Heirloom Meals: Savoring Yesterday's Traditions Today

Friday April 20, 2012

Heirloom Meals Radio:
Christine McLaughlin

Christine McLaughlin, author of  The Complete Idiot's Guide to Small-Space Gardening, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Composting, and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Heirloom Vegetables grew up on the edge of suburbia and farm country with an envious eye on the life of farmers.  As a young girl and aspiring entrepreneur she nurtured her love for plants going up and down her street with replanted "volunteer" seedlings selling them to her neighbors for 10 cents a piece.  This appreciation for plants evolved into an appreciation for preserving the rich heritage of heirloom and open-pollinated varieties and eventually realizing her dream of becoming a writer with her contributions to The Complete Idiot's series.  Listen in as Christine tells her story and talks about the many reasons why preserving heirloom seeds is important (beyond genetic diversity).

Wednesday April 18, 2012

Heirloom Meals Radio:
Jere Gettle

Jere Gettle, who started the Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds company, first conceived the idea at the age of 17!  We had the pleasure of hearing about his youth growing up on a farm where his family grew all their own vegetables and the joy he still experiences each spring when the first plants set fruit.  Starting with a paper catalog as a teenager his company has grown through his hard work and love for the environment.  Not unlike Heirloom Meals - Jere now fuses modern with traditional ways - using Facebook and other social media to connect and educate people about Heirloom Seeds.  Listen in to hear Jere demystify some of the questions about seed saving and explain how his seeds are different from the ones sold at big box stores and buy his book The Heirloom Life Gardener: The Baker Creek Way of Growing Your Own Food Easily and Naturally for more detail about heirloom varieties. Join us as we go down Food Memory Lane with Jere Gettle, founder of Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

Wednesday April 11, 2012

Heirloom Meals Radio:
Kathy Mangan

Imagine spending the summer of your youth on your grandparent's farm in the Catskills of Upstate New York.  Kathy Mangan doesn't have to.  She had one of those amazing, magical opportunities to view first hand how food is grown and foraged.  Everything was sustainable.  If you wanted a pie, you went out and picked something to put in the pie.  All the kids worked together and were expected to do their share.  This created a lifelong bond of amazing memories of the wonderful big meals that her Irish grandmother made, including her Irish Soda Bread.

Kathy has been on the quest to recreate her grandmother's soda bread.  So listen up and hear how Kathy travels to Ireland and learns how to truly make the bread that transports her to her childhood.

Wednesday March 07, 2012

Heirloom Meals Radio:
Michael Wang

Michael Wang despite growing up in the restaurant business, confessed that he didn’t have any interest, actually, until he sampled other careers and found himself drawn to it.   With an MBA and a business plan in hand, he launched his popular chinese sandwich shop in the financial district of Boston - Foumami.  Michael tells a great story about how he came up with the name. It is actually the combination of 2 words. Fo means Buddha and Umami means delicious and tasty. Michael shares the tale of the Buddha that jumps over the wall and breaks his vows just to find the delicious food he smelled.  And, one can deduce that Foumami would have that effect on a practicing monk!

What I found most intriguing about Michael’s restaurant is that it is a sandwich shop.  I confess that I don’t think of “chinese” and “sandwich” in the same sentence.  Michael suggested that most Americans have only experienced a small fraction of Chinese foods and that the Shandong Province is famous for their dumplings, noodles and breads.   Enjoy the interview here!

Although it's not a recipe for one of Foumami's famous sandwiches, Michael shared with us a recipe for his Soba Noodle Soup!

Wednesday February 29, 2012

Heirloom Meals Radio:
Domonic Biggi

Imagine growing up in a family business that was founded upon your grandmother's horseradish sauce?  Dominic Biggi can.  He recounts that his grandmother, Rose Biggi sold her sauce out of necessity - during the Great Depression to feed her family.  Tune it and hear how Beaverton Foods, a three generations old gourmet condiment company invented honey mustard and is the largest producer of non-refrigerated horseradish and specialty mustards in the United States. 

 

This is a true Heirloom Meals story - generational connections, old-fashioned values and a family recipe.

Listen to the radio show here!

Wednesday January 11, 2012

Heirloom Meals Radio:
Hans Morris

There may be no better example of a poster child for Heirloom Meals than Hans Morris. Hans shares a warm and charming account of his connection to food and meals through his memories about his grandmother's baking and Mom's culinary explorations.

Hans began cooking as a young boy. He learned at an early age how to appreciate the nuances of cooking and baking by his successes and failures. He grew up with scheduled family meals and the ritual of the Sunday dinner. Hans is a true gourmand whose culinary curiosity engaged his attention. He developed his skills by experimenting and by throwing elaborate dinner parties in his twenties and continuing the tradition of Sunday dinner with his own family. Perhaps the greatest testament to the importance of the Morris family dinner traditions and culinary bliss was the cookbook that he and his 5 other sibling put together with recipes, stories and photos to honor their parents for their 50th wedding anniversary. A true treasure full of new and old heirloom recipes!

Try this recipe for apple cake - you will not be disappointed!!  Oh and listen here for his interview.

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