The Food Podcast is a show where personal stories are shared through the lens of food. Join host Lindsay Cameron Wilson, a best-selling cookbook author and journalist, as she takes you on an adventure through sound, story, music and memory. Food is the launching point, the portal. Human stories, however, are at the heart of each episode. It's a food and story podcast, if you will, released monthly, after a long simmer, when the flavour it just right.
Welcome to the final episode of Season four. If youâve been here for a while, youâll know that âseasonâ is a loose word. Season one lasted about 5 years⊠Since then weâve tidied things up around here with eight episodes per season. And here we are, at number eight.
Thereâs never been a theme to the seasons, but looking back over season four, I see a thru-line connecting the episodes. The theme is Nova Scotia - the place where I produce these episodes, the place where I live.
Above is an image of the Halifax Central Library where I record The Food Podcast. Itâs a bright, white space with stairs, bridges and atriums connecting the five stories. On the second floor is a sound studio thatâs open to the public. It has become my room of oneâs own, my quiet space, uninterrupted and sound proofed from the outside world, just two blocks from my house.
In episode one of the season - Balancing in the Middle- I promised to look back at where we began, where weâve ended, and what weâve learned in between. So here I am at the library, in a red room, feet on the floor, headphones on, balancing in the middle, looking back over the season.
Thanks for exploring life through the lens of food with me. It means so much.
Iâll back back with Season 5. Take care in the meantime,
Cake, Pudding and the Space In Between with Colleen Thompson - Â is officially live! Yes we are back to regular programming after a little pause in the season. I havenât been toes up and eating cake - I mean pudding - this whole time. Iâve 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, thatâs what this pudding/cake is all about.Â
And the space in between? Thatâs 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, âmusic, like food, has an incredible ability to shape us. Songs describe the longings, the passions, the small details we might otherwise miss.â 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.Â
x Lindsay
Links:
* Dark Angel - featured in this episode with permission from Jill Barber, Rose Cousins and Jenn Grant
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.Â
But as it turns out, Gillian doesnât 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.Â
Mentioned in this episode -
* Gillian Bell Cake | IG @gillianbellcake | Web GillianBellCake https://www.gillianbellcake.com.au/privatecook
Step Toward Disaster with Marianne Pfeffer Gjengedal
Tuesday, May 9, 2023 âą Duration 29:54
What do you do when things go wrong? This episode of The Food Podcast is all about learning to face disasters. Norwegian content producer Marianne Pfeffer Gjengedal, maker of the most colourful, delightful and fantastical tall cakes, shares her cake disaster story and wisdom on how to roll when things go awry. Itâs an episode all about pushing through the pain, trusting, and practicing a lot so when disaster does strike, youâre ready for it.Â
This episode is all about the wonder of the mussel, the edible kind. Weâll explore their beauty, resilience, innovation, taste and the ways theyâre providing answers to food scarcity here on the east coast of Canada. Weâll beachcomb, cook, and learn how easy mussels are to make at home. Weâll 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, weâll reminisce about the mark theyâve made on me, from jobs Iâve had to what theyâve taught me about living, all on this episode of The Food Podcast. Â
Welcome to episodetwo of our third season of The Food Podcast, where we peek under the hood of the show to see how ideas become stories. Weâll jump over stones in the river, learn to take criticism, try to tell the truth and tap into curiosity. Weâll also talk about the importance of putting our work out into the world, quickly. Thatâs what Jenn Grant does. And we'll find value in smelling like soup. Trust me! Thanks for listening!
And special thanks to friend and writer Karen Pinchin for guidance on teaching a class
Helpful tools when creating a podcast:
* Descript - an app that allows you to edit sound from text
* - an excellent source for audio to sprinkle into storiesÂ
Get full access to Food Stories at
The Jellyfish Buffet with Kathleen Martin
Saturday, April 1, 2023 âą Duration 28:00
Weâre 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 lionâs main jellyfish, the Sea Turtleâs favourite food. Itâs a meandering coastal exploration, on this episode of The Food Podcast.Â
Malva Pudding - from Monkey Weddings & Summer Sapphires, reprinted with permission.
Yield: 4-6 servings
INGREDIENTS
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon smooth apricot jam
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 cup milk
Syrup
œ cup sugar
Âœ cup heavy creamÂ
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
œ 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 9â 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.Â
* In a mixing bowl combine the flour, baking soda and salt.Â
* 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.Â
* Add the flour mixture bit by bit and mix well.Â
* 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).Â
* 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.
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 winterâs claw is pulling them back into the soil. Vibrance isnât in season, not quite yet.Â
Ribollita is on the menu. Itâs an Italian soup made with vegetables, cannellini beans, yesterdayâs 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.Â
But I had forgotten about the bread. I thought we were getting better at anticipating Dottieâs 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 didnât know that Dottie could pull open a bread drawer with her paw and help herself to the delicacies inside. Well she can.Â
So I made the ribollita without the bread.Â
Ribollita translates from Italian as âre-boil.â Itâs 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.Â
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.Â
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. Heâs moved on to mechanical pencils, and this one, a brass beauty that I bought at Inkwell around the corner, is special. Charlie says itâs a bit âextraâ for highschool math class, so we keep it in the kitchen for moments like these.Â
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 oil
5 baby potatoes (thatâs how many I had on hand) halved
1 x 398ml can chopped tomatoes
A good pinch of chili flakes
1 x 540 ml can cannellini beans
6-8 cups vegetable or chicken stock (1.5-ish litres)
A parmesan rind, if you have one
Salt and pepper to taste
Begin 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, arenât 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 (itâs 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.Â
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