The Food Podcast

Cake, Pudding and the Space In Between with Colleen Thompson - is officially live! Yes we are back to regular programming after a little pause in the season. I haven’t been toes up and eating cake - I mean pudding - this whole time. I’ve been sorting out the semantics of dessert. It can be confusing, so the episode begins with a short primer on the sweet and savoury world of cakes and puddings, and how their names vary from place to place. The cake above, a Malva Pudding, is where a pudding and a cake intersect. It is also where the magic of science comes into play. The sponginess of this pudding happens when baking soda and vinegar meet- sweet bubbles and growth, that’s what this pudding/cake is all about. And the space in between? That’s the story that lives in this cake - its journey from South Africa to a little restaurant in Canada, and the story of writer and photographer Colleen Thompson who wrote a cookbook capturing the flavours of these places. And woven through the in between is music, because as Colleen writes, “music, like food, has an incredible ability to shape us. Songs describe the longings, the passions, the small details we might otherwise miss.” And like recipes, when we record these songs, we remember who we were when we loved them.I hope you enjoy this story of life, through the lens of a sweet, spongy, storied pudding. x LindsayLinks:* Dark Angel - featured in this episode with permission from Jill Barber, Rose Cousins and Jenn Grant* Colleen Thomspon - writer, photographer and raconteur Instagram @monkeyweddings* Monkey Weddings & Summer Sapphires - South Africa to Nova Scotia: Stories, Recipes and Memories (General Public Inc, 2020) * 32 Songs to Live and Cook By - Colleen Thompson* Field Guide, Halifax - Malva pudding is still on the menu!* Mrs. Beeton’s Cookery Book Malva Pudding - from Monkey Weddings & Summer Sapphires, reprinted with permission.Yield: 4-6 servingsINGREDIENTS1 tablespoon unsalted butter1 tablespoon smooth apricot jam2 teaspoons white wine vinegar1 cup flour1 teaspoon baking sodaPinch of salt1 cup granulated sugar1 large egg1 cup milkSyrup½ cup sugar½ cup heavy cream 3 tablespoons unsalted butter½ cup hot water(this is where some might add a splash of booze - Cognac if you have it!)* Preheat oven to 400°F and grease a square 9” baking dish.* In a small saucepan, over medium heat, melt the butter, apricot jam and vinegar together. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes. * In a mixing bowl combine the flour, baking soda and salt. * In a separate bowl, mix the egg and sugar together until the mixture is pale yellow - about 4 minutes. Add the butter, apricot jam and vinegar mixture to the eggs and sugar together with the milk and mix. * Add the flour mixture bit by bit and mix well. * Pour mixture into the baking dish and bake for 30-45 minutes until the pudding is golden and baked through (a skewer inserted should come out clean). * In a small saucepan, over medium heat combine all of the syrup ingredients and simmer until the sugar has dissolved. Pour the syrup over the cooked pudding and allow to cool for about 10 minutes. Serve with heavy cream, custard or vanilla ice cream.CreditsHosted by Lindsay Cameron WilsonEdited by Abigail CerquitellaTheme song is One More Night by Jenn Grant Follow: @thefoodpodcast and @lindsaycameronwilson Get full access to Food Stories at lindsaycameronwilson.substack.com/subscribe

This episode began with a prompt in my writing class - to explore a threshold moment. It could be an ending, a beginning, leaving something behind or entering into something new. It could be a boundary, a tipping point, the edge of an experience. I began by making lists, but like all good prompts, I found myself transported to a place I hadn’t expected - my grandmother’s apartment overlooking the Bedford Basin. And as I walked through the memory, images, flavours, aromas and textures emerged. And a recipe too. So here is it, an episode through the lens of my grandmother Vivian. I hope it transports you into your own threshold memories. Feel free to share a taste of them with me in the comments below. I’d love that.Thanks for listening, x LindsayCreditsHosted by Lindsay Cameron WilsonEdited by Abigail CerquitellaTheme song is One More Night by Jenn Grant Follow: @thefoodpodcast and @lindsaycameronwilson Get full access to Food Stories at lindsaycameronwilson.substack.com/subscribe

Lauren Gerrie is my guest this week on The Food Podcast. She is a New York based chef, a dancer, teacher, artist, collaborator and community builder. She’s a flavour alchemist, a master in texture, a cheerleader and a woman who barbecues scallops on the windy shores of Nova Scotia in a leotard. This conversation is a celebration of community through the lens of food, friendship, The Two Fat ladies, dance, movement and celebration. And Pat Benatar. Thanks for listening.Links:* We Belong by Pat Benatar * Ryan Heffington - Ted Talk: How Dance can unleash your inner joy* Moves Pure Joy - Instagram @movespurejoy* Lauren Gerrie - Instagram @laurengerrie * The Two Fat Ladies Complete Series on Youtube* Books for Cooks Notting Hill, LondonCreditsHosted by Lindsay Cameron WilsonEdited by Abigail CerquitellaTheme song is One More Night by Jenn Grant Follow: @thefoodpodcast and @lindsaycameronwilson Get full access to Food Stories at lindsaycameronwilson.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to season four, episode two of The Food Podcast! This episode is all about the storied history of the blue fin tuna, told through the lens of investigative food systems journalist Karen Pinchin. Through the writing of her book Kings of Their Own Ocean, a story that follows a tagged blue fin called Amelia back and forth across the Atlantic, we also learn about Karen. Karen and I are friends, but it wasn’t until I read this book that I learned how the story of what happens beneath the ocean can also uncover details of human life, Karen’s life. Thanks for listening, x LindsayLinks:* Karen Pinchin* Kings of Their Own Ocean - Penguin Random House Canada* Kings of Their Own Ocean on Audible And for a deeper dive into Kings of Their Own Ocean - * Gastro Pod: All About the Tuna Rollercoaster* Canadian Geographic * The American Scholar - On the Line* The New Yorker - The Magnificence of the Blue Fin Tuna* The Coast - The Reel DealCreditsHosted by Lindsay Cameron WilsonEdited by Abigail CerquitellaTheme song is One More Night by Jenn Grant Follow: @thefoodpodcast and @lindsaycameronwilson Get full access to Food Stories at lindsaycameronwilson.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to season four of The Food Podcast!In this episode, our first of the season, we mention - * Skyting Yoga * Kumi Sawyers* The poet Alden Nowlan * The Food Podcast Season 3 Ep 5 ‘All We Need is Here’ with Gillian BellThe Food Podcast is produced by Abby Cerquitella Get full access to Food Stories at lindsaycameronwilson.substack.com/subscribe

Season 3, Episode 7, Homemaking with Jill Barber, is live!Mentioned in this episode:* Jill Barber | Website | Instagram* Clint Smith on Stephen Colbert - Clint Smith: Poetry is the Act of Paying AttentionVia Jami Attenburg’s ‘#1000 words of summer ‘* Maggie MacKellar on The Food Podcast - Flavours of Home with Maggie MacKellar* Maggie MacKellar’s Substack, The Sit Spot - “Lucinda Williams and Me” * Angela Garbes - Essential Labor Mothering as Social Change * Alison Roman’s Key Lime Pie Edited by Abby Cerquitella Music by Jill Barber + Jenn Grant Get full access to Food Stories at lindsaycameronwilson.substack.com/subscribe

Gillian Bell has many stories to tell. She is an English cook, cake maker and social worker living in Brisbane. She can bake for a crowd with a broken oven. She loves poetry and the natural world around her. And, she travels the world making wedding cakes, only deciding on the direction the cake will take after she arrives at the venue, meets the couple and learns the flavour of their lives. This whimsical style of cake making invites intrigue, adventure, deep connection and, potential cake disasters. But as it turns out, Gillian doesn’t experience cake disasters - of course things go wrong, but nothing is a disaster when you see life through the lens of challenge and adventure. So this episode, the second in a two part series on cake disasters, has taken a turn. Yes there will be disasters, but Gillian guides us through them using ingenuity, resolve, extra buttercream and the most important tool in her cake-making kit: asking for help. Mentioned in this episode - * Gillian Bell Cake | IG @gillianbellcake | Web GillianBellCake https://www.gillianbellcake.com.au/privatecook* Part one of our series on cake disasters: Step Toward Disaster with Marianne Pfeffer Gjengedal* Dispatch to a Friend, Season 1, Episode 8 - * My newsletter, FOOD STORIES * Wendell Berry’s What We Need is Here * Ottolenghi’s Za’tar Salmon with Tahini CreditsHosted by Lindsay Cameron WilsonEdited by Abigail CerquitellaTheme song is One More Night by Jenn Grant Follow: @thefoodpodcast and @lindsaycameronwilson Get full access to Food Stories at lindsaycameronwilson.substack.com/subscribe

This episode is all about the wonder of the mussel, the edible kind. We’ll explore their beauty, resilience, innovation, taste and the ways they’re providing answers to food scarcity here on the east coast of Canada. We’ll beachcomb, cook, and learn how easy mussels are to make at home. We’ll meet Tiago Hori, director of Innovation at Atlantic Aqua Farms on Prince Edward Island, who will walk us through the biology of the mussel, and explain how they are cultivated in the waters off PEI. And, we’ll reminisce about the mark they’ve made on me, from jobs I’ve had to what they’ve taught me about living, all on this episode of The Food Podcast. We mention:Atlantic Aqua Farms On Being episode featuring Janine Benyus Biomimicry.orgHeather Waugh Pitts IG Find her mussel shells at Conifer Shop IG Recipe for the Sweet Chili Thai Mussels on Food Stories, my newsletter that you can subscribe to herePeimussel.com - for recipes, information and those videos…CreditsHosted by Lindsay Cameron WilsonEdited by Abigail CerquitellaTheme song is One More Night by Jenn Grant Follow: @thefoodpodcast and @lindsaycameronwilson Get full access to Food Stories at lindsaycameronwilson.substack.com/subscribe

We’re happy to welcome you back to The Food Podcast with our first episode of the season: The Jellyfish Buffet. It begins with a turtle soup savoured in a 19th Century Danish home, then travels to present day Nova Scotia, where Sea Turtles visit from the Caribbean every summer. We meet Kathleen Martin, Executive Director of the Canadian Sea Turtle Network, who explains why Sea Turtles find their way to Nova Scotia, and what challenges they face on their epic journey. We also learn about the lion’s main jellyfish, the Sea Turtle’s favourite food. It’s a meandering coastal exploration, on this episode of The Food Podcast. We discuss:Babette’s Feast Muppet Show Turtle Soup The Sea Turtle Scoop Kathleen Martin, Executive Director of the Canadian Sea Turtle Network Chef Oliver Rowe’s recreation of Babette Feast in Vice Magazine Food Stories - a Newsletter - lindsaycameronwilson.substack.comCreditsHosted by Lindsay Cameron WilsonEdited by Abby CerquitellaTheme song is One More Night by Jenn Grant Follow: @thefoodpodcast and Food Stories A Finely Sliced Soup I’ve been working on speaking French, slowly, lentement, since I studied in France at the end of university. My French roommate Cécile and I are still friends. Last June I visited Cécile and we spent the week cooking, eating, walking and exploring favourite places while speaking our usual mélange of French and English. I get scrambled from time to time, like one evening when Cécile was in her garden and asked me if I would like to help her arrose le jardin (water the garden). I heard, would you like a rosé dans le jardin ( a rosé in the garden)? So I went inside and opened the fridge in search of a bottle of rosé while Cécile watched me from the garden door, a watering can in her hand. Rosé, in addition to a lovely pink wine, means the colour pink in French. Early spring in my Halifax kitchen means wintery foods with a tiny touch of pink. I say this every year, I know. But I, we, need this colour when the ground is still frozen, buds are weeks from unfurling and crocuses are just peeking through. Pink is the bridge. I find it in the beet microgreens I scatter over salads, or in the cluster of pickled red onions balanced on top of a bowlful of chili. Thinly sliced radishes also work. So does my pink hat. So this is why I placed a bunch of fat, crinkly, rainbow chard leaves in my grocery cart the other day. Their magenta stems are wide and tender crisp like celery. They take longer to cook than the leaves, so I will chop them separately and add them to the beginning of a soup with the chopped onions and garlic. But this extra time in the pan means the pink stems will fade to a dark, murky tone, as though winter’s claw is pulling them back into the soil. Vibrance isn’t in season, not quite yet. Ribollita is on the menu. It’s an Italian soup made with vegetables, cannellini beans, yesterday’s bread and a good grating of parmesan cheese. I have chard, a big bunch of Tuscan kale, a random assortment of vegetables and a loaf of almost stale sourdough- the perfect lid for this homey, almost-spring soup. But I had forgotten about the bread. I thought we were getting better at anticipating Dottie’s unrestrained desire for food. We know not to leave slices of pizza in a pizza box on the center of the kitchen island, many paw lengths away, or chocolate chip cookies inside a glass jar, sitting on the counter, or a bowl of cat food casually on the floor. Of course not. We didn’t know that Dottie could pull open a bread drawer with her paw and help herself to the delicacies inside. Well she can. So I made the ribollita without the bread. Ribollita translates from Italian as ‘re-boil.’ It’s a soup meant to sit on the stove for hours, boiling and re-boiling as people come and go. The vegetables inside are hearty and forgiving. The cannellini beans might turn to mush and the stale bread will eventually melt into the soup, but this only makes it better. I used to think ribollita was a nod to the word ribbons - ribbons of kale and ribbons of chard, swirled together in the pan with finely sliced leeks, sticks of celery and whatever other vegetables you have on hand. A celebration of strips of things. The internet tells me ribbons translates to nastri in Italian. Ribollita sounds more appetizing. As I made the soup I jotted down measurements and recipe notes with a golden mechanical pencil. I gave it to my middle son, Charlie, last Christmas. Charlie loves a sharp pencil. We used to have a jar in the kitchen filled with yellow HB pencils and a manual sharpener that vacuum sealed to the counter. He’s moved on to mechanical pencils, and this one, a brass beauty that I bought at Inkwell around the corner, is special. Charlie says it’s a bit ‘extra’ for highschool math class, so we keep it in the kitchen for moments like these. I served the soup to my conversational French class. We gather once a week, taking turns at each other’s houses, trying our best to chat in French as we eat lunch. I served the soup after its first boil - the colours had faded from vibrant pinks to ruddy reds and forest greens. But a grating of parmesan lifted the tones, and the new loaf of bread I had to buy sopped up the juices beautifully. It was a ribbons of greens soup, rubans de verdue, with a flavourful, faded, touch of rosé.A Ribollita of sorts3 leeks1 red onion3 cloves garlic3 ribs of celery 1 bunch of rainbow chard (slice the stems and green tops, but set stems aside)1 bunch of kale, sliced greens only, discard the stems*sliced greens amounted to 7 cups / 250g in total - they shrink a lot!2 tablespoons olive oil5 baby potatoes (that’s how many I had on hand) halved1 x 398ml can chopped tomatoesA good pinch of chili flakes1 x 540 ml can cannellini beans6-8 cups vegetable or chicken stock (1.5-ish litres)A parmesan rind, if you have oneSalt and pepper to tasteBegin by finely slicing all the vegetables, except for the potatoes which can be halved or quartered, depending on their size. Heat olive oil in a large soup pot and add the leeks, onion, garlic, celery and stems from the chard. Mine were bright pink, aren’t they gorgeous? Stir well, add a pinch of salt, and let the vegetables cook low and slow, about 30 minutes, until soft. Add the potatoes, the can of tomatoes, a good pinch of chili flakes and stir, leaving to cook for five minutes more. Add beans, stock, parmesan rind (it’s a block of flavour), salt and pepper to taste and simmer gently until potatoes are cooked through. Add more stock if soup gets too thick. Serve with a good grating of parmesan cheese. Get full access to Food Stories at lindsaycameronwilson.substack.com/subscribe

Kate Inglis is a multi-creative - a writer, photographer, a brand strategist, a champion thrifter with the best tickle trunk around. She’s a magical host of workshops, of outdoor gatherings, she’s a lover of the outside, a skier, a mountain biker, and a wood chopper. And now, a person who’s been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that required her to overhaul her life. Kate is here today to tell us about this diagnosis, how it dragged her through the fire, and what it feels like to be living on the other side.We discuss:Kate Inglis’s websiteKate’s InstagramDr. Mark Hyman - functional medicine and foodDr. Andrew Huberman - sleepWim Hof - cold and breath therapyChef Laura Rodriguez - 'anti-inflammatory comfort food'—everyone is unique, and food protocols vary, but she hits the broad strokesThe Happy Pear - Irish Sea sunrise dipsKate’s favourite recipes right now:Raw Oreo Cookies — I have these in my freezer all the time. I had googled 'sugar-free dairy-free grain-free gluten-free cookies' as a grumpy joke and now these are a staple. The cookie dough and cream filling are made in the bullet blender. Best eaten straight out of the freezer. Melty and rich and so lovely.Savory Chickpea Pancakes—I googled these after having them in a restaurant in Toronto, with a warm roasted beet salad on top. These are so fast and easy to make, and could easily be made sweet instead of savory. Made a little thicker, they make almost a flatbread—an excellent replacement for a pita and filled with pork tenderloin or chicken and (cashew cream) tzatziki with cucumber. So yummy.Corn-Free Cornbread—Another chickpea flour triumph, found while experimenting to make a Thanksgiving stuffing. Such a good feeling to find that as well as a delicious vegan gravy—which combined, these two cover me for all the fall and winter holidays.CreditsHosted by Lindsay Cameron WilsonEdited by Abby CerquitellaTheme song is One More Night by Jenn Grant Follow: @thefoodpodcast and @lindsaycameronwilson Get full access to Food Stories at lindsaycameronwilson.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode writer and political organizer Anna Lee Hirschi shares her essay Having your Cake. The essay prompted thoughts on food as an escape, as a tool for sharing, and the importance of cherishing food all alone, just for the pleasure of it. We dip into the wisdom of Claudia Roden and we eat a Sephardic orange and almond cake. There’s a moment with M.F.K Fisher and a tangerine, and a peanut butter sandwich with my dad. Thanks for listening. The Ground Cherry - Physalis pruinosaJane KenyonHannah Arendt Claudia Roden’s A New Book of Middle Eastern FoodMFK Fisher’s essay Borderland, in Serve it ForthCreditsHosted by Lindsay Cameron WilsonEdited by Abby CerquitellaTheme song is One More Night by Jenn Grant Follow: @thefoodpodcast and @lindsaycameronwilson Get full access to Food Stories at lindsaycameronwilson.substack.com/subscribe

In this, our second episode of the season, we patch in abstract artist Nicola Bennet from her studio in New Zealand. Nicola’s art practice is fed by food. For Nicola it all begins in the kitchen where she gets to know an ingredient - like ripe apricots, black truffles, or feijoas - then she cooks with the ingredient, tastes it, inhales it, perhaps squishes it in her hands until a connection is made. Then, she heads into her studio and begins the process of creating a painting, usually as big as Nicola, inspired by what’s on the plate. We explore this process, how it came to be, how her senses inform each painting, and how Nicola knows when the work ‘tastes just right.’ This episode is a sensory explosion, a trip to a home by a waterfall, it’s a riot of colour, of flavour, and a chat with a friend. Thanks for Listening.Nicola Bennett @nicolabennettart nicolabennett.co.nzSandra Brownlee Reference to Daily Routines by the Manson Podcasting NetworkCreditsHosted by Lindsay Cameron WilsonEdited by Abby CerquitellaTheme song is One More Night by Jenn Grant Follow: @thefoodpodcast and @lindsaycameronwilson Get full access to Food Stories at lindsaycameronwilson.substack.com/subscribe