Your Last Meal with Rachel Belle

Welcome to The Snack! It's not a full episode, just a quick & tasty bite where host Rachel Belle asks the previous week's guest a handful of lightning round style questions.  Rachel Belle and new episodes of the podcast will be back stateside soon! If you'd like to follow along while she kayaks with baby fur seals and cooks on the world's tiniest stove in a van, you can find her in New Zealand...

Standup comedian Hari Kondabolu is known for his smart, political humor. But when it comes to what the self proclaimed "killjoy who does comedy" craves, this dude has a serious sweet tooth. According to Hari, his childhood was a fever dream of cookies and candy bars: chocolate milk sprayed from his shower, cars rolled around on Oreos instead of tires and colorful gummy worms wriggled around his ga...

Iron & Wine sounds like a band but, in fact, there is just one man behind the music: a soft spoken, North Carolina singer songwriter named Sam Beam. Sam is the ideal conversation partner: he laughs generously and speaks with a warm southern drawl. He also happens to have excellent taste in food and drink. A true southern boy, Sam wants a stack of tomato sandwiches for his last meal. Just ripe,...

John Oates is the mustachioed half of Hall & Oates, the best selling musical duo in history. Maneater! I Can't Go For That! Rich Girl!  These dudes were hit making machines. So host Rachel Belle started thinking about famous food duos: Ketchup & Mustard. Peanut Butter & Jelly. But the best selling culinary duo of all time has got to be Salt & Pepper. When did they get together? And...

Guns N' Roses bassist, Duff McKagan, is the dictionary definition of rock & roll: he's got the skull tattoo, the tight black jeans & a dramatic, alcohol-related near death experience under his belt. But Duff is more than just a pretty bass. He's a history buff who went back to school to get a degree in finance & he's been living sober for 20 years.  Duff's last meal is a tribute to the...

Welcome to The Snack! It's not a full episode, just a quick & tasty bite where host Rachel Belle asks the previous week's guest a handful of lightning round style questions.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Support Cascade PBS: https://secure.cascadepublicmedia.org/page/133995/donate/1/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Indie filmmaker darling, Lynn Shelton, has a brand spankin' new movie out,  Sword of Trust starring Marc Maron. But to pay the bills, she's worked as a freelance director on television shows like  Mad Men, New Girl, GLOW  and  Master of None . Not a bad side hustle!  For her last meal, Lynn would love nothing more than to get down with a good loaf of artisan bread and a big bowl of cookie dough ic...

Ack! Cathy Guisewite wrote and drew the Cathy comic strip, syndicated in newspapers across the US from 1976 to 2010. She got her start in a very unorthodox way, having never drawn a comic strip in her life, in a time when men dominated the Sunday morning funnies. You're going to want to hear this story! If you've ever taped a Cathy comic to your fridge or cubicle, you know the character is obsesse...

In the nearly three years we've been producing Your Last Meal, one thing has become abundantly clear: there are a LOT of vegan celebrities. But Kyle MacLachlan ( Twin Peaks, Sex & the City, Portlandia, Dune ) is a meat man. Burgers? He loves 'em! Steak? He'll have one for his last meal, thank you very much. And his favorite is from Williamsburg, Brooklyn institution, Peter Luger Steakhouse , a...

In our last episode with actor Lauren Weedman, she wanted to know why there are so many Thai restaurants in Seattle. And we left her (and you) hanging! But now we have answers. In this bonus episode, Rachel explores why there are so many Thai restaurants in the United States with Mark Padoongpatt, author of 'Flavors of Empire: Food and The Making of Thai America' and assistant professor of Asian A...

Lauren Weedman wants to love food again. The comedic actor, a former The Daily Show Correspondent and current The Moth host, with roles on Curb Your Enthusiasm and HBO's Looking, has a complicated relationship with food. She wants to make eating a more soulful experience, starting with her last meal; a food she never lets herself enjoy. And yes, we used phrases like "complicated relationship with...

Musician and producer Moby is also a major philanthropist: he donates all the proceeds from his Los Angeles restaurant Little Pine to animal rights organizations, as well as all the money he makes from his albums and his latest memoir, "Then It Fell Apart." He's been a vegan for more than three decades and tells host Rachel Belle he can whip up healthy, filling, vegan meals for under a dollar. Whi...

Prolific actor William Shatner has strong opinions about avocado toast, considers himself a sushi connoisseur and loves beautifully made Mexican food.  So host Rachel Belle took a trip to Sushinola, one of the country's few Sinaloa style Mexican sushi restaurants, in Kent, Washington. Rolls are stuffed with carne asada, topped with pico de gallo, drizzled with housemade chipotle sauce and deep fri...

Actor and improviser Mary Sohn currently stars in the NBC comedy A.P. Bio , but when she's not in front of a camera she can be found happily dipping food into other food. Chips into dips! Crispy bacon into oatmeal! Mary is a dipping fool! And she especially likes pairing sweet with salty, crunchy with creamy and super cold with scalding hot.  So Rachel consulted with a fast food giant to discuss t...

Actor Rainn Wilson is best known for playing Dwight Schrute on the American version of The Office . But when he's not acting, he's trying to make the world a better place. Rainn and his wife run a non-profit called Lide Haiti, to help educate at-risk girls in Haiti, and last year they attempted to transition from voracious meat lovers to plant chomping vegans. Which leads us to Rainn's last meal:...

Acclaimed fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi has it all: humor, heart and hot takes on the culinary world. He knows what he likes (beefsteak tomatoes from his Long Island summer garden) and what he doesn't like (today's pickling trend), and he shares it all with award winning host Rachel Belle in the latest episode of the James Beard Award nominated podcast "Your Last Meal." Isaac sends Rachel on a mi...

Steven Page is best known as the lead singer, guitar player and songwriter for the band Barenaked Ladies, but he's been going at it as a solo musician for the last decade.   Michelin stars and fine wines were Page's jam; he hosted a food TV show and has eaten at fancy restaurants around the world. But these days he's attracted to humble, home cooked foods. Like soup! Boy does Steven Page love soup...

Samin Nosrat is the James Beard Award winning, New York Times bestselling author of the book "Salt Fat Acid Heat" and the charming host of the Netflix series by the same name. Samin laughs easily, is brimming with curiosity and brings new life and authenticity to the saturated world of food media. Get yourself a boyfriend who looks at you the way Samin looks at a roast chicken. Rachel chats with K...

Phil Rosenthal is the creator and co-producer of "Everybody Loves Raymond" (yo, that show got 69 Emmy nominations!) but now his passion is introducing Americans to fantastic foreign food destinations as the host of his Netflix show "Somebody Feed Phil." Phil enthusiastically eats al pastor in Mexico City and pastéis de nata in Lisbon, but his last meal would be a collage of classic American childh...

Nora McInerny is an author and host of one of Rachel's favorite podcasts: Terrible, Thanks for Asking, "a funny/sad/uncomfortable podcast about talking honestly about our pain, our awkwardness, and our humanness, which is not an actual word." For her last meal, Nora wants a magically delicious childhood favorite, so we talk to General Mills about their iconic breakfast cereal Lucky Charms. But wha...

Prolific, 5-time James Beard Award winning cookbook author Dorie Greenspan is the queen of cookies. Famous for her beloved World Peace Cookies and many baking books, including one she wrote with Julia Child, it's not surprising that Dorie wants to start  and  end her last meal with dessert. What's wrong with eating dessert first, anyway? Rachel chats with Ayurvedic counselor Jodi Boone and Food Ne...

Drag queen BenDeLaCreme is "sweet as pie and sharp as cheddar." And Ben, who plays "DeLa," has a lot to say about food. So what would this RuPaul's Drag Race All-Star want for his last meal? (Answer: a nostalgic buffet of his favorite New England foods.) Do you order lo mein or chow mein? It probably depends on what coast you live on! We explore the differences between east coast, midwest & we...

Comedy legend, author, and actor Paul Reiser (Mad About You, Stranger Things) is a New York native whose last meal is as classic and old-school NYC as it gets! Barney Greengrass has been serving up scrambled eggs with sturgeon, bagels with lox, and black and white cookies since 1908. Rachel talks with 3rd-generation owner Gary Greengrass about the origins of his Upper West Side institution and how...

Former teen crush Tiffani Thiessen has come a long way since her days at Bayside High. She's a mother, wife, cookbook author, and host of her own show "Dinner at Tiffani's" on The Cooking Channel. And her artistic outlet is also her last meal! We get tips from Tiffani on how to set up the perfect charcuterie board, and then Rachel heads down to Seattle's historic Pioneer Square neighborhood to lea...

Top o' the mornin' to ya! On this Emerald Isle themed episode of Your Last Meal, Rachel talks to Irish comedian and writer Maeve Higgins about why Irish butter is better, the food that confused her most at her first American Thanksgiving, and of course - her last meal! You'll get the history of the fish pie from Ireland's Michelin starred chef and food columnist JP McMahon. We also have a butter b...