Delicious Revolution

Niaz Dorry moved to Glauster, Massachusetts, the oldest settled fishing port in the United States, in 1994, and she has been working with small-scale, traditional, and indigenous fishing communities in the U.S. and around the globe ever since. After a working as an environmental justice organizer in Greanpeace’s toxics campaigns, she started working on fisheries issues. She’s been organizing with the fishing families of the North Atlantic Marie Alliance since 2008, advancing the rights and ecological benefits of the small-scale fishing communities as a means of protecting global marine biodiversity. This year, NAMS and the National Family Farm Coalition decided to join forces and share leadership, with Niaz as their director. She is currently on a national tour of farms and fishing communities to kick of this joint effort. I spoke with Niaz just before she left on tour. Here’s my conversation with Niaz Dorry. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Janaki Jagannath is the former Coordinator at the Community Alliance for Agroecology, a coalition of community-based organizations in the San Joaquin Valley of California that work to advance agricultural and environmental policy towards justice for communities bearing the burden of California’s food system. Prior to this, she worked at California Rural Legal Assistance in Fresno, enforcing labor standards and environmental justice protections such as access to clean drinking water for farmworker communities. Janaki has assisted in curriculum development for the Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems degree at UC Davis and has farmed diversified and orchard crops across the state, including conducting training at the Refugee Entrepreneurial Agriculture Project in San Diego County. Janaki holds a B.S. in Agricultural Development from UC Davis and a producers’ certification in Ecological Horticulture from UC Santa Cruz Center for Agroecology. She is currently pursuing her J.D. at King Hall. In this episode, Janaki talks to Devon about organizing in the San Joaquin Valley, building movements in the legacy of the United Farm Workers, and an ecological approach to environmental justice. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

M. Jahi Chappell is a political agroecologist with training in ecology and evolutionary biology, science and technology studies, and chemical engineering. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) at Coventry University, and a Fellow of Food First.Jahi has recently published a book called Beginning to End Hunger: Food and the Environment in Belo Horizonte, Brazil and Beyond. It is rooted in his field research in Belo Horizonte over more than a decade, and presents a far-reaching analysis of how to end hunger, what is keeping us as a society from doing it, and how we might overcome the many obstacles in our way. Devon spoke to Jahi in the cafeteria of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, during a vibrant symposium on agroecology. We talk about the experience of Belo Horizonte’s massive investment in food security, the expansion of those ideas to Brazil’s Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) programs, and the need to build trust between groups and find common agendas so that we as a movement are ready when political windows open for radical change. Photo courtesy of Cecilia Rocha. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Elizabeth Mpofu is a the General Coordinator of La Via Campesina, a global coalition of more than 164 farmer organizations from 73 countries. She is also a small-scale farmer in Zimbabwe, the leader of the Zimbabwe Smallholder Farmers’ Forum, and an advisor to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. In this episode, she describes her unexpected path to leadership in the food sovereignty movement, the fight to be respected as peasants around the world, and the struggle for representation of the people most effected by development decisions. We spoke at the Thousand Currents offices in Berkeley last year.Photo: DFID (CC BY 2.0) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We're excited to announce season 6 of Delicious Revolution! Just about every one of the fifty episodes we’ve done so far touches on movement. Listening back to these recordings, I feel like I’m listening in on many lifetimes of experience building movements. I think it’s time to take on movement building head-on for a season. We’ll bring you interviews with organizers and activists, and get deep into what it means to build a movement. Photo: Sana Javeri Kadri (She's Delicious Revolution interview number 50!) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

#50 Sana Javeri Kadri on decolonization as a series of questions by Chelsea Wills and Devon Sampson See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sana Javeri Kadri is a sometimes salty, permanently hungry, rather creative human. She was raised in post-colonial Bombay, wound up in the produce aisles of California and can be currently found @sanajaverikadri on Instagram or in person wherever there are vegetables to be found. She is also schemer-in-chief for Diaspora Co-Op. In this episode, Sana talks with Chelsea about living between Mumbai and the Bay Area, the role of aesthetics in telling difficult stories, and decolonization as a series of questions. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ayhan Aydin is a meal ecologist. His interdisciplinary practice consists of projects that consider art, science and food. He is interested in creating stories through meals and challenging the idea of what a meal is. As a cook, he likes to take ordinary food items and creates something unexpected but still familiar. He is one of the founders of Nordisk Matutveckling AB (Nordic Food Development), a company that creates new food products from Nordic ingredients, applying various culinary traditions to existing foods in order to utilize and repurpose them. His artistic work includes collaborations with OPENrestuarnt, a theater play called “Restaurang Allemansrätten” (the Restaurant Right of Commons) featuring a meal as a central part of the story, and several conceptual dinners. In this episode, Ayhan talks with Devon about making tempeh from Swedish fava beans, what it means to create something new from very old food traditions, and drawing on the richness of immigrant food traditions. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Severine von Tscharner Fleming is a part-time farmer, activist, and organizer based in the Champlain Valley of New York. She is director of Greenhorns, a grassroots organization with the mission to recruit, promote and support the rising generation of new farmers in America. Severine has spent the last seven years gathering, bundling and broadcasting the voices and vision of young agrarians. Greenhorns runs a weekly radio show on Heritage Radio Network and a popular blog. They produce many kinds of media, from documentary films to almanacs, anthologies, mix-tapes, posters, guidebooks and digital maps. They are best known the documentary film, “The Greenhorns” and the raucous young farmer mixers they've thrown in 37 states and 14 grange halls. Severine is co-founder and board secretary of Farm Hack, an online, open-source platform for appropriate and affordable farm tools and technologies , as well as National Young Farmers Coalition which now boasts 23 state and regional coalitions. She serves on the board of the Schumacher Center for New Economics, which hosts Agrarian Trust, her latest startup, focused on land access for beginning farmers, and permanent protection of affordable organic farmland. Severine attended Pomona College and University of California at Berkeley, where she graduated with a B.S. in Conservation/ Agroecology. In this episode, Severine talks with Devon about young farmers, emerging models for food and land sovereignty, and building a commons for the future of farming. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Maya Shiroyama and Jim Ryugo run Kitazawa Seeds, a 100-year-old seed distributor based in California that specializes in Asian vegetables. The company was started by Gijiu Kitazawa in 1917, serving mostly Japanese-American gardeners on the West Coast. It closed for four years when the United States government sent Kitazawa and most of his customers to concentration camps during World War Two, and re-opened in 1945 shortly after their release. Maya and Jim had planted the company’s seeds in their home garden for years when a missing seed order led to them buying the company from Kitazawa’s granddaughter in 2000. In this episode, Maya and Jim talk with Devon about the 100-year history of the seed company, the global network of growers that supply their unique inventory of seeds, and the new and old varieties dear to asian-americas gardeners and farmers around the country. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

#45 Sandor Katz on the relevance of food traditions, and migrating from the city to the country by Chelsea Wills and Devon Sampson See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The People's Kitchen Collective (PKC) works at the intersection of art and activism as a food-centered political education project and cooperative business. Based in Oakland, California, their creative practices reflect the diverse histories and background of collective members Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik, Jocelyn Jackson, and Saqib Keval. Written in their family's recipes are maps of migrations and the stories of resilience. It is from this foundation that they create immersive experiences that celebrate centuries of shared struggle. Collectively cooking and sharing food is sanctified and celebrated community work in many cultures. With the passage of time, systems of imperialism--including capitalism and gentrification--have turned cooking into an inaccessible burden. In response to this inequality PKC has been creating accessible, healthy, and loving food spaces since 2007. Active in Oakland since 2011, they are committed to using local and organic ingredients whenever possible and sharing meals with as many people as they can. The goal of The People's Kitchen Collective is to not only fill stomachs but also nourish souls, feed minds, and fuel a movement. In this episode, PKC talks with Chelsea about nourishing a radical, beloved community, and feeding movement from the farm to the kitchen to the table to the street. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Norma Listman is a Mexico City and Oakland-based chef and artist. Her practice is shaped by her heritage, and she is most interested in traditional cooking methods and the historical periods of Mexican gastronomy. Norma’s passion for the preservation of her culture and her father’s life-long work with maize have ignited her interest for working with native varieties of the crop. She began her career in some of the most prestigious restaurants of the Bay Area, managing the nationally acclaimed Camino Restaurant and long-time Bay Area institution BayWolf Restaurant in Oakland, before deciding to follow her passion and become a professional chef. As a food scholar she teaches Mexican culinary techniques at 18 Reasons in San Francisco. She currently lives in Mexico City and is focused on her research on Mexican native corn and nixtamalization. In this episode, Norma talks with Chelsea about preserving traditional corn varieties in a changing cultural and economic landscape, and the meztizaje of food traditions in Mexico and California. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Peter Buckley is a blackberry grower, philanthropist, and co-owner of Front Porch Farm. Peter has had several careers— after closing his law practice in San Francisco, he moved to India to establish a buying agency, and later did the same in Argentina and Brazil. Later, unusual circumstances, luck and friendship resulted in him owning Esprit, a fashion business headquartered in Germany. After meeting Mimi and having two boys in Germany, Peter decided it was time to return to San Francisco. He sold his interests in Esprit and moved to Mill Valley. Together with Mimi they built the Greenwood School (K-8). Peter’s interest in Education lead to co-founding the Center For Ecoliteracy (Berkeley) and commitment to conservation lead to building The David Brower Center (Berkeley) as a home for the environmental community. Peter continued to work with his former business partner Doug Tompkins, building National Parks in Chile and supporting many forms of environmental activism. Embracing the regenerative nature of farming, Peter and Mimi started building farms in Oregon and California. Riverbend Farm and Looking Glass Farm are organic blueberry operations in Oregon, and Front Porch Farm in Healdsburg is a highly diversified farm where Peter and Mimi currently live. Recently, he seems to have taken a great interest in blackberries. In this special summer episode, Devon talks with Peter about blackberries, and about the challenges and beauty of running a diverse farm. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dan Imhoff is an author, musician, and artisan food producer who has written for 25 years on ecological sustainability. His books include Farming with the Wild, Food Fight, and Building with Vision. Dan is the president and co-founder of Watershed Media as well as president and a co-founder of the Wild Farm Alliance, a national organization that works to promote agriculture systems that support and accommodate wild nature. He lives on a small homestead farm outside of Healdsburg, California. In this episode, Dan talks to Devon about how the wild got pulled out of farming, how to make farms hospitable to wild nature. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Aileen Suzara is a land-based educator, eco-advocate, and cook. She was born in Washington, raised mostly on the Big Island of Hawai’i, and is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her family spans the Philippines and North America, and these places define her. While she has spent years working towards building healthier communities, sustainable foods, and environmental justice, she also carries a torch for storytelling and its ability to inspire, move, and transform. Currently, she recently completed a Masters in public health at the University of California, Berkeley’s graduate school of public health and nutrition, and she is also in La Cocina’s kitchen incubator program, where she is starting a food business called Sariwa. She is exploring the potential to lift up traditional Filipino-inspired foodways as one solution towards chronic disease that will also boost ecological health and the livelihood of small farmers. In this interview, Aileen talks with Chelsea about decolonizing food traditions, and the power of food and food stories to heal. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

#40 Suzi Grady of Petaluma Bounty on addressing the root causes of hunger by Chelsea Wills and Devon Sampson See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Albert Straus is the founder and CEO of Straus Family Creamery and an advocate for organic dairy production, environmental stewardship, and family farms. He grew up on his family’s dairy farm on Tomales Bay, near Point Reyes National Park. He took over management of the farm in the 1970s, and when he founded the creamery in 1994, it was the first 100% certified organic creamery. His business has provided a model for many organic, farm-to-bottle dairy businesses around the world. Albert continues to be a leader in sustainability, with projects that include independent verification that his feed is GMO-free, a methane digester and a water reuse system. His carbon farming program is a model for the Marin Carbon Project and the California Healthy Soils Initiative. At the invitation of Vandana Shiva, he is consulting with farmers in India on organic milk production. In this episode, Albert talks with Devon about building a sustainable, organic food system and revitalizing rural communities. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Annie Somerville is the Executive Chef of Greens Restaurant in San Francisco, an innovator of farm-to-table and vegetarian food since 1979. Greens is owned by the San Francisco Zen Center, buys much of their produce from the Zen Center’s Green Gulch farm, and has an exclusively vegetarian menu. The restaurant occupies a decommissioned army pier on the San Francisco Bay with views of the fog rolling into the bay. Annie is the author of two cookbooks, Fields of Greens and Everyday Greens. In this episode, Annie talks with Devon about learning to cook in the Tassajara Zen Monastery, building relationships with farmers, and supporting workers through San Francisco’s housing crisis. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Nikki Silvestri is an advocate for climate solutions, heathy food systems, and social change. As the Co-Founder of Live Real and former Executive Director of People's Grocery and Green for All, Nikki has built and strengthened social equity for underrepresented populations in food systems, social services, public health, climate solutions, and economic development. Her many honors include being named one of The Root's 100 Most Influential African Americans in 2014. Nikki is Co-Founder and CEO of Soil and Shadow, a project design and management firm working to support thriving communities, economies, and natural environments. In this episode, Nikki talks with Devon about the ways sequestering carbon in soil present opportunities to forge new alliances, and the need to address our shadow sides to make those alliances work. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Amy Franceschini is an artist and educator who creates formats for exchange and production that question and challenge the social, cultural and environmental systems that surround her. An overarching theme in her work is a perceived conflict between humans and nature, and her projects reveal the ways that local politics are affected by globalization. In 1995, Amy founded Futurefarmers and in 2004, she co-founded Free Soil, an international collective of artists, activists, researchers, and gardeners who work together to propose alternatives to the social, political and environmental organization of space. In 2008, Amy worked with the City of San Francisco to transform the plaza in front of City Hall into a modern victory garden, and to build gardens in people’s back yards. She is currently sailing from Oslo to Istanbul as part of Seed Journey, bringing seeds found in Norway and other points in the northern hemisphere to their center of origin in the Middle East and connecting with seed savers, farmers, bakers, activists and others along the way. Amy grew up on a farm in the Central Valley of California. In this episode, Amy talks with Chelsea about her victory gardens project in San Francisco, a Seed Journey to the Middle East, and the importance of not finding a common language.Photo: RS 10 Christiania by Martin Høy See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Jezra Thompson is the Program Supervisor of the Berkeley Public School Gardening & Cooking Program, where she leads a team of garden educators and works with schools and community organizations to provide hands-on, place-based education to all students. She is a food system planner who focuses on community development, land use planning, and education. Jezra has worked on healthy food access and education at DC Greens, the California Farmers Market Association, and the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, and she writes for Civil Eats. In this episode, Delicious Revolution intern Rebecca Murillo talks with Jezra about the ways school gardens and kitchens provide a unique learning environment and an opportunity for students to be their own leaders in the world. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Kristyn Leach runs Namu Farm at the Sunol AgPark east of the San Francisco Bay. She grows vegetables for San Francisco restaurant Namu Gaji and seeds for the Kitazawa Seed Company. Kristyn grows both traditional and whimsical produce, focusing on Korean varieties and using organic, biodynamic, and permaculture practices without any fossil fuels. She discovered the foods of her Korean heritage further on in her life, as she was adopted as an infant and grew up in New York, where she later became a part of the urban gardening movement. Her fascination with shiso led her back to her roots and connected her with her Korean roots. In this episode, Devon talks with Kristyn about finding roots and community through plants, adapting Korean vegetables to California, and figuring out farming without fossil fuels. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Fallen Fruit is an art collaboration originally conceived in 2004 by David Burns, Matias Viegener and Austin Young. Since 2013, David and Austin have continued the collaborative work. Fallen Fruit began by mapping fruit trees growing on or over public property in Los Angeles. The collaboration has expanded to include serialized public projects and site-specific installations and happenings in various cities around the world. By always working with fruit as a material or media, the projects reimagine public interactions with the margins of urban space, systems of community and narrative real-time experience. Fallen Fruit’s visual work includes an ongoing series of narrative photographs, wallpapers, everyday objects and video works that explore the social and political implications of our relationship to fruit and world around us. Their current project The Endless Orchard is a massive, collaborative effort to plant fruit trees in shared spaces around the world. In this episode, Chelsea talks with David and Austin about planting public orchards around the world, and fruit as an art medium and subject. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Inspired by the the United Farm Workers struggle for justice and an emerging environmental movement, Jim Cochran started Swanton Berry Farm in 1983 on four leased acres on the California coast. At the time, everyone said it was impossible to make a living growing organic strawberries, but after some creative experimentation and a collaboration with agroecologists Steve Gliessman and Sean Swezey at UC Santa Cruz, Swanton became the first certified organic strawberry farm in California. As the organic berry industry boomed in California, Jim kept implementing his vision for a more sustainable agriculture, signing a contract with the United Farm Workers that covers all of his full-time employees, and offering them a stock ownership program. He aims to set an example with his commercially viable, socially just and sustainable farming business. Jim is currently in the process of retiring from Swanton Berry Farm, and working on The Food Commons, a model for supporting local food systems with a pilot food hub in Fresno, California. In this episode, Jim talks to Devon about working with the United Farm Workers and growing organic when everyone says it’s impossible. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ron Reed is a Karuk dipnet fisherman and a cultural biologist for the Karuk Tribe of California, where he develops plans for eco-cultural revitalization, leads youth cultural education camps, and fosters collaborative research at the nexus of traditional ecological knowledge and western science. Ron plays a critical role in increasing public awareness about the impacts of colonization on the spiritual and physical health of his people and on the ecological integrity of the Karuk ancestral lands. He is a co-founder of the Karuk-UC Berkeley Collaborative and works with the nearby tribes, UC Berkeley and the USDA on the Klamath Basin Tribal Food Security Project. In this episode, Ron talks with Devon about re-discovering traditional knowledge, the trouble with and power of expertise, and renewing the forest and our culture with sacred fire. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Darrie Ganzhorn is the executive director of the Homeless Garden Project, a 3-acre organic farm and garden in Santa Cruz, California where, as the mission statement reads, “people find the tools they need to build a home in the world.” The project provides job training, transitional employment, and support services. Trainees and volunteers grow and harvest fruits and vegetables that sustain daily lunches and fundraising farm dinners. The Homeless Garden Project also provides fresh produce for low income families and nonprofits, from the AIDS Project to a program working with foster youth. Darrie came to the Homeless Garden Project in 1991, when she started working one-on-one with Project trainees. In this episode, Darrie speaks with Chelsea about the farm as a sanctuary and job training site. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

DR Special #1: Kathleen of the Homeless Garden Project by Chelsea Wills and Devon Sampson See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Lexa Walsh is a longtime artist and cultural worker based in the Bay Area. She has also lived, worked, exhibited and toured internationally. She founded the experimental music, performance and film venue the Heinz Afterworld Lounge, worked for many years as a curator and administrator at CESTA, an international art center in Czech republic, whose team created radical curatorial projects to foster cross-cultural understanding. She co-founded and conceived of the all women, all toy instrument ensemble Toychestra. She founded and organizes Oakland Stock, the Oakland branch of the Sunday Soup network micro-granting dinner series that supports artists’ projects, and launched the Librarification tumblr, which hosts artist resources. Her silo-busting project Meal Ticket brings people who don't normally eat with each other together for a meal. In this episode, Lexa talks to Chelsea about meals that bring people together across difference, creating temporary utopias, and collecting recipes for food end everything. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Jessica Prentice is a founder of Three Stone Hearth, a Community Supported Kitchen and worker-owned cooperative in Berkeley, California. She has loved cooking for as long as she can remember. In 1996 she completed the professional Chef’s Training at the Natural Gourmet Institute in New York. She worked as the Chef of the Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin from 1997-2001, where she founded the Headlands Hearth Bakery and Café in 2001. Jessica educated herself in sustainable agriculture issues, and in 2002 was hired as the first Director of Education Programs for the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco. Jessica coined the word “locavore” and co-created the Local Foods Wheels. She is the author of Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection. Recently, she has been writing about new and very old models of cooperative work. In this episode, Jessica talks with Chelsea about making a worker-owned and community supported kitchen, and inviting people into their own kitchens with good ingredients See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Michaela Leslie-Rule is a digital media producer, storyteller and social scientist. As the owner of Fact Memory Testimony she has been fortunate to collaborate with ITVS, Memphis Music Initiative, Community Foundation for Monterey County and Nike and Firelight Foundations’ Grassroots Girls Initiative. Embedded in Michaela’s approach to research, advocacy and communication is elevating constituent voices through the use of storytelling. She is particularly interested in participatory methods for measuring and documenting social and organizational change, and has designed and implemented participatory projects on four continents. She uses a story-centric approach to produce multimedia projects and advocacy campaigns. As the producer of IGNITE: Women Fueling Science and Technology, Global Fund for Women’s global advocacy campaign and multimedia project, she curated and oversaw the creation of five online storytelling galleries, designed and implemented an international girls’ hackathon and oversaw a coordinated advocacy effort between the Fund and UN Women demanding equal access to and control of technology for women and girls worldwide. In this episode, Michaela speaks with Chelsea about paying attention to culture in public health and nutrition, the complexity of healthy food choices, the bridging the generational gap in food knowledge. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik is an artist, writer, and educator who understands art as a strategy to connect personal and public histories. Her research focuses on decolonizing the hierarchy of the senses and impact of migration. Raised in Los Angeles and based in Oakland, she is Indian and Japanese Colombian American. Sita holds a B.A. in Studio Art from Scripps College, an M.F.A. in interdisciplinary art and an M.A. in Visual and Critical Studies from California College of the Arts. She is a founding member of the People's Kitchen Collective in Oakland, California along with Jocelyn Jackson and Saqib Keval. Together, they produce community meals that narrate our migration. The goal of The People's Kitchen is to not only fill our stomachs but also nourish our souls, feed our minds and fuel a movement. In this episode, Sita talks with Chelsea about the People’s Kitchen Collective, decolonizing foods and remedies, and magical ingredients that travel the world. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Anna Lappé is a bestselling author and widely respected educator, known for her work as an expert on food systems and as a sustainable food advocate. She is the co-author or author of three books and the contributing author to ten others. Anna’s work has been translated internationally and featured in The New York Times, Gourmet, Oprah Magazine, among many other outlets. Named one of TIME magazine’s “eco” Who’s-Who, Anna is a founding principal of the Small Planet Institute and the Small Planet Fund with her mother, Frances Moore Lappé. She is also the founder and director of the Real Food Media Project, which uses creative movies, an online movie contest, a web-based action center, and grassroots events to grow the movement for sustainable food and farming. Her latest book, Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It, was named by Booklist and Kirkus as one of the best environmental books of the year. Anna is also the co-author of Hope’s Edge, which chronicles doc ial movements fighting hunger around the world, and Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen, showcasing the ecological and social benefits of sustainable food with seasonal menus from chef Bryant Terry. In this episode, Anna speaks with Chelsea about the connections between food systems and climate change, debunking the myth that we need toxic chemicals to feed the world, and food movement’s growing influence in popular politics. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Saru Jayaraman is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC-United) and Director of the Food Labor Research Center at University of California, Berkeley. After 9/11, together with displaced World Trade Center workers, she co-founded ROC in New York, organizing restaurant workers to win workplace justice campaigns, conduct research and policy work, partner with responsible restaurants, and launch cooperatively-owned restaurants. ROC now has 10,000 members in 19 cities nationwide. The story of Saru and ROC is chronicled in the book The Accidental American. Saru is a graduate of Yale Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She was profiled in the New York Times "Public Lives" section in 2005, and was named one of Crain's "40 Under 40" in 2008, 1010 WINS's "Newsmaker of the Year," and one of New York Magazine's "Influentials" of New York City. Saru co-edited The New Urban Immigrant Workforce, and wrote Behind the Kitchen Door, and, most recently, Forked: A New Standard for American Dining. In this episode, Saru talks with Chelsea about the struggle for pay and decent working conditions in restaurants, the ROC’s innovative collaborations in labor organizing, and the reasons people who like good food should care about labor politics. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hillary Sardiñas is a pollination ecologist and naturalist. She has a PhD from UC Berkeley, where she studied the ability of small-scale on-farm native plant restorations to contribute to both wild bee conservation and farm viability through increased yields due to heightened crop pollination. Hillary blogs about current pollinator-related research, translating science into key points for the public. Hillary is the Pacific Coast Pollinator Specialist for the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, a non-profit dedicated to the protection of wildlife and their habitat. Hillary provides technical assistance to farmers incorporating pollinator habitat on their farms. She also conducts a variety of educational events throughout the West Coast. In this episode, Hillary talks to Chelsea about the incredible diversity of native pollinators, the threats they face, and how they contribute to our food system. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Simran Sethi is a journalist and educator focused on food, sustainability and social change. Named the environmental “messenger” by Vanity Fair, a top 10 eco-hero of the planet by the U.K.’s Independent, and designated one of the top eight women saving the planet by Marie Claire, Simran is the author of Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love, a beautiful, personal book about the story of changes in food and agriculture told through bread, wine, chocolate, coffee and beer. She is an associate at the University of Melbourne’s Sustainable Society Institute in Australia, a contributor for Orion Magazine and a recent visiting scholar at the Cocoa Research Centre in St. Augustine, Trinidad. In this episode of Delicious Revolution, Chelsea talks to Simran about the biodiversity behind the flavors we love, democratizing taste, and how everyone can take back their own expertise in food. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Heidi Herrmann started Strong Arm Farm in 2009, originally with a focus on vegetables, and now offering an ever-expanding selection of specialty crops, including wildcrafted seaweed from the Sonoma coast. Heidi is also a Sustainable Agriculture Instructor at Santa Rosa Junior College, at their renowned Shone Farm facility. She has an Ornamental Horticulture degree from Cal Poly University, with emphasis in pest management and nursery production, and a Master’s from Sonoma State University, where her thesis was on Experiential Agriculture Education. Running Strong Arm Farm is truly a ‘practice what you preach’ example. Heidi is a strong-armed woman producing an array of beautiful and nutrient-dense delectables. In this episode, Heidi talks to Chelsea about the multiple livelihood strategies of a farmer and educator, and harvesting seaweed under the full moon. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Jonah Raskin is a writer - a poet and journalist - with a love for food and the people who make it. Jonah is the author of fourteen books on subjects ranging from women in rock n roll, marijuana culture and politics, Jack London, Alan Ginsberg, and a personal exploration of the food and farming culture of Sonoma County called Field Days. One thread that connects these works is a loving, exuberant sense of place. His countless articles in the local press in Sonoma County, where we both live, very often profile the eccentric characters here, and quite often, these people are immersed in lifetime projects of growing and making food. Jonah was raised on Long Island, got a PhD in England, and adopted Sonoma County in the late 1970s, where he taught literature and journalism at Sonoma State University. I met Jonah at a community meeting on oysters in West Marin County, California, and some of my favorite writing of his explores the bitter controversy over the closing of Drakes Bay Oyster Company. He is currently working on a book about the drought. In this episode, Devon and Jonah talk about the oyster wars, what nature is for, and the need for many kinds of creativity in response to the California drought. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Emma Rosenbush is the general manager at Cala in San Francisco, Chef Gabriela Cámara’s outpost of the renowned seafood restaurant Contramar in Mexico City. Before opening Cala, Emma stared an experimental pop-up restaurant in Mexico City called Pichón with Niki Nakazawa (who we interviewed on Delicious Revolution #9) and Kenny Curran. Prior to her time in Mexico, she worked at the Prison Law Office in Berkeley, where she decided that if she was ever responsible for hiring workers, she would hire former inmates. She is now leading the way in welcoming formerly incarcerated indeviduals into full-time, visible positions at Cala. Emma speaks with Chelsea about the changing labor politics in fine dining. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

David Asher is an organic farmer, farmstead cheese maker and cheese educator based on the gulf islands of British Columbia, Canada. A guerrilla cheesemaker, David does not make cheese according to standard industrial philosophies - he explores traditionally cultured, non-corporate methods of cheesemaking. David offers cheese outreach to communities near and far with the Black Sheep School of Cheesemaking. Through workshops in partnership with food-sovereignty-minded organizations, he shares his distinct cheesemaking style. His workshops teach a cheesemaking method that is natural, DIY, and well suited to the home kitchen or artisanal production. He is the author of The Art of Natural Cheesemaking. David talks with Devon about raw milk, kefir cultures, and how diversity makes cheese and food systems resilient. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Antonio Roman-Alcalá is a food activist, gardener, teacher and scholar. In 2005, with a group of friends, he broke into a vacant lot by the freeway in the southern part of San Francisco to start Alemany Farm. He has taught Ecological Horticulture there and at many other food projects. He managed a food justice project and garden at San Francisco’s Potrero Hill public housing and organized the San Francisco Urban Agriculture Alliance. He made a movie called In Search of Good Food, and worked on forming the California Food Policy Council. He was part of Occupy the Farm. He recently got a masters degree at the Institute for Social Studies at the Hague for research on Food Sovereignty. His current project is a book called entitled An antidogmatist's guide to food systems, and how to change them. He will be writing the book blog post by blog post, and you can read it as Antonio writes it at antidogmatist.com-- it is coming soon. He is a musician and new father, and lives in San Francisco with his family. Antonio talks with Chelsea about coming out of DIY culture, pushing institutions, and transforming the food system at multiple scales. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Niki Ford is an artist, writer and chef. She worked at Chez Panisse for six years, then at the American Academy in Rome as a part of the Rome Sustainable Food Project. As a Culinary Fellow at the Montalvo Arts Center in California, she spent a year testing out a more “plant driven” menu concept in a community of artists from around the world, where she also kept a menu blog called Mountains in my Spoon. She was the opening Chef of Healdsburg SHED, and now works as a freelance chef and food editor for GFF Magazine. Chelsea and Devon met Niki at Salmon Creek Farm, on the Mendocino coast, where she is working on a place-based cookbook with artist Fritz Haeg. Her website is NikiFordCooks.com, and she posts delicious pictures at nikifordcooks on instagram. In this episode, Niki talks to Devon about plant-driven cooking, getting tired of dining, and food at the nexus of creativity and poverty. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Tim Page runs the Farmers’ Exchange of Earthy Delights — also known as F.E.E.D. Sonoma— a produce distribution company that works very closely with 50 small scale farmers in Sonoma County, California. Growing up in the Orange County, CA of the ‘70s, Tim witnessed the disappearance of farmlands firsthand, inspiring F.E.E.D.’s dedication to creating a food system with efficient practices and pristine raw ingredients, all while practicing the maximization of our existing resources. Chelsea talks with Tim about the origins of this business under an oak tree, supporting a community of farmers, and what to do with the ridiculous abundance of California. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Maria Eugenia Flores Gomez is a social psychologist and community organizer with more than 15 years of experience working in Central America and California for peace, women rights, and food security. Chris Bacon is an environmental social scientist whose work has focused on food security and food sovereignty in Northern Nicaragua, and more recently, in California. He takes a participatory action research approach to his work, and is a professor at Santa Clara University. Mari and Chris work together on a project called Food Security and Sovereignty in Las Segovias in collaboration with the Community Agroecology Network and the PRODECOOP cooperatives in the mountains of Northern Nicaragua. Mari and Chris talk to Devon about their collaboration born of revolution, solidarity, and participatory action research in rural Nicaragua. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Molly Wilson and Zack Hemstreet run Bullock Lake Farm on Salt Spring Island, British Colombia, where they grow organic produce, flowers, and pastured livestock. From heirloom apples to bouquets to a new barn that will double as a music venue, they take a diverse approach farming. They sell at local farmers markets, grocery stores, and a very popular Community Supported Agriculture program. Molly and Zack speak with Chelsea about how they became farmers, farm internships that engage your whole self, diverse income strategies on a family farm, and collaborating with a piece of land. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Liz Carlisle is the author of The Lentil Underground, a story of organic conversion and community organizing in the northern Great Plains. Her book follows a group of farmers from very different ideological backgrounds as they revolt against industrial agriculture, diversify their farms, build soil, and come together to form new markets for their products. Liz holds a Ph.D. in Geography from UC Berkeley, and lectures at Stanford and UC Berkeley. She is a Montana native, former country singer/songwriter and legislative aid to Senator Jon Tester of Montana. In this episode, Liz talks to Devon about The Lentil Underground, farmers as innovators and scientists, and the links between soils, markets, and vibrant rural communities. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Delicious Revolution is taking a short break, while we work on bringing you an amazing second season. We'll be back on March 7. Stay tuned for great things to come! In the mean time, if you want to give us a hand, leave us a review on iTunes-- its easy, and helps more than you think. Do it from the Podcasts app on an iPhone, or from iTunes on your computer. Also, we want to hear from you! Have a story about food? Call us at +1 (510) 859-7430 and leave us a message. You can find out much more at our website, deliciousrevolutionshow.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Kyra Busch has advocated for local food sovereignty for over a decade. Working with the Alternative Agriculture Network of Thailand and the Educational Network for Global and Grassroots Exchange, she worked on successful initiatives to certify and import Fair Trade Thai jasmine rice to the U.S. and to prevent an inequitable U.S.-Thai free trade agreement. Kyra spearheaded the nation’s first Indigenous farm-to-school program and managed a culturally appropriate food delivery program for diabetic elders on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota. Kyra holds a Master’s degree in Social Ecology of Conservation and Development from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, where she wrote her thesis on a groundbreaking biocultural curriculum in Kuna Yala, Panama. Kyra is now the program officer for Agrobiodiversity, Food Sovereignty and Resilient Biocultural Landscapes at the Christensen Fund in San Francisco. In this episode, Kyra talks to Devon about farmers who love the fabulous diversity of traditional rice varieties in Thailand, how traveling and studying abroad can lead to solidarity, the promise of agrobiodiversity for a sustainable food system, and thinking about agroecology on a 100-year time frame. Our interview with Kyra airs February 1, 2016 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Brian Dowd-Uribe is a food systems researcher and assistant professor at University of San Francisco. He met Devon in the Environmental Studies PhD program at UC Santa Cruz. There, Brian’s research took place in Burkina Faso, where he looked closely at the introduction of genetically modified cotton and its impact on state and its cotton companies, and at the impacts of liberalization on farmer livelihoods. At the same time, with a group of other PhD students at UC Santa Cruz, Brian co-founded the New Roots Institute for the Study of Food Systems. He worked as a post-doc at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, looking at community gardens in East Harlem, and then for three years at the University of Peace, a United Nations-affiliated university in Costa Rica. He and his family recently returned to Northern California, where he grew up, for a tenure-track position at University of San Francisco. In this episode, Devon and Brian talk about Burkina Faso’s unique high-quality cotton industry, prospects of genetically modified crops in bringing economic development to the poor, and the need to (and joy of) creating alliances and relationships across unequal differences in power. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Since moving to Mexico City in 2007, Niki Nakazawa has navigated between the art, architecture, music and food worlds. After several years working as managing editor at art and architecture publishing houses, she founded the experimental pop-up restaurant and catering company Pichón with Emma Rosenbush and Kenny Curran. Pichón is a pop-up restaurant and a project dedicated to culinary research and experimentation. It is inspired by the chinampas of Mexico City, the culinary traditions of the Mexican countryside, and the gastronomic revolution that has transformed food culture. They believe that the best food is prepared with ingredients grown locally and sustainably, and that food should be a vehicle for strengthening community, from its cultivation to consumption. Chelsea talks to Nikki about Chinampas, the island-gardens of the Mexican highlands, about what it means to eat local in Mexico City, about cooking as an exploration, and about her recent culinary residency in coastal Oaxaca. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Michelle Glowa is an assistant professor in Anthropology and Social Change department at CIAS in San Francisco. Her work explores the dynamics between activists engaged in changing the landscapes of cities and food systems and the contemporary institutions with which they interact. Michelle approaches her research with over a decade of experience working with food justice and urban agriculture organizing in the United States and Mexico. Chelsea talks with Michelle Glowa about the role of urban gardens in re-imagining and reshaping cities. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.