Category: Audio

Categories
Audio Work

Spicebags Podcast

Launched on March 18, 2020. Spice Bags podcast is produced in the Podcast Studios by Head Stuff in Dublin, Ireland. The podcast is co-hosted by food writers Mei Chin, Dee Laffan and me and centers on global food in an Irish context.

Named after everyone’s favourite Chinese-Irish drunk snack, Spice Bags is about Ireland’s relationship with food from the outside world.

It has featured some of Ireland’s most interesting personalities from Lord Mayor of Dublin Hazel Chu to Michelin starred chef Ahment Dede.

Spice Bags is a fortnightly podcast that is part of the HeadStuff Podcast Network, Ireland’s largest podcast network. Spice Bags won Best Irish Food and Drink podcast in 2021 and 2023 at the Irish Food Writing Awards.

Spice Bags podcast was the closing show on the Compass Taste Theatre stage at Taste of Dublin 2021 for their first-ever live episode and was honoured to present a panel on ‘Social Gastronomy’ at Food on the Edge 2021. The podcast has collaborated with Dublin Lunar New Year, Guinness Storehouse, Celtic Ross Hotel, Moutai and did a panel on international food shopping at Taste of Dublin 2022 with chef Kwangi Chan and TV chef Jeeny Maltese. It also created cross over podcast episodes with Words to that Effect and What am Politics?

Categories
Audio Press

Hello China

Interview about Chinese tea.

Categories
Audio Press

Good Morning Dublin

Interview about Spanish food and Spanish Wine Week events.

Categories
Audio Lectures

Interview on NPR Weekend Passport: A Taste of Spain

My interview back in December 2012 with Jerome McDonnell and Nari Safavi.  At approximately minute 3.

https://www.wbez.org/stories/worldview-120712/fedbb439-bbd9-48af-a8cd-ade97dcddd43?utm_medium=url_copy

Categories
Audio Lectures

“Much More Than Tapas”: Food Trends and Culture in 21st-Century Spain

This lecture organised by the Chicago Culinary Historians of Chicago was recorded by WBEZ in Kendall College on December 8th, 2012

In the last decade Spain has earned a reputation as a star of the culinary world, but this honor is not due to paella or tortilla but to molecular gastronomy. In a country so rich in regional foods, culture and products, this association is not always fair or correct.

In a country where food traditions are millenary, one feels the influence of the Romans, the Jews, the Moors and the Americas, and Spanish food culture has evolved into something very diverse, rich and at times perplexing. In some respects Spain is deeply traditional and in others there is a peculiar modernity.
 
On the traditional side Spain still reveres the pig, and pork products are elevated to iconic status in the form of the Iberian or black-hoofed pig. Having several ham cutters at your wedding is still the ultimate status symbol.
 
On the modern side Spain is the land of Thermomix, and every good housewife (whether stay at home or not) is besotted with this German cooking robot, which weighs, stirs, kneads, stews, chops and much more, and retails for about $1200. For the working mom there is now the convenience of ready-made gazpacho and tortilla where once they would have spent hours making them from scratch.
 
To guide us through modern Spanish cooking is Blanca Valencia. Blanca grew up in Spain and Latin America. She was educated in Virginia and started work as a management consultant in Spain, moving to London in 2000. Food has always been a passion in her life, and, in 2003, she made a career change and left consulting to study at Le Cordon Bleu. Having graduated with a grand diplome, she has spent the past 10 years working in the culinary industry in London, Spain, and now Chicago.