to Cali with $40 and knew that I wanted to work on the internet. Alicia: Wow. And yeah, you had a creative studio. So how did you move from, you know, having a creative studio to launching house your beverage line? Helena: I have a very strange but useful career for building Haus. I got my start doing PR for startups. So I got my degree in public relations. And I liked the internet. So I wanted to go do PR for the internet. And that's what I ended up doing. I worked my way in the door, ended up running comms and biz dev for startups in
Fri, February 19, 2021
A Conversation with Claire Lower
Claire Lower , senior food editor at Lifehacker, and I had the idea to interview each other at roughly the same time. I did her “ How I Eat ” series, and now here she is in my conversation series. I’ve been very interested in her work for ages, despite our very different approaches to food and recipes. A Food Network show with us co-hosting would be a take on the Odd Couple trope—the omnivore and the mostly-vegan. (For some reason, this is the best way I can explain it.) Nonetheless, there is deep mutual respect. When she put MSG in a martini ? I felt that. I wanted that. In sum, despite our differences, we vibe, and I’d love to drink a martini with her in real life one day. Here, we talked about the importance of unions, how she writes recipes with class consciousness, and how she ended up in food despite studying chemistry. Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Claire. Thanks so much for coming on. Claire : Thank you for having me. Alicia : How are things going? You're out in Portland, Oregon, right? Claire : I am in Portland, Oregon. [ Laughter .] And it is — it's interesting out here. It's rainy now. But it's been a crazy past couple of months. We've got a lot more white supremacy out here that I think people realize. [ Laughter .] Alicia : I mean, I think there had been — even before all this, there had been a lot of press, I guess, about the whiteness of Portland. There was a W. Kamau Bell show, I think, about it that I watched. Claire : Oh, really? Alicia : Yeah, but I get — but you didn't expect all this, I'm sure. Claire : Not when I first moved here, but it makes sense because it's such a white place. Oregon was founded to be white. It has a very racist history. I mean, I'm from Mississippi. So, it's a different kind of racism because there in Mississippi, you're around Black people. You have to live with them. And you don't get this weird racist, white echo chamber like you do out here. It makes sense. It sucks. But yeah, every year — I mean, this isn't new. Every year, they've been doing this. Every summer they come down, the Proud Boys or Patriot Prayer come down and they yell. [ Laughter .] I usually try to go down there with a union contingent and counter protest. But, they suck. But other than that. [ Laughter. ] And the pandemic. Alicia : Of course, yeah. No, usually, I haven't been asking people how they're doing, really, for this podcast. I mean, not because I don'
Fri, February 12, 2021
A Conversation with Claire Sprouse
I have been a big fan of Claire Sprouse ’s work since way before she opened Hunky Dory in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. Through Tin Roof Drink Community , she’d been challenging the bar world to think sustainably and work differently. And by opening Hunky Dory—which used to be a place I went regularly after getting a manicure, to zone out at the bar and think—she has put the ideas into practice. We spoke late in 2020 about how she got into the hospitality industry, how the restaurant has been weathering the pandemic (it’s currently closed for the winter), and how she researches sustainability. Listen above, or read below. Alicia: Hi, Claire, thank you so much for taking the time out to chat. Claire: Hi, thanks for having me. I'm a huge fan of your work, and so this is very exciting for me to be on your show. Alicia: Thank you so much. I'm a big fan of yours as well. So can you tell me about where you grew up in what you ate? Claire: I grew up in Texas. My mother is Filipino. She was also a nurse and worked a lot. So, to be honest, she would cook Filipino food every once in a while, but we ate a lot of fast food. And Ragu bottled spaghetti sauce and things like that. But aside from all of that, we always had mango and rice on the table. That's a very distinct memory, like every single meal, whether it's breakfast, lunch, or dinner, there was always mango and rice. And it didn't matter if it was Domino's Pizza or Chef Boyardee. There was always mango and rice on the table. As an adult, though, I spent a lot of time in Houston and got exposed to a lot of different foods and definitely expanded my food diet and vocabulary beyond the fast food chains as an adult. Alicia: Well, what led you to working in the restaurant industry? Claire: I got my degree in art history and anthropology, and I was doing some nonprofit museum work in Texas and Houston, which has an amazing art scene, and was making the rounds of unpaid internships. And I was like, Oh, I should probably make some money. So I actually started at a small restaurant, just because I knew a lot of the staff there from hanging out the same local bar, and started as a server and fell in love with cocktails, which has been my focus more or less since then, and worked as a barback and kind of made my way up into the bar manager role. All at that same restaurant. Alicia: What has kept you in the industry, and what has led to you focusing so much on sustainability in bars and restaurants? Claire: What has kept me in the industry, honestly, leading up to that first couple restaurant jobs, bar jobs, I did have
Fri, February 05, 2021
A Conversation with Tamar Adler
Tamar Adler wasn’t in the best mood when we recorded this interview, and she apologized once we stopped recording. I didn’t think there was anything to be sorry for, but I appreciated learning that it was due to trying to get her town, Hudson, New York, to make their vaccine information available in languages other than English so that they would be accessible to people who needed it. I think it helps to know that’s what was on her mind while listening or reading to this conversation about how impossible it can feel to make the world a better place through writing, when it is in doing that anything really happens, that anything really changes. But while Adler doesn’t think her best-selling book An Everlasting Meal: Cooking With Economy and Grace did what she hoped it would do, it did change how I cook, and I am positive it had that effect on many others as well. It’s easy to consider her a bit precious, a bit twee—associate her closely with egg spoons . But she’s much more than that, and once she gets talking, you see how much bite and real care is there. Here we discussed her many stops on the way to becoming a food writer, the demands of social media, how she picks her topics for Vogue , and why food media just kind of sucks. Listen above, or read below. Alicia: Hi, Tamar. Thank you so much for taking the time out to chat. Tamar: Hi, it's wonderful to talk to you. Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Tamar: I grew up in Westchester, New York, which is about an hour and a half south of where I live now. And because you were so generous in sending some of the questions that you wanted to ask me along beforehand, I thought about this one a lot. Because I realized that there are these like—there's a tendency to try to narrativize one's own life in a coherent way, and that every time I answer a question like this, I tell one version of the narrative, and that it's actually not super coherent. And like I was remembering that I ate chocolate Pop Tarts for breakfast, which I've never put into any story of what I ate because I also had this kind of unbelievable, gastronomical upbringing because my mom is an incredible cook. And it was—my mom was a developmental psychologist, but she worked in a really, really hard area. She worked at Albert Einstein in the Bronx, and specifically with foster children with developmental disabilities, and their foster parents. And it was just like, it was just hard, and grueling, and she had terrible stories. And she was really beaten down and she took refuge in the kitchen. And so she cooked incredible food. Like, I used to take smoked mozzarella and eggplant and pesto sandwiches on focaccia to sc
Fri, January 29, 2021
A Conversation with Bettina Makalintal
Bettina Makalintal has, in a relatively short span of time, become a mononym in food media. People know who the Vice culture writer is, what her voice is, which subjects she covers, and the compelling angles she takes on them. From Bettina’s writing on cake or font trends to thoughtful longform pieces, she is an indispensable voice. We discussed how she got into cake, how she balances short- and long-form writing, and what she’s most looking forward to when we’re all vaccinated. Listen above, or read below. Alicia: Hi, Bettina, thank you so much for taking the time out. Bettina: Hey, Alicia, thanks so much for inviting me to talk with you. Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Bettina: Yeah, totally. So I grew up in suburban Philadelphia. And I moved there when I was five from the Philippines. So what I ate was sort of like—I feel like it was sort of all over the place. Like my mom just watched the Food Network a lot and like, read a lot of cooking books, and, you know, different newspaper columns, and just try to make foods from like, a lot of different inspirations. So honestly, I didn't actually grow up eating a ton of Filipino food, I feel like I ate sort of really inspired by the fact that I was just like, in the United States, and like, sometimes a Filipino food, but really, it was just like, not really tied to any cuisine in particular. Alicia: Mm hmm. Right, and how did you end up getting into the food world? Bettina: Yeah, I mean, I think I mean, I think because of that, I was sort of, like always very into food, like, I would, I would read cookbooks, and watch the Food Network a lot. So it was always sort of like, the thing that I liked. And I sort of always wanted to, you know, I always wanted to be like, the food travel host who would go and eat things, and then talk about it. And so it was, that was sort of like not top of mind for me, I think for like most of my life. And then when I got to college, I sort of realized that, like, food media was a thing and was something that I could potentially do. And I ended up sort of working in the food in like, food service for a while. So that was sort of how I got into it. And then just started like freelancing and getting into the media side after that. Alicia: Right, right. And, you know, I said this, that I was gonna ask you about emo, but from your tweets, you were into that kind of music. And so I wanted to ask, what are your favorite bands? And like you did that scene have any impact on what you eat? What you think about food, because I write so much, obviously, about veganism and like, how tied that was to those kinds of scenes. Bettina: Yeah, totally. I mean, like, so basically, for like, my favorite bands. I
Fri, January 22, 2021
A Conversation with Jing Gao
Jing Gao is now food-world-famous for her eponymous line of strikingly labeled Sichuan ingredients, Fly by Jing (the stuff is good ). But before she launched what has become a super-successful purveyor of Sichuan chili sauce, mala spice mix, Zhong sauce, doubanjiang, preserved black beans, and more, she ran a fast-casual restaurant in Shanghai called Baoism. This switch was brought upon by her love for ingredients—for sourcing them well, for putting them together well—and regional Chinese cuisines. We talked about all this, as well as why her product is more expensive than the commonly found Lao Gan Ma. Listen above, or read below. Alicia: Hi, Jing. Thanks so much for coming on. Jing: Thank you for having me. Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Jing: Yes. So I was born in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province and food capital of China. But my father was a nuclear physicist and a professor. So we moved around with his job a lot. So I ended up growing up all over the world, really. Germany, England, Austria, France, Italy, and then Canada. So I would consider myself Canadian. I lived there for probably the longest out of anywhere else. And, yeah, so it was kind of an interesting upbringing, you know, being put into a new country with a new culture and a new language pretty much every year and needing to code switch. So I ate, I would say, you know, it was definitely a mix of different things, but a lot of home cooking. So the through line was definitely, you know, kind of, yeah, I would say like homestyle Sichuan food that my mom would make at home, and we didn't really eat out that much. So it was, yeah, it was definitely my first love, which is what brought me back to China. Alicia: I've read that you were working in brand management in business development, what made you move toward food, and especially toward opening that fast-casual restaurant Baoism, in Shanghai? Jing: Yeah, so I found myself in Beijing, in college on an exchange semester. And that was around 2008, so right around the time of the Olympics. And I just fell in love with the energy of the city. I didn't know what to expect when I went there, because I was so young when I left China. But I was just astounded by the modernity of it all, the energy, how dynamic the city was — just kind of the juxtaposition of the ancient, the ancient city, you know, buildings that have been around for 800, 900 years, you know, against the backdrop of skyscrapers. And I realized, when I was there, just how disconnected I'd become from my heritage, and from, in many ways from myself. And so I started to dig in deeper into the culture. And what I found the most fascinating was the food culture. Beijing is interesting, because it's the capital of Chi
Fri, January 15, 2021
A Conversation with Nicola Harvey
Nicola Harvey is a journalist and farmer based in New Zealand. We connected about the podcast she produced for Audible, “ A Carnivore’s Crisis ,” because we share concerns about the tech-meat burgers by Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat that are being hailed as a climate-change savior while still encouraging monocropping in farming, processed foods with dubious health effects, and other food-system ailments. I wanted to get her on to chat about that, as well as her forthcoming book on “food citizenship” and whether New Zealand is as great from the inside as it looks on the outside. Listen above, or read below Alicia : Hi, Nicola. Thank you so much for coming on. Nicola : Hi, Alicia. Thanks for inviting me. Alicia : How are things over in New Zealand? Nicola : Ah, look, to be honest there — oh, I hate to say it considering what's happening out there in the world. But to be honest, they're quite normal. Well, the country has sort of come through Covid relatively unscathed, and we live pretty much as we did this time last year. So, it's a nice place to be. And I do feel so — Oh, heavy hearted for the rest of the world, because certainly heading into the holiday season when people want to be with family and many aren't able to and here we are over here making plans for family Christmases and holidays. So, I would rather not delve too much into detail because it will probably just make people in the U.S. a little mad at you. Alicia : [ Laughter .] Well, can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Nicola : Yeah, sure. So, I'm actually located in the middle of the North island of New Zealand. And for those who are from this part of the world, they may sort of recognize that as next to a very large lake called Lake Taupo. But for those who don't know the country, it's split into two islands. The North island is the most populated, full of small towns. And where I grew up was on a farm about three and a half hours south of Auckland, which is the largest city. And I was there for about the first eight and a half years of my life, so certainly not my entire childhood, and then moved into a small town and then soon after university left New Zealand and was overseas for 20 years. And what I ate is an interesting trip down memory lane because I grew up in the 1980s. And it was a very bland diet of mostly meat and vegetables. And then I recall a cookbook arriving on the scene called the Womens Weekly Cookbook. And all of a sudden, there were spices in our diet and recipes for things like spaghetti bolognese and a very mediocre chili con carne served with corn chi
Fri, January 08, 2021
A Conversation with Amanda Cohen
It’s hard for me to properly state what I perceive to be the significance of Amanda Cohen. For more than ten years now, she’s been the chef-owner of Dirt Candy in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan. The restaurant was once very small (it was once, indeed, in the space that now houses Superiority Burger), then she moved it to a larger space. Now, it’s rather small again, operating only on the patio with a lot of heat lamps, and she long ago adopted a no-tipping policy in order to pay staff a living wage. She’s only ever cooked vegetables. With Lekka Burger, she’s added veggie burgers in a fast-casual setting to her oeuvre, and the result is stunning. I don’t think she has gotten enough credit for any of this. The reasons are sadly obvious: she’s a woman, and she cooks vegetables. Even vegans, I found out recently, despise her for occasionally consuming a piece of meat or fish in order to study flavor and texture, in order to put out food that really is on par with what omnivores are accustomed to (and while I usually say “f**k the omnivore’s palate,” I have to acknowledge that when my fiancé—only recently converted to vegetarianism—eats her food, he can barely speak because he’s focused on how delicious it is). Anyway, I’ve interviewed Amanda many times for different pieces because her perspective is so essential to me, but this is a broad one. Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Amanda, thanks so much for coming on. Amanda : Hi, thanks so much for having me. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Amanda : Sure. So I grew up in Ottawa and Toronto in the ’70s and ’80s. And certainly, Ottawa was a winter city. It's funny, because I look back on it and we didn't have a huge amount of produce at all times. It's cold in Ottawa, in Canada, so the winter—vegetables were pretty pathetic. But my mother would always try as hard as she could. At the same time though, both cities were pretty international cities. Toronto is the capital of Canada, super cosmopolitan. Sorry, Ottawa’s the capital of Canada; Toronto's the capital of Ontario. And because Ottawa was the capital, it's filled with diplomats. So we had all different kinds of restaurants that we constantly were sort of going to. My dad was in government. We were meeting other families. And so I had this sort of really varied variety of cuisines. And I have this memory of going to the supermarkets when I was younger, and particularly in Toronto, which again is a much more cosmopolitan city filled with all different ethnicities and nationalities, where the — it's pretty exciting if I look back on it now. But the grocery store was filled with products from all over the world. And so if you were an adventurous cook, which my mother sometimes was — she wasn't always — we'd have really random fun ingredients in our kitchen cupboard. I t
Fri, December 04, 2020
A Conversation with Eric Rivera
The first time I interviewed Eric , I knew he was different from other chefs. He really says whatever is on his mind, which comes from deep experience: Rivera used to work in the insurance business, then the recession hit and he turned his interest in food into something bigger. He went to culinary school. He spent three years as the director of culinary research operations at the Alinea Group in Chicago. But when it comes to his Seattle restaurant, Addo—which started in his apartment—he doesn’t really follow tradition. That’s been useful in the pandemic, a time during which he’s pivoted to selling pantry goods and frying customers’ potatoes, acting as what he calls a “concierge service.” This is why he’s outspoken about how the most famous chefs in the U.S. have acted irresponsibly during this crisis. We talked about his upbringing, the pandemic, and how chefs with investors don’t know how to do anything themselves. Alicia : Hi, Eric. Thanks so much for coming on. Eric : Awesome. Well, thanks for having me. Really appreciate it. Alicia : How are things in Seattle right now? Eric : I would say kind of all over the place. They just shut down restaurants again, for indoor dining. Doesn't necessarily affect us too much, ’cause we’re — we weren't doing that anyway. [ Laughs .] But everybody's kind of in a little panic mode. Everybody's kind of in like a little panic mode here, people that were doing it. Numbers are rising, and things are going back to beyond levels we were before March when they shut everything down. So, it's a lot more serious now. Alicia : Right. And, I mean, we're gonna get into this, but also, can you tell me what inspired — how did you decide never to open dining during the pandemic? Eric : It was pretty simple: It's a virus that feeds off of people moving together and hanging out on the most basic level. And it doesn't matter who you are, or what performative safety things you want to do, the $25 thermometer, UV lights, or any of that other stuff is just pretty much [performative] at that point. So, this is something pretty serious, and I didn't want to have to open and close and open and close and open and close over and over again, ’cause I can't afford that. [ Laughs .] So, I just basically said, ‘We're gonna have to be extreme. If this virus is as extreme as it is, then it's gonna take me being extreme as well.’ Alicia : Right. And so, to get back to the normal course of the interview — can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Eric : Yeah, I mean, I grew up in Washington State. My dad was military. They're both from Puerto Rico, both my parents, and they moved over here ’cause he got stationed. And then I was born here in Fort Lewi
Fri, November 27, 2020
A Conversation with Kevin Vaughn
Kevin Vaughn started his bilingual weekly newsletter and monthly zine Matambre early on in the onslaught of the pandemic. For me, it has become indispensable reading on the ways in which various small restaurants in Buenos Aires and food workers in the country are coping with crisis, as well as reimagining the future. While I’ve only been to Buenos Aires once and quite briefly, I loved the city on the surface but felt that I wasn’t able to quite dig in—Vaughn’s writing proves that feeling was correct. There is much more to Argentina than steak and the rather racist notion that it is more European than Latin American, and I appreciate the glimpse his writing gives. Vaughn isn’t Argentine. He grew up in California. We talked about how he ended up in Buenos Aires, what the food scene is like, and how it feels to publish independently. Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Kevin. Thanks so much for coming on. Kevin : Hi, [exaggerated Spanish accent] Alicia, thank you for having me. Alicia : Thank you for calling me that. So many people call me Alice. Kevin : [ Laughs .] Alicia. Alicia : I know, and it makes me so upset. And it’s just like, ‘Well, you're from the United States, so obviously your name's just Alice.’ It's like, ‘Well,’ ’cause I say my name Alicia, so that's a more difficult — I guess. But I'll take Alicia any day. Kevin : No one can say — pronounce my name either. I'm always like, ‘Kebin. K.’ No one can pronounce my last name, either. Alicia : Yeah, for sure. Absolutely not. [ Laughs .] The trials and tribulations of— Kevin : ‘Why do you have a g in your name?’ [ Laughs. ] Alicia : [ Laughs .] —of being a gringo in Latin America. Kevin : Yeah. Totally. Alicia : So, can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Kevin : This is my favorite question that you ask. I love hearing people's responses to this. I'm from California. I grew up in the Central Valley, in the San Joaquin Valley, which is actually where I think a lot of the United States gets their food from. So, I grew up in a really small town. Everyone kind of makes fun of me because I pronounce it the okie way even though I speak fluent Spanish, so it's Los Banos, which is a really rural, small farm town. The identity of the town is really wrapped into farming. I actually did 4-H and FFA. And the town historically was sort of built by Basque people and Portuguese people, a lot of people from the Azores. Lot of people from Lisbon, and those are kind of the old families. And as I grew up, there was a lot of immigration from Mexico and from Central America. And so when we ate out, those were — which we ate out of the house quite a bit. Tho
Fri, November 20, 2020
A Conversation with William Mullan
Listen now | He's the Raaka Chocolate brand manager and a nature photographer. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Fri, November 13, 2020
A Conversation with Katherine Clary
When it comes to wine, I admittedly try to keep myself a little bit ignorant. This is because I love wine so much: I don’t want to over-intellectualize it; I want to keep it special. One of the magazines that feels organic (no pun intended) in its approach to writing about the subject is The Wine Zine , published independently by writer Katherine Clary , whose book, Wine, Unfiltered , is similarly approachable in its voice. Both come from a perspective where enjoyment is centered, and it’s understood that enjoyment happens most when the wine has been made well, without much interference, by people who give a s**t. We discussed her upbringing, how she got into wine, and her editorial approach. Alicia : Hi, Katherine. Thank you so much for being here. Katherine : Thanks, Alicia. How are you? Thanks for having me. Alicia : I'm good. How are you? How's life? Are you up in Hudson Valley? Katherine : I am. Yeah, I've been out of the city now pretty much since March. I'm up in Kingston, New York, which — it's beautiful up here. It's an amazing time to be up here too, because the leaves are all changing. And yeah, it's been really nice. Alicia : That is probably the best place to be in quarantine, I think. Katherine : Yeah, I think so. [ Laughs .] Alicia : Well, actually, I wanted to talk to you about — Diane di Prima passed away this week, the poet. And you posted about her food writing on Instagram. How did you encounter her food writing? And why do you think it's significant? Katherine : Yeah. So, gosh, rest in peace, Diane. We've lost so many people this year, obviously. And for some reason, this — her death just really, really hit me yesterday. I have read her work, probably since, I guess, my late teens or so. I came across her for the first time actually through City Lights Books in San Francisco, where I was living when I was 18. And it's a great, kind of iconic bookstore. And it's owned by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who's one of the kind of pioneer Beat poets. And I had never really read much Beat poetry or Beat writing from female writers. And so when I came across her book, Dinners and Nightmares , I mean, one, the title just kind of stuck out to me. Like, ‘Oh, gosh, is this — what is this going to be about?’ And I started reading it. It chronicles her early days as a Beat poet in New York, the places she lived, the people she lived with, and what she ate. And it was just such a cool, kind of effortless feeling, chronicle of — almost like a daily food diary. But she really weaves a lot of her poetry in and out of it. And it's just — yeah, one of my favorite books ever. And like I said, in that post, I really just wish that she had written about f
Fri, October 30, 2020
A Conversation with Carla Martin
Before the world disappeared from under our feet, I had the pleasure of meeting Carla Martin while she was doing field research into cacao in Puerto Rico. Her work as founder and executive director of the Fine Cacao and Chocolate Institute brought her to cacao farms around the world, and this complements her role as a social anthropologist and lecturer in the African and African American Studies department at Harvard University. I asked her about food media’s role in food studies, how to tell a good chocolate bar from one that’s not, and more. Alicia : Hi, Carla. Thanks so much for coming on to chat with me. Carla : Thank you for having me, Alicia. I really enjoy your newsletter and these weekly recordings, and I'm honored to be here. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Carla : Absolutely. I grew up in Weymouth, Massachusetts, which is a town, a suburban town on the coast of Massachusetts, about 20 miles south of Boston. It is sort of tongue in cheek referred to as the Irish Riviera. And the people that I grew up with, were primarily of Irish and Italian descent, working class, with parents who were members of local unions, etc. And as I grew, it also became a much more diverse town and absorbed many of the other immigrant communities that are in Massachusetts today. These are communities of Cape Verdean descent, Southeast Asian, Cambodian, Thai, Vietnamese, Haitian, Brazilian, and more. And so I grew up exposed to all of these different kinds of foods. But I also had the really unique experience of generational food knowledge that was passed down. Both of my sets of grandparents were people who grew up during the Depression. And I grew up hearing stories about my grandfather being unable to stomach turnips any longer, after needing to eat almost exclusively turnips for years during the Depression. I also grew up with a grandmother who, as soon as she was legally allowed to work, became a baker in her small town in Vermont, and learned to really deeply appreciate the local foods of Vermont, which in many ways is a place that championed local foods before local foods became like a buzzword of the moment. And she then went on after marrying and having children to being the lunch — the exclusive provider of lunch to a New Hampshire elementary school, where she needed to cook from scratch over 200 meals every day. And so, through her, through my other grandparents, I learned a lot about what local food meant in New England, what class or food scarcity had as an impact on food. And then my own parents are big hippies. And so I grew up always with this kind of this thoughtfulness that they put around everything. They were always reading about something, trying to expose us to different things in our lives, trying to get us
Fri, October 23, 2020
A Conversation with Vallery Lomas
The first time I met Vallery Lomas was at the Food Writers’ Workshop in 2018. She had DMed me on Instagram asking if it was ok for her to show up, even though she hadn’t been able to secure a ticket. Venue occupancy limits be damned, I told her to come by, because she was—as I said to her then—“famous.” And she was, because she’d won The Great American Baking Show but it had never aired. One of the hosts had been outed as a sexual harasser before it debuted. Regardless of that start to her career in the public eye, Lomas has emerged as a baking star, publishing her recipes with The New York Times , appearing on the Today , show, and working on a cookbook for Clarkson Potter. While she had already been famous in the food world, she’s destined to reach far beyond. Listen to our conversation above, or read below. Alicia: Hi ,Vallery—thanks so much for coming on. Vallery : Hi, Alicia. Thanks for having me. Alicia : I was gonna ask my normal first question, but since you said you've had such a crazy week, can you tell me about why you've had a crazy week? Vallery : [ Laughs .] Yeah. So, I am in the process of preparing for the photoshoot for my book, which will be out in September of next year. The photo shoot — we're starting beginning of next week. And I'm also working on manuscript edits and working on a project that's going to be really cool. It's going to have something to do with holiday baking. Just getting ready for that, since we are making some videos and you kind of have to do some — a lot a — just, a lot of work gearing up for that. Alicia : Oh, wow. Well, that's super exciting, then. Vallery : Yeah, it is very exciting. [Laughs .] Alicia : Well, can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Vallery : Yeah. So, I grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, born and raised. And I ate just a lot of different things. Obviously, I ate a lot of Louisiana food, like crawfish boils. That's what you do in springtime. like April, May. I always loved fresh fruit. And my grandmother, she always had like fig trees, and a grapefruit tree. And we had blackberries growing wild in our backyard. So, I was always just tickled to be able to go and pluck fruit off of the tree and enjoy that. And my mom, she's actually from Indiana. So, we also ate rice for breakfast, which is apparently a very Midwestern thing, just rice with butter and sugar. Alicia : That’s awesome. I mean, it sounds like oatmeal, basically, just
Fri, October 16, 2020
A Conversation with Molly Wizenberg
Molly Wizenberg gained food-world fame through her blog, Orangette , as well as two memoir: Delancey: A Man, A Woman, A Restaurant, A Marriage and A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes From My Kitchen Table . Her latest, The Fixed Stars , has no subtitle and no food hook—in fact, it’s a memoir of shedding food, which she noted in her final blog post in 2018. “I am having to learn how to write it as I go along, without the handy crutch that food and recipes had become for me,” she wrote. It’s a book about identity and family, about shedding old skin and finding new comfort. Yet, upon its release, it’s gotten most of its attention from food media. We discussed the genre of memoir, what it’s like to be kept in a box while promoting a book about getting out of them, and the tension in The Fixed Stars around restaurant versus home cooking. Alicia : Hi, Molly, thank you so much for coming on. Molly : Oh my gosh, I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Molly : Yeah, so I live in Seattle, now. But I grew up in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. And my parents were both from the east coast. My dad was actually Canadian, from Toronto, and my mom was from Baltimore. And they met there, and moved to Oklahoma in the mid ’70s, and very much, I think, did not expect to stay. I think they thought of themselves as coastal people. And so, I grew up in this place where my family kind of never planned to be. And in many ways — well, so my father was a doctor. And so I grew up with a lot of privilege, getting to travel and all kinds of things, and see other places, and understand that Oklahoma was just one place. But really, we were very much about home cooking. My dad was a very, very avid home cook, and would unwind at the end of the day, after seeing cancer patients all day, would unwind by opening up the fridge and sort of doing off-the-cuff cooking. And he was very much an equal appreciator of Bush's baked beans, but also things that seemed very exotic at the time where we were, like endive. And he was very much a — he was a real gourmand. He took such real pleasure in cooking and in sharing food. As a kid, it was actually really embarrassing to me, the pleasure that he took in cooking well for our family. He would always say — or he would frequently lean back from the table and say, ‘We eat better at home than most people do in restaurants.’ And it was so insufferable and so braggy, and yet at the same time it was so him and so much about the pride that he took in cooking, and finding food that he had had in other — finding ingredients he had had only in other places and introducing them to me. So, it was very much a very ’80s, food loving scene. My mom also did a lot of cooking, and w
Fri, October 09, 2020
A Conversation with Jesse David Fox
Jesse and I used to work together at New York Magazine , where he’s still senior editor at Vulture and the host of “Good One,” a podcast about jokes. He’s one of my favorite thinkers on cultural topics because he’s not just into one thing. While comedy is his professional focus, he’s also deeply into food and fine art, and he brings the knowledge of these forms to his work on an art form that most people don’t take seriously. Because I think food is also an aspect of culture that people take for granted, I wanted to discuss the connections with him. How does taste work when the response is utterly subjective? How can we critique something that people respond to physically?We talked about this and much more, including how the video for Paul Simon’s “ You Can Call Me Al ” was formative for both of us, why we didn’t know any Protestants while growing up on Long Island, and that the key to a good neighborhood restaurant is an agreement upon the “normal amount of salt.” Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Thanks, Jesse, for coming on to talk to me. Jesse : Of course. Yeah. Thank you for having me. I feel like I both talk to you every day and also have not talked to you in six years. Alicia : I know, that's a really interesting thing about social media, isn't it? Yeah. This is my second interview that I'm doing today, and both times I'm going to start with a question that isn't actually my first question. Which is, you responded to one of my Instagram stories about the video for ‘You Can Call Me Al,’ saying that it was also formative for you. Can you tell me about that? How was ‘You Can Call Me Al’ formative for you? Jesse : It's hard to remember. So, I should have remembered when exactly the song came out. I watched TV early and often. As early as I was, one is hypothetically able to watch TV, I was watching TV. And MTV, I feel like, was the thing I was constantly watching. And I just remem — such a specific memory of watching that video with my dad and learning what funniness was. [ Laughter .] I don't know what my brain was like before it, and there's so many seminal memories that sort of came immediately afterward. But, I do — just, the idea of seeing grown-ups acting silly, and being like, This is what comedy is. This is what funniness is , which is these beings that I've only understood as being protectors, or these foreign beings. They make funny faces, too? And specially ’cause it's — they're wearing those — they're dressed up. There’s just something that's so clearly made sense. And I still think my sense of humor is not so far away from that, which is grown-ups doing stupid things. But, still well done. It's still professional, it's not completely thrown together. And just sort of the deadpan quality of like, ‘This is gonna be co
Fri, October 02, 2020
A Conversation with Alejandra Ramos
Alejandra Ramos inspires me on a daily basis. From dressing up even during a pandemic to making herself elaborate dishes to reading a seemingly endless array of books, she’s committed to living well, all the time. Her work life has taken her from the international magazine division at Hearst to her own food blog to now working as an on-camera food expert, often on the Today show. Everything about her life seems super-duper dreamy, so I wanted to understand what’s going on the behind the scenes—and of course, it’s far more complicated and deep than what you see on social media. We talked about her upbringing in New Jersey, leaving college for a year to go to culinary school, and how being visibly successful doesn’t always translate into actual money. Listen above, or read below. Alicia : Hi, Alejandra. Thanks so much for joining me. Alejandra : Thank you for having me. Excited to chat. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Alejandra : Yes. Ok, so I grew up in New Jersey, in Bergen County, in a town called Hasbrouck Heights. It's about 15 to 20 minutes outside the city. I was born in New York City. I lived in Forest Hills until I was about four. And then my family moved to New Jersey, ‘cause my dad worked in Jersey, and he was doing a weird reverse commute. So, we moved to Jersey. But, New York was very much always a part of — New York, meaning the city — was very much a seamless part of our life. So, even though we were in Jersey and kind of 15, 20 minutes away, we'd pop in and back and forth all the time, ‘cause we had family and relatives. We’d go to restaurants. We’d go to events. And I say that because a lot of the people that I grew up with, like my neighbors even, would never go to New York, right? Like New York City was this like, ‘It's the city, and you’d go on your anniversary, and you go to the Broadway show, or the ballet at Lincoln Center, once or twice a year maybe.’ But for us, it was just an extension of where we lived. You’d go to restaurants. Both my parents lived in the city when they came. They both were born in Puerto Rico, and came to Puerto Rico separately. They didn't know each other. They met here in their 20s. So, they had lived in Puerto Rico in their late 20 — I mean, in New York City in their late 20s and early 30s. Especially for my dad, who lived in Greenwich Village, it was very much like, ‘Let's go to the village and walk around.’ And he showed us where he live. And he was all about Mamoun's Falafel shop, ‘cause he's like, ‘This is where I used to eat.’ And we would go there. His apartment was on Sullivan Street. And up until I was about 14 years old, we would go by it and his name was still in the doorbell list.
Fri, September 25, 2020
A Conversation with Ivy Mix
I talked to Ivy Mix for today’s conversation before there was a controversy around her being used to kick of National Latinx Heritage Month on Liquor.com’s Instagram. As the author of a book called The Spirits of Latin America and owner of pan-Latin bar Leyenda, they invited her to promote the book and the spirits, bartenders, and recipes contained therein. Of course, no one thought this through enough: Mix isn’t Latinx. A bad apology was issued by the company, but I didn’t have a real understanding of what happened, as Liquor had removed her original posts, leaving no context for what had ensued. I called her up to understand exactly what went down. “Hindsight is 20/20,” she says. As she explained how she came to kick off this month for the website without being Latina, she doesn’t want to edit her actions. When they asked, she said yes, and didn’t think about asking who else they were going to feature, why she was going to be the first person to do a takeover, and all the other questions she now realizes she should have asked. But she posted a picture of herself with the book, highlighted bartenders and spirits that are featured within it, and signed off by saying she isn’t Latina. “It was just stupid and selfish and haphazard,” she says. “I don't want any f*****g pity from anyone, because I really think I'm in the wrong here.”In discussing her career and what she’s wanted to be an advocate for, she now realizes that in doing so, she was also promoting herself, and that complicates her efforts. ”At first, it was like, ‘okay promote and support women in Speed Rack.’ That's what I really wanted to create a platform for supporting and promoting women in Speed Rack, and through that effort, I made my career, so I was also supporting and promoting myself as a woman,” she says. “Then I was like, ‘okay, well I wanna support and promote all these amazing Latin American distillates from these amazing cultures that I have lived and experienced, but I am not Latina, and I've received opportunities that maybe other people should have should have had.’” She has received messages telling her that she takes up a lot of space in a crowded arena as someone who’s not Latina, and that’s what she’ll be reckoning with now. This is a moment when we’re collectively working to better understand appreciation versus appropriation, as well as how we can seek transformative accountability rather than shunning when someone makes mistakes. What do we do with the work of someone who’s profited from her take on a culture to which she doesn’t belong? Is that work useless? I don’t think so, but I do think we need to have these discussions and allow for nuance.I wanted to talk to her originally because I too am a nerd about Latin American spirits, and I wanted to understand her perspective on them, as someone who works with them, has traveled a lot, and works to make the agricultural side of spirits production visible. We had a pretty bad connection, bu
Fri, September 18, 2020
A Conversation with Charlotte Druckman
Charlotte Druckman is the writer of Skirt Steak: Women Chefs on Standing the Heat and Staying in the Kitchen , the editor of anthology Women on Food , and a cookbook author, whose work includes the recent Kitchen Remix: 75 Recipes for Making the Most of Your Ingredients . We’ve never met in person, despite both living in New York for seemingly forever, and this was the first time we ever chatted not via Twitter DM or email. While we have rather different backgrounds, there is clearly a certain level of comfort already assumed when writers from the New York metro area talk—and boy, did we talk. This one breaks the record for longest Friday conversation, because there was so much ground to cover about the James Beard Awards, what the meaning of food media is, why food needs real cultural criticism, and the response to her recent Washington Post piece on the whiteness of food memoir . Listen above, or read below. Alicia: Hi, Charlotte. Thanks so much for coming on. Charlotte: I have to tell you — and in fact, you know this. I'm very excited to do this ‘cause I really love this newsletter. It's a newsletter that brought me to newsletters — seriously. Alicia: Newsletters are difficult. I'm signed up to so many. I logged into Substack yesterday because I was getting all these emails about someone trying to — I think someone was trying to change my password and hack my newsletter yesterday, which was weird. I logged into my account and I'm subscribed to so many newsletters, and I don't know if I'm — I guess a lot of them aren't updated regularly, so that's not so hard to keep up with. But I was like, ‘What am I doing?’ Is everyone's inbox like this now? I guess so. Charlotte: I'm trying to keep it to a point where I am subscribed to a number where I'm actually able to read all of them, ’cause I know me and I know if I over-subscribe at some point, I'll stop reading any of them. That's my — how my brain will function. So, I've so far been very limited, but I went from really, from not reading them to realizing that this is where, at least for me, especially with food writing, I'm getting most of the stuff I most want to read right now. Which is amazing. Alicia : Yeah, that's the thing. I think a lot of people are saying that, which is nice, about food writing specifically. But, yeah. Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Charlotte: Yes! I grew up in N
Fri, September 11, 2020
A Conversation with Klancy Miller
Klancy Miller is cool as hell. She studied pastry in Paris, wrote a cookbook called Cooking Solo: The Fun of Cooking for Yourself , and is now working on the launch of For the Culture , a food and beverage magazine about and by Black women. She’s also nice as hell, and it’s a joy and a privilege to converse with someone so smart and compelling, who’s doing serious and significant work. We talked about cannoli, why she went to Paris for culinary school, the political power of pastry (an ongoing theme!), and how this year has expanded her vision for the soon-to-launch magazine. Listen above, or read below. Alicia: Hi, Klancy, thanks so much for coming on. Klancy: Thank you for having me. I'm honored. Alicia : Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Klancy: So, I grew up in a few places. My dad is a minister in the Episcopal Church, and we moved around kind of a lot. I was born in New Haven, Connecticut. Some of my first food memories are pizza like Pepe's pizza. And there is a great bakery called Libby's that had amazing cannoli. And, to this day, those — cannoli are my favorite dessert. I love cannoli. Alicia: Me too. [ Laughs. ] Klancy: Right, like so important. Yeah, so we moved from New Haven to Atlanta when I was 4. So, my food memories of New Haven are literally Pepe's pizza, cannoli, and Mississippi mud pie. My parents used to like to go to Chart House restaurant, and I think that was a recurring dessert there. So those are my 4-year-old memories. [ Laughs. ] And my mom is an amazing cook. I just don't, from those years, remember what she cooked? We moved from New Haven to Atlanta. And I feel like Atlanta is where I spent the bulk of my childhood. And there I remember I was older and grew up there to a certain extent. So, I remember my mom's cooking a lot. She was really into The Silver Palate Cookbook . She also had this cookbook by Eileen Ford that had a really good chicken salad in it. My mom used to like to make some stuff by Julia Child, who was — when my parents got married, she really wanted to become a gourmet cook, and started taking cooking really seriously. But she's also a little bit of a health nut. So I remember a lot of vegetarian things, vegetarian lasagna. Yeah. And some Southern foods, too, because both of my parents are from the south. But my mom, growing up, I don't remember her cooking a lot of Southern things. But I remember enjoying it at my grandparents’ house, having greens or fried fish sandwiches or really good barbecue. What else? After dance class, we would always go to either Varsity's in Atlanta for my post dance class snack or Wendy’s, where I would get french fries and a chocolate shake. Or, where else would
Fri, September 04, 2020
A Conversation with Lisa Donovan
Listen now | We discussed intersectionality, performative liberalism, Catholicism, and why baking is naturally suited to political causes, among much more. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Fri, August 28, 2020
A Conversation with Aaron Hutcherson
Aaron Hutcherson, a freelance writer and the recipe writer behind the long-running blog The Hungry Hutch , once made me care about brunch long after I thought I was done with this much-maligned weekend meal. He’ll even have me, a fiercely meatless eater, reading about neck bones , and I’m grateful for what he taught me about Lawry’s seasoning . His writing is conversational but rigorous—what you might expect from someone who left a finance career for culinary school: He knows how to get down to business and when to prioritize joy. We talked about how he made that transition, what he thinks might change (or not) in food media, and more. Listen above—Substack fixed my podcast problem!—or read below. Alicia: Hi, Aaron. Thanks so much for coming on. Aaron: Hi, Alicia. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to chat. Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Aaron: Sure. So I grew up in Chicago. So, being in the Midwest, that means there's lots of meat and potatoes. And also, a decent amount of Italian foods. So spaghetti was a regular occurrence. Lasagna, we had every so often sort of when my mother decided to go through the production of making lasagna. But then there's also meatloaf and pot roasts and roast chicken and things like that. But also, I am from an African American family. So we grew up with lots of soul food, like fried chicken and smothered pork chops and collard greens and macaroni and cheese, candied sweet potatoes. So those are also very regular occurrences. Alicia: And what inspired you to get into food? Because I know it wasn't your first career. Aaron: Yeah, so my first career was working in finance. And sort of shortly into that, like literally only four or five months after I started working, I decided that I needed a hobby. And I had always had an interest in food, because I love sort of the creativity. I love the way cooking could bring joy to those that I was able to feed. So I just started a blog as a hobby and something to do in my free time. This was back in 2009, so blogs were just sort of getting started. I was like, ‘Oh, I can do this.’ Keep in mind I had no idea what I was doing. But then just the passion and the interest just sort of grew from there, to the point where I went to culinary school and then I graduated and quit my job in finance all in the same week. And I haven't looked back in the eight years since. Aaron: Did you work in restaurants after culinary school? Aaron:</s
Fri, July 31, 2020
A Conversation with Julia Coney
There are few things more glamorous than having a house Champagne, and wine writer Julia Coney ’s is a Lallier brut rosé. “I drink about a bottle of that a week,” she tells me, and in doing so, provides a point of inspiration. Her work itself, too, is inspiring. She’s written for publications such as Wine Enthusiast , Vinepair , Food + Wine , and more, does popular weekly “wine chats” on Instagram to introduce her followers to new bottles and regions, and has recently formed the platform Black Wine Professionals .We talked about how she got into wine, not being able to travel this year, and how she’s managing this new platform. Listen above, or read below. Alicia: Hey, Julia. Thanks so much for coming on. Julia: Oh, thank you for having me. Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Julia: So I grew up in Houston, Texas, and pretty much every weekend went to my mother's side of the family in Leesville, Louisiana, which is why I always say I grew up between Houston and Louisiana—they are both a part of me. But I grew up eating a lot of Gulf Coast seafood, which I absolutely love. I grew up eating crawfish. I grew up eating, you know, fresh vegetables and fresh meats because my grandmother kept, like, rabbits and hens and all that kind of stuff. So basically, just like to me a normal family meal was like, it was always greens on the table. It was always some type of seafood or protein, you know, meat protein, and it was just a lot of fun. My dad was the cook. My mother couldn't cook, so my father cooked. Alicia: That's so you know, rare? Julia: Yes, yes, but in the south a lot of men cook. I think a lot of men cook really well, actually, too. Alicia: And you're based in DC now? Julia: I'm based in D.C. and between D.C. and Houston a lot. So because of COVID I am here, otherwise I will usually go to Houston. This is the longest I haven't been to Houston since I moved to D.C. 15 years ago. I usually go to Houston probably every six, eight weeks, sometimes maybe a little longer, like every three months, but very often. Alicia: And you were just telling me before we started recording that you're super busy right now, what are you working on? Julia: Well, I am between writing assignments, helping people with panels—I'm moderating a panel next week; I’m on different panels. As you know, that happens, that people are doing those. I slowly am weaning myself, trying to take August off from not having any personal wine chats. I usually do a different wine chat most Mondays. And so I had one two days
Fri, July 24, 2020
A Conversation With Devita Davison
I could have talked to Devita Davison , executive director of FoodLab Detroit , all day. Technological difficulties, though, thwarted that plan, and we talked for just under an hour. I think we still had a good discussion, though, on everything from her upbringing as a first-generation Detroiter with roots in Alabama, experience in magazine publishing in New York City, starting her first business, the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, and, most of all, about the uniqueness of the city of Detroit. Whether you listen to this chat or watch her short but information-packed TED Talk on urban agriculture in the city, you hear the love and passion in her voice for her hometown. She told me about how its history of labor and racial justice activism, focus on art and architecture, and more have all come together to make it fertile ground for food justice; she told me about how false narratives form to capitalize on the work of Black people. But it’s better to hear her tell it. Listen above, or read below. Alicia: Hi, Devita. Thank you so much for coming on. Devita: Hey, Alicia, thanks so much for inviting me. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while. So this is the highlight probably of my month—maybe of the whole damn pandemic. Alicia: No, no, I'm super excited to have you on because I've been following your work but I've only been following it online. So I can only have, you know, one level of understanding, I think, of what it is you do. And I know that it goes much deeper than what one can see from Twitter, from videos, and from, you know, articles and that sort of thing. So yeah, let's get to it. Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Devita: Sure. So, that is a layered question. And the reason why I say that is because I identify as a first-generation Detroiter. So it's very simple in terms of where I was born. I was born in the city of Detroit, and I identify as a first-generation Detroiter, but it gets complicated after that. Not really complicated—just because it layers and the reason why it is layered is because I'm a first-generation Detroiter, and what that means is is that I am the first person in my family that was born in the city of Detroit. Both my mother and father are southerners. They are from the rural south. They are from Alabama. So were my grandparents, my great-grandparents and their parents. So not only am I a first-generation Detroiter, but I'm also a descendant of the enslaved, and I also identify as a daughter of the Great Migration. My mother and father migrated, fleeing the Jim Crow South and
Fri, July 17, 2020
A Conversation with Claire Comstock-Gay, a.k.a. Madame Clairevoyant
There are people who view astrology as frivolous, but I am not one of them, and one of the astrologers who makes that feel very easy and defensible is Claire Comstock-Gay, perhaps better known as Madame Clairevoyant, who writes weekly horoscopes for The Cut that toe the line between incantation and prose poem. Her book, Madame Clairevoyant’s Guide to the Stars , has deepened my understanding of myself as a Scorpio with a whole lot of air in her chart, and the cast of characters she invokes—think David Wojnarowicz, but also Kim Kardashian—speak to a rare breadth of cultural understanding. But Comstock-Gay is not just an astrologer, but a brilliant thinker generally, and she’s been recently lending her kitchen skills to a mutual aid effort in Minneapolis. We discussed the stars, Silvia Federici’s Marxist-feminist recognition of magic, and the beauty of a kitchen without bosses or customers. Listen above, or read below. Alicia: Hi, Claire, thank you so much for taking the time out to come on. Claire: Thank you for inviting me. I'm really excited to talk with you. Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Claire: Yeah, so I grew up a couple places. When I was a little kid, I lived in Towson, Maryland, which is just outside of Baltimore. And then when I was in fifth grade, my family moved to Concord, New Hampshire. And so what I ate, I feel like my early childhood food memories are really like stereotypical kind of white American mainstream food. Like the strongest early kid food memory was my mom making bags of frozen mixed vegetables, and I hated the peas in it so much and I would, likem swallow them whole because I didn't want to taste the peas. Chicken breasts and mac and cheese and mixed veggies. I think kind of that as I grew up, my family's food tastes and the foods that we would eat in the house really changed kind of, along with what mainstream America was eating. So like, by the time I was in middle school, maybe we would have avocados in the house, or like in high school, we would have sriracha sauce in the house, and so these things that became popular that kind of hit the mainstream, hit my house and my own palate at the same time, I think. Alicia: Yeah, there's a great book about that called Eight Flavors . I can't remember the subtitle but it's about how things like sriracha, specifically, enter the American consciousness, which is a very fascinating topic. But how did you get into astrology? Claire: I think I'm a little bit different from what I can tell than a lot of other astrology people that I know. I think for a lot of people, they encountered it when they were young or teenagers and something really great clicked right away. For me, I hated i
Fri, July 10, 2020
A Conversation with Nik Sharma
Nik Sharma, author of Season and the forthcoming The Flavor Equation , always comes to my mind first as a scientist, but most know him for his blog A Brown Table , his column at the San Francisco Chronicle , and his new gig at Serious Eats . That association was probably at the forefront of my mind because I’d just gotten done going through a galley of that forthcoming cookbook (preorder it here ) and was absolutely blown away by the depths of the science presented in such an accessible manner. There are charts and illustrations of a chili heat scale, a flavor wheel of amino acids, smoke points of various cooking fats and oils, and so much more, all alongside recipes for things like pizza toast, gunpowder fries with goat cheese sauce, and new potatoes with mustard oil herb salsa—all gorgeously shot by the multi-talented Sharma, whose photography style is immediately recognizable for its distinctive use of dark backgrounds and movement, a massive departure from the overblown whiteness that’s been so in fashion.We discussed why he hates overripe bananas, the stigma that continues to exist around food blogging, the potential of cookbooks, and more. Listen above, or read below. Alicia: Hi, Nik. Thanks so much for coming on and chatting with me. Nik: Hi, Alicia. Thanks for having me. Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Nik: I was born and brought up in Bombay, India, which is now called Mumbai. For the most part, what did I eat? Let’s see. I ate a lot of things. It's always easy for me to remember what I don't like to eat, so that always jumps into my mind immediately. But as far as what I grew up eating, I grew up eating a lot of seafood because Bombay is on the west coast of India. My mom also comes from a community that eats a lot of seafood, so seafood and then coconut was a huge part of our diet. Let's see—a lot of fruit. I actually do like eating a lot of fruit and a lot of yogurt. Those are a couple of things that have moved on with me into adulthood. Alicia: Well, what didn't you like, since those memories are more vivid? Nik: That’s the interesting thing that conjures images in my head. So I don't like to eat bitter melon. I do not like to eat turnips. Let's see, and overripe bananas. That's something that's actually happened in adulthood. I think it's because I recently—uh, let's see—about a year, two years ago, I made an upside-down banana cake from my blog and I had to recipe-test that several times to get th
Fri, July 03, 2020
A Conversation with Zoe Adjonyoh
When I opened Zoe Adjonyoh ’s bright orange cookbook Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen , I was immediately thrilled with all the possibilities for the many plantains and various root vegetables—viandas—that enter my San Juan kitchen. “Yam 5 Ways,” “Plantain 5 Ways” kick off this book, which is subtitled Traditional Ghanaian Recipes Remixed for the Modern Kitchen . But Zoe isn’t just her recipes: She’s also part of founding Black Book , “a global representation platform for black & non-white people working within hospitality and food media,” and has spent much of the pandemic feeding her community. We discussed all of this and more. Listen above, or read below. Alicia: Thank you for taking the time and putting up with my technical difficulties today. Zoe: They’re my issues, not yours. Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Zoe: Yeah, well, I mean, I grew up in more than one place, really. Because you know, I'm from southeast London, but I'm a third culture kid. So my mum's Irish and my dad's Ghanaian. And so I'm brought up English in southeast London, but I spent a couple of years as a baby into my toddler times in Ghana, so I would’ve been eating fufu and like Ghanian baby food, basically lots of mpotompoto, pounded yam, porridge, things like that. But I also spent a huge part of my childhood growing up in Ireland. So yeah, like, every available summer—all the school breaks, half terms, Easter, summer holidays - up until I was probably… I think I started losing interest when I was about 14, I think I carried on doing the family holidays until I was about 15. And when I say family, I mean, that was just me, my mom, my sisters—very small nuclear family. And yeah, I was in Ghana, without my parents, actually living with my grandmother, and there was some woman looking after me. But the majority of my childhood, I guess, was growing up in southeast London. Alicia: And then how did you end up working in food? Zoe: Yeah, really good question. There's not an easy answer to that either, I’m afraid. But, you know, I like to think of it as kind of, in one sense, it's like this happy serendipitous accident, but actually, increasingly, I've come to believe that the universe funneled me down a certain path because it really never felt like any of it was, you know—I didn't think I was destined to be a cook of any description; it was really not on my radar. But it's certainly the space in where, like, I found my power and my voice and stepped into my purpose. But, how did that start? Well, I guess I have to go back quite a few paces to childhood and the fact that I am from two different ethnic parents and the fact that I had this close relationship wit
Fri, June 26, 2020
A Conversation with Korsha Wilson
I don’t know that Korsha Wilson needs much introduction. Throughout the course of our conversation—not our first, nor our last—I found myself constantly reminded of various pieces she’d written over the last few years as she’s carved out a space for herself as a sharp thinker, warm interviewer, and gorgeous writer at outlets such as Food & Wine , Eater, Bon Appétit , and more. But it’s with her own A Hungry Society , both the podcast and website, that her voice and vision are most brilliantly displayed—unadulterated, with the subject at the center. (Follow it on Twitter and Instagram to keep up.) We spoke about how she began her own outlet, the pros and cons of culinary school, self-help books, social media, and more. Listen above, or read below. Alicia: Hi, Korsha. Thanks so much for coming on. Korsha: Hi, thank you so much for having me. Alicia: I'm excited. I've been on A Hungry Society twice, technically, and I never have gotten to interview you, so this is a big day. Korsha: Actually, I was thinking about the last time you were on the podcast. The circumstances. Chefs running late and filling in. Alicia: And I had no voice at all, so I was straining my throat to say anything, but I did get to eat pizza after, so that was good. Korsha: Yes, that makes it worth it. Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Korsha: I grew up in Maryland and grew up eating—my mom liked to cook, and she would make all kinds of stuff, like spareribs that she baked in the oven with like, you know, jarred barbecue sauce, and mashed potatoes from scratch, corned beef and cabbage, and pierogies. She just liked to cook from all over the world. But some of my most formative food memories are with extended family. So my dad's family's from Virginia, and my mom's family is from the Virgin Islands, and I—just my favorite food memories are of those two places, eating, but in both occasions, eating seafood and just being surrounded by my family, so yeah, that's I guess my most favorite food memories from my childhood. Alicia: Right. And then you lived in Boston for a while. Korsha: I did. I lived there for nine years. I moved there after going to culinary school in Hyde Park. I moved there to go to Emerson for journalism. And, man, I just kind of ran out of money to go to school and hung around for several years, just working in restaurants. And you know, I met my now-husband up there and like, lived in Boston and thought I was gonna stay there until
Fri, June 19, 2020
A Conversation with Jonathan Nunn
Jonathan Nunn is a wonderful tweeter (he’ll allude to some reasons why in our conversation) and singular writer on the city of London, and he has now emerged as a visionary editor with the newsletter Vittles , which has been a bright spot during the pandemic. In his own writing, Jonathan questions the role of the restaurant and attempts to transcend the list format and, most recently, gorgeously told the story of one road in London and its various diasporas to envision a “restaurant community” outside the monied and glitzy idea of the “restaurant industry.” At Vittles , he’s been giving seasoned food writers a chance to stretch themselves and new writers an opportunity to share their work without the sterile editorial gaze of more established publications. Here, we discuss how he came to food writing, s**t-posting, the authority of the writer, and his obsessive methodology for list-making. Listen above, or read below. Alicia: Thank you so much for coming on and taking the time out. Jonathan: No, not at all. Thank you so much for having me on. I was telling you earlier, I had an interview with the BBC like a month ago and this is entirely more nerve-wracking. I consider this platform much more important. Alicia: Oh, well, thank you so much. Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Jonathan: Yeah, so I grew up in a place called Stoke Newington in the borough of Hackney in London. I guess for an American audience, the analog of that would be something like some parts of Brooklyn. I remember when I was in New York, actually, I was walking in Greenpoint, I was like, This is exactly like Stoke Newington High Street —it is kind of uncanny, if you took away all the New York signifiers, it could be the same place. But Hackney is a very interesting borough. It's been historically and still is, actually, a poor borough, and it has a very big Muslim community, a big Orthodox Jewish community, a very large Black community as well, and it's undergone immense changes over the last 20 years—the story of most cities, but a lot of gentrification. The eastern end is where the London Olympics took place, and so you had a huge amount of regeneration going out there, but then where I grew up, Stoke Newington, because it's had such a strong Orthodox Jewish community and it's always kind of been the Bohemian part of Hackney anyway, I think it's undergone less change than other areas and it's kind of
Fri, June 12, 2020
A Conversation with Victoria Bouloubasis
Journalist and filmmaker Victoria Bouloubasis has carved out a space in food media that is truly all her own. From short films depicting the fullness of labor in her local community in North Carolina, such as El Buen Carcinero and La Comida de Los Cocineros , to reporting on the human impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on immigrant workers at meat-processing plants, to food writing that brings the reader’s attention to the forces that control the global movement of goods and people. In 2018, she received a James Beard Award nomination for Local Impact Journalism while working at the alt-weekly INDY Week . In our conversation, we talk about how she came to have such an eclectic career, the failures of mainstream immigration reporting, and the connected mythologies of both the American and Global South. Listen above or read below. Alicia: Hi, Victoria. Thank you so much for taking the time out to chat with me today. Victoria: Of course, Alicia, thank you. Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Victoria: Sure. This feels like it will be a long-winded answer. But I was born in New Jersey and then moved to North Carolina when I was seven. And so my family's Greek, so most of our food at home was that Greek. But, you know, the restaurant sort of shaped our lifestyle. We were in the restaurant business. And so my grandfather had a diner in New Jersey. My father came to North Carolina to run what we call the Fish Camp, but it was basically just popcorn shrimp and fried catfish and hush puppies. And so there was just a mix of, you know, home-cooked food and then like, pulling up to some booth in my dad's place or my grandpa's diner and getting like a cheeseburger deluxe or a hush puppy. Alicia: I didn't know you you spent so much time in New Jersey; that's interesting. Victoria: Yeah, it was. I left when I was young, but my family is either there or in Greece, so we'd go up multiple times a year; we've taken the train up, we drove a lot. You know, my whole family and so I still visit a lot. I have very close cousins there. Alicia: Your work is in film. It's in journalism. You've also done food writing. How did you come to have such an eclectic career, and how do these various facets of your work complement each other? Victoria: I went to journalism school because I really wanted to tell li
Fri, June 05, 2020
A Conversation with Omar Tate
While I’ve never had the privilege of personally enjoying one of chef, poet, and writer Omar Tate ’s Honeysuckle pop-up dinners, it’s been joyful enough to vicariously watch his career through social media—to read his work, to see his food, to thrill at the sight of the poetry ’zines that usually accompany his meals. The originality and vividness of his vision is not dulled by having not been able to experience his food, because Tate is doing much more than serving dishes.His pop-up draws on his own culinary roots, growing up in Philadelphia, with the addition of historical and origin context, making Honeysuckle an educational experience as much as an artistic one and as much as a culinary one. During this time of limbo, we discussed the future, which include a brick-and-mortar concept that won’t be like any restaurant we’ve experienced before. Listen above, or read below. Alicia: Hi, Omar. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Omar: Yep. My pleasure. Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Omar: I grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and I ate a bunch of things. One of those things, obviously, would be cheesesteaks a lot. But really, my mom was a home cook. You know, she made pasta a lot. We grew up Muslim, so we didn't really get a whole lot of pork. She made lots of greens, greens with potatoes, greens with turkey. Breakfast was lots of eggs, lots of grits. On the weekend, she would make pancakes with peanut butter and honey. We had a lot of snacks and junk food, because it was just really accessible. My mom also bakes. She’d make pizza, she baked breads, cookies, cakes, all sorts of things. And one one thing that's really interesting about my upbringing is that we were vegetarian for three years. My mom became a nutritionist and a physical therapist, and served women in the neighborhood by talking about exercise and health, so we were vegetarian for a while and ate like, Morning—Morningside—that textured, processed vegetable meat. Alicia: Morningstar. Omar: That's what it's called, we ate those for years and I hated them. Alicia: Did that affect your perception of vegetarianism? How do you feel about it now? Omar: Oh, 100%, the way that we came into vegetarianism is from a “replacing meat with meat substitutes.” And so I'm like, “This is what vegetarians are?” and I mean, we ate a lot of vegetables. We always ate a lot of vegetables, but it was just kind of removing one actual meat protein for meat protein substitutes. Alicia: So you launched your Honeysuckle pop-up dinners in 2017 and before that you'd worked in restaurants, but you took a little bit of a bre
Fri, May 29, 2020
A Conversation with Bryant Terry
Listen now | On food justice activism and much more. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Fri, May 22, 2020
A Conversation with James Hansen
I didn’t expect to spend this installment asking James Hansen , of Eater London and the In Digestion newsletter, to be a representative of his nation, but as a recovered Anglophile—who, in high school, had a Union Jack cover on her first Nokia cell phone—I got a bit in the weeds asking for the scoop on why UK food writing, as perceived from the other side of the Atlantic, is so stratified and filled with social media beefs. There are the newspaper critics, who, as he explains, have a combined 125 years of tenure at their jobs between them, and there are the new wave, like James himself, Jonathan Nunn, Anna Sulan Masing, and Ruby Tandoh, who have sought to broaden the landscape of what is considered food writing and worthy of coverage in their country. How does it all play out in reality?The only thing I can hope is that this sort of thing is interesting to anyone but me. Please read on, or listen, and excuse the moment where I leap in to find out just how he got into this food thing at all. Alicia: Thanks so much for coming on, James. How is it over there today? James: Thanks for having me. It's okay. The UK government's response to all this has certainly been suboptimal, but I think that people are increasingly acknowledging that this is going to be with us for quite some time and reacting accordingly. Despite the many concocted horror stories about parks being flooded with people not socially distancing and such. Yeah. How is it in Puerto Rico? Alicia: Well, we have some tourists who are here not wearing face coverings. It's pretty cheap to get here right now and pretty cheap to stay, so people are taking that opportunity to visit for some reason, even though there's nowhere to go and nothing to do—just stand in the street. I guess sometimes it's fun to have a different setting for your isolation, but it would be nice if they wore their masks. People are—I've been trying to figure out a way to say this and get an answer from a scientist—but the information that has been shared that it's okay to ride your bike or to run without a mask basically makes it so that no one wears one, because everyone acts as though they're out exercising and they're not, necessarily, and also if everyone is out exercising and not wearing a mask then it kind of defeats the whole purpose of trying to keep this under control. But we've been in very, like, severe lockdown with a curfew for over two months now, without a lot of good information or tracing, which is the issue in the entirety of the United States, so… it's been a journey, as it has been for everyone. And luckily, you know, on the good side of it, I’m not sick; no one I know is sick. So for now, I'm, you know, one of the lucky ones in the situation. Can you tell me about where you grew u
Fri, May 15, 2020
A Conversation with Layla Schlack
The wine world is a very complicated one, with its own language and its own rules. While that’s being challenged, invigorated, and misunderstood in equal measure with the big cultural emergence of natural wine, it can still feel far too difficult and far too vast to navigate as a newcomer. Writers and editors like Layla Schlack —associate managing editor for print at Wine Enthusiast —challenge that narrative. With her own soothing, clear-eyed voice and her ability to spot and nurture new writing talent in what’s understood as a fussy space, she’s been key to opening up this world with her work. “Racism, misogyny and ableism are alive in the wine world,” she told me when I brought up how snobbery manifests in the world as a possible topic for conversation. “These things aren't the same as snobbishness, to me, but they are adjacent, and they are a form of gatekeeping that turns a lot of people off from learning about wine. Change is happening, and ironically, I think the construct of snobbery, enacted by people like me, with power and privilege, toward those who look to exclude people who don't look like them, is probably one of the more useful tools.”Below (and above, in audio form) is our conversation on how she built her career, the media landscape, and the actual definition of natural wine—if there can be one. Alicia: Hi, Layla—thank you so much for coming on with me today. Layla: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be in your very famous newsletter. Alicia: Oh, God. So we’ve known each other—I guess for like a few years now. We've both edited and written for each other at different—well, you always at Wine Enthusiast , but we’ve worked together at Edible [Manhattan] , too, and we have organized, along with Emily Stephenson, the Food Writers’ Workshop . And also, I made your wedding cake. So we know each other and I just think it’s important to have that disclosure upfront.I'm gonna ask you to give me a little bit more background on your food writing career and how you ended up at Wine Enthusiast , but for starters, can you give us like a little bit of a bio for you? Layla: So I grew up in the Boston area, I got into journalism, largely because my dad worked in media. Both my parents are writers, you know; it was predetermined that I'd be a writer in some sense. My dad worked in b2b publishing my whole life. He retired a couple years ago, but he was in it for most of that time. And I believe plastics, before it was a thing. So I used to go to his office, and see how it worked. And I think it always really appealed to me that not only was there the writing side, but there was this design side and there was this kind of organizational, administrative managerial side that spoke deeply to my soul. So I went to journalism school at UCONN and it was a very newsp
Fri, May 08, 2020
A Conversation with Stephen Satterfield
I don’t know how I made it this far without interviewing Stephen Satterfield, whom I’ve known and admired for a few years now. He launched Whetstone magazine , which has published five beautiful editions that look at food around the world—often from the point of view of those who actually live in and are connected to those places—and has been putting out the excellent “Points of Origin” podcast more recently, which shows food and beverage in their full context, with episodes talking to Palestinian restaurateur Reem Assil, exploring natural wine, discussing indigenous foodways, and much more. In this conversation, I wanted to specifically understand what led to his founding Whetstone and discuss the void that still exists in most food media, which fails to connect agriculture, justice, and joy to depict the food system in its fullness, without ignoring the cultural meanings of what we eat. Listen or read, then check out the podcast and follow him on social media , where his insights and poetry and cooking are always a bright spot. Alicia: So, one, thank you so much for taking the time out to have a conversation with me for this newsletter. Stephen: My pleasure. Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate. Stephen: I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and I ate regional food, fast food, and food from boxes. My father and my maternal grandmother are and were, respectively, really excellent regional cooks, so my whole repertoire of Southern dishes, southeastern dishes, I guess, is really strong; I grew up eating excellent versions of things like fried catfish, fried chicken, cornbread, macaroni and cheese, coleslaw, braised greens, cakes—stuff like that. But also, you know, I was a baby with a very, very working-class mom and dad, and we ate at drive-throughs, we ate Pop-Tarts, and, in elementary school, we ate Lunchables. It was like a confluence of all those things. Alicia: And how did you end up working in food, and specifically in food media? It's the only industry I've ever worked—I guess media second, but prior to media, I had only worked in food. My first real job, I was 15 and I worked at an ice cream shop for my summer job, scooping ice cream, and then the summer after that, I worked at a pretzel shop. And then when I went to college, my freshman year, I was at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, and I had to get a job. I was working at a little café there, a vegetarian café that also had a little wine retail situation. I ended up dropping out of college, sticking with that job, going to culinary school, and kind of transitioning my whole life. But I always loved food. I would say, lik
Fri, May 01, 2020
A Conversation with Abra Berens
Abra Berens , chef at Granor Farm in Three Oaks, Michigan, wrote a definitive vegetable cookbook, Ruffage: A Practical Guide to Vegetables , that came out last year. We sat down to have a chat in New York upon its release, and while I took some quotes from it to use in my coverage for Nylon , I never put it out, as I’d intended, as an episode of my podcast, “ Meatless .” We covered a lot of ground in that conversation, from her upbringing that mixed food and medicine, what farming taught her about the labor that goes into even the most ubiquitous vegetables, and the importance of broad access to fresh ingredients.In these Friday paid-subscriber posts, “Meatless” is back, and I’ll be featuring my favorite people in food and beyond in chats about their lives and the food issues of the day. Below, a few questions I asked Berens in order to get an update on her life since the book came out and we had our talk. Then, a rough transcript of the audio in case you’d prefer to read rather than listen. Either way, I hope you enjoy. How has life changed for you, if at all, since the book came out last year? Setting aside the current global pandemic for a second—now that the whirlwind of touring on the book has slowed, day-to-day life isn’t that much different, which I’m grateful for. I was privileged to get to travel for the few months around the release of the book.There were big life events (meeting food and writing mentors, talking to larger groups of people than ever before, being on TV for the first time etc) almost every day, and so it was a real practice to absorb it all the way I would if there was one of those events a year. Now I hold those experiences and then get up and walk the dog etc. Plus, the dinners at Granor Farm didn’t change, which is wonderful. I went from being in a new city every few days to being anchored in my work kitchen, cooking from the farm, for the 24 person at a time meals we host. That juxtaposition is really wonderful. Plus, it still feels like an honor when someone who isn’t related to me buys Ruffage and cooks from it! "Who cares about this book—the world is on fire!" is something you said at this time last year, and we're in quite a different condition now. What do you see as the role of cooking right now? Sheesh, if we had only known when we were talking last spring! In a weird way, Ruffage feels less frivolous to me now. Maybe frivolous isn’t the right word, but last spring it felt a bit like I was just another writer hocking a recipe. I always knew that Ruffage was more than just a collection of recipes, that it is a resource on how to select, store, and use ingredients. I wanted it to be something that would give readers permission
Thu, April 25, 2019
Episode 30: Chicago Part Two
In the second part of Alicia’s visit to Chicago, she speaks with pastry chef Valeria Taylor, and food writers Tim Mazurek and Natalie Slater. They discuss their frustrations with the way Chicago’s food scene is repeatedly defined by critics based in LA and NYC, their favorite animal-free recipes, and what they think makes for a good vegan city. Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Wed, April 24, 2019
Episode 29: Chicago Part One
In the first of of Alicia's two dispatches from Chicago, she talks to bartender Alicia Arredondo and chef Pat Sheerin about the city's reputation as a bad place to go meat-free. They discuss some of their plant-focused dishes, how the cultural and social context of Chicago influenced them professionally, and the broader ways in which food and politics intersect. Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Wed, April 10, 2019
Episode 28: John Currence
Alicia talks with John Currence, a chef based in Oxford, Mississippi who co-hosted a series called the “ Big Gay Mississippi Welcome Table Dinners ” to protest at the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act , which sanctioned religiously-motivated discrimination, particularly against queer and trans people. They discuss the political uses of food—both as a tool of protest and in bringing people together — and what makes for a “stunning” vegan breakfast. Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Wed, April 03, 2019
Episode 27: Luz Cruz and Ollie Montes de Oca
Alicia talks to Luz Cruz and Ollie Montes de Oca, members of the Cuir Kitchen Brigade that formed in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Organizing as a collective solidarity group, they flew to Puerto Rico to distribute pickled seasonal produce and run workshops on jarring and preserving foods. They discuss developing connections between activist groups in New York City and San Juan, their work with Tijuana’s chapter of Food Not Bombs, and the broader importance of food to social justice movements Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Wed, March 27, 2019
Episode 26: Danielle Ricciardi and Daniel Strong
Alicia talks with and Danielle Ricciardi and Daniel Strong, a couple who founded the vegan comfort food business Chickpea and Olive. They discuss the process of getting products into Whole Foods, how delivery apps can financially undercut restaurants, and the concept of “making a burger out of all the things that cows eat.” Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Wed, March 20, 2019
Episode 25: Olivia Hu
Alicia talks to Olivia Hu, the co-founder and owner of Old Timers, a bar in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The first-generation child of Chinese parents who fled during the Cultural Revolution, Hu talks about the experience of trying reconcile her family's heritage and cuisine with her pescetarianism. She also discusses what she loves (experimenting with cocktails) and hates (racism and sexism) about being a bartender. Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Wed, March 13, 2019
Episode 24: Amy Quichiz
Alicia talks to vegan activist Amy Quichiz, the founder of Veggie Mijas, a U.S.-wide organization that gives women of color a place to meet and discuss their experiences with food. Topics covered include how to convince your family to stop consuming animal products, how veganism should be inherently intersectional, and how "cruelty-free" must refer to workers as well as animals. Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Wed, March 06, 2019
Episode 23: Toby Buggiani
Alicia talks with Toby Buggiani, the owner of Adelina's in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, which serves plant-based Italian cuisine. They discuss his wilder younger years, how his menu was inspired by Roman and Neapolitan cooking, and the latest developments in the search for the perfect cashew mozzarella. Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Wed, February 27, 2019
Episode 22: Roopa Kalyanaraman Marcello
Alicia talks with Roopa Kalyanaraman Marcello, a public health expert who runs Monsoon Sweets, a South Asian-inspired dessert company. They discuss the systemic power of large food corporations, the ironies of selling desserts while campaigning for healthier diets, and the psychological tricks involved in passing on a vegetarianism to kids. Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Wed, February 20, 2019
Episode 21: Becca Hegarty
Alicia talks to chef Becca Hegarty, one of Zagat ’s inaugural 30 Under 30 list of “culinary superstars” and co-founder of the Bitter Ends Garden & Luncheonette , an organic farm, bakery, and restaurant in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They discuss the branding of the farm-to-table concept versus its realities, the economics of buying or renting land to grow food, and the emotional cost of caring for livestock destined to become meat. Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Wed, February 13, 2019
Episode 20: Casandra Rosario
Alicia talks to Casandra Rosario of Food Before Love, which focuses on education and dining experiences that make "a space for marginalized consumers to create and tell their own stories through food." These events cover everything from how food cultures have been shaped by the African diaspora to classism in the vegan community. Together, they discuss Rosario's panel discussion series Roots & Vines, why wine education is significant to her community, and supporting women-owned small business. Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Wed, February 06, 2019
Episode 19: Lee Kalpakis
Alicia talks to Lee Kalpakis, an editorial producer at Thrillist and the host of A Little Help , a YouTube show in which she helps new cooks learn to create inexpensive and easy meals. They discuss maintaining a (mostly) meat-free diet in a job that requires eating a bit of everything, the ways in which her family’s history in the restaurant business influenced her own understanding of food, and how she tries to teach others not to be scared of learning to cook. Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Wed, January 30, 2019
Episode 18: Ysanet Batista
Alicia talks to Ysanet Batista, founder of the worker co-operative Woke Foods, which creates plant-based Dominican cuisine. They talk about how vegan food isn’t cruelty-free as long as farm workers lack labor rights, the West African origins of Dominican cuisine, and what a decolonized agriculture might look like. Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Wed, January 23, 2019
Episode 17: Ethan Frisch & Ori Zohar
Alicia talks to Ethan Frisch and Ori Zohar of Burlap & Barrel: Single-Origin Spices, who apply models used in coffee and chocolate importation—with fair wages and a transparent supply chain—to spices. Topics covered include roast duck-flavored ice cream, using food to teach people about radical politics, and why it’s so important that we all learn to experiment more in the kitchen. Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Tue, October 16, 2018
Episode 16: Aidan Altman & Andrew McClure
Alicia talks to Aidan Altman and Andrew McClure, the founders of Fora Foods and makers of Faba Butter — made principally with coconut oil and aquafaba, or chickpea brine. Retail isn’t Fora’s focus: they’re targeting chefs at many non-vegan restaurants, hoping to become a pastry staple. They talk about how working on this project inspired them to go vegan, why corporate agriculture is everyone’s enemy, and why aquafaba has gone mainstream. Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Tue, October 09, 2018
Episode 15: Sheri Hood
Alicia talks to winemaker Sheri Hood. After spending the 1990s managing bands like Stereolab and working for the record label 4AD, she moved to Portland, Oregon. She now makes wines for The Pressing Plant — all of which are vegan, delicious, and named after songs. They discuss why she became vegetarian, how that inspired her to make vegan wines, and what it was like to not eat meat while on tour in the 1990s. Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Tue, October 02, 2018
Episode 14: Cheryl Mitchell
Alicia talks to food scientist Cheryl Mitchell, who developed Rice Dream and the Elmhurst Milked line of nut, grain, and seed milks. They discuss how she came to focus on vegan milks, the HydroRelease process she created, and why we need to diversify protein sources in order to keep feeding the human population. Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Tue, September 25, 2018
Episode 13: Soleil Ho
Alicia talks to Soleil Ho, food writer, host of B***h Media’s Popaganda podcast, and co-host of the Racist Sandwich Podcast . She’s co-authored a graphic novel about the professional and romantic life of a young chef with artist Blue Delliquanti called Meal: Adventures in Entomophagy —that’s eating insects, a field Soleil has become an expert in. They talk about the book, the tech industry’s obsession with cricket flour, and what it all means for vegans and vegetarians. Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Tue, September 18, 2018
Episode 12: Chitra Agrawal
Alicia talks to Chitra Agrawal — maker of the Brooklyn Delhi line of condiments, and author of the cookbook Vibrant India — about her lifelong vegetarianism, the word “curry,” and her punk rock youth in New Jersey. Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Tue, September 11, 2018
Episode 11: Gabriella Paiella
It’s not easy to make being vegan both funny and incisive, but that’s what writer Gabriella Paiella does both on Twitter and in her writing for The Cut. Alicia and Gabby discuss Tevas, bad jokes about vegans, and the relationship between veganism and body image. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Tue, August 07, 2018
Episode 10: Shanika Hillocks & Theo Samuels
Alicia talks to photographer Theo Samuels, who is a vegan, and writer Shanika Hillocks, who isn’t. They discuss the balance they’ve struck, including staying open to new foods while traveling and navigating a shared kitchen. Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Tue, July 31, 2018
Episode 9: Cara Nicoletti
Alicia Kennedy talks to the host of The Hangover Show , Cara Nicoletti, about her family butcher shop in Boston, what inspired her to cut down on meant, and why people should stop calling female butchers "badass." Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Tue, July 24, 2018
Episode 8: Charlotte Shane
Alicia talks to Charlotte Shane, culture writer, publisher of Tigerbee Press, and author of the book Prostitute Laundry . Charlotte’s been vegan for 18 years, but doesn’t often discuss it. They talk about her anti-oatmeal stance, NYU’s recent conference on animals and the left, and whether WeWork’s new reducetarian policy could be good for the vegan movement. Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Tue, July 17, 2018
Episode 7: Tia Keenan
Alicia talks to cheese writer and community organizer Tia Keenan about dairy production, anti-capitalist food systems, and her backyard chickens. “You can’t solve a systematic problem through individual will,” Keenan says. “If we could, you know, the world would look really different.” Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Tue, July 10, 2018
Episode 6: Leah Kirts
Alicia talks to food writer and nutrition educator Leah Kirts about her upbringing in rural Indiana, her time in the NYU food studies master’s program, and teaching kids about veganism. Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Tue, July 03, 2018
Episode 5: Nadya Agrawal
Alicia talks to culture writer Nadya Agrawal, founder of the South Asian-centered magazine Kajal about what made her become vegan, how veganism can better connect to other social justice movements, and turmeric lattes. Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Tue, June 26, 2018
Episode 4: Lukas Volger
Alicia talks to Lukas Volger about his 60 percent vegetarian diet, cookbooks, veggie burger lines, and his work on the queer food journal Jarry Mag . Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Tue, June 19, 2018
Episode 3: Gabriel Hernandez
Alicia talks to chef Gabriel Hernandez of Verde Mesa in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, about the connotations of “vegetarian,” the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, and the island’s beet resurgence. Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Tue, June 12, 2018
Episode 2: Lagusta Yearwood
Alicia talks to chef and chocolatier Lagusta Yearwood, owner of the chocolate shop Lagusta's Luscious and its sister café, Commissary , in New Paltz, New York. She also co-owns Confectionary in New York City, and her cookbook, Sweet X Salty: The Art of Vegan Confections by Lagusta's Luscious , will be out in 2019. Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Tue, June 05, 2018
Episode 1: Brooks Headley
In the first episode of “Meatless,” Alicia talks to Brooks Headley, chef and owner of Superiority Burger in New York City and the author of the Superiority Burger Cookbook . Written and presented by Alicia Kennedy Produced by Sareen Patel This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
Thu, May 31, 2018
An Introduction
Host Alicia Kennedy very briefly explains why she wanted to start a podcast about not eating meat, and what to expect from what's to come. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe
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