Melissa and Wythe are joined by their friend Leigh Ollman, a mushroom grower, educator, and food systems consultant. We talk about Leigh’s role in kickstarting the NYU Mycology Group, her work as a professional mushroom grower (she started with 150 logs, farming mushrooms commercially during the pandemic), and her current role as a professional mushroom educator thanks to an amazing Cornell program. We also talk about Leigh’s new project, Citizen Species, which seeks to document biodiversity in New York City, one Instagram post at a time, by telling the stories of people growing different plants here. This leads us down a rabbit hole about crop domestication and the return of some “lost crops.” (Wythe recommends the must-read article “America’s Lost Crops” by Sarah Laskow in The Atlantic.) It’s a casual, informative conversation with a passionate young food leader. Tune in, and look out for Citizen Species!

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