The Storied Recipe

My guest for today is Shayma Saadat, an internationally published food writer , food photographer , teacher and public speake r. Shayma specializes in Silk Road Cuisine, her chosen name for a style of cooking that incorporates her Afghan, Pakistani, and Persian heritage. Just this past July, Shayma presented a paper at The Oxford Symposium on Food titled “Food Reimagined: Diasporic Identity and Au...

I’m so pleased to welcome my new friend Cari to the episode today. Cari is a master gardener, a new homesteader, and a garden coach for new and aspiring gardeners. Cari grew up as a nomad, in her own words, as her father’s job took her all across the U.S. However, she found stability in her childhood through annual visits to her grandparent's farm. Later, Cari paused in the Pacific Northwest with...

Hello Listeners! I’m so thankful to be back with a new (to most of you) episode. As I traveled out of town unexpectedly for a funeral this week, I did have to deviate from my planned release schedule. But! I’m so excited to bring back only the 3rd episode I ever released, which remains one of my favorites to this day. My guest is Daniela Wilson, author of the powerful, emotional memoir  “On B...

Have you ever had that experience where an idea seems so far-fetched it starts as a joke…. But then that joke becomes a dream and finally - a reality? Today’s guest, Tony Scotto, a native of Naples Italy, immigrated to the U.S. as a teenager. His first job was in his uncle’s restaurant, where he learned English and began working up his way up the ranks in the restaurant world. Tony was still young...

Why hello, listeners!!! This is the first really typical episode of The Storied Recipe podcast in about 2 months! I’m excited to dive right in today with Afia Amoako, known on TikTok, Instagram, the web, and elsewhere and as The Canadian African! As her name suggests, Afia has quite an expansive perspective on food and culture. She was raised in Ghana, spent formative years in Tanzania, South Afri...

Hi!! It’s nice to be back here with you, although I do feel a little dazed after 2 weeks away in Maui with my family (and as I try to prep everyone for school starting next week)! We’ve wrapped up the retrospective series, but before we return to the typical interviews, I do have one more interview to share.... Now this is the most requested interview, by far, that I’ve received. Understandably, p...

Welcome (once again) to this summer retrospective series. One of my favorite things about this podcast is that it’s truly a community of guests and listeners, where you often connect with each other, apart from me. When guests share so deeply and vulnerably with us, the listeners, I think it’s important to stay in touch and continue to conversation, as much as possible. In this spirit, I reached o...

Welcome (once again) to this summer retrospective series. One of my favorite things about this podcast is that it’s truly a community of guests and listeners, where you often connect with each other, apart from me. When guests share so deeply and vulnerably with us, the listeners, I think it’s important to stay in touch and continue to conversation, as much as possible. In this spirit, I reached o...

Welcome (once again) to this summer retrospective series. One of my favorite things about this podcast is that it’s truly a community of guests and listeners, where you often connect with each other, apart from me. When guests share so deeply and vulnerably with us, the listeners, I think it’s important to stay in touch and continue to conversation, as much as possible. In this spirit, I reached o...

Welcome (once again) to this summer retrospective series. One of my favorite things about this podcast is that it’s truly a community of guests and listeners, where you often connect with each other, apart from me. When guests share so deeply and vulnerably with us, the listeners, I think it’s important to stay in touch and continue to conversation, as much as possible. In this spirit, I reached o...

Welcome to this summer retrospective series. One of my favorite things about this podcast is that it’s truly a community of guests and listeners, where you often connect with each other, apart from me. When guests share so deeply and vulnerably with us, the listeners, I think it’s important to stay in touch and continue to conversation, as much as possible. In this spirit, I reached out to a few g...

Esther JuLee and her husband, Jacob Fu, run Local Adventurer, which was recently named one of the top 5 travel blogs in the world. While some of us have been conditioned to think of “travel” as something inaccessible, exotic, or aspirational, Esther and Jacob take a very different approach that values curiosity, gratitude, and contentment. As their name suggests, they encourage finding “local adve...

Hello there, this is just a 2 minute message that I'm using to test a big change AND to ask you one big question. I'll be back Wednesday with a full episode. In the meantime, have a great day! Listen Now

Our experience of holidays are as diverse and complicated as families, emotions, and grief. In this Father’s Day episode, Anita of Wild Thistle Kitchen explores all of these topics so beautifully and bravely. Anita’s father, Scott, wasn’t the typical dad, (if there is such a dad, really, outside of movies). His work brought him all over the world, where he embedded himself in the local cultures fo...

I’m so excited to introduce you today to author Rachel Pieh Jones today. Rachel was introduced to me by one of my listeners named Judith. Judith forwarded me an essay Rachel wrote titled Bread Baked in the Heat of Hell and said she’d love to hear more from Rachel here on the podcast. The piece was beautifully written and truly transported me to a moment when the Djiboutian food, community, and rel...

This is a REPLAY of Ep. 019, "We Were Not Leprosy" I had momentary misgivings when Suwanee Lennon, an Instagram friend but otherwise a stranger, invited me to a small gathering at her friend’s house. I arrived to tables full of Thai food and welcoming people who convinced me eat spicy chicken feet! But what was far more memorable about that day were the stories I heard. I soon learned that these f...

Christine Pittman is a successful businesswoman. She recently started the Time Management Insider podcast helping her audience streamline their home lives. Christine launched this podcast off the strength of two food blogs, one of which, CookTheStory, is among the highest ranked food blogs globally. Christine launched her food blog while finishing her dissertation in linguistics. In this episode,...

I came across Ashley’s work at Bright Root’s Kitchen a long time ago and I particularly enjoyed a Live interview she did with her mother, Precious. So when I was looking for mother’s to interview, along with their children, Ashley was the first I thought of. I wanted to hear more about their memories of Jamaica, Brooklyn, Queens, and there was one thing in particular that I, personally, wonde...

When I interviewed Beth and Lexi, the mother-daughter team behind the hugely popular vegan blog Crowded Kitchen , I felt like I was listening to a pair of best friends communicating. Because of their easy way of relating , this episode is chock full of entertaining, warm & funny stories, AND incredibly instructive, wise advice about making it through the first, difficult stages of a online bus...

Hello readers!! Thanks for tuning in today! I’m going to keep this introduction brief because I just can’t wait for you to hear from Fatima, of the popular blog “Hummus Meets Pizza” and one of the most courageously independent and optimistic women I know. Fatima was born in Lebanon, not in the urban center of Beirut, but in a small rural town containing Roman ruins, produce markets where her fathe...

Hello, listeners (readers), I’m so thankful and happy you’re here today! and I’m very honored to introduce you to Adrian Miller, otherwise known as the Soul Food Scholar. I recently read the second of Adrian’s 3 books (so far)  The President’s Kitchen Cabinet, about the  The Story of the African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families, from the Washingtons to the Obamas . I loved this...

If you’ve ever taken a photo of your food and posted it on Instagram, you’ve probably heard of Eva Kosmas Flores, a hugely popular food photographer, food photography educator, blogger, and cookbook author. However, before Eva gained 30K followers in one weekend and was catapulted into Instagram fame, she was poised for success. Eva had already chosen to rest her business - and her life, really -...

There’s this verse in the Bible that says, “Do not grow weary in doing good, for in the proper time you will reap a harvest.” And while you may hear a lot of theologians debate what those words mean, exactly, I think maybe we just need to hear this episode from Adina, founder of Take Them A Meal to gain insight. The words of that verse played over and over again in my mind as I listened to Adina i...

Welcome, listeners! This is a Holy Week for many religions, and I AM so excited that we are sneaking in this Passover episode just two days before the end of Passover. We welcome Marissa Wojcik today, who burst onto the Jewish baking scene at the beginning of Covid by creating and sharing a brand new Challah recipe every week. A few loaves incorporate expected flavors (like Milk, Honey, &...

They say you can’t control who you fall in love with - and that is true. I remember my dad asking me, “What is going on with you and John Hadeed?” All I could says was, “Dad, he whistles. All the time. And it makes me so so happy.” However, you can choose who you marry. And while falling in love with John caught me by surprise, marrying him was one of the most conscious, considered, prayed-over de...