Let's Talk About Food

Mary Ann Esposito is a legend. She is the star of Ciao Italia, a PBS show she produces in New Hampshire. Syndicated nationally for 31 years, it's the longest running cooking show in America. She has written over a dozen books focused on Italian regional cooking, and at 81, she still leads cooking tours to Italy. Fascinating, feisty, and down-to-earth, I just love her. Let's have a listen.

Photo courtesy of John W. Hession.

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Michael Crupain is an MD, an MPH, a passionate wellness advocate, and a terrific cook. When we first met, Michael was at Consumer Reports, which he then left to become the medical director of the Dr. Oz show (wow!). And now after 7 years there, he's writing fabulous cookbooks!

Photo courtesy of Michael Crupain.

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Our guest today is Corky White, Professor of Anthropology at Boston University. Although her focus is on Japan, Corky has a deep and fascinating focus on food – both as an academic pursuit and as globe-trotting food lover. Today’s episode is just that. A global trot through Corky’s life, food, culture, and the impact of her own heritage on why food is so fascinating. Her newest book, written with her son, historian Ben Wurgaft, is "Ways of Eating." We’ll get to that too – and stay tuned to learn about her grandmother’s rolling pin! Let’s have a listen!

Photo courtesy of Corky White.

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Our guest today is one of my favorite members of the culinary elite: Martha Rose Shulman, an award-winning author of more than twenty-five cookbooks, including The Simple Art of Vegetarian Cooking, The Very Best of Recipes for Health, Mediterranean Harvest: Vegetarian Recipes from the World’s Healthiest Cuisine (named one of the 6 best vegetarian cookbooks of the last 25 years by Cooking Light Magazine), Mediterranean Light, Provençal Light, and Entertaining Light. For eight years she wrote the feature entitled Recipes for Health for the New York Times. She has over 1,500 recipes featured on the NY Times Cooking website. Her food combines pleasure and health, drawing largely from the cuisines of the Mediterranean, inherently healthy cuisines with big flavors.

Photo courtesy of Martha Rose Schulman.

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We talk -- or mostly listen -- to the remarkable Barton Seaver; recovering chef, prodigious advocate of all things seafood, TED talk alum, author of landmark books on American seafood (my favorite is For Cod & Country), and quite possibly the most eloquent speaker we've ever met!

Photo courtesy of Barton Seaver.

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A 14 year old Minnesota boy wanted a motorcycle. He got a job as a dishwasher and it launched a stellar culinary career. We talked with Mark about himself, his outlook on the future of restaurants, and where the CIA is headed next.

Photo courtesy of Mark Erickson.

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Have you ever wondered how a food delivery business gets going? All the logistics, and the headaches and uncertainty of matching farmers to food and the fresh food to your home? Erin Baumgartner is the CEO and Founder of The Family Dinner. While working as the Assistant Director of the Senseable City Lab at MIT, she left her job after a drink with her husband in a local bar made her believe that her back-of-the-cocktail napkin idea was worth betting on. Since then, she has received so many accolades and awards -- and is the presenter of an inspiring Ted Talk!

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Paul Sellew is the Founder and CEO of Little Leaf Farms. His "farm" occupies massive greenhouses in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and he expects that by 2026, he'll have 100 acres "under glass" and be able to offer sustainable crisp salad greens to over 50% of the American salad eating world. We'll all be crushing on Little Leaf's hydroponic and sunshine nourished salad greens. He's not the only one who believes in his success: Superstar Bono and his RISE Fund recently made a $300 million dollar investment in the company. That's a lot of arugula! Let's have a listen to Paul Sellew!

Photo courtesy of Adam De Tour for Little Leaf Farms.

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A Conversation with Frank Lowenstein of RARE. Rare is the largest non-profit you've never heard of, and for 50 years it has been focused on using Behavioral Change to nudge people towards Sustainability all over the world. Now, RARE comes to the US. Frank, a lifelong environmentalist, talks about what we can do at the individual level to mitigate climate change.

Photo courtesy of Frank Lowenstein.

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Joanna James is a filmmaker, non-profit founder, mom of three girls, and the daughter of Val James, who against all odds created a successful restaurant company. Joanna’s film entitled "A Fine Line" documents her mother’s struggles, and those of other well-known female chef-owners in the restaurant industry. It tells the story of the barriers, financial and personal, that women face in the food business. When I first saw the film, I understood it as a love letter to her mom. The film created shock waves, generating a lot of buzz upon release. Joanna is also the founder of MAPP Impact, a non-profit focused on mentorship and policy advocacy for women in the food & beverage industry.

Photo courtesy of Joanna James.

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Thea Engst is a seasoned author, a bartender, and a serious student of Tarot. In her fourth book, Spirits of the Tarot, Thea develops a cocktail recipe to match each Tarot card. It's fun stuff. Especially for true believers. We spoke with her about Tarot and how a bartender goes about developing signature cocktails.

Photo courtesy of Thea Engst.

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If you have a wall of cookbooks (like I do) but only ever crack open a few–help is at hand. Jane Kelly is the founder of Eat Your Books, a service that lets you search your own library to find the perfect recipe. She was an executive in the music and TV world in the UK, and then, she had an idea....

Photo courtesy of Eat Your Books.

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If there were royalty in the food world, Michael Jacobson would be a king. Or at least a duke. As the co-founder of the Center for Science in the Public Interest––CSPI––he notched so many wins in protecting consumers that he made advocacy look easy. After more than 40 years at the helm of the CSPI, he is onto his next quest; creating a National Food Museum. We'd be wrong to bet against his success.

Photo courtesy of Michael Jacobson.

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I have to confess to a long-term professional crush on Mike Moss, the intrepid New York Times investigative journalist who blew the lid off big foods’ research-based adeptness at engineering our Bliss Point–– finding the most exquisite balance of Salt, Sugar, Fat that renders us helpless faced with an open bag of Doritos. Or Oreo––or pick your poison. His new book, Hooked, unmasks the rigorous research used to addict us to ultra-processed food. He is such a trove of insight and knowledge that I couldn’t stop listening to him. I think you will feel the same. Let’s have a listen.

Photo courtesy of Dan Sheehan.

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Our eminent panel--Congressman Jim McGovern, Marion Nestle, Michael Jacobson, Dariush Mozaffarian, and Kirsten Tobey felt there's room for optimism that this conference can and will have a lasting impact on our American food system. Listen in and see if you agree.

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It began as a B-School class project. Our guest today is Kirsten Saenz Tobey. Kirsten co-founded Revolution Foods in 2006 while in graduate school at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. Both she and her co-founder Kristin Richmond needed a project of a B-School class they were both taking. They bonded – and soared over the idea that school food could be both crave-able and healthy. Their school project became Revolution Foods, a California based B-Corp to build lifelong healthy eaters by making kid-inspired, chef-crafted food accessible to all. 

From its start in Oakland, California, Revolution Foods has gained national recognition for its innovative approach to school food. Revolution Foods, now over $100 million in revenue, serves over 1 million healthy, affordable meals per week and is the leading school food provider in California. Let’s hear from Kirsten!

Photo courtesy of Kirsten Tobey.

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When an icon and role model in food policy and food studies writes a memoir, after writing more than a dozen policy-heavy books --you might expect it to be serious. Even a little preachy. But you’d be wrong here. Marion Nestle’s telling of her life story is juicy and delicious. Eminently readable. In addition to her own journey, it is a surprisingly candid reflection about the difficulties of a serious and professional woman in academia coming of age in the 50’s and 60’s. Married at 19? Really Marion? She’s quite a woman and it is quite a tale. Let’s hear from Marion Nestle about her memoir – Slow Cooked.

Photo Courtesy of Marion Nestle.

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Journalist and essayist Alice Feiring was proclaimed “the queen of natural wines” by the Financial Times. Feiring is a recipient of a coveted James Beard Award for wine journalism, among many other accolades. She has written for newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, New York magazine, Time, AFAR, World of Fine Wine, and the beloved winezine, Noble Rot. Her previous books include Natural Wine for the People; Dirty Guide to Wine; For the Love of Wine; Naked Wine: Letting Grapes Do What Comes Naturally; and her controversial 2008 debut, The Battle for Wine & Love or How I Saved the World from Parkerization. Alice lives in New York and publishes the authoritative natural wine newsletter, The Feiring Line. Visit her online at TheFeiringLine.com.

Photo Courtesy of Alice Feiring.

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Dr. David Eisenberg is a visionary. Son and grandson of a baker, he breathed life into an international movement of Teaching Kitchens, hands-on kitchens where doctors and other health professionals could learn about why food matters. On the eve of a major conference of The Teaching Kitchen Collaborative, he talks to us about food, about his experience as the first US medical student in China, and about why he never wavered from his lifelong twin passions for bringing food and health into the medical mainstream.

Photo Courtesy of David Eisenberg.

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These are the best kind of stories. Youth. Passion! Barbecue! Darren and Charlene Young moved to St. Louis from LA -- and Darren discovered a hidden passion for real, authentic barbecue. Charlene suddenly noticed that she missed the Filipino barbecue fests of her LA family and world, and so with an abundance of energy, and desire to make friends with new neighbors, they began hosting backyard Filipino barbecues. They were very popular! It morphed from backyard, to catering and on to sold-out pop-ups. Now, The Fattened Caf is a full-fledged company with its BBQ sauces and longganisa on sale online and at 67 groceries throughout the midwest. Who even knew that Filipino BBQ was a "thing"?

Photo Courtesy of The Fattened Caf.

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