Let's Talk About Food

“It was as though somebody had poked a hole in the hull of a ship and we were sinking.”

Chef Jody Adams is one of a very few chefs in town whose first name alone makes her instantly recognizable. Like Cher. Or Barack. Jody is a rock-star chef-owner with more than 30 years of success. She’s earned every national accolade including numerous James Beards, Food & Wine, Top Chef). Jody Adams is a formidable leader — a major force in the food world­­––championing female chefs, feeding the hungry, and taking a leadership role in getting the embattled restaurant industry government help during the COVID crisis. I asked Jody Adams, how a young woman from a gentle New England background, became a nationally acclaimed chef.

Photo Courtesy of Ken Rivard and Jody Adams.

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Her mother told her “Never Take Candy from a Stranger.”

Especially in Moscow. Darra Goldstein was a young Russian graduate student, working on a US trade show in the USSR in the 70’s when a seemingly sympathetic Muscovite offered her a bag of candy as a thank-you. It’s a great story. Darra is now an Emeritus professor of Russian at Williams college and the founding editor of Gastronomica, the Journal of Food Studies.

Photo Courtesy of Darra Goldstein.

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Dan Michaud "Ron, Jade Valley and the Power of Place"

When his soon-to-be stepfather Ron rolled into teenage Dan’s mother’s house in an orange Fiat convertible. They began a thirty-year conversation. Dan’s tribute to “Ron who gave me Shakespeare, Miles Davis, and winter picnics” (plus a killer recipe for Beef Stroganoff).

Alvin Crawford "The Luckiest Guy"

Family dinners are not always happy moments. Our storyteller, Alvin Crawford, with his father remembers his dinners with his father as stressful rituals, more of an inquisition than a time to come together around food. Alvin, now a non-profit executive, recounts how he survived those meals and grew to understand, if not accept, his father’s intensity. And, ultimately, to learn how to enjoy meals with his own young family.

Photos Courtesy of BJ Versoy

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Every good Rom-Com starts with a “Meet Cute” story. And what could be cuter than a first date story that revolves around food? In this episode we share two: a cheese-infused one from Sarah and Chris Blackburn, who met, married and are now the publishers and editor of Edible Boston; and one from Dena and Noah Kowaloff. This one features an unlikely star: broccoli. Let’s have a listen.

Photo Courtesy of Bethany Versoy

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In this episode we’ll hear from the President of the Greater Boston Food Bank, Catherine D’Amato and from Northeastern University’s Dining Director, Maureen Timmons.

Most of us are inspired to cook meals for those we love. And then, there are those who choose to feed the many. They are a different breed. Gracious, committed and generous. Why do they do it?

To us, they are exceptional heroes, especially in this time when food insecurity is soaring, and supply struggles to keep up with crushing demand. We cannot allow hunger cannot be the new normal. For information on how to help, visit www.gbfb.org

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This episode features food writer and columnist, Mike Floreak –– and me, your host, Louisa Kasdon. We’ll each share a story about what happens when you love food. And your mother or mother-in-law could care less.

Mike Floreak on his mother-in-law, Mary:“Food was just one of the things Mary found disappointing. Like the people she met at Walmart. And my wife’s haircuts.”

Louisa Kasdon on her mother, Muriel Kasdon: 
“We used to tell people not to eat anything at my mother’s house. Not the cottage cheese with the blue scooped out. Not the tomato paste left over from the Depression…If she could have fed us Special K and frozen potpies from her favorite Jewish butcher every night, that would have been fine with her.”

Photos by BJ Versoy

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This episode features our friends, chef Jasper White & chef and author, Annie Copps. They’ll each share a cranky yet funny story about food and friendship––and sealing the deal over a wonderful meal.

Jasper White - How A Cranky Diner Became My Best Friend

Chef Jasper White is credited nationally with reviving and re-inventing the regional traditions of New England Cooking. He spent much of his childhood on a farm near the Jersey Shore and credits his love of good food to his Italian grandmother.

In 1983 Jasper's Restaurant opened on Boston’s historic waterfront. Both Chef and restaurant received numerous awards and were featured extensively in national and local media. In 1990, Jasper was given the James Beard Award for Best Chef, Northeast. Jasper took time to spend with his three young children, as well as write two cookbooks: Lobster at Home (Scribner 1998) and Fifty Chowders (Scribner 2000). His first book, Jasper White's Cooking from New England, had been published in 1989. All three books received various awards and critical acclaim.

In 2000, Jasper White surprised people. He opened Jasper White's Summer Shack, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Where Jasper's Restaurant had been quietly elegant and formal, Summer Shack is a loud, energetic clam shack. – a Mecca for seafood lovers. After more than 45 years in the hospitality and seafood business, Jasper has recently hung up his apron and retired. He now lives most of the year in Cape Cod with his wife, Kathleen, and dog, Buster.

Annie Copps - Singles Awareness Day

"Valentine’s Day can be a real clunker for a single person. Twenty years ago I made the mistake of going out for Sunday brunch the morning after Valentine’s Day. You’ve heard of a marijuana haze? This was a post-coital haze. Everyone else in the restaurant had just rolled out of bed with their partner. That’s when I decided to start Singles Awareness Day."

Annie is a chef, cook author, writer, cooking teacher and TV and radio personality. In addition to cooking at many restaurants, she has been the food editor of Boston Magazine and Yankee Magazine. To learn more about the irrepressible Annie Copps, visit www.intellibelly.net

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This episode two of our favorite chefs, Lydia Shire and Will Gilson. Each will share a story of how far a chef will go for love -- or a recipe.

Lydia Shire - How much do I want this recipe?

Lydia Shire is simply one of the country’s leading chefs. Named to every high honor in the culinary world, including becoming the first female executive chef at a Four Season’s Hotel. Lydia began cooking in Boston at 21, as a young divorced mother with three small children. Her story of her drive, ingenuity and skill is inspirational, allowing her to rise to become one of the first female Executive Chef at a Four Seasons hotel, and launching numerous restaurants in her hometown, Boston including Scampo where she shares the executive chef honors with her son. For more about Lydia Shire, visit www.scampoboston.com

Will Gilson - If this olive-skinned man who smelled like a pack of Marlboro cigarettes told me I needed this rice dish in my life, imagine if I could bring it back to the United States and use it to charm women?

Chef Will Gilson is one of Boston’s most energetic and talented chefs. Will is a two-time James Beard semi-finalist and Puritan & Company was listed on Bon Appetit’s “50 Best Restaurants” shortly after it opened in late 2012.His flagship restaurant, Puritan & Company, is expanding from one to three additional locations in Cambridge over the next year in a new and connected neighborhood at the intersection of Cambridge, Somerville, and Boston. Café Beatrice, an all-day café; Geppetto, a full-service Italian restaurant slated to open in 2021; and The Lexington, a cocktail bar and restaurant with a rooftop terrace. For more about Will, take a gander at his website, https://www.puritancambridge.com

Photo Courtesy of Bjversoy

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Coming Soon, from HRN: Because everyone has a food story. From our first mouthful of applesauce in front of​ ​our adoring family, to our first bite into a jalapeño pepper, and everything in between, food is at the heart of the human experience. We love it. We need it. Food is family and ritual. Fun and work. Sophistication and guilty pleasure, scarcity and overabundance. Food makes us ecstatic and sometimes crazy. Food delights and disappoints. Can you think of a connector that binds us together more universally or seamlessly than our shared relationships with food? That’s what we do in this podcast: Share entertaining, evocative, celebratory, complicated and funny food stories.

Subscribe now to get the episodes as they launch!(Apple Podcasts|Stitcher|Spotify|RSS).

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