50 Tastes Of Gray

Sara Causey joins host Matthew Gray of 50 Tastes Of Gray for an unscripted conversation about authenticity, creativity, art, and building a life that feels genuinely hers. A biographer, author, and artist, Causey explains why she rejected the conventional path to success, how she lets creative projects evolve, and why meaningful work often requires stepping beyond what feels safe.

What if numbness isn't apathy — but overload?

In this episode of 50 Tastes of Gray, I sit down with writer and journalist Maria Cassano (The Good Girl Recovery Guide, upcoming memoir Numb, Party of One - Feb 2027) for an honest conversation about depersonalization, derealization, and the cost of being the "good girl."

Maria shares what it was like to feel gone for years, why people-pleasing and hyper-empathy can tip the nervous system into shutdown, and how everyday rituals — coffee, boundaries, and yes, magic shell — became tools for coming back.

We get into:

The real lived experience of depersonalization vs. the clinical definition

If you’ve ever felt numb, checked out, or “too much” and “not enough” at the same time — this one is for you.

Jenny Linford grew up across Ghana, Trinidad, Singapore, Italy, and London, experiences that shaped her lifelong fascination with flavor, markets, and regional food traditions. In this episode, Jenny explains the difference between British supper, dinner, and pudding; shares her family’s Queen of Puddings recipe; and tells the story of Nigella Lawson DM’ing her to say she was a fan.

We explore her self‑taught path into food writing, her global childhood, the immigrant food shops that taught her how to cook, and how she researched London’s food scene before the internet. Jenny talks about Singapore hawker centers, regional Italian food, the rise of British cuisine, the decline of fishmongers, and why markets matter more than ever.

She also discusses cookbook production, writing for Kew Gardens and the British Museum, artisan cider and cheese, AI’s impact on food publishing, and her cheese podcast A Slice of Cheese. This conversation is warm, generous, nostalgic, and full of food stories that last.

Follow Jenny Linford:

https://JennyLinford.co.uk/

https://www.instagram.com/jlinford

Follow Matthew Gray:  

📩[email protected]

📸 Instagram: @50tastesofgray

#foodwriter #britishfood #globalflavors #homecooking #foodstories

A delightfully unhinged conversation about sourdough, butter wars, cat cuddles, Pittsburgh fries, and the chaos of being human.

He paid fifty bucks to mail sourdough to Canada — and somehow that wasn’t even the strangest part of the conversation.

This episode is pure, delightful silliness. It’s food, life, marketing, cats, Pittsburgh fries‑on‑everything culture, Dan Aykroyd, poop, and the kind of unexpected stories that only happen when two people stop trying to be serious and just hang out.

We talk about homemade sourdough, the cold‑butter debate, gluten‑free cornflake chicken, and why Will’s smoothie is measured like a NASA experiment. We wander into Pittsburgh comfort food, childhood memories, outdoor adventures, and the existential question of whether cornflakes should be allowed to “sing.”

But the episode also gets surprisingly useful:

Along the way, we hit:

Gluten sensitivity and the hidden places gluten lurks

Cats with human names and the art of cat‑armpit cuddling

Why adults should go outside and act like kids

The smell of rain (petrichor) and why it makes people feel alive

Celebrity chefs, BLTs, avocado toast, and Pittsburgh fries‑on‑everything culture

Chainsaws, yard work, and the joy of doing something physical

Neurotic New York Jew humor, childhood nostalgia, and cultural identity

Travel stories, music memories, and the food that reveals who you are

If you like food, weird stories, sharp conversation, and a little observational nonsense, this episode is your jam.

#Sourdough

#FoodPodcast

#Marketing

#Storytelling

#podcastinterview #50TastesOfGray

Katie and Chris Bowick sit down with me on 50 Tastes Of Gray to talk openly about addiction and the ways it shaped their lives. This conversation is not a recovery seminar. It is not a redemption arc. It is two people telling the truth as they remember it, even when those memories do not match.

We explore how addiction rearranged their timelines, how humor survived the hardest years, and how storytelling becomes a way to hold conflicting truths at the same time. The episode moves between laughter, tension, and reflection. It stays human. It stays honest. It stays in the gray.

Follow Chris & Katie:

Coloring Outside the Lines: A Love Story in the Gray of Addiction, Recovery, and Redemption​

Available https://shorturl.at/uxhcj

📘 Facebook:  @LoveThroughTheGray 

📸 Instagram:  @LoveThroughTheGray  TikTok: @lovethroughthegray

▶️ YouTube: @LoveThroughTheGray Follow Matthew Gray:

🎙️ 50 Tastes Of Gray — Broadcasting from Honolulu. One guest. No rules. New episodes weekly.

📸 Instagram: @50tastesofgray

📘 Facebook: facebook.com/50TastesOfGrayPodcast

💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/matthew-gray-hawaii

✍️ Substack: 50TastesOfGray.substack.com

▶️ YouTube: @50TastesOfGray

#SoberLiving #AddictionRecovery #MarriedCouples #RecoveryJourney #50TastesOfGray

Decadent & Notorious pretty much sums up Mindy Crosato.

She's the force behind Decadent Creations and the creator of Notorious B.A.G.E.L., two very different expressions of the same obsession: making food interesting.

On 50 Tastes Of Gray, Matthew Gray sits down with Mindy for a wide-ranging conversation about macarons, champagne, unconventional bagels, food waste, culinary creativity, French food, family and building food businesses.

Mindy talks about the precision behind her macarons, including her memorable “happy elf” meringue test, and why she personally still makes roughly 1,000 macarons a week.

Then there's Notorious B.A.G.E.L.

Mindy explains why she created a separate business around her bagels and why she deliberately went in an unconventional direction. Chicken soup bagels, Frito pie bagels, furikake, kimchi egg and inventive cream cheeses are part of the mix.

The conversation also gets into champagne and sparkling wine, including Mindy's love of Spanish traditional-method sparkling wine, her reputation as a food snob, and the memorable story of her “divorce bottle” of Dom Pérignon.

One of the most fascinating parts of the conversation is Mindy's approach to food waste. Her bakery has developed what she calls “carryover pathways” and “utilization pathways,” finding new uses for products that might otherwise be discarded. Brioche and croissants become bread pudding. Cookies become crumble. Whole leftover pies can become filling for cinnamon rolls.

Mindy also talks about:

Decadent Creations

And then Mindy takes over the interview.

She turns the questions on Matthew, getting into what he cooks at home, his spice pantry, roasting coffee, Hawaii and the years he spent building Hawaii Food Tours.

It's a conversation about food, but it's really a conversation about how people think, create, build businesses, and decide what makes life worth tasting.

This is 50 Tastes Of Gray.

00:00 — Decadent & Notorious

In this episode of 50 Tastes of Gray, Matthew Gray sits down with former private jeweler and mental‑performance trainer Kendra Lockhart for a raw, cinematic conversation about the diamond industry’s hidden corners, the solar‑eclipse tattoo that changed her life, and the reinvention that pulled her out of burnout.

Kendra opens with a powerful story of loss, intuition, and the white‑ink tattoo she carries as a reminder that “the sun never sets.” From there, she reveals the truth behind the jewelry world — the ethics, the chaos, the lab‑grown disruption, and the emotional toll of working inside an industry built on beauty and pressure.

The conversation shifts into identity, mental performance, burnout, and the psychology of rebuilding yourself from the inside out. Kendra explains how she helps people navigate grief, overwhelm, reinvention, and the invisible mechanics of the mind.

And then Chicago enters the room — food, culture, deep dish, tomato allergies, Midwest emotional etiquette, and the soulful moments that define the city.

This episode is about truth, transformation, and the strange, beautiful ways people find themselves again.

Follow Kendra: https://www.instagram.com/kendra.lockhart/

Follow Matthew Gray:

🎙️ 50 Tastes Of Gray - Broadcasting from Honolulu. One guest. No rules. New episodes weekly. Subscribe for more. 📸 Instagram: @50tastesofgray

📘 Facebook: facebook.com/50TastesOfGrayPodcast

💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/matthew-gray-hawaii

✍️ Substack: 50TastesOfGray.substack.com

▶️ YouTube: @50TastesOfGray

#50TastesOfGray

#KendraLockhart

#DiamondIndustry

#MentalPerformance

#ChicagoCulture

Ten years ago, Tricia Baxley's husband of twenty-one years died by suicide. What followed wasn't just grief — it was the complete unraveling of who she thought she was.

In this conversation, Tricia opens up about the addiction and enabling that shaped her marriage long before that night, the eerie moment she felt her husband tell her he was "disconnected," and the minister who broke down in tears hearing her story because it was the exact explanation he'd never been able to give for his own attempt decades earlier.

We talk about telling her sons the truth, the fifty fraternity brothers who left their own families on Parents Weekend to show up for her son at the funeral, the unorthodox therapist who screamed at her that none of it was her fault, and how she rebuilt an entire identity from nothing.

This one goes to some heavy places. It's also, ultimately, about resilience.

⚠️ Content note: This episode discusses suicide and addiction in detail. If you or someone you know is struggling, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988) is available 24/7 in the US.

Find Tricia: pathforhealing4.com · Books on Amazon under Tricia Baxley

Follow Matthew Gray:

🎙️ 50 Tastes Of Gray - Broadcasting from Honolulu. One guest. No rules. New episodes weekly. Subscribe for more. 📸 Instagram: @50tastesofgray

📘 Facebook: facebook.com/50TastesOfGrayPodcast

💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/matthew-gray-hawaii

✍️ Substack: 50TastesOfGray.substack.com

▶️ YouTube: @50TastesOfGray

#resilience #griefjourney #suicideprevention #MentalHealthPodcast #50TastesOfGray

George Switzer walked into the studio as “the guy who runs Queen Anne Ravioli Factory,” but that turned out to be the least interesting thing about him. What followed was one of those rare conversations where a man’s entire life — the chaos, the humor, the heartbreak, the Brooklyn corners, the cops, the catechism, the liquor cabinet, the inheritance battles — all show up without him ever trying to perform.

You opened the episode with the truth: "George doesn’t perform his stories, he just tells them. Laugh, funny, completely unbothered." And later, he summed up his worldview in one line that stayed with you: "Better days are coming… but there’ll be something else to worry about soon enough. You know that’s just the way life is."

This episode is the first half of a two‑hour conversation — the second half was lost to a recording glitch — but what remains stands entirely on its own. It’s Brooklyn, it’s family, it’s food, it’s survival, it’s humor, it’s grief, it’s the strange luck of life, and it’s George.

CHAPTERS:

Queen Ann Social Media Info:

instagram.com/queenannravioli

facebook.com/queenannravioli

https://www.tiktok.com/@queenannravioli

Queen Ann Ravioli & Macaroni 7205 18th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11204

Follow Matthew Gray:

🎙️ 50 Tastes Of Gray - Broadcasting from Honolulu. One guest. No rules.

New episodes weekly. Subscribe for more.

📸 Instagram: @50tastesofgray

📘 Facebook: facebook.com/50TastesOfGrayPodcast

💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/matthew-gray-hawaii

✍️ Substack: 50TastesOfGray.substack.com

▶️ YouTube: @50TastesOfGray

#BrooklynStories #ItalianFoodCulture #50TastesOfGray

#BrooklynStories #ItalianFoodCulture #50TastesOfGray

Kristina Gorr is a ghostwriter who's spent her career helping people sound like themselves instead of everyone else. In this episode, she and Matthew dig into the real anxiety writers have about AI accusations, the em dash controversy that made her go viral, what separates ghostwriting from copywriting, and the emotional work of helping someone remember their own life for a memoir. Along the way: Appalachian roots, condiment purism, chocolate snobbery, and a few things you didn't know you needed to know about corn dogs.

Show Notes / Key Topics:

Guest Info:

Category: Arts > Books, or Society & Culture

Episode Tags: ghostwriting, AI writing, em dash, memoir writing, Appalachia, brand voice, creative writing, writing tips, content creation, interview podcast