Episode 24: Jenn De La Vega on Food and New Media

Today’s guests are chefs Sicily Sewell Johnson and Mavis Jay Sanders, founders of Food + People. Food + People operates on the belief “every community should have access to quality food and every person deserves the dignity of a hot meal composed of ecologically responsible ingredients that nourishes their body from the inside out.” On the show we talk about food memories, MJ shares stories of being a queer, masc presenting Black woman in kitchens and Sicily shares how being surrounded by women, people of color and the LGBTQIA community throughtout her career has helped her see how things should be done instead of just sticking to the status quo.

In March, HRN began producing all of our 35 weekly shows from our homes all around the country. It was hard work stepping away from our little recording studio, but we know that you rely on HRN to share resources and important stories from the world of food each week. It’s been a tough year for all of us, but right now HRN is asking for your help. Every dollar that listeners give to HRN provides essential support to keep our mics on. We've got some fresh new thank you gifts available, like our limited edition bandanas.

Keep A Hungry Society on the air: become an HRN Member today! Go to heritageradionetwork.org/donate. 

Image courtesy of Mavis Jay Sanders & Sicily Sewell Johnson.

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Chef Adrian Lipscombe, Texas native and owner of Uptowne Cafe & Bakery in Wisconsin, is a very busy woman. She’s a wife, mother of four, city planner and business owner and the founder of the 40 Acres & a Mule Project, which she launched in June to preserve, research and celebrate Black foodways. On today’s show we talk about the goals of the project and the importance of legacy which Adrian shares from her own personal, familial stories and from the point of view of a Black culinarian, interested in passing on knowledge about Black foodways to the next generation of Black chefs. If you’d like to support the 40 Acres and Mule project, head here.

Image courtesy of Adrian Lipscombe.

In March, HRN began producing all of our 35 weekly shows from our homes all around the country. It was hard work stepping away from our little recording studio, but we know that you rely on HRN to share resources and important stories from the world of food each week. It’s been a tough year for all of us, but right now HRN is asking for your help. Every dollar that listeners give to HRN provides essential support to keep our mics on. We've got some fresh new thank you gifts available, like our limited edition bandanas.

Keep A Hungry Society on the air: become an HRN Member today! Go to heritageradionetwork.org/donate. 

A Hungry Society is powered by Simplecast.

Today’s episode is an interview with Derek Kirk, founder of soulPhoodie, an online community that celebrates black food and beverage culture. Derek founded soulPhoodie in 2016 to share timely and compelling content about all facets of Black foodways in a way that is fun, intelligent, nerdy, and at times provocative. Derek is a graduate of North Carolina Central University & The Wharton School of Business and is a restaurant branding and marketing executive with 20 years of experience.

Image courtesy of Derek Kirk

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Today's show is an interview with Karla Vasquez, founder of SalviSoul, food writer, recipe developer, and food stylist based in Los Angeles. Karla’s writing has been published by The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Teen Vogue and Eater LA among other publications and her recipe development work has been on Buzzfeed Tasty and Tastemade. Salvi Soul, which she founded in 2015 is a Salvadoran cookbook storytelling project focused on recipe documentation, cultural memory, and intergenerational healing for the Salvadoran diaspora and it is the only dedicated food platform for Salvadoran cuisine with weekly online cooking classes, events, and a forthcoming cookbook.

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On today’s show I talk to chef, artist, model, photographer DeVonn Francis about food as art, the idea of expansiveness and hospitality. DeVonn runs Yardy, a pop-up series where he uses food, space, music and art to explore Blackness, queerness, immigration and more. He’s a first-generation Jamaican American and his cooking is influenced by the Caribbean.

Image courtesy of DeVonn Francis.

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What does the COVID-19 crisis mean for women-run food businesses? On today’s show I speak with Shaolee Sen, CEO of Hot Bread Kitchen, about the unique challenges women-run and immigrant-run food businesses face at this time. Hot Bread Kitchen is an organization in Harlem that’s a culinary incubator program and workforce development program that trains women for jobs in the culinary industry. You can support by visiting hotbreadkitchen.org.

And here are some of the businesses that were mentioned during our conversation:

Janie Bakes: website / instagram

Pabade: website / instagram

Ginjan: website/ instagram

Image courtesy of Hot Bread Kitchen

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On this special show I speak with Irene Lei of Mei Mei Restaurant in Boston about what running her business has been like since the coronavirus crisis started and the Unsung Restaurant Fund, a fund that she and a friend started to highlight the immigrant owned and run restaurants in Boston.

Photo courtesy of Irene Li.

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In this special episode, I chat with chef Erick Williams, owner and executive chef at Virtue Restaurant & Bar in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighbourhood. Williams is a Chicago native with a storied career, and this year was named a semifinalist for the James Beard Foundation Award: Best Chef Midwest. On the show we talk about why Chicago is such a great food town, Erick’s unique path and inspiration for his cooking, and what he hopes diners walk away with after they eat at Virtue. Note: this show was recorded in March before restaurants and businesses nationwide shut down because COVID-19 and if we sound happier about the state of things it’s because we were. I hope you will listen to this episode and support independent restaurants like Virtue who need your help now more than ever.

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Today’s show is going to be a continuation of the series of interviews from the Soul Food Sessions dinner which was held at the James Beard Foundation house in Manhattan earlier this month. Soul Food Sessions is a dinner series that started in Charlotte, North Carolina as a way to acknowledge and support people of color in the culinary arts, restaurant and hospitality industries, and beverage services. Chefs Jamie Barnes and Greg Williams of What the Fries, Michael Bowling of Hot Box Next Level Kitchen, Gregory and Subrina Collier of The Yolk, Jamie Turner of Jamie's Cakes & Classes, Justin Hazelton of SB&J Enterprises, and friend of the show, Omar Tate were part of the dinner and each made a course for the evening. The name of the series hints at what the founders want guests to experience: dishes that act as an exploration of what we think of as soul food and pushing the boundaries on that definition. Dishes like pork pate with apple buttermilk and warm farro salad with smoked peaches ask what is soul food and what isn’t it? Who cooks it and who doesn’t? If a chef is black is what they’re cooking automatically soul food? Before the dinner service I asked the Soul Food Sessions chefs these questions.

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Today’s show is going to be a series of interviews from the Soul Food Sessions dinner which was held at the James Beard Foundation house in Manhattan earlier this month. Soul Food Sessions is a dinner series that started in Charlotte, North Carolina as a way to acknowledge and support people of color in the culinary arts, restaurant and hospitality industries, and beverage services. Chefs Jamie Barnes and Greg Williams of What the Fries, Michael Bowling of Hot Box Next Level Kitchen, Gregory and Subrina Collier of The Yolk, Jamie Turner of Jamie's Cakes & Classes, Justin Hazelton of SB&J Enterprises, and friend of the show, Omar Tate were part of the dinner and each made a course for the evening. The name of the series hints at what the founders want guests to experience: dishes that act as an exploration of what we think of as soul food and pushing the boundaries on that definition. Dishes like pork pate with apple buttermilk and warm farro salad with smoked peaches ask what is soul food and what isn’t it? Who cooks it and who doesn’t? If a chef is black is what they’re cooking automatically soul food? Before the dinner service I asked the Soul Food Sessions chefs these questions.

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