Description: In this episode, host Amy O’Neill Houck speaks with Nicola Twilley, a journalist and frequent contributor to The New Yorker, and host of the podcast Gastropod. Nicola tells us about her new book, Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves and lets us in on the global effects that keeping food cold has had on the food system, on humans as eaters, and on our warming planet. Over the last 150 years, refrigeration has reshaped how we produce, distribute,...

In this episode of Eat.Drink.Think., host Gibson Thomas learns from Stanley Cheng, inventor, innovator and CEO of Meyer Corporation and founder of Hestan. Starting with his invention of the flat bottomed-wok while he was still in college, Cheng has innovated his way to the top of the cookware world and elevated both the science, and the art, of cooking for the rest of us. The owner of Hestan, Anolon, Circulon, Faberware and more, Cheng’s popularization of safe non-stick cookware for home...

In this episode of Eat. Drink. Think., host Amy O’Neill Houck speaks with Julia Turshen, a cookbook author and recipe developer, teacher, writer, and podcaster. Her last book, Simply Julia is a bestseller. Julia’s newest book, What Goes with What is hot off the presses, and is a collection of 100 recipes, but more than that, it’s a visual guide to putting meals together and a method for cooks of all experience levels to get more comfortable using their personal taste and intuition. Find show...

In this episode, host Amy O’Neill Houck speaks with culinary historian Sarah Lohman, author of Endangered Eating, a culinary travelogue with a distinct purpose: telling the story of foods and food traditions that are in danger of disappearing. We’ll talk about how Sarah found these vanishing foods, and how eating these endangered foods can may or may not be the key to saving them.

Steve Sando, the self-proclaimed bean freak and founder of Rancho Gordo, joins host Amy O’Neill Houck to talk beans. Drawing from 25 years of experience in growing, sourcing, and cooking beans, Sando shares recipes, tips and entertaining anecdotes that will have you reaching for your own beans to boil. We dive into his latest project, The Bean Book, a combination of guide and cookbook featuring 100 recipes. Tune in as we explore what Sando calls his "Bean Strategy."

In this episode of Eat.Drink.Think. sponsored by the Farmers Market Coalition, host Amy O’Neill Houck speaks with Sagdrina Jalal and Nino Budabin McQuown about the farmers market movement, and how markets can be a place of empowerment and connection for everyone, but especially folks from marginalized communities. We talk about the delight of growing and sharing food to feed one another and discuss the upcoming 25th anniversary of Farmers Market Week and how market goers and managers can take...

In this episode of Eat. Drink. Think., we interview Austin Frerick, an expert on agricultural and antitrust policy, and the author of Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry. The book uses the idea of “barons”—individuals and families who have surprising, outsized control in the food industry—to share the danger that monopoly poses not only to our food system but to our democracy. Frerick’s compelling book tells the stories of our industrial food system braided...

In this episode of Eat.Drink. Think., Marion Nestle, author of Slow Cooked, A Memoir in Food Politics, returns to Eat. Drink. Think. to help us think critically about food policy and politics. We talk about following the money when scientific studies are used as food marketing tools, and she gives us practical tips to navigate the news and identify what food system changes will rely on policy versus individual actions. Find show notes and a full transcript here.

Sixteen years after the first film was released, Food, Inc. 2 comes “back for seconds” to reveal how corporate consolidation has gone unchecked, leaving a highly efficient yet shockingly vulnerable food system dedicated to profit over people. In this episode, host Amy O’Neill Houck talks with producer Michael Pollan and co-director Melissa Robledo about how innovative farmers, food producers, workers’ rights activists, and prominent legislators are facing these companies head-on to create a...

Andi Murphy joins host Amy O’Neill Houck for a conversation about food in Native America. Andi is the creator, host, and producer of the “Toasted Sister Podcast,” an award-winning show that documents the Native American Food Movement. She’s also the senior producer of the “Native America Calling” radio program, a one-hour national radio show about Indigenous issues and topics where she produces and hosts a food focused show every month called “The Menu.” We get into a nuanced look at food...

In this episode, host Amy O’Neill Houck speaks with Elizabeth Whitlow, executive director of the Regenerative Organic Alliance, an organization working to create a new certification standard for food, textiles, and personal care ingredients. We unpack what exactly is “regenerative;” how it serves eaters, workers, animals, and the planet; and whose responsibility it is to create and maintain standards. 

We kick off 2024 with a conversation with Tracey Ryder, co-founder of Edible Communities. Host Amy O’Neill Houck interviews Tracey for an update on the nearly 80 publications in the network, and they talk about the role Edible Communities can and does play in telling the stories of what we all eat, and why that storytelling matters. Hear about what new magazines are coming to readers in 2024 and an update on Edible Communities’ foray into television...

In this episode of Eat. Drink. Think, host Amy O'Neill Houck speaks with Julia O’Malley about wild Alaska salmon. As a third-generation Alaskan, and a journalist, teacher, editor, and cook, Julia's work in newsrooms, classrooms, and kitchens explores Alaska’s culture, politics, climate, and food. This conversation builds on a recent article O’Malley wrote for Edible Communities titled “Alaska Runs on Salmon.” She delves into the five species of wild salmon fished in Alaska, what makes them...

In this episode of Eat. Drink. Think, we speak with Twilight Greenaway and Reginaldo Haslett-Maroquin. Twilight is the executive editor of Civil Eats and is the author of a recent story that was done in partnership with Edible Communities. Reginaldo, or Regi, is featured in the story as he shares the history and vision for Tree-Range Farms, a Minnesota-based network of over forty farms stewarding land and raising chickens among trees and perennial crops using a method that supports both the...

In this episode of Eat. Drink. Think., we talk with Alicia Kennedy, an acclaimed journalist and author of the new book, No Meat Required: the Cultural History & Culinary Future of Plant-Based Eating. We discuss how the book examines what it has meant to be vegetarian throughout the last several generations. From religious asceticism, via hippy counterculture, punk and post punk, all the way to the media’s current obsession with lab-grown meat replacements, we touch on the intersections of...

In this episode of Eat.Drink. Think, we talk with Lisa Held, senior staff reporter with Civil Eats, about two agricultural innovations that are at once ancient and modern: agroforestry and biochar. We unpack the techniques and talk about both the promise and challenge they hold for farmers adapting to the climate crisis. Lisa wrote two articles: “Biochar’s Big, Carbon-Rich Moment,” and “Can Farming with Trees Save the Food System,” as part of a partnership between Civil Eats and Edible...

In this episode, host Amy O’Neill Houck speaks with Paloma Lopez, a self-described Impact Food Entrepreneur, sustainability consultant, and the CEO and co-founder of Future Fit Foods—a food startup based in Longmont, Colorado. We talk about a rethink of the supply chain as a value chain, a shift in food production focus towards circularity, and a redefinition of what convenience means now and in the future, all while finding joy in nourishing our bodies and minds. This episode is brought to...

No Farms. No Food. A catchy tagline, but also an undeniable truth. American farmland not only grows our food, it is the foundation of rural communities, providing jobs, recreational opportunities and a connection to the land. Purchasing your food directly from farmers, ranchers and other food producers at farmers’ markets has a huge impact on the economic viability of farming. Studies have shown that for every dollar spent at a farmers’ market, the producer receives around 90 cents, as...

In this episode of Eat. Drink. Think., host Amy O’Neill Houck is speaking with Chloe Sorvino, who leads food and agriculture coverage for Forbes magazine. Nearly a decade of reporting at Forbes has brought her to In-N-Out Burger’s secret test kitchen, drought-ridden farms in California’s Central Valley, burnt-out national forests logged by a timber billionaire, and a century-old slaughterhouse business in Omaha. In her new book Raw Deal: Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed, and the Fight for...

In this episode of Eat. Drink. Think., host Amy O'Neill Houck is speaking with Tamar Haspel, columnist, author, and co-host of the Climavores podcast. She talks about her experience with first-hand food which includes raising chickens, pigs and oysters and foraging for mushrooms. We also weigh the cost of food both locally and commercially, the best way to get healthy food on tables (spoiler alert, it is not just access), and how policy is not the only way. Individual, daily choices can make...

In this episode, we’re speaking with Sana Javeri Kadri. Sana is the founder and CEO of Diaspora Co, an online marketplace for specialty foods. Sana began Diaspora Co, a company which has upended the supply chain of the centuries-old spice trade, at the wise and energetic age of 23—just a few years and a pandemic ago, in 2017. She began, after months of sourcing work and research, with just one spice: turmeric. Diaspora sources direct from farmers and sells direct to consumers in order to pay...

Today we’re speaking with Jack Hamrick. Jack is the co-founder and CEO of Foraged, an online marketplace for specialty foods. Jack is a food lover and sustainability innovator—Foraged was born of his passion for food, and his drive to use business as a force for environmental good. Alongside co-founder Andy Conner, Jack launched Foraged in May 2021. Prior to Foraged, Jack worked in recycling and composting, as well as in sustainability innovation at Anheuser-Busch, where among other...

Today we’re speaking with Marion Nestle. She is Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, Emerita. From 1986-88, she was senior nutrition policy advisor in the Department of Health and Human Services and managing editor of the 1988 Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health. Her research examines scientific, economic, and social influences on food choice. She is the author of three prize-winning books: Food...

We’re talking fermentation with Sandor Ellix Katz and Julia Skinner. Julia is a food historian, writer, and author of Our Fermented Lives: A History of How Fermented Foods Have Shaped Cultures and Communities. She's also the founder of Root, Atlanta’s fermentation and food history company, and her work is regularly featured in local, national, and international publications as well as in her own weekly food newsletter. She has a PhD in Library Science, cares for two wildlife habitats, and is...