This week Dana Cowin of @progressive_hedonist & @speakingbroadly joins me to share her Five Rules of Throwing a Sustainable Dinner Party. We chat about lighting local candles, leftovers as party favors & hosting with intention. Link in the bio.
Dana Cowin edited @foodandwine for over 20 years and represents living food media history. We go over all in our conversation on This Is TASTE. All episode links in my bio.
BOOK GIVE AWAY: Author of best-selling “What If We Get It Right?” @ayanaeliza is the first guest on my @progressive_hedonist podcast, which launched on @heritage_radio last week 🥳 📷 @landonspeers
I’m GIVING AWAY 5 signed copies of Ayana’s compulsively readable, uplifting and highly informative work in collaboration with BEM bookstore. To enter, leave a comment below and/or tag a friend who would appreciate climate action, AND follow @bembrooklyn .
In each episode of the PH podcast, I’m looking to experts to offer insights and actions for how each of us can positively impact climate. Here are a few take-aways from my interview with Ayana.
On Motivation: “It’s so important to be motivated by something deeper than hope. There’s a lot of talk about how do we stay hopeful and optimistic? And I often feel like that’s missing the point, which is not a popular opinion to be sort of anti hope. I just want to know: what’s the strategy? Let’s each find our role to play. Let’s find the people we want to do it with, and let’s just do our part to make the world a tiny bit better. Even though we can’t, any of us, control the ultimate outcome.” 👯👯👯👯
On solutions: “There are innumerable possible futures. We already basically have the solutions we need. We just need to implement them as quickly and as justly as possible.” 🌠
On looking to oceans: “When people think about the ocean, they’re often thinking about overfishing, plastic pollution, endangered species, all of these horrible, negative and very real challenges. I encourage people to also look to the ocean for solutions, right? The latest analysis is the ocean is about a third of the climate solutions we need are found in salt water.” 🌊🌊
Delicious vegan dosa with a mung bean scrambled egg substitute served from @wildindigocafe food truck at the edge of Escalante National Monument—plant-forward in big meat country. Unexpected and satisfying, I came back for breakfast and/or lunch every day that I was in town (dinner was reserved for the incomparable @hellsbackbonegrill ). Cardamom waffles. Black bean burgers. Onion rings. All made from scratch. I had to learn more about out the dosa from chef/owner @indigopickles Lacy Allen. In addition to finding out Himalayan black salt is the secret ingredient to the scramble, I also discovered that before becoming a chef, Lacy was a manager of nursing homes, a job she loved. Turns out nothing at Wild Indigo is what you’d expect.
Heartbroken at the loss of @naomipomeroy —she was a force of nature and was cruelly taken from us by nature. So grateful for what I learned from her about commitment, passion, generosity and cooking. The photo above was taken in April at a @progressive_hedonist X @oktaoregon dinner where she shared her love of gardening, food and community. 💔💔💔
I know I say AWESOME a lot.
I’m working on it.
BUT SEASON 2 drops today!!
Join us with @speakingbroadly Dana Cowin!
@psychicpoolparty@cstellamusic #psychicpoolparty #heathercarluccimedium #podcast
In 2004, when I was at @foodandwine , we published the first national story about an up-and-coming chef named @ashley_christensen . We loved her food at this "perfect American wine bar." I've been a fan of Ashley's ever since. When she and her wife @kaitgoalen invited me to Raleigh, NC, to be part of the 15 year anniversary celebration of their flagship restaurant, @poolesdiner , I was ecstatic. It would be my first opportunity to eat Ashley's food at Poole's, including her famous macaroni au gratin; a fantastic occasion to record her wisdom on a podcast, and also discover some of the other great restaurants in the city.
Ashley is the consummate chef. As she says, "It all comes back to that fact that I'm just a person who wants people to feel like they came over for dinner." But what a dinner! Ashley's also an extraordinary leader. Here are some lessons from the interview. Listen in for more at link in bio☝️🎙️✨
On perfection: "It exists because we limit ourselves and what we imagine the possibilities to be. Perfection is a stop sign."
On work/life balance: "I work for greatness and when I'm done that day, I'm done until tomorrow. Some days, two-thirds of my list is left, and I still know that I did what I was supposed to do that day."
On her greatest strength: "My greatest strength is being open to change. When I grew up a little bit, I realized that making a change didn't mean we'd failed. It meant our eyes were open wide enough to see that there was an opportunity for evolution."
On sobriety: "The fear of missing out is definitely a big piece. What will I be missing if I never have this again? I have a couple of thought processes about this. When I think about never popping a bottle of Champagne again, I think about all the incredible experiences I've had with friends sharing some of the neatest Champagne in the world, and going to Reims. The good stuff that I treated with the respect it deserves is still there in a memory for me that feels just as good as it did when I was living it."
Here’s one very dear friend I never ever want to lose and want everyone to know: @mary_giuliani . She is a humorist with a huge heart who laughs at the crazy situations she’s gotten herself into. In her new book “How to Lose Friends and Influence No One,” she takes the reader along as her plus one.
Sometimes you end up in strange places, like a Wienermobile. And I quote: “I once applied to live in a hot dog. Tempted by an advertisement that came across my desk at precisely the right time, I guess you can say I was beginning to question everything in my life.” Check out the book to see if Mary’s application was accepted by @oscarmayer ‘s team. As well as stories about Fran Lebowitz, Michael Imperioli, and more.
@gabrielle_eitienne is a cultural preservationist with a bright and shining mind, and a big heart. We met up in Raleigh, North Carolina, about 15 miles away from her homeplace in Apex to talk about the rural imagination, family, community, food and more. When I was editing the podcast, I was struck by Gabrielle's effortless generosity in naming the people who inspired her and her work. I've gone down a rabbit hole, ordering their books and learning more about them. Below are a few excerpted thoughts from Gabrielle on extraordinary women. Full episode at link in bio☝️🎙️🌱
"Miss Cornelia Walker Bailey is a brilliant preservationist from the ‘Hog Hammock’ community on Sapelo Island in Georgia. She inspired me to archive and value my own familial and community history in Central North Carolina."
Judith Carney, author of Black Rice about the African origins of rice cultivation in the Americas. "It was some of the same stuff I knew was true for my grandfather, and my great uncle, who were keeping a garden at our home place."
“Nikky Finney's, Love Child's Hotbed of Occasional Poetry is always on the table when I entertain. So is Edna Lewis."
"I met Miss Valerie Erwin, known for Geechee Girl Cafe, at an event that @chefbjdennis held. I was like, give this woman her flowers right now. Number one, her energy is everything. She's incredibly talented. The food she and her sisters served us was beautiful and delicious. And she's just thoughtful in a way that you could tell."
“Miss @sallieannrobinson on Daufuskie Island is absolutely a superstar. She is also doing cultural preservation work through food. When we went to South Carolina for the whole hog for Netflix's High on the Hog, it was on her property. She makes you feel loved. Her food, everything I tasted from her was delicious and felt like home."
Join Tama Matsuoka Wong (@meadowsandmore ), @melissametrick & me @farmtopeople in Bushwick on 4/12! Tix in bio!
***REPOST*** from Tama:
Wild nettle quiche for tomorrow @morrisarboretum . Sold out but making again with other foraged tastings on wednesday april 12 at 6 pm to support local foods and flavors @heritage_radio panel event with @speakingbroadly . Hope to see you in brooklyn!
#foragedfood #invasiveplants #stingingnettle
Trying to solve tomorrow's problems today, Briana Warner (@bri_out_tosea ), CEO of Portland, ME-based @atlanticseafarms , has thrown all of her energy into kelp, offering lobstermen options to earn income off-season in a way that provides future opportunities and also benefits the planet. Check out a brief excerpt of our interview below + a chance to WIN some yummy Sea-Veggie Burgers along with the #SB Zine! GIVEAWAY details in Comments & full interview at link in bio 💝🌊 🎧 📖
On Motivations: "Seeing people adversely affected by not planning for more resilient futures, both in the face of climate change, and in the face of inevitable economic change has shaped my entire career. As people, we are horrendously bad at planning and finding solutions before giant disasters happen."
On Solutions: "It became obvious that aquaculture was one of the key answers to the question of building a resilient future. I say one of the key answers because there are a lot of answers to this question. And that's something we don't like in America. We always want one answer that’s really simple."
On Stakeholders: "We are trying to prove the incredible human potential in mitigating and adapting to climate change when stakeholders are leading the process. We're always looking toward technology to solve a problem that humans have created and humans are the ones that are going to have to deal with it."
On Kelp: "It is the best food you could possibly eat for people and planet, and I don't think that's hyperbole. There are ways to oversell the impacts of kelp. We're not sequestering carbon. We're not going to reverse climate change. We're not going to save the planet with kelp. But certainly anything that you put on the plate that is not kelp is more carbon intensive and worse for the planet."
2nd 📸 @nicole_wolf_photography
