Hi!! It’s nice to be back here with you, although I do feel a little dazed after 2 weeks away in Maui with my family (and as I try to prep everyone for school starting next week)! We’ve wrapped up the retrospective series, but before we return to the typical interviews, I do have one more interview to share....

Now this is the most requested interview, by far, that I’ve received. Understandably, people want to know a little bit about why I started the podcast -  but it’s something I’ve avoided for a while. You see, today, we’ve turned the tables a little bit and I am actually the guest!

Here’s how this happened - Last year, I was interviewed by Diana Silva for her podcast. I honestly don’t remember too much of what we discussed, and I didn’t go back and listen to this because I thought it would make me super nervous to release and I didn’t want to get cold feet! I do also remember totally embarrassing myself in the very first moment and I didn’t really want to hear that again!

So - anyhow, I don’t remember too much about the conversation, but I remember feeling really comfortable with Diana and connected to her, I felt I was authentic in my answers. I’ve been interviewed quite a bit this summer and a lot of those will be published this fall. But the other thing about THIS particular interview is that I knew Diana has stopped releasing podcast episodes in order to focus on her writing. Because of that fact, I thought maybe she wouldn’t mind sharing this interview for me to release - I wouldn’t have asked if she was still actively growing her podcast.

So that brings me to just two more things before I share this interview that Diana hosted with me as the guest -

First, speaking of Diana’s writing, I hosted Diana this winter and we discussed her first book, Mole Mama, A Memoir of Love, Cooking, and Loss. I have to tell you this was one of the most powerful and impactful interviews that I’ve conducted over the last 2 years. Diana and her mother are both personal heroines of mine, and their lives are so worth honoring and emulating. I would strongly recommend you go back and listen to A Sacred Conversation with Diana Silva (honestly, if you only have time to listen to one episode - listen to hers!) And as soon as her second book is published, I do hope she’ll come on for a retrospective interview!!

Second, I did a lot of website updates this summer and one section I worked hard on was the About Me and About the Podcast sections! You can head over the www.thestoriedrecipe.com to look at those AND view lots of photos of our latest trip to Maui!! Tropical landscapes, arid landscapes, and photos of my family cliff-jumping, hiking, and exploring. While you’re there, you can also check out some of the content for photographers and creatives that I added this summer. But! More about that in the future. Now I’ll let you go right into this interview with… ME!! (Ahh, I’m nervous about this, you guys!)

(Who interviews me in this episode.)

A Sacred Conversation with Mole Mama

Arabic Feasts with My Husband, John Hadeed

Welcome (once again) to this summer retrospective series. One of my favorite things about this podcast is that it’s truly a community of guests and listeners, where you often connect with each other, apart from me. When guests share so deeply and vulnerably with us, the listeners, I think it’s important to stay in touch and continue to conversation, as much as possible. In this spirit, I reached out to a few guests for follow-up interviews this summer. These interviews are each 30 minutes or less and totally un-edited so you’re getting the raw thoughts of both myself and my guests.

Here we are at the third of our 5 interviews and I am just so excited to welcome Letitia Clark back. Letitia is on the verge of FINALLY having a launch party to celebrate Bitter Honey - except! It’s a DOUBLE book launch party because she has a new book out, a companion book to Bitter Honey, titled La Vita e Dolce: Italian-Inspired Desserts. In this interview, we talk about one surprising challenge that came along with the success of her first book, we have a frank conversation about perceptions vs. the reality in the real life of a successful author. I loved talking to Letitia about her goals for this new book and why she focused so much on sweet breakfast treats. In fact, Letitia’s beliefs about breakfast flies in the face of all conventional wisdom… but I think, for our own good, her experience is truly worth considering! This is simply a light, fun, fresh conversation perfect for a hot summer day. Whether you’re walking, driving, cooking, gardening or sitting on a porch somewhere with a tall glass of iced tea - welcome to you  and welcome to Letitia.

Buy Bitter Honey:

Buy La Vita Dolce

Instagram: @letitia_ann_clark

Website: letitiaclark.co.uk

Welcome (once again) to this summer retrospective series. One of my favorite things about this podcast is that it’s truly a community of guests and listeners, where you often connect with each other, apart from me. When guests share so deeply and vulnerably with us, the listeners, I think it’s important to stay in touch and continue to conversation, as much as possible. In this spirit, I reached out to a few guests for follow-up interviews this summer. These interviews are each 30 minutes or less and totally un-edited so you’re getting the raw thoughts of both myself and my guests.

Today we’re bringing back another guest at the request of you, the listeners: Juan Luis Salazar. Juan is one of the most amazing, inspiring people I’ve met, ever. Period. Full stop. His full interview, which I released almost exactly a year ago today and titled “I Wanted Something Different” is what I consider a must-listen. It shares the story of a very young, very determined Juan choosing a life of hard work and risk to better not only himself, but his entire community. Juan and the brave farmers who chose to join him did something no one in Guatamela has done before OR since - they started a Guatamelan-owned coffee cooperative where they had control over their own wages.

When we talked last year, Juan, now living in DC, had opened a coffee shop just weeks beforehand, right in the middle of the pandemic. The goal was to source the coffee from his family’s farm first, and later, from the farms in the cooperative. If Juan could take this step, he would be removing the middle man *entirely* from between the farm to the consumer and could guarantee farmers, including his own father, the best and fairest wages they had ever received, changing the lives of their entire families. Today we talk about Juan’s progress toward this goal, the way he was threatened by a landlord attempting to illegally break his lease, and the community that has supported Juan and LaCoop Coffee. Just like the original, it’s another must-listen episode, so welcome to Juan and welcome to YOU!

Instagram: @lacoopcoffee

Website: www.lacoopcoffee.com

Welcome (once again) to this summer retrospective series. One of my favorite things about this podcast is that it’s truly a community of guests and listeners, where you often connect with each other, apart from me. When guests share so deeply and vulnerably with us, the listeners, I think it’s important to stay in touch and continue to conversation, as much as possible. In this spirit, I reached out to a few guests for follow-up interviews this summer. These interviews are each 30 minutes or less and totally un-edited so you’re getting the raw thoughts of both myself and my guests.

I’m back this week with the third episode in the retrospective series and today we welcome Britney of Britney Breaks Bread. As soon as my husband heard the first 5 minutes of Britney’s first episode, John looked at me and said , “Wow, she has a great personality!” That personality and Britney’s hard work came together this year for a HUGE year for Britney’s food blogging business! While she continues to work as a research scientist, Britney makes time for recipe development, sponsored work, and… co-starring in a commercial with none other than Phyllis from The Office (also famous for her role as sadness in Inside Out)!!

But this year of massive business growth is not all! Britney also recently shared a HUGE personal announcement - join me in congratulating her and her husband on welcoming a baby boy this fall. As promised this series is raw and in, in fact, in this episode I get a little more personal in my tone and conversation as well. However, in the interest of full disclosure I wanted to share that I did go back and add some minor editing to honor Britney’s professional obligations. Also, this episode contains lengthy discussions about pregnancy, motherhood, and womanhood in general. If those topics are heavy or sensitive for you right now, Britney and I both respect your grief and do not want to add to your pain with our conversation, so do feel free to skip this one.

Instagram: @britneybreaksbreads
Website: www.britneybreaksbread.com

Welcome (once again) to this summer retrospective series. One of my favorite things about this podcast is that it’s truly a community of guests and listeners, where you often connect with each other, apart from me. When guests share so deeply and vulnerably with us, the listeners, I think it’s important to stay in touch and continue to conversation, as much as possible. In this spirit, I reached out to a few guests for follow-up interviews this summer. These interviews are each 30 minutes or less and totally un-edited so you’re getting the raw thoughts of both myself and my guests.

For the second episode in this retrospective series, I’m just so excited to introduce you again to Helen Au. Several listeners asked me to bring Helen back because they had such a strong emotional response to her original episode, Ep. 057 Food in the Real Life Coming of Age Story of Helen Au. What no listeners knew until now is that I’ve actually hired Helen as a consultant for my PINTEREST strategy! We discuss her career, which we didn’t discuss at all during her original episode, the importance of Pinterest, and how to start if you’ve never considered it. We also talk about the BIG life change she’s making this summer, which led us into a in depth conversation about Helen’s minimalist lifestyle - when and why she adopted it, and how she sustains it. Finally, we answer the big questions previous listeners are wondering about - if she and her family, especially her mom, have remained in touch.

Instagram: @astepfullofyou
Website: www.astepfullofyoublog.com

Welcome to this summer retrospective series. One of my favorite things about this podcast is that it’s truly a community of guests and listeners, where you often connect with each other, apart from me. When guests share so deeply and vulnerably with us, the listeners, I think it’s important to stay in touch and continue to conversation, as much as possible. In this spirit, I reached out to a few guests for follow-up interviews this summer. These interviews are each 30 minutes or less and totally un-edited so you’re getting the raw thoughts of both myself and my guests.

First in this series, I’m thrilled to welcome Anela Malik, guest of Ep. 024 Food is Political (But What Does That Mean?). I thought of Anela for this series because she’s gone through an absolutely seismic shift of career since our interview. After Feed The Malik went viral last June, Anela was faced with an avalanche of new decisions, opportunities, and challenges. Listen in as Anela explains how she navigated these changes, why she chose to leave a prestigious career as a US diplomat - the career she worked all the way through graduate school for - and the surprising thing that was most difficult about all the changes.

Also, although Anela continues to advocate for the marginalized, especially the black community, through the avenue of food in a full-time position, she’s changed her view of her work and we get into her updated viewpoints, specifically realities she had to accept when going full-time and choices she made to better support the community through her much larger platform

Finally, Anela shares about the book National Geographic has selected HER to write! We discuss both her goal and her process for this book, which I CANNOT wait to read when it's released.

Website: FeedTheMalik.com
Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/feedthemalik/
TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@feedthemalik
Twitter https://twitter.com/feed_the_malik
Podcast: Fix Your Plate

Esther JuLee and her husband, Jacob Fu, run Local Adventurer, which was recently named one of the top 5 travel blogs in the world. While some of us have been conditioned to think of “travel” as something inaccessible, exotic, or aspirational, Esther and Jacob take a very different approach that values curiosity, gratitude, and contentment. As their name suggests, they encourage finding “local adventures”. In fact, every year for 7 years, they moved to a new hometown to fully explore the region and uncover all the local gems for readers, all while also traveling internationally for their blog.

With that said, I may just be the only person who found Esther through her food blog, www.momskoreanrecipes.com. If you’re a regular listener, you know that last month I did a mother’s day series. While researching possible guests for the series, I found this food blog that Esther started both as a Covid project and in response to her grandmother’s death. As Esther says, although she was born in Korea, there is not much about her that remains Korean. She turned to her mother and food to reclaim some of that heritage.

As many of us are gearing up for travel this summer, I’m thrilled to have Esther on to share her story, a few travel tips, and also to think about some important topics related to food, identity, travel, and the intersection of all of these points: home. Esther’s story reminds us that everyone deserves their home country, hometown, and home culture to be a welcoming place, and just what we can do to ensure that.

Website: www.localadventurer.com

Local Adventurer on Instagram

Esther JuLee on Instagram

Local Adventurer on YouTube

Local Adventurer on Pinterest

Hello there, this is just a 2 minute message that I'm using to test a big change AND to ask you one big question. I'll be back Wednesday with a full episode. In the meantime, have a great day!

Our experience of holidays are as diverse and complicated as families, emotions, and grief. In this Father’s Day episode, Anita of Wild Thistle Kitchen explores all of these topics so beautifully and bravely.

Anita’s father, Scott, wasn’t the typical dad, (if there is such a dad, really, outside of movies). His work brought him all over the world, where he embedded himself in the local cultures for months or even years at a time, away from his family. When Scott was home, he could sometimes be a loner when some moods hit.

And yet, despite this, he was Anita’s caretaker, support system, music teacher, encourager, partner in adventure, and example in living a life of exploration and freedom, both in the kitchen and out of the kitchen.

I’ll admit that, as I listened to Anita talk, I wanted to play armchair psychologist - to dive deep and try to make sense of her experience of her father in a way that I could categorize and explain for myself. But the reality is pretty simple. Anita and her dad were soulmates - they just got each other. They loved each other, they were there for each other, and they were a gift to one another.

Whether Father’s Day is complicated by your personal experiences of family, regret, or grief or whether Father’s day is a joyful celebration of a man who was everything he should have been, Anita’s story will resonate and make you feel that Father’s Day has room for you and your experiences also.

Ep. 065 with Adina Bailey, Founder of TakeThemAMeal

Ep. 059 - A Sacred Conversation with Diana Silva, Mole Mama
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Ep. 064 - A Passover Episode with Marissa Wojcik

Ep. 051 - The Annual Making of the Christmas Pudding

Website: www.wildthistlekitchen.com

Instagram: @wild.thistle.kitchen

Pinterest: @wildthistlekitchen

https://wildthistlekitchen.com/wild-thistles-and-wineberries
https://wildthistlekitchen.com/a-cat-named-gravy/ [spacer height="20px"]

I’m so excited to introduce you today to author Rachel Pieh Jones today. Rachel was introduced to me by one of my listeners named Judith. Judith forwarded me an essay Rachel wrote titled Bread Baked in the Heat of Hell and said she’d love to hear more from Rachel here on the podcast.

The piece was beautifully written and truly transported me to a moment when the Djiboutian food, community, and religion intersected for Rachel in Djibouti, Africa, which has been her home for almost 20 years.

In Djibouti, Rachel has raised 3 children in a cross-cultural setting that really couldn’t be more different than how she was raised in a small, insulated Midwestern town. As Rachel sought community in Djibouti, she began to question every premise of her own religion, Christianity, and the prevailing values of American culture, as she engaged with her Muslim friends and neighbors.

Rachel has recently discussed these experiences openly and at length in her latest book Pillars: How My Muslim Friends Led Me Closer to Jesus. I read the book after our interview and filled my phone with screenshots (the modern version of highlighting, haha).

In my opinion, Rachel’s experiences, along with her unflinching introspection and raw honestly, highly qualify her to give me advice on how to lovingly and effectively engage with friends, neighbors, and acquaintances of other cultures and belief systems.

I’m so thankful she’s here today to share more of her experiences and particularly what they can teach us about relating with our neighbors.  Specifically, Rachel shares 3 key words to keep in mind as we consider how to improve cross-cultural communication.

Website: www.rachelpiehjones.com

Instagram: @rachelpiehjones

Do Good Better on Substack: rachelpiehjones.substack.com/

Pillars: How My Muslim Friends Led Me Closer To Jesus on Amazon

Rachel Pieh Jones on Amazon