You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy, a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture, about their lives, careers, and how it all fits together and where food comes in. This week, I'm talking to Millicent Souris, someone I have long wanted to make my friend. Millicent is to me just wildly cool. She talks about food equity and drinking bourbon, and there w...
May 25, 2022•1 hr 2 min
You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy, a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture, about their lives, careers, and how it all fits together and where food comes in. Today, I'm talking to Andrea Hernandez, the oracle behind the newsletter Snaxshot , which explores food and beverage trends with humor, broad insight, and gorgeous graphics. Nothing about ...
May 11, 2022•47 min
You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy, a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture, about their lives, careers, and how it all fits together and where food comes in. Today, I'm talking to Angela Garbes, the author of Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy , and the new Essential Labor: Mothering As Social Change ...
May 04, 2022•50 min
You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy , a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture about their lives, careers and how it all fits together and where food comes in. Today, I'm talking to Jami Attenberg , the author of seven novels, including the best-selling The Middlesteins . Her latest book is a memoir called I Came All This Way to Meet You , which g...
Apr 27, 2022•34 min
You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy , a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture about their lives, careers, and how it all fits together and where food comes in. Today, I'm talking to Daniela Galarza , the writer behind The Washington Post's Eat Voraciously newsletter, which goes out Monday through Thursdays offering suggestions for what to cook fo...
Apr 13, 2022
You're listening to “From the desk of Alicia Kennedy”, a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays I'll be talking to different people in food and culture, about their lives, careers and how it all fits together and where food comes in. Today, I’m talking Robert Simonson, a contributing cocktail writer at the New York Times , Punch, and other outlets. He’s the author of many cocktail books, including one of my favorites, ...
Apr 06, 2022•27 min
Today, I’m talking LinYee Yuan , a design journalist as well as the editor and founder of MOLD magazine, which approaches food and the future from a design perspective. It’s one of the most innovative food magazines out there, with a global scope and an honest relationship to unpleasant realities like hunger, waste, and even fecal matter. We discussed how the magazine came to be, how its point of view has been forged, and its trajectory from the microbiome toward its sixth and final forthcoming ...
Mar 30, 2022•43 min
You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy , a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture about their lives, careers and how it all fits together and where food comes in. Today, I'm talking to Eric Kim , a staff writer at The New York Times food section and author of the just released cookbook Korean American . I've admired Eric from afar via social media, a...
Mar 23, 2022
You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy , a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture about their lives, careers and how it all fits together and where food comes in. This week, I'm talking to Sandor Katz , whom you likely know from his books Wild Fermentation , The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved , The Art of Fermentation , Fermentation As Metaphor , ...
Mar 16, 2022•23 min
You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy, a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture, about their lives, careers and how it all fits together and where food comes in. Today, I'm talking to Sarah Lohman, a food historian, and the author of Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine . We discussed how she went from art school to historic cooking, ...
Mar 09, 2022•55 min
You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy , a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture about their lives, careers and how it all fits together and where food comes in. Today, I'm talking to Kristina Cho , author of the cookbook Mooncakes and Milk Bread . We discussed how studying architecture has influenced her recipe work, moving from the Midwest to Cali...
Mar 02, 2022•24 min
You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy , a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture about their lives, careers and how it all fits together and where food comes in. Today, I'm talking to Jenny Dorsey, a chef, food writer and executive director of Studio ATAO , a nonprofit think tank that works on changing inequitable systems in food and beyond. We disc...
Feb 16, 2022•37 min
Today, I’m talking to Preeti Mistry , a chef, host of the podcast Loading Dock Talks , and an activist for equity in hospitality. We discussed how they ended up a chef and closing their really well-received Oakland restaurant Juhu Beach Club, being on Top Chef , launching their podcast as an antidote to the whiteness of food media, and more. Alicia: Hi, thanks so much for being here. Preeti : Thanks for having me. Alicia : I think it's wild that this is the first time I'm interviewing you, becau...
Feb 09, 2022•55 min
Today, I’m talking Karon Liu , a food writer at the Toronto Star . I’ve long been a fan of his work and perspective, which is accessible but has an eye toward sustainability; has humor and deep understanding, but is authoritative in his perspective. We discussed how he got into food despite never cooking growing up, shifting definitions of authenticity, and being a writer who can convey the totality of Toronto to an international audience. Alicia: Hi, Karon. Thank you so much for being here and ...
Feb 02, 2022•40 min
Frances Moore Lappé, with the 1971 publication of the first edition of Diet for a Small Planet, eventually changed mainstream conversation on food by popularizing the reality that hunger was a human-created problem—not an issue of food scarcity, but of distribution. Now, in the new edition for its 50th anniversary, there is updated information on hunger as well as urgent writing on the climate crisis. (I have a recipe in it, and we partnered to make this conversation public.)Here, we discuss wha...
Nov 12, 2021
Listen now | Talking to the 'New World Sourdough' author about going from blogging to cookbook, TV, and podcast projects. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aliciakennedy.substack.com...
Nov 05, 2021•41 min
Listen now | Talking to the New York Times staff writer and prolific cookbook author about creativity, learning from chefs, and how to test a recipe so it becomes classic. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aliciakennedy.substack.com...
Oct 29, 2021
Listen now | Talking to the star pastry chef about narratives of success, ingredient accessibility, and creativity. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aliciakennedy.substack.com...
Oct 22, 2021•45 min
Listen now | Talking to the cookbook author and TV show host about her upbringing, creativity, and being generous on social media. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aliciakennedy.substack.com...
Oct 15, 2021•54 min
I met Rachel Signer years ago while we were both freelancers living in Brooklyn. We were at a press dinner for a restaurant called Gristmill, which I just checked on: It’s now sadly closed. We’ve kept up with each other’s careers ever since on social media, and I’m so thrilled to see her memoir—ˆ You Had Me at Pét-Nat , a beautiful and enthralling work that enacts Signer’s restlessness and eventual homecoming—in the world and discuss her life in Australia, where she’s making wine, raising her da...
Oct 08, 2021•34 min
I burst into the Zoom with Andrew Janjigian —a writer and the baker behind the newsletter Wordloaf —as though he were an old friend, telling him about my drama with the dentist that was happening that day and explaining precisely how much I was already sweating despite the early hour of our interview. There are some people whose energy, even virtually, I just like and how I express this like is, frankly, by extravagantly complaining in the hopes of amusing the other person. This is all to say: A...
Oct 01, 2021•41 min
I loved talking to Erin Alderson because I think we have a similar mission that we go about in different ways, and that mission is to just get people to eat more vegetables. (Her recipe-driven way might work a bit better, if her 134K Instagram followers are any indication.)It’s also fascinating to me to hear about those folks who came up in the heyday of food blogging about how self-publishing both has and hasn’t changed. Alderson didn’t approach blogging the standard way, though, by making hers...
Sep 24, 2021•42 min
Listen now | Talking to the author of 'Food in Cuba' about how agriculture works on the island, what makes for "a decent meal," and more. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aliciakennedy.substack.com...
Sep 17, 2021
People assume I’ve interviewed Tunde Wey —the artist, writer, and cook whose work has been the subject of other people’s award-winning profiles—before because I’m a big public fan of his work, but I hadn’t felt myself properly prepared. His work touches on everything from racism to immigration to colonialism to capitalist extraction, and I didn’t really know my way into a focused interview. I was nervous, basically. But I think we had a good conversation, one that gets at a lot of issues with fo...
Sep 03, 2021•48 min
Hannah Howard , author of the memoirs Feast: True Love In and Out of the Kitchen and the forthcoming Plenty: A Memoir of Food and Family , is a wildly generous writer. She gives of herself and her experiences with such vulnerability and verve, to the point that I wanted to ask her if she is holding something back for herself. The new memoir chronicles becoming a wife and a mother, as well as leaving the restaurant and food retail world for writing. She spends time with women in food that have in...
Aug 27, 2021•21 min
Cathy Erway came to food writing through home cooking and that’s also how she has maintained her career. It’s a pathway that is rarely tread anymore, as restaurants have become so central to how we talk about and think about food. But Erway has stuck to her guns and somehow carved out a space for herself as someone who cares about where food comes from, both in terms of the actual land it was grown in and hands that tended to it, as well as with regards to cultural significance. We discussed how...
Aug 20, 2021•21 min
It’s almost funny that I haven’t had Mayukh Sen on my podcast yet. But the truth is, I’ve been waiting for his book, Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America (out November 2—preorder it!) , to be available so that we could discuss it in all the glory I knew it would achieve. Here, he presents what we discuss is an Almodóvar-esque constellation of women who all moved to the United States and made their mark on its cuisine—to various ends. Their stories are rendered c...
Aug 13, 2021•56 min
There are eras of the recent culinary past that I was only able to experience through reading magazines and retroactively digging into cookbooks, and what I find most exciting was the development of farm-to-table “New American” cuisine in New York City. How chef and author of What’s Good? A Memoir in Fourteen Ingredients Peter Hoffman came to be a major figure in that development through his restaurants Savoy and Back Forty is an absolutely fascinating story, thanks to his candor and ability to ...
Aug 06, 2021•1 hr
I’ve been thinking a lot about waves of interest in biodiversity and decolonization of various ingredients, and so it was the perfect time to talk to baker and co-owner of L.A. restaurant Friends & Family Roxana Jullapat about her book Mother Grains: Recipes for the Grain Revolution . Because who is really experiencing the grain revolution? And when will we revolutionize and decolonize global food systems, instead of just providing more artisanal choice to those with money? Jullapat, who cam...
Jul 30, 2021•28 min
Camilla Wynne’s new book Jam Bake: Inspired Recipes for Creating and Baking With Preserves can make anyone believe they can make jam—even me, a person classically impatient with all matters of preservation. But it also goes a step further by helping you figure out what to do with those jars of jam, thanks to Wynne’s training and experience in pastry. From nostalgic whipped shortbread cookies with a thumbprint of jam to mango cream pie, it can change how one approaches fruit in the kitchen. We ta...
Jul 23, 2021•32 min
