Fork in the Road

Today is 4/20, and to celebrate we’re taking culinary cannabis to new highs with cannabis baker Christina Wong of Baking with Chickens. I personally adore cooking and baking using the aromatic oils in marijuana called terpenes as a flavor profile to pair with, and Christina definitely shares that passion, too. She’s worked with all sorts of folks in the cannabis industry like Papa & Barkley, MedMen, and Raw Garden, and also hosts a cooking channel on YouTube called Baking with Chickens, where she showcases the other secret to her delicious baked goods —  fresh eggs from her backyard chooks. Christina is launching a culinary cannabis baking show that kicks off today, and I know she’s going to be a wealth of knowledge for us as we learn how to cook with cannabis for the 420 holiday.

Waffles + Mochi is a new culinary kids show on Netflix that follows the adventures of two Muppet-like friends, Waffles and Mochi, who emerge from living amongst freezer food to traveling the world to learn about the bounty of fresh, real ingredients and international culinary cultures. The show is produced by Michelle and Barack Obama's Higher Ground Productions, and boasts a roster of famous food folks like Samin Nosrat, José Andrés, Massimo Bottura, and Preeti Mistry, and is filled with curiosity, enthusiasm, joy, and delight — things we could all use right now. Today we are chatting with the show’s creator, Jeremey Konner, who’s also the mad genius behind Drunk History, and co-creator and show runner Erika Thormahlen. We discuss everything from the challenges of fabricating puppets who can actually ingest food to what it's like working with Michelle Obama, and everything in between.

Please support the show by subscribing on Patreon, and of course feel free to follow me on IG and Twitter, too. 

Kelly Leveque is a holistic nutritionist, wellness expert, celebrity health coach, and the author of Body Love and Body Love Every Day.  She’s also consulted on hotel menus at the Montage, bringing her approach on health and wellness to travelers. (Boy oh boy did traveling wreak havoc on my body back in the day when that was a thing!) I’ve used Kelly’s tips and Fab Four Smoothies to manage blood sugar and insulin for weight management and appetite control, how to avoid jet lag via diet, and so much more. Her practical and optimistic approach to nutrition and wellness, which focusses on sustainable habits, is such a great guide to living a healthy and balanced life. I also just personally adore her as a person, and I know you will too. 

Elizabeth Schnieder is the host and author of Wine for Normal People. She is a certified sommelier who has worked in everything from winery brand management to creating waitstaff programs, and perhaps most famously, hosting one of my favorite podcasts, Wine For Normal People. Today we’re going to talk about everything from the scandal surrounding the sexual abuse and misogyny within the Court of Master Sommeliers and sexism the wine industry as a whole to debunking the myth that natural wine is as great as all the cool kids make it sound. I know you're going to fall in love with her humor and candor, just as I did years ago when I first listened in to her show.

Be sure to give us a follow over on Instagram @kristasimmons @forkintheroadmedia for the latest. Cheers!

Today we’ll be talking about how the restaurant scene in Hong Kong could provide a window to the future for global reopening with chef May Chow. Early on in the pandemic, Black Sheep shared their COVID Restaurant Guidelines for Safety, and folks like May lead the way in initiating protocols to keep their diners and staff safe. May is the chef/owner behind Hong Kong’s Little Bao and Happy Paradise. She was also named Asia’s Best Female Chef in 2017, and has done pop-ups here in the US with the team behind Republique, which garnered lines that snaked around Grand Central Market. My team and I filmed our "Women in Food" series the last time we visited Hong Kong, and I was so inspired not only by her delicious take on traditional baos, but her activism and leadership.

We discuss how her restaurants have pivoted to survive, what she's seeing in Hong Kong that may lead us to a more informed reopening, and how she hopes to uplift women and the LGBTQ community in Hong Kong and beyond.

Anya Fernald is co-founder and owner of Belcampo Meat Co, a regenerative farm raising beef, pork, and chicken. Belcampo hopes to revolutionize meat for the wellbeing of people, the planet, and animals through their method of regenerative agriculture. Whether you're vegan, keto, vegetarian, flexitarian, whole 30, or just want to source better meat, you'll want to hear about Belcampo's organic, carbon-positive farm. Their Northern California ranch is home to 2,500 heritage-breed animals that are grass fed and grass finished. Fernald addresses some of the messaging issues about raising beef and climate change, meat consumption, carbon footprints, and greenhouse emissions, and how these things can be countered with their method of farming.

Pernell Cezar is the CEO and Co-Founder of BLK & Bold, the first-ever black-owned, nationally distributed coffee business that makes social impact a priority. BLK & Bold won the NAACP Small Business of the Year Award in 2019 and their new partnership with Ethiopia-based Keffa Coffee highlights the quality, prominence, and diversity of coffee grown in regions across Ethiopia, which is known as the motherland of coffee. 

Today we chat about why their end-to-end black owned coffee company is essential the landscape and the story of how coffee goes from seed to cup.

You can continue to follow along with stories like this @kristasimmons and @forkintheroadmedia on Instagram, Twitter, and Clubhouse. 

Dr Lilian Cheung is a lecturer and director of health promotion and communication at Harvard School of Public Health, Department of Nutrition and an expert on the practice of mindful eating.  She is the co-author of the book “Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life” with Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn. Lilian is an active practitioner of Buddhism, and is passionate about understanding the science and practice of mindful eating, which is much different than intuitive eating and is a moving meditation in its foundations. I know a lot of us — self included —  have been mindlessly stress eating throughout the past year and could really use the practice in our daily lives. These ancient Buddhist practices also give us insight as to how to eat more mindfully for the future of our planet.

She’s going to give us the rundown on how to bring this practice of mindfulness simply and seamlessly into our lives, including a one-on-one chocolate eating meditation. I can get with that! 

As always please feel free to follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Clubhouse @kristasimmons. See you next week!

There’s been a lot of talk about meal delivery apps like Uber Eats and Postmates gauging small restaurants with fees. Some of them even have slick Super Bowl ad campaigns that pretend to support local businesses, and meanwhile they're charging more than 30% fees to the already-struggling industry, as well as withholding customer data from the restaurants. ChowNow is an LA-based meal delivery app that offers a solution to the struggling industry. Its services are not on based on a percent of sales, but rather a flat monthly fee, and the company shares user data from its platform with the restaurants so that their customers remain, well, their customers if they decide to de-platform, rather than being shuffled over to the next restaurant willing to pay the fees on their app. We sit down with ChowNow CEO Chris Webb about how and why he started this business, his proposed solutions to the inequity within the delivery sphere, and where they see the platform going in the years to come.

Be sure to give us a follow over on Instagram @kristasimmons @forkintheroadmedia for more updates.

There’s been a lot of talk about meal delivery apps like Uber Eats gauging small restaurants with fees, sometimes charging more than 30% to the already-struggling industry, as well as withholding customer data from the restaurants. ChowNow is an LA-based meal delivery app that offers a solution to the struggling industry, offering its services not on based on a percent of sales, but rather a flat monthly fee, and shares user data from its platform with the restaurants. We sit down with ChowNow CEO Chris Webb about how and why he started this business, his proposed solutions to the inequity within the delivery sphere, and where they see the platform going in the years to come.

Be sure to give us a follow over on Instagram @kristasimmons @forkintheroadmedia for more updates.