Every Day is a Food Day

It's our Season Finale, Listeners! And it's also the holidays! So we're celebrating the end of 2022 with one of our favorite festive foods: GINGERBREAD! Our Chef-Creator Lia Ballentine kicks things off with a brief history of gingerbread, the medieval monk that helped make it popular in Europe, and how food hero Amelia Simmons introduced the first American gingerbread recipes in her pioneering cookbook, “American Coo...

Mabuhay, Listeners! October is Filipino American History Month, and we're excited to celebrate with a special Filipino food episode! Our Chef-Creator Lia Ballentine shares her Filipino culture with us and dives into her culinary heritage with stories about her favorite family dishes, traditional ingredients, and how Filipino food is becoming mainstream in America (even though Filipinos have been in this country since the 1580s...

Hi Listeners! Anna and Lia are ready to get jalapeño your business, because this episode is all about Peppers! In the Deep Dish, our Foodlosopher Anna Van Valin takes us through the science of what makes Chile peppers spicy, the chemical chain reaction that's triggered in your body when you eat a spicy pepper, and why in the world we keep eating a food that hurts to eat! Anna also tells us about pop culture pepper craze and ho...

Hi Listeners! Anna and Lia are about to get frank with you, because this episode is all about Hot Dogs! Prepare to play detective as Anna Van Valin, our Foodlosopher, helps us solve the mysteries of the mystery meat in the Deep Dish: Is the mismatch between the number of buns and wieners in a pack a conspiracy? Is the Hot Dog a sandwich? And the question we’re all afraid to ask: Why do we call it a hot “dog”??? But first, Lia Balle...

We’re back with Part 2 of “Cookies: Double Stuffed” Get ready for an extra deep Deep Dish with our Foodlosopher, Anna Van Valin, as she dives into one of the most epic food business rivalries in history: the century-long battle between Oreo and Hydrox. When a ruthless lawyer and two bitter baker brothers collided at the beginning of the 20th century, it led to the creation of the very first food conglomerate, a world-changing inven...

There’s DOUGH much we want to tell you about cookies, we had to do it in two episodes! In Part 1 of this epic two-parter, Anna and Lia share their fondest cookie memories and tell us how letting their creativity go wild with cookie decorating was important part of their holiday traditions growing up. They also debate Oreo cookie eating methods — the twist and the dunk — and prove there’s no such thing as moderation when it comes to...

This is a crossover episode you MEAD to hear! Our Foodlosopher Anna Van Valin and Chef-Creator Lia Ballentine have joined forces with Evan Anderson and Nick Irvine of the Drinking Horn Meadcast to discuss (and DRINK) mead! Evan and Nick tell us all about the world of making and drinking this ancient fermented honey drink at their Meadery in Flagstaff, AZ, the care and feeding of bees, mead’s better-for-you buzz and why it’s good fo...

Anna and Lia are tied up in knots — delicious, doughy knots — because this episode is all about pretzels! Lia Ballentine, our Chef-Creator, starts us off with the pretzel baking basics and tells us how changing the dough’s pH by boiling it in baking soda or dropping it in a lye bath (that’s right, a lye bath) is essential to achieving the perfect pretzel taste and texture. She takes us through the multiple pretzel-related food holi...

Overture, curtains, lights! Prepare to be mesmerized by Anna Van Valin’s and Lia Ballentine’s portrayals of the moving characters in this highly-lauded short play written by the world’s most creative storytellers — at the FDA. That’s right, in this bonus episode, we’re performing our much anticipated (and requested) dramatic reading of “Carlos’ Tragic and Mysterious Illness: How Carlos Almost Died from Eating Contaminated Raw Oyste...

Anna and Lia have gotten themselves into a sticky situation - because this episode is all about honey!

First, Lia Ballentine, our Chef-Creator, tells us about the food holidays honoring our favorite all-natural sweetener like National Honey Month, as well as the hard-working bees that produce it. She also shares a bit of Norse mythology surrounding the origin of mead (the original mythical ingredients included blood and k...

Welcome back, Listeners and (food) Lovers! Cue the love songs, because romance (or something like it) is in the air as we kick off Season 3 talking about Aphrodisiac Foods! In this episode, Lia Ballentine, our Chef-Creator, digs into the most popular Valentine’s Day foods, including a sexy pasta dish that looks suspiciously like a “noodle ring,” why steak is considered more romantic than pork or poultry, and how boxes of chocolate ...

The wine! The pastries! Co-host Anna Van Valin is back from a monthlong adventure in Portugal, and she’s giving us her Top 5 food (and drink!) experiences in this special episode. We get the lowdown on local flavors, hear about dreamy Portuguese “petiscos” from hidden cafés tucked away in ancient walled cities, and find out why some of the cobblestone streets in Lisbon are so darn sticky. Anna also reveals why the best pastries com...

We’re finally going on a field trip! Co-host Anna Van Valin is in Portugal for a month and she’s sharing all the delicious things she’s eating (pastries!), drinking (wine!) and discovering (ancient stuff!) with us. Follow her culinary adventures on Instagram at @FoodDayPod, and join us for our first Instagram Live this Friday Oct 8 at 12n PT to find out whether she’s tried Portugal’s world famous seafood (...probably not). To see m...

It’s our Season Finale, so we’re slicing into the most iconic American food - Apple Pie! In the Deep Dish, Anna Van Valin gets to the core of how Apple Pie became a symbol of the US of A and what it means to be “as American as Apple pie.” She shares the history behind pie’s rise in popularity in America, including the spread of apples across the colonies thanks to Johnny Appleseed (a real person!), the shift from savory to sweet pi...

We’re all dressed up and turning over a new LEAF - because this episode is all about Salad. No really, trust us! First Lia Ballentine tells us all about National Salad Month, National Egg Salad Week (yep, a whole week!), and the real person (ahem, the woman) behind Hellman’s Mayonnaise. Then she’ll take us back to Tijuana to hear the history of Caesar Salad, and learn about the dressing so mysterious they made a documentary about i...

We've just delivered you a great episode - join us as we unpack the surprising stories behind Takeout! In this episode, you'll hear about Anna & Lia's Covid-fueled takeout habit, and their adventures with drive-thru alcohol joints (of dubious legality). Then Lia Ballentine tells us how the discovery of a snack bar in the ruins of Pompeii means that Takeout has been around since the old (like really old) days, how...

Good news: we finally found that lost shaker of salt! Grab your tequila and slice up some limes because in this episode, Anna and Lia are talking (and drinking) margaritas! First, host Lia Ballentine introduces us to a scholarly puppet who teaches us about National Margarita Day, then she spills the controversial origin stories of this classic cocktail. She’ll also tell us about the genius behind one of America’s most prized invent...

This week, Anna and Lia get fired up as they put the bae in bar-BAE-cue!  Hop in your covered wagon as Anna Van Valin  takes us on a trip through the American Barbecue Belt, from the Carolinas to Texas. We explore the influences and histories that make each region’s BBQ style so unique, like the indigenous Tainos’ method of slow cooking spiced meat, George Washington’s obsession with barbecue parties, and the African-American man w...

Aloha! Today we’re feeling spiky about one of our favorite fruits: pineapple! First, we'll hear about hosts Anna Van Valin and Lia Ballentine’s adventures with pineapple, including Lia's ride on the Pineapple Express and Anna's memorable DoleWhip experience at a conference called MurderCon held at Disneyland (you read that right).  Then Lia tells us how International Pineapple Day got started as a joke, why pineapple...