Umami Podcast

Carrie Omegna co-owns Fonda la Catrina and El Sirenito–a vibrant restaurant and bar that serves as a colorful oasis amid the engines and industry of Georgetown: a Seattle neighborhood of approximately 1,800 residents and 28,000 workers. Carrie talks to us about what good, clean, and fair food means to her as an independent restaurateur, and how employee happiness is the key not only to a healthy r...

Have you been to Beacon Food Forest ? It’s magic! Especially at this time of year. What used to be a 7-acre hillside of intractable grass is now a verdant, climate change-mitigating ecosystem with a diverse pollinator habitat, rich, healthy soil, and more than 1000 different edible plants. It's a demonstration site and a learning community that reimagines what urban green spaces can offer. It’s pu...

Every city needs a food center. The Pike Place Market is a Seattle's democratic platform for local business, and a community, and exists around it. This episode is an argument for the importance of the Pike Place Market . Michela Tartaglia is chef-owner of Pasta Casalinga , a shining example of the creative expression the market fosters. The Pasta Casalinga lunch counter serves handmade pasta with...

Author Langdon Cook has been leading foraging expeditions for  more than 30 years in the Pacific Northwest. We learn about foraging mountains to sound, in the wild and in our own backyard on this episode of the Umami Podcast: everything from clams, to nettles, to morels and chanterelles.  Foraging is a great way to be introduced to nature and to feel more connection to it, and from that to have a...

This week’s conversation is with Eiko Vojkovich of Skagit River Ranch . Theirs is a small but mighty family ranch she and her daughter, Nicole, run together. They sell grass-fed and -finished cattle, pastured hogs, pasture-raised poultry and eggs at Seattle Neighborhood Farmers Markets and some co-ops around the Puget Sound.  When I came to Seattle in the late 90’s, I was ecstatic to learn about t...

Marc Papineau has been filling our wine glasses in Seattle for decades. Marc is the proprietor of Cantina Sauvage — a wine shop he opened last year in Melrose Market , alongside Cafe Suliman in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle. There, he curates a unique selection of independent wines that are, as he coins, “unfuctwith”: wines that have been only minimally altered by human intervention, wh...

The foods that sustain us are becoming less nutritious (via National Geographic ), reduced to commodities and cheaply mass-produced to feed a growing global population of nearly 8 billion. Along the way, we’ve lost touch with the planet’s provisions. Yet real food — both nourishing and delicious — is often as close as our own neighborhoods, and our guest Valerie Segrest knows how to find it. Valer...

At the intersection of wine and art, you’ll find Jarad Hadi: vigneron, winemaker, and owner of Grape Ink in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Grape Ink’s wines celebrate the creativity, diligence, and connection to nature that farmers and winemakers share. Their wine labels in themselves express this relationship; each one is a unique artwork by Italian artist Giulia Schiavon — paintings printed on the...

Krishnendu talks to us a out the role of ethnic food in American culture past, present, and future. He draws upon his upbringing in India and his studies of food in anthropology to present a compelling case for dining with not just an open mouth, but an open mind. Krishnendu takes us around the world and through time in this episode. He explains how shifting immigration patterns affect our food ec...

1/2 billion pounds of sea creatures are harvested every DAY as 3 billion people worldwide depend on it as a primary source of protein, according to the United Nations . Many fish populations are 10% of what they were a hundred years ago, including salmon, tuna, and shrimp. Consequences are dire if we don’t figure out how to make rapid and significant changes to the way we consume seafood. So how c...