Chef Eric Rivera is one of my first podcast guests, and we recorded his interview when he was first moving back to Seattle. Fast-forward a few years, and both of us are in very different roles. Chef Eric has founded , an innovative pop-up restaurant and chef business incubator space. After a year in the Coffee Flour space, Eric has moved the location and has founded his own on-going pop-up, Lechoncito, serving Puerto Rican delights for business lunches and dinners. He's even taking a group to Puerto Rico next year! Never held back by fear, Chef Eric talks about why it's important to encourage or even push growth and why he's glad his own chef teammates outgrow his business. This episode is sponsored by Icon Foods, a trusted source for sugar alternatives. From R&D to manufacturing, Icon Foods can help you reduce sugar without losing flavor. Go to to get details - tell them PeasOnMoss sent you. Join our conversations about food product development - go to www.peasonmoss.com to find out how.

Alan Reed is the Executive Director of the Chicagoland Food and Beverage Network, and he joined us to introduce the CFBN. Chicago is a hub for food manufacturing and restaurants, and the network appears to be the first one that brings together both sides of the industry and provides a platform to collaborate. They do multiple events each month, so if you find yourself in Chicago, make sure you check out an event. This podcast is sponsored by . Get more information about natural sugar replacement at .

Conversations with Chef Greg Grisanti are always fun. A previous guest of the podcast, Chef Greg returned to the show to talk about best practices in research chef work and how the work compares to restaurant cooking. From restaurant work to cleaning up labels at quick service restaurants, Chef Greg has seen lots of different ways to have a vibrant culinary career, and he's still excited about the future. Special thanks to our founding and only sponsor, Icon Foods. Join them, help us grow the podcast. www.peasonmoss.com

While Chef Greg and I were wrapping up our podcast recording, we started talking about next year's Research Chefs Association conference in Louisville, Kentucky. Turns out, Chef is from Louisville, so he shares some insights about the city and gets us really excited about visiting the conference. Listen to the full episode next week, but in the meantime, get excited for the RCA . .  This podcast is sponsored by Icon Foods - . Find out how sugar replacement can be accomplished naturally.  Join Icon Foods and help keep this show going. www.peasonmoss.com

Inspected, safe kitchens scaled for commercial use (bigger stoves, refrigerators, etc) are required to prepare food consistently and safely, but if you're newer to the business or too small for a full-scale co-packer, where do you turn? Rachael Miller joins us on the podcast to tell us about The Food Corridor, a business incubator that connects commercial kitchens with users, whether for catering chefs, small scale production, or hosting special events. Rachael is The Food Corridor's Director of Community. She helps shared kitchens connect with other kitchens and food businesses; and promotes educational opportunities for shared kitchen professionals across North America. For more, check out their , , , or join one of their private Facebook communities: (NICK) and the . Join Icon Foods in sponsoring this podcast. Get information about them at . Contact us for sponsorship details at

Research Chef Chris McAdams is a talented voice in the RCA and culinology world and shares his knowledge through Culinary Culture, a consultancy in Austin, Tx.  Culinary Culture is a group of passionate research chefs who offer consulting services for food-based businesses. Through trend research, innovative ideation, and unsurpassed industry experience, Culinary Culture delivers imaginative, craveable products that consistently exceed your expectations. In part 2, Chris and I review the 2018 Culinary Institute of America World of Flavors and about food cultural appropriation. We dig into it, because the main theme of the WOF this year was about the immigrant impact on cuisine in America. We started exploring a very, very deep topic, which I feel merits a much longer discussion, and this is an ongoing debate at tables throughout the country. In our excitement to discuss what cultural food trends will sweep the nation, it's vital to keep an awareness to the risks of appearing to appropriate a culture's food in the pursuit and passion of the cuisine. Sound off to me - let's get a discussion going.   Get in touch with Chef Chris at  This podcast is sponsored by Icon Foods, our founding sponsor. Join them for the next year.

Research Chef Chris McAdams is a talented voice in the RCA and culinology world. As a writer for various sites, including the RCA student committee's The Culinologist and Culinary Culture's blogs, Chris uses every dining out and experience to share with the readers. Chris has followed a crazy pathway to his R&D career, from the Air Force, to college, to culinary school, and eventually to Culinary Culture.  Culinary Culture is a group of passionate research chefs who offer consulting services for food-based businesses. Through trend research, innovative ideation, and unsurpassed industry experience, Culinary Culture delivers imaginative, craveable products that consistently exceed your expectations. In Part 1 of this 2-part episode, you'll hear Chris' journey and work as a consultant. In part 2, Chris and I discuss this year's Culinary Institute of America World of Flavors and about food cultural appropriation.  Get in touch with them at  This podcast is sponsored by Icon Foods, our founding sponsor. Join them for the next year.

I've been off-air for two weeks, and thank you for sticking around! Chef Matthew Raiford was the keynote speaker for the 2018 Research Chefs Association Conference, and he spoke about diversity, service, acknowledging our histories (including the parts we aren't proud of), and the future of the culinary world, including the research world. He owns two restaurants in Georgia, and he spends no less than 10 hours per week volunteering his time for various nonprofits. Our conversation was an unscripted conference call that he took in the car, and you'll hear how he weaves his food philosophy and chef practice into every element of his life. Chef Farmer Matthew Raiford can be found on the line at  and This podcast is sponsored by . Join them in sponsorship, and help us grow to the next level.

Food technologist Andrea Zeng and I worked together as the product development team at Lundberg Family Farms renovating their snack line, creating new rice meal kits, and developing frozen items for them. Andrea has since moved into chocolate product research and development, drawing on her time managing the Cal Poly Chocolates Food and Nutrition Science student product development and management program. Now a chocolate technologist, she joins us to talk about product development across different brands and the similarities and differences among them. We recorded this episode last fall, so Andrea is not the newbie any more.  This podcast is sponsored by Icon Foods. Get information about their non-sugar sweeteners at . Join them and sponsor the show.

Andrea Zeng worked with me in a past R&D role, and although she crossed food categories when she moved to a new job at Ghirardelli Chocolate Company, she had past experience working in chocolate science. Here she gives some foundational advise on how you could cross from one category to another and how passion for the category is the key to cross-over.  Thanks to Icon Foods for being the founding sponsor.   Check out other episodes at