Governor Deval Patrick Talks Food

Episode 25

Former Massachusetts Governor, Deval Patrick, is a major foodie. But you might not know that if you simply focused on his remarkable biography. Raised on the South Side of Chicago in tough circumstances, scholarship to a New England boarding school, graduate of Harvard and Harvard Law School, a senior member of the US Justice department, and a high-level corporate career – all before becoming the Bay State’s first African-American governor. Twice. And just last year, a run for the US Presidency. If there’s a testament to how talking about food is the great leveler, the great ice breaker, our conversation with Deval Patrick is it!

Image courtesy of Deval Patrick.

Sara Baer-Sinnott & Oldways

Episode 24

Sara Baer-Sinnott is the President of Oldways, a nonprofit focused on improving public health through cultural food traditions and lifestyles. If you think you haven’t heard of Oldways, you are wrong. Oldways’ tentacles touch almost everything you think about food today. It was the organization that brought the Mediterranean Diet to the forefront, the champion of whole grains in food products – and the creator and convener of a wide swath of the “culinary community” inviting huge bands of chefs, writers, retailers and food producers from all over the world to gather together to revere and preserve the value and joy of artisanal food – in short…the Oldways.

Culinary folks from today's episode:
Rick Bayless Madhur Jaffrey Nancy Harmon Jenkins Corby Kummer
Tim Lang Elisabeth Luard Marion Nestle Maricel Presilla
Jeffrey Steingarten Faith Willinger Paula Wolfert Naomi Duguid
Susan Loomis Melissa Clark Ihsan and Valerie Gurdal Anya von Bremzen
Bobby Flay Gordon Hamersley Jessica B. Harris Joan Nathan
Fred Plotkin Martha Rose Shulman Lynne Rossetto Kasper Lorna Sass
Molly Stevens Nora Pouillon Barry Estabrook Rux Martin Annie Copps

Photo courtesy of Oldways.

Hidden Gem at the General Store

Episode 23

One of the great pleasures of collecting people's stories is that they often surprise you. You discover a gem just by asking a question, like how did you get come to food? Today, we talk to Megan Fales. Megan runs a perfect General Store called Anchor & Sail in the center of the seacoast village where I live. When I met her, she seemed lovely, and her food was impeccable. But I had no inkling that she came to our hamlet via a career at Martha Stewart and Comedy Central. Chalk it up to, "you just never know."

Image courtesy of Anchor & Sail General Store.

How Do You Learn to Love Food?

Episode 22

This week we share two "food love origin stories". One from Celeste Croxton-Tate, a cook, author, and Boston Police officer. And one from me, because I too had to learn to love food.

A Candid Conversation with Erin French

Episode 21

Erin French is the owner and chef of The Lost Kitchen, a 40-seat restaurant in Freedom, Maine, that was recently named one TIME Magazine’s World’s Greatest Places and one of "12 Restaurants Worth Traveling Across the World to Experience" by Bloomberg. 

Her love of Maine and her palpable pleasure in sharing its delicious heritage with curious dinner guests and new friends alike, has garnered attention in outlets such as The New York Times (her piece was one of the ten most read articles in the food section the year it was published), Martha Stewart Living, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and Food & Wine. In addition to too many wows to list, Erin has just published her memoir, Finding Freedom. 

I interviewed her at a webinar sponsored by Women Who Empower, a network of strong, creative, and innovative women and men launched by Northeastern University a decade ago. 

The aim of Women Who Empower is to bring together and inspire future generations through events, scholarships, learning, and entrepreneurship opportunities, to overcome disparities and biases, connect, and lead change in their communities and beyond.

Troublemaker at the Helm

Episode 20

Dr. Peter Lurie is the head of Center For Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), arguably the most important defender of food safety and justice in the US. Lurie is the grandson of a South African female butcher and a South African egg seller. How did that form him as a warrior for social justice?

From Bats, to Fish, to Farming

Episode 19

Kathleen Finlay, the President of Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming, in New York’s Hudson Valley has been a leader in the regenerative agriculture movement for most of her career. Now, as the president of Glynwood she is in a position to connect food and farming changemakers from all across the country and the world. Living – and loving it! – on a beautiful little farm in the Hudson Valley, it’s fair to say that Kat has become a national figure in the world of progressive agricultural nonprofits. A personal aside, it was Kat who first got me into the world of recording people’s first-person food stories. We recorded at festivals, at farms, and even at the American Museum of Natural History in New York! It was a blast! That’s where I learned that truly, everyone has a food story.

David Waters: When the Community Needs Feeding

Episode 18

Today we talk to David Waters, the CEO of Community Servings. Launched during the AIDS crisis, Community Servings has made and delivered over 9 million medically tailored meals to homebound people with severe and chronic illnesses. Waters, a true visionary, has been the navigator and the pilot for its growth. At 10, he was serving canapes at his mother's dinner parties. Now he feeds millions.

Photo courtesy of @communityservings

A Vegan Grandma Begets a Food Visionary

LET’S TALK ABOUT FOOD: EPISODE 17

Today we talk with Cheryl Kiser, a longtime friend and the visionary behind Babson College’s Lewis Institute for Social Innovation. That’s a big deal. In case you did not know, Babson is the number one business school in Entrepreneurship in the world, and it has been since the rankings began some 20 plus years ago. Cheryl has inspired countless entrepreneurial leaders through her BabsonX course, From Corporate Social Responsibility to Social Innovation. She is also a great and committed food activist. She co-founded Food Sol, an “action tank” to bring together food entrepreneurs for conversations and actionable connections. Cheryl has a long-standing reputation as a “positive disrupter” and lives by the mantra, “Find a way to say yes.”

It All Started with Donuts

LET’S TALK ABOUT FOOD: EPISODE 16

Today we talk to chef Andy Husbands. Husbands now operates The Smoke Shop, a Boston-based emerging chain of BBQ restaurants. He’s a six-time cookbook author and–– importantly–– a Pitmaster. The co-founder of internationally recognized BBQ team which competed for 20 years and became the first non-Southern team to win the World Champions of BBQ Title at the Jack Daniels World Championship in Tennessee.

I’ve been privileged to watch Andy morph from being a sort of enfant terrible to becoming an incredible force in in the Boston culinary scene. Andy is a person of immense management talents, as well as food talents. He could have gone in a million different directions. How did it become food?

When Kids Become Cooks

LET’S TALK ABOUT FOOD: EPISODE 15

Sally Sampson is an author, healthy food champion, and magazine publisher. When I first met Sally, I was wowed by her productivity­­—23 cookbooks and counting! That was never the whole story for Sally.

Ten years ago, she had an idea for a non-profit cooking magazine that would be fun and educational for families and inspire them to cook!  She called the magazine ChopChop Family. It is a huge success, winner of the James Beard award, and beloved by pediatricians, parents, and kids around the world. Michelle Obama is a big fan too! 

Today she’ll tell us how a 9th grader’s decision to become a vegetarian launched an entire cooking empire. 

A Cookbook Creates Community

LET’S TALK ABOUT FOOD: EPISODE 14

Karl Schatz and Margaret Hathaway live on Ten Apple Farm in Maine with their three daughters. Margaret is a writer; Karl is a photographer. Once they decided to make Maine their home and raise their family on a goat farm, they went all-in for Maine. 

They were the two pillars behind the award-winning Maine Bi-Centennial Community Cookbook, published last summer. The cookbook was a smash—over 200 recipes from Mainers of all stripes, chock full of people, family, and all things Maine.

Margaret Hathaway tells the story of how a community cookbook published in the heart of the Pandemic came to be the heart center of the state. Karl, a true Mainer, will chime in with his own story of growing up Jewish in Maine with his great grandmother, Sadie the Kosher Caterer AKA "Cookie Nana."

A Former Ballerina's Food Struggles: For Herself and Her Child

LET’S TALK ABOUT FOOD: EPISODE 13

Today, we hear from Jenny Best. It’s a story of a top-tier New York City ballerina who conquered her own struggles with food, and then was gob-smacked when it came time to begin feeding solids to her own firstborn son. That was even before the twins! 

Jenny leaped into action and became the founder of a remarkable online information resource called SolidStarts.com. It’s a multi-disciplinary and very comprehensive website that offers parents guidance as babies take their very first bites and begin the journey towards a healthy and joyful life with food.

When COVID Steals a Chef's Sense of Taste and Smell

LET’S TALK ABOUT FOOD: EPISODE 12

Nina Simonds is simply one of America’s culinary superstars. Nina Simonds is an award-winning journalist and author of eleven books. She is one of the country’s top authorities on Asian cooking with a special focus on health and lifestyle. In 2001, Newsweek Magazine named her one of America’s Top Twenty-Five Asia Hands. Her last book, Spices of Life: Simple and Delicious Recipes for Great Health not only received a James Beard award but was selected by Cooking Light Magazine as their number one choice in the health category for cookbooks written in the last 25 years.

In this episode, we talk about how it was a huge shock to her system that when she got COVID because it stole her sense of taste and smell. So far, it hasn’t come back.

Wild Asparagus & The Way Back to Wellness

LET’S TALK ABOUT FOOD: EPISODE 11

As the Corporate Director of Exercise Physiology for the world-famous Canyon Ranch Wellness Resort, Mike Siemens knows a thing or two about food and health. He talks about how the two go together including the good, the bad, and how we get back to post-pandemic health. His love for food began as a kid growing up in East Central Illinois while walking the fence row and searching for wild asparagus.

Don’t know what “exercise physiology” is? Have a listen and Mike will explain.

Her Dinner with Andres

LET’S TALK ABOUT FOOD: EPISODE 10

Today we talked to Kate Sullivan. She is the host of the PBS Series, To Dine For—now in its third season. An accomplished television reporter, she crafted a fantasy job for herself—having a meal and a one-on-one conversation with visionaries at their favorite hometown restaurants. Some of those conversations included Howard Schultz of Starbucks, Norman Lear, Mark Cuban­­—and someone we all revere, chef Jose Andrés.

In this episode, we’ll eavesdrop on Kate’s own dinner with Andres in Barcelona—and how her hunch that bonding over a meal would make for great TV storytelling.

There Will Be Gangsters

LET’S TALK ABOUT FOOD: EPISODE 9

Today we are having a chat with my good friend, Charles Draghi—universally called "Chuck".  Chuck inhabits the rarified strata of top chefs in Boston, mentor to many, revered by diners at his restaurant Erbaluce, and lauded by the critics. Before all that, he was a chef in Boston's North End, one of the country's last Little Italys, where locals and tourists go for color and red-sauce flavor. It's where Chuck served up the kinds of dishes unheard of in this traditional iconic Italian neighborhood. The restaurant was called Marcuccio's. And yes, there are a few gangsters involved.

In this podcast, Chuck tells us a little about the Champagne Gang—a group of gangsters with, you guessed it—champagne tastes.

Marcuccio's went on to become wildly popular, the leading-edge restaurant that paved the way for authentic Italian cuisine rather Italian American dishes in Boston's North End. (Not that we don’t all love a good chicken parm now and then.)

Chuck was there for years—a lifetime in the restaurant business.

Never Make a Chef's Blood Boil

LET’S TALK ABOUT FOOD: EPISODE 8

“My blood started to boil. So, I went into the office and picked up the phone. I called my good friend Gordon Hamersely, and I said, Gordon, did you get your picture taken for this article?
Yes.
What about Todd English? Oh, for sure. He got his picture taken. So I hung up the phone and went back out and I said to the photographer, I think you want to take a picture of me and I took a deep breath, and stood with my arms, crossed with a pose that suggested that I definitely was in charge. And that was the picture they chose to put at the top of the fold of the food section in the New York Times.”

— Jody Adams, Chef

Chef Jody Adams is one of a very few chefs in town whose first name alone makes her instantly recognizable. Like Cher. Or Barack. Jody is a rock-star chef-owner with more than 30 years of success. She’s earned every national accolade including numerous James Beards, Food & Wine, Top Chef awards.

Jody Adams is a formidable leader—a major force in the food world­­—championing female chefs, feeding the hungry, and taking a leadership role in getting the embattled restaurant industry government help during the COVID crisis. I asked Jody Adams, how a young woman from a gentle New England background, became a nationally acclaimed chef.

For more information about Jody Adams, visit  www.porto-boston.com and for more information about Massachusetts Restaurants United, visit https://www.marestaurantsunited.com.

Even in Moscow, Never take Candy from a Stranger

LET’S TALK ABOUT FOOD: EPISODE 7

Her mother told her “Never Take Candy from a Stranger”. Especially in Moscow.

Darra Goldstein was a young Russian graduate student, working on a U.S. tradeshow in the USSR in the 70’s when a seemingly sympathetic Muscovite offered her a bag of candy as a thank you gesture.

It’s a great story. Darra is now an Emeritus professor of Russian at Williams college and the founding editor of Gastronomica, the Journal of Food Studies. Learn more about Darra here.

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Father's & Stepfathers

LET’S TALK ABOUT FOOD: EPISODE 6

Dan Michaud "Ron, Jade Valley and the Power of Place" 

When his soon-to-be stepfather Ron rolled into teenage Dan’s mother’s house in an orange Fiat convertible. They began a thirty-year conversation. Dan’s tribute to “Ron who gave me Shakespeare, Miles Davis, and winter picnics” (plus a killer recipe for Beef Stroganoff).

Alvin Crawford "The Luckiest Guy"

Family dinners are not always happy moments. Our storyteller, Alvin Crawford, with his father remembers his dinners with his father as stressful rituals, more of an inquisition than a time to come together around food. Alvin, now a non-profit executive, recounts how he survived those meals and grew to understand, if not accept, his father’s intensity. And, ultimately, to learn how to enjoy meals with his own young family.