Toronto street nurse Cathy Crowe is an author, filmmaker, activist and a distinguished visiting practitioner in the Department of Politics at Ryerson University. Cathy has been on the front lines of Toronto’s housing emergency for decades. Her new memoir A Knapsack Full of Dreams recounts her lifelong commitment to social justice. She has led a fascinating life and I feel lucky to call her a friend. We met at Cathy’s co-op apartment in downtown Toronto. Please listen until the end – it’s a powerful moment.

We laugh, we cry. We talk peace, love and fibre. Mairlyn Smith's latest book, her eighth, is a love letter to your colon and a love letter to her late parents. I chat with my dear friend Mairlyn at her Toronto home. She explains her crusade to increase our daily fibre intake and outlines how to do it.

Florida chef Norman Van Aken had humble beginnings in the small town of Diamond Lake, Illinois. He remains humble in spite of his successful restaurants, cookbooks and his memoir, "No Experience Necessary." The renowned godfather of New World Cuisine, he co-owns two restaurants in South Florida. He's a reader, a thinker and a great talker. I interviewed him in Miami.

Andrew Coppolino is a chatty, affable food journalist based in Kitchener-Waterloo. His new book, FARM TO TABLE, is the brainchild of the Stratford Chefs School which celebrates its 35th anniversary this year. The book features profiles of producers like Ruth Klahsen of Monforte Dairy and Anthony John of Soiled Reputation along with their recipes. Andrew has a passion for the synergy between those who grow and prepare our food. He hopes the book will be a sustainable model for other communities.

In the kitchen at Sistering, they're cooking up a storm on a tight budget and they've been doing it for almost 40 years. The cooks at this drop-in and shelter never know how many mouths they'll have to feed. Homelessness in Toronto is a real crisis - and things are getting worse. Without enough affordable housing, people are forced to sleep outside or in overcrowded shelters. Sistering is struggling to provide assistance and dignity to women in cruel circumstances but, as you'll hear, the facility faces its own challenges.

Anthony Rose and I both love old fashioned Jewish food. Anthony is a popular chef and restaurateur with a cluster of hip eateries on a gritty strip of Dupont Street in downtown Toronto. Rose and Sons, the original one, is a deli style diner featuring a mean pastrami sandwich, chicken soup with matzo balls and chopped liver. We met at his French-style bistro, Bar Begonia, to chat about his mini empire and his cookbook: The Last Shmaltz.

I met Gabriella, a fledgling food writer, at the James Beard Awards dinner in 2004. We caught up again in New York this year and chatted about our Jewish roots in Riga, Latvia, our affinity for Montreal and our mutual love of prunes.

It was a sunny day in Rob Firing's Toronto garden where he grilled a ribeye with service berries and garlic scapes on his humble barbecue - delicious! Meanwhile, he gave me a tutorial on his favourite topic: steak. His new book "Steak Revolution" explores the more unusual cuts of beef including my new favourite - culotte. His book introduced me to the best way to cook it - the reverse-sear method.

Chef Joshna Maharaj is driven by a passion for social change. She rejects the processed, dreary and bland food served in most institutions. She was chef at The Stop Community Food Centre in Toronto where she worked to re-imagine the traditional soup kitchen. Joshna has also revitalized campus food and the fare in hospitals. She is a compelling talker who expresses her spiritual beliefs eloquently. She says, “The intersection of food stuff and god stuff is my happy place.”