About this episode

The episode explores the connections between Filipino culture, food, and community through the lens of the Siling Labuyo pepper and various collaborative projects in Philadelphia.

Nicky Uy, Omar Buenaventura, Maria Dumlao, and Bitter Kalli have been coming together over Filipino foods, seeds, and stories for many years now. In this episode, we hear about the ways they weave their connections back to the Philippines and within their networks in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, growing portals to memory, meaning, and each other. We conducted this interview on January 30th, 2026 at Nicky and Omar's dining room table in South Philly after a delicious dinner featuring many of the ingredients we explore in this conversation. We especially focus on Siling Labuyo, and many other plants and dishes (see below), as well as collaborations with Truelove Seeds such as their art project with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, an exhibition with the Acadamy of Natural Sciences, Bahay215's mobile seed library, and many other ways the four of them share Filipino culture. Here are their bios: Bahay215 is a Philadelphia based art collaborative by Nicky Uy and Omar Buenaventura. Inspired by experiences living in Lenapehoking and growing up in the Philippines, their installations include materials such as plants, bamboo, natural dye and soil and include activities like cooking and…

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