The As Told By Podcast – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Redefining the narrative around a pantry staple, Steve Sando went from being a home-based bean grower to the CEO & Founder of Rancho Gordo, expanding the market's perceptions of beans! 

An alternative to the standard grocery store fare, Rancho Gordo merges the agricultural prowess of growing regions in the US and the Americas, exposing consumers to heirloom beans with varieties deeply rooted in indigeneity, simplicity, and flavor. 

This week, Kahja talks with Steve about leveraging unconventionality, the actual definition of heirloom beans, experiences that unknowingly lead to your passion, building sourcing relationships based on trust and mutual benefit, ex-pat theory and the impact on regions, partnering with communities for the long haul, allowing beans to be the star of a dish, curating an informed shopping experience, challenging customer perspectives around beans from a food of resource to one of refinement, the Bean Club waiting list that's grown to 20k+ people, creating an attraction in Napa beyond wine, and why your later success just might be your best act yet. 

Recorded on location in Napa, CA.

RanchoGordo.com

@rancho_gordo

Find Rancho Gordo products near you!

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Intro music by Diff Works

New Orleans is renowned for its marriage of culture and food from savory to sweet, and Chay J's New Orleans Candies is helping to keep those vows intact! With an assortment of creative confections, owner Channon "Chay" Powell is honoring her family's traditions in both business and the kitchen bringing classic flavors and fun twists to her sweet New Orleans-themed treats!

In this episode, Kahja talks with Channon about early exposure to being a business owner, unintentionally becoming an entrepreneur, the growing pains of growth, the implications of scaling, experiencing the Keith Lee effect, progression in business disguised as setbacks, and building a business to serve as a cultural legacy. 

Recorded on location in Atlanta, GA.

Watch Keith Lee's Chay J's review!

ChayJs.com

@chayjs

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Picture going to work at one of the biggest global tech companies and pausing midday to take a cooking class! This may not sound like a traditional workplace experience, but for employees at Google's San Francisco campus, it's a tasty way to spice up a day in the office! 

Led by Executive Sous Chef Randy Wilkes, KitchenSync is a full teaching kitchen where culinary professionals lead participants through in-person and digital classes centered on the joy of cooking recipes together that are both culturally and seasonally relevant, focusing on a hands-on, step-by-step approach to building confidence in the kitchen.

This week, Kahja talks with Chef Randy about the strategy of learning more than just your role, pivoting away from the call of culinary burnout, the art of teaching food preparation, industry optionality through corporate dining, structuring dishes for maximum flavor balance, understanding the science of recipes, electing a more leisurely career path, and picking the culinary road that's right for you.

Recorded on location in San Francisco, CA.

@badpanda9

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You are what you eat, and with more information available than ever before about the relationship between food and wellness, Dasan The Medicine Man is leading the charge at Natrully Herbs & More with a community-centric approach to improving health outcomes through diet, nature, and looking at the body through the lens of systems.

This week, Kahja talks with Dasan about casually discovering the power of herbal remedies and their presence in plain sight, the danger of silencing the body's natural alarm systems, challenging traditions around cultural foodways, understanding how your body's systems use food for performance, making small changes toward healthful eating, early ways to identify needs, looking at food from a functional perspective, and taking an active role in our own well-being.

Recorded on location in Richmond, CA.

@natrullyherbs

@dasanthemedicineman

Natrully Herbs & More

Save 50% off an initial consultation with Natrully Herbs & More, exclusively for The As Told By Podcast listeners! Click here to schedule.

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Bringing creative visions to life is front and center at Diff Works, a multimedia firm co-founded by Oakland natives TK Campbell and Lamont Harper; leveraging a lifetime of artistic expression from music to marketing and PR to non-profit work, they turned a childhood friendship into a business model with a multi-disciplinary client roster spanning projects across audio, video, photography, and brand development and campaigns, with a focus on community development and engagement, including their work as creative partners for KayInTheBay and The As Told By Podcast.

This week, Kahja talks with TK and Lamont about early seeds of creativity that took root, learning about your hometown by leaving it, bringing your personal strengths to a partnership and trusting who you're in business with, leading projects that align with people's personal brand, meeting needs before they become needs, viewing skills as functional tools, growing by actually doing the work, side hustles moving from the background to the foreground, finding the right creative partnership for you, being in an expansion phase, and learning from the collective journeys of the people around you.

Recorded on location in Oakland, CA.

@stay_diff

Diff Works

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Oakland's food scene showcases the city's diversity, and from the Laurel to Grand Lake, Kao Saelee is making his mark as owner and operator of Jo's Modern Thai and The Peach, two restaurants highlighting distinct versions of Southeast Asian cuisine: an innovative menu at Jo's Modern Thai led by Chef Nui Surach, and a Filipino-inspired brunch menu at The Peach under the direction of Chef Harold Villarosa.

This week, Kahja talks with Kao about opening a restaurant after watching the impact of COVID on the industry, and creating a blueprint for people to enjoy contemporary interpretations of the culture; Chefs Nui and Harold talk about lessons in food from their upbringing in Bangkok and The Bronx and parallels to the Bay, the kinship between Thai and Filipino ingredients and cooking styles, paying attention to neighborhoods as a way to inform the customer experience, and making their own exciting and unique impressions as new chefs at existing restaurants. Kao also shares hindsight lessons learned navigating the people dynamics of running restaurants, and his hopes for the road ahead at both Jo's Modern Thai and The Peach.

Recorded on location in Oakland, CA.

@josmodernthai

@thepeachbrunch

Jo's Modern Thai

The Peach

Check out Jo's Modern Thai for lunch on Fri, 10/24 through Sunday 10/26 from 1130a-230p!

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Everyone loves a good old-fashioned scoop of ice cream, but add classic, culturally relevant, eclectic flavors to the mix and you've got De La Creamery! Founded in 2020 by Stephanie De La Cruz, her cool, creamy confections have become one of the Bay Area's favorite pop-ups with her take on the heritage of Mexican dessert flavors.

This week, Kahja and Stephanie talk about early representations of women in the kitchen, the gift that turned into a business idea, the trial and error process of developing flavors that represent cultural roots, the grind of pop-up life and all of the accompanying roles, being intentional about collaborative relationships, ice cream kinks, how changes to corporate diversity impacts small businesses, being relegated to a single month of cultural recognition, navigating the fear of the current social landscape, the efficacy and viability of business models on the other side of racial equity commitments, how to support during the off-season, and favorite classic ice cream treats.

Recorded on location in Oakland, CA.

@delacreamery

De La Creamery

Find De La Creamery on Sundays at Tacos Oscar and on Tuesdays at South Berkeley Farmers Market!

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Holding space in the worlds of recipe development, private cheffing, food blogging, and content creation for more than a decade, Angela Davis launched The Kitchenista Diaries, a brand all about the skill and solace of creating food centering quality ingredients, technique, and deliciousness, building an audience in the world of food content creation before it was a social media staple.

This week, Kahja talks with Angela about the nuances of meeting new people, growing up in a family with cultural diversity, healing trauma through cooking, the firing that led to a life pivot, peace vs. the internet, reclaiming the joy of your passion, bucking norms in the name of self-preservation and creating your own traditions, monetizing your work early on, and transitioning into brand new endeavors that make room for personal and professional evolution beyond the internet.

Recorded on location in Detroit, MI.

@thekitchenista

The Kitchenista Diaries on Patreon

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From holidays to game days to any day of the week, Jiffy Mixes (@jiffymixes) earned a place in the hearts and kitchens of generations of home cooks around the world, turning their family origins in flour milling into boxed mixes that represent memories and deliciousness, becoming a pantry staple with products that help people bring endless recipe options to their tables, one little blue and white box at a time!

And who better to share the story behind this iconic brand than Howdy Holmes, former President & CEO turned Cultural & Strategic Advisor, and part of the Holmes family lineage behind the brand, whose start dates back to the mid-1800s.

This week, Kahja talks with Howdy about the Holmes family's beginnings in the flour industry, the trailblazing woman who turned milling into mixes, the unique nuances of running a family business, proving yourself during a career pivot, creating a workplace that prioritizes the employee experience, evolving societal norms around cooking, growth outside of traditional marketing, and centering simplicity and consumer value to build a legacy brand.

Recorded on location at the Chelsea Milling Company in Chelsea, MI.

@jiffymixes

JIffy Mixes

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Born in 2011 and growing to include outposts in Oakland, Albany, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, Oaktown Spice Shop created a trail of flavor that led to kitchens in California and beyond! 

Co-founded by John Beaver and Erica Perez, they've curated approachable spaces that cater to curious home cooks, chefs, and restaurants alike, focusing on an extensive selection of spices from around the world, knowledgeable service, and creating third spaces for communities of food lovers.

This week, Kahja talks with John and Erica about the high school job that turned him into a Spice SME (subject matter expert), learning the business of running a shop, scaling and navigating systems and growth during the pandemic, creating an immersive in-store experience, their place in The As Told By Podcast history, operational throughlines of different kinds of businesses, coming up with unique blends, and a few unexpected spice grinding misnomers.

Recorded on location in Berkeley, CA.

@oaktownspice

Oaktown Spice Shop

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Intro music by Diff Works