Today on The Leftovers, a speed round with Jesse Tyler Ferguson; Modern Family star and Tony Award winning Broadway actor. Jesse reveals his bougiest, most cliche LA indulgence and creates a menu for a hypothetical dinner party with Barbra Streisand.   If you missed last week’s full interview with Jesse, listen here! Thanks to Visit Kitsap Peninsula for sponsoring this episode! Watch Rachel's new TV show, The Nosh, on Cascade PBS! Follow Rachel Belle on Instagram!

The Modern Family star grew up in New Mexico (the Chile Capital of the World!) where the native green chiles find their way into everything from burgers to mac & cheese. Jesse hasn’t lived in Albuquerque since high school, but he keeps his freezer full of New Mexico green (Hatch) chiles and green chile enchiladas are his forever favorite comfort food.  The retired director of the Chile Pepper Institute tells host Rachel Belle about the history and migration of spicy peppers from the Americas to the rest of the world, which involves everything from bird poop to Christopher Columbus.   Then Jesse tells us about his lunch with Weird Al at one of the country’s most woo-woo restaurants! Thanks to Visit Kitsap Peninsula for sponsoring this episode! Follow Rachel Belle on Instagram! Watch Rachel's new TV show, The Nosh, on Cascade PBS!

If waiting two whole weeks for a new episode of Your Last Meal is way too long, we’ve got something to tide you over.   On the weeks we’re not releasing a full-length episode of Your Last Meal, we’re airing The Leftovers: audio left on the cutting-room floor, interviews that host Rachel Belle really wants to do that don’t fit into the show’s usual format and, as you’ll hear today, a speed round with last week’s guest.      Which means you will now be getting a little taste of Your Last Meal every single Thursday!    Today’s episode features a never-before-heard interview with Tom Papa; comedian, writer, and sourdough-obsessed bread baker.   If you missed last week’s full interview with Tom, you can listen here.  Thanks to Visit Kitsap Peninsula for sponsoring this episode! Watch Rachel's new TV show, The Nosh with Rachel Belle on Cascade PBS!

Tom Papa is a bread nerd. The comedian, author and podcast host is quick to point out that he got obsessed with baking sourdough bread long before the pandemic sourdough craze. He loves to talk about sourdough, read about sourdough and, of course, bake and eat sourdough. So host Rachel Belle chats with the owner of a Seattle bakery that uses a sourdough starter that’s more than 150 years old. Pasta with butter and Parmesan may be the meal of choice for picky American children, but in Italy the simple, comforting dish has an entirely different context. Rachel calls Katie Parla, a Rome-based food and beverage writer and cookbook author, to learn more, and in the process learns the history of fettuccine Alfredo. Follow along on Instagram! Watch Rachel's new Cascade PBS TV show The Nosh with Rachel Belle!

By the end of this episode, you'll feel like the charming, hilarious and down-to-earth Julia Sweeney is your best friend! Julia and host Rachel Belle discuss everything from her true love of eating alone (and how that makes her husband feel) to the 60th birthday gift she gave herself: never dieting again. Julia wants to cap her last meal with Canada’s favorite no-bake, layered dessert: the Nanaimo bar! Rachel chats with Joyce Hardcastle, the contest winner who created the city’s official recipe back in 1986, and with the current mayor of Nanaimo, about the history of the bar and how ubiquitous it is in the Vancouver Island city it was named after. *This is a replay of an episode from 2022. Rachel lost her voice & hopes to be back with a brand-new episode next week!* Subscribe to Your Last Meal on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Follow along on Instagram! Watch Rachel's new Cascade PBS TV show The Nosh with Rachel Belle!

Tune in to The Nosh with Rachel Belleon April 5 at 8:50pm PST on Cascade PBS, channel 9 in WA and BC, or catch it anytime from anywhere online at www.cascadepbs.org (just scroll down a tad to the Local Originals) Do delicious bagels actually exist in Seattle? What’s the story behind the city’s first non-alcoholic bottle shop? These are just a couple of the topics Rachel Belle digs into on season one of The Nosh, where stories about the outdoors, art, culture and community are told through the lens of food and drink. On this episode of The Leftovers, Cascade PBS podcast producer and Northwest Reportsco-host Maleeha Syed hops into the interview chair to ask Rachel about the show. Rachel spills some behind-the-scenes tea and talks about why hosting her first TV show in her 40s has special meaning. Subscribe to Your Last Meal on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Follow along on Instagram! Thanks to Visit Kitsap Peninsula for sponsoring this episode!

Vanessa Lachey’s first book, Life from Scratch: Family Traditions That Start with Youis rooted in a deep and vulnerable place. Vanessa’s mom left when she was a little girl, depriving her of motherly advice, care and the Filipino food she craved. It took decades, but the actor and TV host finally felt empowered to stop mourning what she’d lost, and start creating her own special traditions for her young family – including a chicken adobo recipe her husband, 98 Degrees singer & Love Is Blind co-host Nick Lachey, loves. Vanessa and host Rachel Belle discuss how she secured a place in the Guinness Book of World Records (it’s food-related!) and why her family celebrates the holidays with a dish called Wiener-Bun Surprise. Vanessa loves lasagna, so obviously Rachel had to talk about America’s favorite curmudgeonly, lasagna-loving cartoon cat, and she digs into the etymology of the comforting Italian casserole. We’ll also learn about Lasagna Love, a nonprofit started during the pandemic. Rachel’s favorite lasagna recipe! Follow Rachel on Instagram and sign up for her newsletter!

If waiting two whole weeks for a new episode of Your Last Meal to drop is way too long, I’ve got something to tide you over.  On the weeks we’re not releasing a full-length episode of Your Last Meal, we’ll be airing a new segment called The Leftovers: audio left on the cutting-room floor, interviews that host Rachel Belle really wants to do that don’t necessarily fit into the show’s usual format and, most often, as you’ll hear today, a speed round with last week’s guest.    Which means you will now be getting a little taste of Your Last Meal every single Thursday!  Today’s episode features a never-before-heard interview with Gavin Rossdale, singer and guitarist in Bush, one of the most popular grunge bands of the 1990s.   If you missed last week’s full interview with Gavin, you can listen here. Subscribe to Your Last Meal on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Follow along on Instagram!

Gavin Rossdale, frontman for the grunge band Bush (anyone else have his photo on your wall in 1994??), loves to whip up big meals for friends and family in his L.A. home, but it’s nostalgic dishes from his British childhood that make his heart sing. Gavin grew up in England, eating traditional Sunday roast dinners. So host Rachel Belle chats with British food historian Dr. Neil Buttery about Britain’s favorite meal: How do you get the crispiest potatoes? What is Yorkshire pudding? We cover it all! And Gavin reveals which non-edible items you can find in his huge walk-in wine refrigerator. Follow Rachel Belle and YLM on Instagram! ===================================== Here is Dr Buttery's favorite Yorkshire pudding recipe And one of his favorite roast potato recipes

What do Super Bowl champions do after they retire from football? If you’re Seahawks legends Richard Sherman and Kam Chancellor, you open a restaurant! Host Rachel Belle interviewed Kam and Richard back in October, at the grand opening of Legion Sports Bar, their “elevated soul food” restaurant named after the Legion of Boom, the nickname for the Seahawks’ legendary defense backfield. The guys talk about how they eat now compared to when they played football, and Sherman’s mom, Beverly, tells Rachel there is one food her son won’t eat unless she makes it. Then we check in with the Seahawks Performance Kitchen, where head chef Stuart McNabb and dietitian Andrea Vanderwoude are responsible for strategically feeding the team three meals a day, five days a week. Follow along on Instagram! Sign up for my newsletter! Become a Cascade PBS member!

Seattle’s Amanda Knox spent four years in an Italian prison for a murder she didn’t commit, while studying abroad in Perugia. Amanda joined host Rachel Belle on stage in Seattle for a live podcast recording where she was invited to share her experience, in her own words, after years of being misrepresented and mocked by the international press.   Amanda talks about what prison food was like; why she chose Italian food for her last meal despite her traumatic experience in the country; and how foraging for mushrooms in the Pacific Northwest helped with her recovery. And so much more!   Amanda is incredibly thoughtful, smart and funny – it’s truly a fantastic conversation!  Follow along on Instagram! Sign up for my newsletter!

As a kid, Moshe Kasher (Subculture Vulture, The Endless Honeymoon Podcast, Kasher in the Rye: The True Tale of a White Boy From OaklandWho Became a Drug Addict, Criminal, Mental Patient, and Then Turned 16) led a double life. Most of the year he lived with his deaf single mother in Oakland, Calif., eating carob chips and other classic hippie foods, and in the summers he stayed with his deaf father, a born-again Hasidic Jew in Brooklyn who ate a strict kosher diet.   Moshe loves to rank things. In this episode, he ranks the world’s worst desserts and the best way to drink a Diet Coke. So host Rachel Belle and producer Isaac Kaplan Woolner do a side-by-side taste test, sampling Coke in a glass bottle, a can, a plastic bottle, a fountain soda and from a bar gun before compiling their own rankings.   Are Tofutti Cuties Jewish? Do you even know what a Tofutti Cutie is?? Tablet Magazine’s Esther Werdiger pops by to share the history of the little non-dairy ice cream sandwiches that both Moshe and Rachel grew up eating.   Not only is Moshe extremely funny, but he’s super-warm, a generous conversationalist and extremely quick witted – I think you’re gonna like this episode!  Follow along on Instagram! Sign up for my newsletter!

Welcome to Your Last Meal’s most romantic episode! Audie Cornish (CNN reporter and host of CNN’s The Assignmentpodcast) says her last meal is less about whatshe’s eating and everything about who she’s eating it with. Audie's last meal is a love letter to her husband, who has been wooeing her with his cooking since their first date, and for the first time ever she talks about him in an interview!   Audie remembers all the meals her now-husband, Theo Emory, cooked for her when they started dating 20 years ago. Eager to recreate The Newlywed Game, host Rachel Belle calls Theo to see what he remembers making, what he thinks Audie would choose for her last meal, and so much more.  And Rachel chats with NPR senior producer, and Audie’s former All Things Considered colleague, Melissa Gray about her cookbook All Cakes Considered. Follow along on Instagram! Sign up for my newsletter!

Comedian and actor David Cross is best known for his roles as Tobias Fünke on Arrested Development and Mr Show, and he has a new podcast and comedy special out now! David says he grew up poor, hating a lot of the penny-pinching meals his family ate. But he still loves some of the foods he ate as a poor adult, when he was trying to make it as a stand-up comedian. We’ll learn the history of poutine with the owner of the Quebec restaurant that claims to have invented it. And a lifelong Québécois shares his very opinionated poutine hot takes with host Rachel Belle. Get tickets to see David at SFSketchfest January 19 & 20th 2024! Follow along on Instagram!

Across the pond, in a country far, far away (um, England), Your Last Meal has a podcast cousin! On each episode of Desert Island Dishes, chef and host Margie Nomura asks her guests about the dishes that have shaped their lives, including the last dish they’d eat before being cast off to the desert island.   Host Rachel Belle was a guest on the show and this week we are bringing you that episode! After interviewing thousands of people in her career as a broadcast journalist, food and culture writer and podcast host, Rachel takes a break from asking questions and gets to answer some!  Rachel tells Margie about the food her family invented and sold in the 1980s, the most memorable dish from her childhood, how she got her start as a journalist and why “anticipation” will always be the most delicious ingredient.   Follow along on Instagram! Sign up for my free (or paid!) newsletter!

Reggie Watts is the best kind of weirdo: a comedian, musician and beat-boxer who spent eight years as the house bandleader for The Late Late Show with James Corden. His new book, Great Falls, Montana, is a coming-of-age memoir that proves Reggie’s been cultivating his own brand of oddball humor since he was a teenager.    Reggie grew up with a French mom, eating escargot on special occasions, so we go deep into the fascinating world of heliciculture: snail farming! Only two people in the entire United States raise snails for food, and host Rachel Belle chats with them both. The farmers at Peconic Escargot on Long Island and Little Gray Farms escargots in Washington insist their fresh, thoughtfully raised snails are miles better than the canned stuff served in most restaurants.    Plus, Reggie explains what a “lefthanded latte” is and waxes poetic about monkfruit sweetener.    Follow along on Instagram! Sign up for my free (or paid!) newsletter!

Welcome to the very first Your Last Meal Thanksgiving! We’re having a big Friendsgiving audio potluck, inviting past guests to contribute a dish to the holiday meal. Country music star Martina McBride is bringing the salad, actor Zosia Mamet defends marshmallow sweet potato casserole and opines on cranberry sauce, director Greta Gerwig shares her dad’s unusual stuffing recipe and Christopher Kimball is on pie duty.   There are also some new friends at the table. Food historian Ken Albala stops by to explain why we eat turkey on Thanksgiving, and comedian and musician Reggie Watts shares what his childhood Thanksgiving table looked like with a French mother.   

Lessons in Chemistry, an Apple TV+ show based on the bestselling book of the same name, is set in the early 1950s and centers around a young woman named Elizabeth Zott, played by Brie Larson. Elizabeth is a chemist and her entire life is consumed by her scientific curiosities. The only thing Elizabeth loves as much as chemistry is cooking because, well, cooking is chemistry!  The show features quite a bit of food, conceptualized, cooked and styled by the show’s food consultant, Courtney McBroom — chef, cookbook author and former culinary director at Milk Bar in New York City.  Host Rachel Belle sat down with Courtney to talk about a day–in–the life of her super-cool job on set; how many lasagnas she had to make for the show; and, of course, her last meal.  Get the recipes for dishes featured in the show! Follow along on Instagram! Subscribe to my newsletter! Get tickets to my Nov 14, 2023 Seattle LIVE show featuring special guest Amanda Knox! Paid newsletter subscribers & KCTS 9 members get a discount and are invited to a pre-show hang with complimentary food and cocktails!

Andrew Rea is best known for his super-popular YouTube channel, Babish Culinary Universe, where 10 million subscribers tune in to watch him host cooking shows like Binging with Babish, where he recreates dishes from TV shows and movies.  The focus of his new (third!) cookbook,Basics with Babish, is cooking mistakes. He cheekily reveals every single mistake he’s made while attempting to cook each recipe, and gives readers advice on how to avoid them.  Lots of iconic food and drink, from potato chips to champagne, were allegedly created by mistake. In this episode we focus on the chimichanga, accidentally created in the 1950s at El Charro in Tucson, Arizona.  Is there a food you love so much you’d get it tattooed on your body? Andrew has a tattoo of one of the only foods he hates! He’ll tell his story, and then YLM listeners call in to share their tasty tattoo tales with host Rachel Belle.  Follow host Rachel Belle on Instagram!  Subscribe to my newsletter! Get tickets to my Nov 14, 2023 Seattle LIVE show featuring special guest Amanda Knox! Paid subscribers & KCTS 9 members get a discount and are invited to a pre-show hang with complimentary food and cocktails!

Comedian and writer Sarah Cooper rose to fame in the most modern of ways: through TikTok! Her viral videos, lip-syncing Donald Trump’s speeches during the pandemic, eventually landed her a Netflix show (Sarah Cooper: Everything Is Fine), and she just released a memoir called Foolish.  Before Sarah could pay the bills with comedy, she worked at Google, where employees are fed three incredibly delicious (free!) meals a day. Host Rachel Belle scored a rare, coveted interview with the director of Google’s food program, and we’ll take you behind the scenes of their 400 worldwide cafes.  Sarah is a Jamaican ... who doesn’t like Jamaican food! But what she does love is Girl Dinner, a viral TikTok trend that assigned a name to something we’ve all done: creating a casual meal-for-one out of the tastiest bits and bobs you can find in your fridge. Meet the creator of Girl Dinner and the writer who wrote about it in The New York Times. Get tickets to the YLM November 14, 2023 Seattle LIVE show, with special guest Amanda Knox! Follow along on Instagram! Subscribe to my newsletter! Check out Didn’t I Just Feed You, a top-charting weekly podcast about feeding our families, hosted by Stacie Billis and Meghan Splawn, who, between them, have over 20 years experience as food editors, recipe developers, and cookbooks authors/producers — but who, above all, know what it’s like to feed a family as busy, working moms. 

Zarna Garg immigrated to the United States from India alone, at 16, without a penny to her name. Fast-forward to 2018: She’s a stay-at-home mom with three kids and bored out of her mind. At her children’s insistence, Zarna got on stage at an open-mic night. Five years later? She has her own comedy special on Amazon, “Zarna Garg: One in a Billion!” Zarna loves to top many of her meals with a big ol' pile of raw onions, but laments that Americans are sensitive to onion breath. I chat with a cognitive scientist who researched whether smell preference is cultural, personal taste or universally disliked among humans because of its chemical compounds. And we’ll learn the fairly modern history of masala chai with Indian-American food writer Leena Trivedi-Granier (click for her recipe)– just don’t call it chai tea! We’ll tell you why. Follow along on Instagram! Subscribe to my newsletter!

Ron Upshaw and Don O’Neill are longtime radio partners who spent decades moving around the country together, hosting all kinds of big-market radio shows. And YLM host Rachel Belle was a part of The Ron & Don Show on KIRO Radio for a decade! Ron and Don have worked together since they were teenagers, in all sorts of professions. What keeps two people working together for 40 years? We will discuss! Don adores cherry pie, so I chat with a 25-year-old entrepreneur from Traverse City, Michigan, who is trying to reclaim his hometown’s lost Guinness World Record by making the world’s largest cherry pie. Andcould you make it through a50-coursedinner? We’ll talk about the pros and cons of fancy tasting menus with food writer Charmaine Mok Listen to my other cherry pie episode featuring actor/comedian Jenny Slate & Warrant guitarist Joey Allen (who played on Cherry Pie!) Follow along on Instagram! Subscribe to my newsletter!

If you've ever had a tomato sandwich, then you know this is the best time of the year! In honor of *tomato season* (and host Rachel Belle being on vacation) we are re-airing this episode from 2019. Iron & Wine sounds like a band but in fact there is just one man behind the music: a soft spoken, North Carolina singer-songwriter named Sam Beam, who unintentionally stumbled into a music career later in life. A true Southern boy, Sam wants a stack of tomato sandwiches for his last meal. Just ripe summer heirlooms, squishy white bread and mayonnaise. A simple summer snack so sacred in North Carolina, locals get riled up at the mere mention of adding bacon or lettuce. We called upon a couple North Carolina culinary queens to talk about the do's and dont's of the tomato sandwich: veteran food journalist Kathleen Purvis and chef, restaurateur and cookbook author, Vivian Howard. And sticking with the Southern theme, food historian Robert Moss joins the show to tell the true history of the boiled peanut. Lucky for us, tomatoes are still hanging heavy on the vines, because you'll be hankering for a tomato sandwich by the end of this episode. Make sure you're subscribed to the podcast and follow host Rachel Belle on Instagram! Subscribe to Rachel's newsletter!

After years of living in New York City and Los Angeles, the pandemic brought comedian Heather McMahan back to her hometown of Atlanta, where she’s living in her childhood home with her husband and ... her mother! If it sounds like a sitcom, well, she’s working on that script right now. Atlanta is home to Buford Highway, an off-the-beaten-path culinary wonderland featuring 100 immigrant-owned restaurants, representing more than 20 countries. Atlanta-based Food & Wine senior writer Jennifer Zyman joins the show to share the history and highlights of Buford Highway, like Plaza Fiesta, a huge Mexican marketplace where you can taste the latest Mexican TikTok trends. And Heather and I chat about her huge, elaborate, Italian wedding cake  and the tradition of assembling it in front of guests at the reception. Follow along on Instagram 

Mexico City native Pati Jinich made an unusual career change: from a political analyst at a Washington, D.C. think tank to a cooking teacher and, eventually, award-winning PBS host. For over a decade, she’s been sharing her love of Mexico and Mexican cooking with the masses through her shows Pati's Mexican Table and La Frontera. Pati is Mexican-Jewish, and grew up eating Mexican takes on classic Ashkenazi Jewish dishes. So after speaking with Jinich, host Rachel Belle also interviews the authors of the new book Kugels and Collards about another lesser-known mashup: Jewish South Carolina cooking! And in taco news: After 35 years, the phrase Taco Tuesday is finally free from a federal trademark! Rachel digs into the whole story. Follow host Rachel Belle on Instagram! Subscribe to Rachel's free newsletter so you can be the first to know about events, giveaways & content only available to subscribers! Support the show by becoming a paid subscribe www.yourlastmealpodcast.com

I interviewed Greta Gerwig back in 2017, when her film Lady Bird came out, and in honor of Barbie-mania, I am re-airing an edited version of my interview with the writer and director of the new 'Barbie' movie! Greta is a huge fan of Funfetti cake and insists the box of Pillsbury cake mix is best. So I invite Food Network host Molly Yeh (Girl Meets Farm) to talk about her homemade Funfetti, a cake that took a lot of trial and error, including testing with nine different types of sprinkles! Follow along on Instagram!

Peppermint was the first out, trans contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race, the first trans woman to originate a principal role on Broadway and she stars in the new Netflix series “Survival of the Thickest!” And Peppermint … loves peppermint! Tea! Candy! All of it! So host Rachel Belle digs into the history of the ancient, zesty herb that has been mentioned everywhere from the bible, in Greek mythology and, far more recently, on your toothpaste tube. Follow host Rachel Belle on Instagram! Subscribe to Rachel's free newsletter so you can be the first to know about events, giveaways & content only available to subscribers! Support the show by becoming a paid subscriber

Bear Grylls is a survivalist, adventurist & host of soooo mannny TV shows, including the wildly popular Man VS Wild, Born Survivor and the new season of Running Wild With Bear Grylls: The Challenge, where celebs like Russell Brand and Bradley Cooper tag along on his extremely wild adventures. Bear tells host Rachel Belle about the nastiest foods he's eaten in the wild, why he no longer eats vegetables & what happened when he offered the president of Ukraine a bite of his chocolate bar. And we venture into territory we never imagined venturing into: drinking your own pee! Plus, if if you watch all the survivalist shows and dream of being dropped in the middle of no where with nothing but the clothes on your back – you can pay to have that experience! I chat with Cat Bigney, hunter gatherer instructor and ancestral skills specialist at the Boulder Outdoor Survival School.  Follow host Rachel Belle on Instagram! Subscribe to Rachel's free newsletter so you can be the first to know about events, giveaways & content only available to subscribers! Support the show by becoming a paid subscriber.

Canadian twin sisters and band mates, Tegan and Sara, have been touring the world, playing music together, since they graduated from high school in 1998. In honor of their new book, a semi-autobiographical graphic novel calledJunior High, host Rachel Belle asks them, and the listeners, about their most memorable middle school foods and HOLY GUACAMOLE we were human garbage cans when we were 12! Plus, the history of the chicken nugget and why raccoons wash their food! Follow Rachel Belle on Instagram! Subscribe to Rachel's free newsletter so you can be the first to know about events, giveaways & content only available to subscribers! Support the show by becoming a paid subscriber.

You may know Marc Summers as the host of Nickelodeon's Double Dare and Food Network's Unwrapped, but you may not know that he got his start as a magician and helped launch Guy Fieri's career! Marc joined host Rachel Belle on stage at Seattle's Crosscut Ideas Festival to talk about what the iconic Double Dare slime was made of, how he almost gave up show business to sell salmon, and why he decided to go public about his OCD in the late 90s. Follow Rachel Belle on Instagram! Subscribe to Rachel's free newsletter so you can be the first to know about events, giveaways & content only available to subscribers! Support the show by becoming a paid subscriber.

It's Bill Nye the Science Guy! Nye has spent decades using his special brand of high energy humor to educate folks about science, so obviously he can get real nerdy when it comes to the science of baking bread. Nye shares his precise recipe for the perfect baguette and then gets into a mini debate about cannibalism with host Rachel Belle (any guesses who is for and who is against??). Then Janine Marsh, editor of The Good Life France, and Steven Kaplan, world renowned expert on French bread, join the show to talk about how important the baguette is to the French, but also why French folks are eating and baking far less bread than ever before.

It's a pod swap! This week I'm bringing you an episode of Food with Mark Bittman and Mark is sharing an episode of Your Last Meal with his listeners. Mark Bittman is the prolific author of 30 cookbooks, he wrote about food for the New York Times for 30 years and he was once a guest on Your Last Meal! This week you'll hear his conversation with another prolific writer, one of America's favorite humor essayists, David Sedaris. Davis tells Mark about his Jello habit, what his dad used to wear (or, rather, didn't wear) to the family dinner table, and much more. Mark's podcast is delightful and I'm excited for you to have a listen! Follow Rachel Belle on Instagram! Subscribe to Rachel's free newsletter so you can be the first to know about events, giveaways & content only available to subscribers! Support the show by becoming a paid subscriber!

Taylor Dayne blasted onto the pop/dance scene in 1987 with her first big single, “Tell It To My Heart,” and over the last 35 years she's released seventeen Top 20 singles, earned three grammy nominations and an American Music Award.  This Long Island girl loves her brunch, a meal that makes her nostalgic for the bagel and lox she shared with her family, as a kid, on Sunday mornings.  Did you know brunch has feminist roots? We explore that history + host Rachel Belle interviews the co-owner of one of her favorite places on Earth: Russ & Daughters, a 110 year old appetizing shop in NYC’s lower east side, famous for selling classic Jewish brunch items like bagels, lox and whitefish salad.  Follow Rachel Belle on Instagram! Subscribe to Rachel's free newsletter so you can be the first to know about events, giveaways & content only available to subscribers! Support the show by becoming a paid subscriber!

Business doesn’t always mix with pleasure, but for comedic actor and writer Rachel Bloom (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Reboot), Olive Garden left a big, saucy mark on both her personal and professional life, popping up on her award-winning TV show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and in her last meal!  Host Rachel Belle calls up Marilyn Hagerty, a 96 year old newspaper columnist, to talk about the viral Olive Garden review she wrote for the Grand Forks Herald. A review that earned her a book deal with Anthony Bourdain!  And Rachel Bloom shares which Hollywood award shows have the best/worst food & her appreciation for public school home ec!   Get tickets to her live show, Death, Let Me Do My Special. Get tickets to a LIVE taping of YLM podcast at Crosscut Festival May 5, 2023! Listeners get 50% off VIP Tickets (the taping is a VIP event) with the code FOOD at checkout! Follow Rachel Belle on Instagram! Subscribe to Rachel's free newsletter so you can be the first to know about events, giveaways & content only available to subscribers! Support the show by becoming a paid subscriber!

Margaret Cho has been a standup comedian for four decades (since she was 14 years old!) but she also LOVES to cook and collects specialty cookware and gadgets – she has her very own mochi machine!   Her last meal takes us to Hawaii, where Spam is so popular it’s even served at McDonald’s. But here on the mainland, Spam is often stigmatized. Robert Koo, author of Dubious Gastronomy: The Cultural Politics of Eating Asian in the USA, walks us through the complicated history of the world’s favorite canned ham.   True food fanatics appreciate the highs and the lows; they can equally enjoy caviar and Cap’n Crunch, and Margaret is no different. Margaret shares her strangest cravings, and listeners call in to talk about theirs. Follow Rachel Belle on Instagram! Subscribe to Rachel's free newsletter so you can be the first to know about events, giveaways & content only available to subscribers! Support the show by becoming a paid subscriber! Thanks to our sponsors: Ooni Pizza Ovens Safe Catch & Pure Cravings Get 15% off at checkout with code YOURLASTMEAL Boll & Branch Get 15% off with code LASTMEAL Copper River Salmon & Sena Sea Get 10% off at checkout with code YOURLASTMEAL

Cousins Kim and Tyler Malek opened Salt & Straw Ice Cream over a decade ago in Portland, Oregon, and from the very start they were scooping up unusual flavor combinations like pear & blue cheese and bone marrow with bourbon smoked cherries. Tyler shares the WORST flavor he's ever made (hint: there was seafood involved) & they talk about Grandma Malek, the matriarch behind both of their last meals.  Food historian Sarah Lohman joins the show to talk about the history of ice cream (Black Americans played a huge role) and we'll learn about Staten Island's delightful Enoteca Maria, a restaurant staffed by a rotating crew of grandmothers who cook up dishes from their native countries. Follow Rachel Belle on Instagram! Subscribe to Rachel's free newsletter so you can be the first to know about events, giveaways & content only available to subscribers! Support the show by becoming a paid subscriber!

Every home cook worth their can of anchovies can throw together a dish based on the bits and bobs knocking around their cupboards and crisper, and for writer Tucker Shaw, his pantry pasta is last meal worthy.   Tucker’s debut novel, “When You Call My Name,” follows two, gay teenage boys who are navigating the AIDS crisis in 1990 New York City. But host Rachel Belle became a fan of Tucker’s in 2005, when she was gifted his book “Everything I Ate: A Year In The Life of My Mouth,” a book of photographs documenting every single thing Tucker ate in a year.  Two archeologists join the show to share the discoveries they’ve made about how early humans ate, including some 70,000 year old burnt bread crumbs that debunk the Paleo diet!  And Tucker loves cereal, so we explore the stories behind some of the most iconic cereal mascots (Tony the Tiger! Cap’n Crunch!) with Tim Hollis, author of “Part of a Complete Breakfast: Cereal Characters of the Baby Boom Era.”  Follow Rachel Belle on Instagram! Subscribe to Rachel's free newsletter so you can be the first to know about events, giveaways & content only available to subscribers! Support the show by becoming a paid subscriber!

A New York Times best-selling author of several humorous essay collections and novels, including her latest, Cult Classic, it’s no wonder Sloane Crosley’s last meal doubles as a culinary memoir. Sloane’s last meal is a collection of her current favorite foods and their childhood equivalents: the fancy bok choy and watercress salad from a New York City Japanese restaurant contrasted with the Wishbone Italian dressing of her youth. Host Rachel Belle interviewed a dozen kids to get their take on Kids’ Food VS Grown-Up’s Food. And we meet the coolest lunch lady in America: Chef Emme Collins, Food Network Chopped champion and district chef for Seattle Public Schools. Plus, Sloane spontaneously opens up her freezer to reveal its shocking contents! So Rachel digs into the oh-so-American phenomenon of households with multiple refrigerators and freezers. Follow Rachel Belle on Instagram! Subscribe to the  newsletter so you can be the first to know about events, giveaways & content only available to subscribers! Support the show by becoming a paid subscriber!

Glen Phillips recently released his first solo album in 6 years; a collection of love songs to counter his last album, written following a divorce. Glen and host Rachel Belle talk about what foods he’s drawn to when he’s sad and what he tends to eat when he’s happy.   Glen grew up on his mom’s microwave cooking, so we’ll learn the connection between microwaves and feminism and why acclaimed food writer Barbara Kafka wrote (and was mocked for writing!) The Microwave Gourmet cookbook.   Glen’s last meal is a food Indians have been eating for thousands of years. Ayurvedic chef/owner of New York City’s Divya’s Kitchen joins the show to tell us more about kitchari.  Follow along on Instagram! Please subscribe to the Your Last Meal newsletter so you can be the first to know about events, giveaways & content only available to subscribers! Support the show by becoming a paid subscriber!

It's Cheech & Chong's 50th anniversary! The epic comedy duo is best known for their cinematic pot smoking antics, but Cheech's palate is far more sophisticated than stoner snacks. The enthusiastic cook first tasted chicken marbella, from the legendary Silver Palate cookbook, at a dinner party and he swore he heard angels singing. The Silver Palate cookbook "changed the way Americans ate" when it came out in 1982, and host Rachel Belle chats with its editor, Suzanne Rafer about the impact it had.  And chef, cannabis cookbook author, and founder of Laurie + Mary Jane edibles, Laurie Wolf, joins the show to talk about how far we've come from the ubiquitous potent pot brownie. Follow along on Instagram! Please subscribe to the Your Last Meal newsletter so you can be the first to know about events, giveaways & content only available to subscribers! Support the show by becoming a paid subscriber! Get tickets to the SF Sketchfest Tribute to Cheech & Chong: 50th Anniversary Celebration on January 31, 2023.

Duff is famous for baking and building thousands of big, bonkers cakes, like the giant R2-D2 robot cake he baked for Star Wars director George Lucas and a lifelike elephant cake that stood taller than him. So you know the Food Network star, and longtime owner of Baltimore’s Charm City Cakes, baked his own wedding cakes. Cakes! Plural! Including a four-tiered meat cake topped with hot dog bride and groom.   We’ll learn the fascinating history of the wedding cake with Claire Stewart, author of As Long As We Both Shall Eat: A History of Wedding Food and Feasts.  Duff grew up in a town that shares its name with a very popular food. We’ll explore some of the country's most ridiculous (and tasty!) town names and, of course, reveal the name of Duff’s hometown!  Pick up Duff’s new cookbook, Super Good Cookies For Kids!  Follow along on Instagram! Please subscribe to my  newsletter so you can be the first to know about events, giveaways & content only available to subscribers!

My first exposure to Eden Grinshpan was a photo on Instagram: she was extremely pregnant and her bare, bulging belly was wall-papered with huge slices of pizza. I instantly wanted to be her friend. Eden is host of Top Chef Canada and author of the cookbookEating Out Loud, where she shows off her contemporary middle eastern cooking chops with dishes like tahini Caesar salad and Sesame Schnitzel Sandwich with Harissa Honey and Tarter Slaw. Eden is tahini obsessed, so I chat with the CEO and co-founder of Soom Foods (makers of delicious tahini) about the history of the ancient condiment and what to do with the half empty jar in your fridge after using it to make hummus. Follow along on Instagram! Please subscribe to the *new* Your Last Meal newsletter so you can be the first to know about events, giveaways & content only available to subscribers!

Yuna is an internationally acclaimed R&B pop star, born and raised in Malaysia. But after a decade of living in LA, and missing her mother’s homemade nasi lemak and banana leaf rice, she and her husband finally succumbed to learning to cook the Malaysian dishes they miss most! Award-winning London chef and cookbook author Mandy Yi says it’s common to eat six meals a day in Malaysia, and walks us through a day of meals, snacks, street food and night markets. Yuna talks about what it was like trying to get a record deal, as a Muslim woman who wears a hijab, and she shares a hilarious story about how a late night snack attack nearly got her into deep trouble with the Canadian government. Follow along on Instagram! Please subscribe to the *new* Your Last Meal newsletter so you can be the first to know about events, giveaways & content only available to subscribers!

Surprise! It's a Thanksgiving treat: a bonus episode featuring actor Aimee Carrero, who stars in the new culinary thriller (yes, I invented a new film genre, no big whoop) The Menu, in theaters now. The Menu is about twelve wealthy food snobs who travel to a secluded island for an exclusive dining experience prepared by a revered chef. But the dinner...doesn't go as planned.  Aimee elaborates on her own, personal dinner party disaster, talks about what it was like waiting on Larry King when she worked at a restaurant, and shares her family's Puerto Rican and Dominican holiday traditions! Follow along on Instagram! Please subscribe to the *new* Your Last Meal newsletter so you can be the first to know about events, giveaways & content only available to subscribers!

If you're one of Tieghan Gerard's 6.6 million social media followers, or you've drooled over the come-hither food photos in one of her Half Baked Harvest cookbooks, chances are you're familiar with her cozy, comforting (read: so much melted cheeeeeeese!) recipes. But how much do you know about the woman behind the camera?  Tieghan pulls back the curtain on what a day-in-the-life of a full-time recipe content creator looks like. And if you still don't believe that being a social media influencer is a real job, Tieghan will put you in your place!   If we're talking about groundbreaking culinary content creators in 2022, we'd be remiss not to talk about Justine Doiron, known as Justine Snacks online. Justine started the viral butter board trend, both beloved and reviled by millions! Why did bread and butter make people so mad? We discuss! What's the strategy behind creating a viral video? We discuss! How was she able to quit her job within months of starting a TikTok page? We...you know what we're going to do.  Follow along on Instagram! Please subscribe to the *new* Your Last Meal newsletter so you can be the first to know about events, giveaways & content only available to subscribers!

We absolutely adore actor Zosia Mamet in Girls and The Flight Attendant and now she's dipped her toe into our favorite world: food! She just released her first book, My First Popsicle: An Anthology of Food and Feelings, a collection of food-centered essays written by folks like Katie Holmes, Ted Danson, David Sedaris and Rosie Perez. In the book, Zosia writes about her favorite holiday meal, which includes a couple of hot button, controversial American dishes: sweet potato marshmallow casserole and canned, jellied cranberry sauce. Zosia and host Rachel Belle opine on these holiday classics, and then Rick Rogers, author of Thanksgiving 101, joins the show to share the history of the sweet potato marshmallow casserole, and the folks at Ocean Spray pop in to talk about the origins of canned cranberries. Do you snack snack snack your little butt off every time you fly? Zosia always packs a carry-on full of food, and insists there must be science behind her airplane hunger. Turns out, there is! We will discuss with Katie Sehl, writer for En Route, Air Canda's In-Flight magazine. Follow along on Instagram!

Jewel has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide and this year she released Freewheelin' Woman, her first album in seven years! But fame and fortune is a stark contrast to the way she grew up in the wilds of Alaska. Jewel tells host Rachel Belle how her family gathered food, growing up on a remote Alaskan homestead without plumbing, electricity or a grocery store, and what it was like trying processed food for the first time after she moved out of her family's home. Then Clay Newcomb, host of Bear Grease podcast, joins the show to talk about cooking with bear meat and bear fat, an ingredient that was once a huge part of American tradition. Follow along on Instagram! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Phil Rosenthal is the creator, co-producer and writer of Everybody Loves Raymond (yo, that show got 69 Emmy nominations!) but now his passion is introducing Americans to fantastic foreign food destinations as the host of his Netflix show, Somebody Feed Phil(and a new book coming out October 18th!). Phil enthusiastically eats al pastor in Mexico City and pastéis de nata in Lisbon, but his last meal would be a collage of classic American childhood favorites, including the humble hot dog. We head to Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs in Coney Island, home of the annual 4th of July Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, to learn the history of both. Next stop: Copenhagen, where hot dog carts have been a street food staple since 1920. Host Rachel Belle consults with Danish food and wine journalist Rasmus Palsgard about traditional Copenhagen hot dog toppings and is surprised to learn what drink is commonly paired with a street dog. Follow along on Instagram! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jack Johnson just released his 8th studio album, Meet The Moonlight, but after twenty years of touring the world, his values remain the same. A lifelong surfer, and Hawaiian, Jack is an environmentalist focused on keeping plastics out of our oceans. He tells host Rachel Belle the lengths he goes to to reduce waste and support local farms when he's out on tour. Zero Waste Chef, Anne Marie Bonneau, joins the show to share her tips for a zero-waste home kitchen. Have you even dehydrated fruit in your car, bro? And Jack has been married to his wife, Kim, for nearly 29 years and his last meal, and the story behind his song Banana Pancakes is a sweet little slice of their love story. Follow along on Instagram! Listen to our episode with another lovely Hawaiian musician, ukulele player Jake Shimabukuro! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A couple weeks ago, Rachel Belle hosted a LIVE Your Last Meal show at THING, an arts + music festival in historic Port Townsend, Washington. Her first guest is blues rock musician Ian Moore, who's put out 11 full length albums, and toured with folks like the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and ZZ Top over the span of his 30 year career. Ian's from Austin, Texas and, living in the Pacific Northwest, he desperately misses Tex-Mex food, something Rachel can relate to as a burrito obsessed, native northern Californian who still hasn't found one she loves in Seattle. Up next, Jon Heder, best known for his starring role in Napoleon Dynamite! The film is famous for its references to tots and mispronounced quesadillas and a llama named Tina who refuses to eat her food. Jon regales us with tasty behind-the-scenes stories and shares his experiences with eating competitions while living in Japan. Follow along on Instagram! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.