We are back to our roots with live events! In this episode you'll hear from three amazing women entrepreneurs. Each story is one of belief in self, grit, and creativity in a challenging world. Today we'll hear from Emily Mellgard, CEO and Founder of Fieldstone Kombucha, and then from Heather Yunger of Top Shelf Cookies. These are great stories of personal reinvention, personal fierceness, perseverance and adaptability in the challenging era of COVID. You'll be impressed and entertained by...

We are back to our roots with live events! In this episode you'll hear from three amazing women entrepreneurs. Each story is one of belief in self, grit, and creativity in a challenging world. First, we'll hear from Carlene O'Garro, CEO of Delectable Desires Pastries; next from Alicia Haddad, CEO of Alicia's Spice Co; and lastly from HamdAllah Modupẹ́ Olona, founder of Goodie Crunch. They're funny. They're honest. They are great. Let's have a listen.

Emily Broad Leib is a Clinical Professor of Law and Founding Director of the Harvard Law School’s Food Law and Policy Clinic, the nation’s first law school clinic devoted to providing legal and policy solutions to the challenges facing our food system. When I first met Emily, she was just out of law school and just back from a stint working as a legal aid lawyer in the Mississippi Delta. As a young instructor at Harvard Law School, she was essentially being a friendly sort of mentor to...

Lance Gould has a pretty terrific story to tell. He began as a journalist covering the UN and ended up working closely with Arianna Huffington, managing various sections for the Huffington Post. (He says only the Pope refused to take his call.) Now he is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Brooklyn Story Lab (BSL), a media-strategy firm that teaches purpose-driven organizations how to be more effective storytellers, particularly around their SDG-related work. And quite a bit of his...

It’s not hard to fall in love with chefs. But Josh Lewin of Juliet in Somerville, and Peregrine in the Back Bay––is special to me. I’ve been privileged to watch him grow and prosper – from bistro cook, to executive chef, to pop-up entrepreneur, to an award-winning chef-owner whose idea of the purpose of a restaurant is as much about social equity for the staff, as it is about excellence in the food. We recorded this conversation in late winter of 2022 when the new improved and enlarged Juliet...

Nancy Harmon Jenkins is simply one of the great food authorities in America. She’s also one of the great storytellers, as you will hear. Nancy is the author of 8 books and counting and too many articles to count. From her two home bases in Tuscany and Camden, Maine, she teaches and writes about food topics all over the world. Her Mediterranean Diet Cookbook (now updated) is the benchmark book for the topic, as are her books on pasta and olive oil. Her work is singular: her trademark is deep...

The best thing -- and the worst -- thing about food businesses is that it seems so easy to begin one. And it is not. Our guest Jack Barber and his brother Max started Mainely Burgers over 10 years ago as green college kids looking for summer jobs. Now they are full-fledged entrepreneurs. Bravo to them!

Our guest today, Henry Patterson, has decades of experience in the food business. Along the way, he has learned a thing or two about how to keep customers yours forever. But, right now, HPatt is off to a border town in Poland to cook for Ukrainian refugees with Jose Andres' World Central Kitchen. It's his present to himself for his 70th birthday. Let's hear how and why he is going.

The redoubtable Marion Nestle is the closest I can come to a modern-day Joan of Arc, rallying us for decades against private and public institutional forces as she advocates for good food, sensible nutrition, and responsible public health. Author of fourteen seminal books, and hundreds research papers, Op-Eds, and collaborations, Marion Nestle founded NYU’s department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health, where she trained––and most importantly––inspired an army of scholars and...

This is a story of bravery and purpose. If food safety seems like an abstract policy concept to you, you must listen to Darin Detwiler's story. When Darin's 16-month-old son Riley contracted E. coli at daycare, Darin's world turned upside down. In the decades since, Darin, a former US Navy nuclear engineer has dedicated himself to making sure that we all understand the true human cost of unsafe food practices. Listen and weep.

Our guest today is Claire Cheney, the founder and owner of the renowned Curio Spice Company. Curio is a mission-driven spice company, importing spices sustainably and directly from growers all over the world. Claire has an obsession for spices, which she discovered in her early travels to South East Asia. She is “the blender in chief” -- she selects the spices, and she unleashes her incredible sensory abilities to create unique spice blends. We were curious how Claire learned to trust her...

If you enjoyed our last episode with John Piotti, we have good news! Heritage Radio Network is producing a monthly show hosted by John. The show is called No Farms No Future, the podcast of American Farmland Trust. The show will dig into the issues facing farms and farmers today. We all need to eat, and as a result, we all need to know what faces the folks who raise our food. Today we are proud to premiere the very first episode of No Farms No Future. For more than 40 years, American...

Our guest is John Piotti, the president and CEO of American Farmland Trust, the nation’s leading non-profit dedicated to protecting farmland, promoting sound farming practices, and keeping farmers on the land. How did a kid growing up on Nantucket Island, hoping to design sailboats, end up in Maine (and now in Washington DC), and become laser focused on preserving rural life and the livelihood of America’s farmers?

Food photography is a marvel. Beautiful photos make me want to own the book, cook the dish, visit the restaurant, travel to the source. But how do you become a celebrated food photographer? You may not know his name, but you’ve been admiring his art for years in best-selling cookbooks, magazines, websites and more. Michael Piazza will tell us how he became a food-focused photographer, and why “it’s all about the light.”

Our guest today is Tamar Haspel. Tamar is a columnist for the Washington Post. Her column UNEARTHED focuses on the intersection of food and science. She's a force of nature -- and food. In High School she was awarded the Teacher's Pest Award for her incessant curiosity and willingness to challenge authority. Now she has a James Beard award to match.

Today is a real treat for those of us with lock-down wanderlust. A married couple – Rachel Greenberger and Cristiano Bonino. Rachel is a 2020 Eisenhower Fellow working on Regenerative Agriculture and Food Systems – she was one of the creators of Food Sol – a thought leadership initiative for Food Entrepreneurs at Babson College. Rachel also works with her husband, Cristiano, on his Italian Tour Company Food.Stories.Travel. I love his voice – and couldn’t we all use a little escape to the...

John Yingling's story is a classic one-foot-in-front-of-other tale of entrepreneurship— how he started as a pizza delivery boy in high school in the 70's, made dough in high school, and decided to put a pin in Provincetown and opened up P'Town's first pizza shop on a shoestring. (This included bunking down in a graveyard for a rent-free bed.) His flagship Spiritus Pizza is still successful, as well as a string of other food ventures and owning much of the prime real estate in town.

Our guest today is Irene Li. And my god, is she a powerhouse. A six-time James Beard Nominee for Rising Star Chef, plus, Zagat’s 30 under 30, Eater’s Young Gun and so much more. She has now become one of the shining stars and entrepreneurs, a true community leader in the culinary space around Boston and beyond––especially noted for her huge heart and nimbleness in our post-covid food world. The youngest of three siblings who founded Mei Mei, a Dumpling FOOD truck (that’s oversimplified by...

A book that could change your life. Home Made author Liz Hauck decided to follow-up on an idea she hatched with her father just before he passed away: she would show up and make and eat dinner with the boys who lived in the group home where he worked. She did just that. For three full years, Liz showed up every week with bags of groceries and made dinner with the teenagers who lived in the home. The book is so well-written and inspiring that none other than the Times book review gave this...

Our conversation with food media baron Chris Kimball was a hoot. Although he produces his own Milk Street podcast and radio show (carried on over 200 radio stations) he was willing to come on our show. He’s wry man with amazing energy and a boundless entrepreneurial spirit. Founding Cooks Illustrated, Cooks Magazine, America’s Test Kitchen––and now Milk Street––not to mention his seven books (and counting!) –– have all been centered around food and food media. An empire builder of the first...

Happy Anniversary to us! And Thank You. Today we remember our very first show with chef Lydia Shire, chef Will Gilson, chef Jasper White and Annie Copps! They are all fun -- and remind why we need to get back to the live stage!

Hannah Howard is the author of two memoirs, Feast: True Love In and Out of the Kitchen and Plenty: A Memoir of Food and Family. We loved both her books, beautifully written, clear on her struggle between loving food and wrestling with food issues and body image. She is funny, moving, smart, and when she writes about cheese, the earth stands still. We start this episode with Hannah reading from her first book, Feast. You will love her crisis in the cheese cave. What a writer!

We are gob-smacked to have her on our podcast. Her daily blog, “Letters from An American” is required reading for many of us. I wake up and read her first thing. Others, can’t get to sleep without taking in her incredible and seemingly effortless gift of putting the news of the day--no matter how distressing – into a un-stuffy, almost chatty, historical context. We know she’s been up til the wee hours writing it –with footnotes! Her podcast, Now & Then, is a joy. And her Facebook live...

Congressman Jim McGovern is our man in Congress. He represents Worcester, Massachusetts, but he really represents all of us who care about food. Not only is he the chair of the powerful rules committee, but he is lobbying for a White House Conference on Food & Nutrition. The last time that happened, Richard Nixon was president.

When Charles Hunter jumped the chasmic divide from NYC to Boston to helm City Winery, he never bargained for a pandemic. He came with a long resume in the hospitality business with everything from a stint at IHOP (he says the boysenberries are real) and owning and managing his own spots in NYC and NJ. If there is a poster boy for grit, graceful pivoting and dedication to first principles of making it all about the guest, it is Charles Hunter.