Good Food News-Farming Hope

Fast Company reports on a non-profit, Farming Hope, that is hosting pop-up dinners in San Francisco where guests pay $55 for a multi-course gourmet meal. Other guests are homeless. The diners all sat together and talked, eating food prepared by people who are also homeless. The employees were hired as they were identified as individuals who wanted to find jobs and begin to move out of homelessness.

“We want an environment where it’s not just a restaurant where no one who’s very poor is coming to eat, and it’s not just a soup kitchen, where it’s only homeless people eating donated food as quickly as possible,” says Jamie Stark, one of the co-founders of Farming Hope. “It’s a nice environment where people want to be, where there’s a unique mix of people, and where some of that empathy and understanding and human-centered thinking can spread.”

A true example of our belief that there is room for everyone at the table.

Smoothie Saturation

Laci Jordan is a multi-disciplinary designer who employs saturated color, pop culture references, and representation of people of color in her art. I was drawn in by the impact and statement of her work.

She also understands the concept of balance, like if you’ve filled up on too much fried food when visiting with family, you balance that with an equal amount of smoothies once you’re back home. We chatted about art, food and shopping lists on “Smoothie Saturation”, Episode 34 of the "Something About Food?" podcast.


Laci Jordan is truly the embodiment of a renaissance woman.  The Huntsville, Alabama native turned LA-based artist focuses her work around color, pop culture, and representation of people of color. “If you try to put Laci in a box, you’ll have an incredibly difficult time” (Essence Magazine). Jordan works between illustration, traditional graphic design, product design, and photography. Laci is widely known for her illustrations. With a theme of “Everyday Life,” her subjects range from portraits of women of color to her favorite sneakers at the moment. Her work tends to have a “no filter” “authentic, unapologetic” tone.

Laci has worked with Disney Imagineering, ESPN, Hypebeast, Ava Duvernay, Jordan Brand, Hibbett Sports, Planned Parenthood, Saint Heron, Wildfang, and many more.

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Smoothies for balance!

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Good Food News-Get Even Stevens!

As reported by Forbes magazine, for every sandwich that Even Stevens sells, they donate the cost of the ingredients to local nonprofits' Sysco accounts. The nonprofits can then use the donated money to buy food. That turns out to be about $.54 per sandwich sold.

For example, the downtown Salt Lake City store sells 15,000 sandwiches every month. And, across the chain, the company is now producing 110,000 sandwiches every month. At that rate, the sandwich making firm is donating over $700,000 per year.

This is a great example of food for all, don’t you think?

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Better Than Blank

Full disclosure here folks: Let Thy Food, the vegan dip, and dressing company that Christina Bartel and her husband Jeremy founded, is one of the sponsors of our podcast. We are happy to have them around. Just as we are happy to have their queso on hand because nachos happen, people!

Christina chatted with me about their company, growing up in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico and we found a shared love for Russian Tea Cakes on “Better Than Blank”, Episode 33 of the Something About Food? podcast.



Christina Bartel is a person who can turn the subject of every conversation to food.  As CEO and co-founder of Let Thy Food and co-founder and Creative Director of the wandering restaurant food truck Wanderculinarilust, Christina passionately believes in the power of food as an essential component of health, politics, social justice, environment, labor, the world, and life.  Christina is a conscientious and heart-driven creative visionary in relentless pursuit of wisdom, peace, and collective well-being.

Christina has a degree in filmmaking and a background in journalism and photography. Never one to assume the path of the status quo, Christina is ever in a state of analysis about the pressing problems of our time, with a drive to fix those issues assiduously through the power of food and love.

A lover of precision, communication, design, travel, Hatch Valley Queso, all the vegetables, and cookies, Christina answers to the name of Cookie Monster and has been reading cookbooks and fearlessly creating recipes since the age of five.

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This beautiful mess came about thanks to their Hatch Valley Queso™. As I said, nachos happen!

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Good Food News- Syracuse Immigrant Cuisine

Here is a multicultural food story from Saveur Magazine. In the past ten years, Syracuse, NY has welcomed nearly 10,000 refugees from 52 countries in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

Some of the Pakistani, Russian, Egyptian, Afghani, Burmese, and Vietnamese new-comers have opened restaurants, started small family-run markets which carry ingredients from many of these refugees’ home countries, and hosted pop-up dinner events.

Food has become the universal language in the Syracuse community in a city that was not traditionally known for having a diverse food scene. Some of the best meals from around the world can be now found in one place.

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Team Salt

Vilissa Thompson has a strong voice and she uses it to speak up for herself and others in the disabled community as an advocate and a social worker. I love to listen to her passion about her work, her adamant stance on grits, and her infectious laugh.

We found that we both hate squash and love Italian food and coconut pie. She gave me insight into accessibility and how to help get everyone to the table (more ramps, people!).

Listen to her on “Team Salt”, Episode 32 of the Something About Food? Podcast.

Vilissa Thompson is a macro-minded social worker from South Carolina.  Ramp Your Voice! is her organization where she discusses the issues that matter to her as a Black disabled woman, including intersectionality, racism, politics, and why she unapologetically makes good trouble. Follow her on Twitter @VilissaThompson for more!

You can also listen here:

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BTW, that cornbread would be something Vilissa and I would share, of that I am sure!

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Sum It Up Sunday-Be Kind

Shocked...

Flabbergasted...

Shook...

Many of us heard the news about Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain passing and felt these and other emotions in the past week.

Sadness...

Anger...

Disbelief...

I don't believe there is a magic pill, diet, food, or exercise that will make any of us perfect. We are flawed, as only humans can be. I do believe that every one of us can be better.

We are not alone. For us, here at Something About Food? Podcast, we believe that we are all connected through food. Sitting down at the table, sharing a meal, sharing a conversation, sharing a love of biscuits or chocolate, this connects us. Others may, through religion, video games, sports or even a belief in UFO's, find the people who have a fellow understanding of the world. Connections are there.

By reaching out to others, showing those we meet in the world that as flawed as life is, it can be better.

Be Kind

Show Respect

Show Empathy

We are all connected.

Join us.

There is always room at the table...

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Good Food News-Oglala Lakota Nation Bring Healthy Food Back to the Community and Land

I found this post on the Organic Valley Blog that gives me hope in the fight against food insecurity in native populations.

The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota and a group from the Oglala Lakota Nation, The Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation, are building an innovative new net-zero, energy-regenerative community from the ground up. They are collaborating with the tribe to ensure cultural traditions and values are allowed to thrive.

There will be a high-performance water collection and reuse system as well as on-site solar, wind, and geothermal energy generators to establish an advanced sustainable infrastructure for the tribe’s food and housing needs. As phases of the development are completed, residents will have access to community gardens, a geothermal greenhouse, honeybee hives, and other sources.

There are grocery stores on the reservation, yet some Oglala Lakota people are driving more than 80 miles to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. After polling the tribe about what they envisioned a healthy community would look like, the consensus was that people wanted to see more local gardens and to be able to teach the next generation of local growers. Better gardens, better diet, better community and a better planet.

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Von Wong World

Ben Von Wong has my attention. I found his photo campaign for Second Harvest Food Bank which was designed to highlight childhood hunger and food insecurity. It features children going to extraordinary lengths in order to find food, from a "Mission: Impossible"-style bacon heist to an "Indiana Jones"-like discovery in the wild.

His passionate advocacy through art, his thoughts on yak cheese and more were a blast here in “Von Wong World”.



Benjamin Von Wong is a viral campaign creator focused on supporting social and environmental causes. He creates images so amazing that people think are photoshopped in order to educate and inspire. His work has been featured numerous times on Buzzfeed, Gizmodo, Mashable, Huffington Post, and more. His project that involved placing a Mermaid on 10,000 plastic bottles to raise awareness about plastic pollution has over 30 million views, and his most successful fundraising video to date has raised over 2 million dollars to help a child with Sanfilippo Syndrome.

He is currently looking to work with corporations that have a Triple Bottom Line.

Check out our chat here:

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Sum It Up Sunday-Back At It!

Here we go again!

The best part of doing this podcast is meeting and interviewing folks. I very much appreciate that they take the time to chat with me. On Tuesday Season 4 begins with photographer and visual artist Ben Von Wong who is, in his words "Transforming Intangible Values Into Emotional Experiences".

More and more I'm finding the connections I had hoped to highlight with these food conversations. Every one of us is connected, and what we eat is one of those links.

The episode, "From Improv to Idli" with Dr. Meenakshi Singh made several of our listeners learn to look out for Indian desserts after she regaled us with tales or their fabulousness.

Ballerina Aesah Ash and I found a connection in the episode "My Mouth is Lost!", from our both growing up in Upstate NY. I urge you to follow and support The Swan Dreams Project which she founded. She states "Through the use of imagery and my career as a ballet dancer, I want to help change the demoralized, objectified and caricatured images of African-American women by showing the world that beauty is not reserved for any particular race or socio-economic background."


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