Radio Curious

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Whiskey:  Scotch, Irish, Absinthe and Moonshine, among others, are the topics of this edition of Radio Curious.  Our guest is Crispin Cain, an artisan liqueur maker, distiller and co-owner of Greenway Distillers and American Craft Whiskey based in Redwood Valley, California, about 10 miles north of the Radio Curious studios. We met in his office of at the Greenway distillery on October 27, 2017, and began our visit sampling some his most tasty products.  After a few sips I turned on the recorder and asked Crispin Cain to describe the distilling process.

Crispin Cain’s website is: http://www.greenwaydistillers.com.

The book Crispin Cain recommends is “Writings from Ancient Egypt,” by Toby Wilkinson.

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Eric Herm is a 4th generation farmer from Ackerly Texas and author of, “Son of a Farmer, Child of the Earth: A Path to Agriculture’s Higher Consciousness.” Herm is transitioning his family farm into an organic farm. He recently returned from a march that began in Baltimore, Maryland and ended in front of the White House in Washington D.C. to oppose the use of genetically modified organisms, GMO’s. We spoke with Eric Herm from his farm in Ackerly, Texas on October 24th, 2011 and asked him to describe his experience in Washington D.C.

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Fast food is what many people eat in America, and increasingly in other countries. It is advertised to be fun, tasty, and easily available. Americans spend more money annually on fast food than is spent on higher education.

Eric Schlosser is our guest in this archive edition.  He’s the author of Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Schlosser writes that it is not only what is served for human consumption that is the problem, but the art of mass-marketing to children through organized promotions and ads for the products—in school busses, hallways, and even bathroom stalls—has serious side effects on society.

Working conditions for employees at meat-packing plants and the resulting contamination of the product resulted in the July 19th, 2002 recall of 19 million pounds of beef. In addition to the acute health hazards of contamination, a fast food meal often contains more fat in one meal than the average person needs in a day.

I spoke with Eric Schlosser, the author of Fast Food Nation, in mid-summer 2002, we began with his description of the problem of excess fat in fast food.

Eric Schlosser is the author of Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. The book he recommends is “Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing,” by Ted Conover.

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The lack of pure water was one of the several things that resulted in the development of wine as a source of potable liquid for human intake.  Putting that aspect of human history in a time and place in relation to social and political events, and the tracing of the different varietals of wine is the topic of this edition of Radio Curious.

Our guest is Glenn McGourty, the Winegrowing and Plant Science Advisor at the University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (http://cemendocino.ucanr.edu) located in the hills a few miles northeast of Hopland, in rural Mendocino County, California. This locale has been called the university of our back yard by many of us who live nearby.

Glenn McGourty’s specialty is the history of wine and it’s evolution–how so many varietals came to be and were further developed.  When Glenn McGourty visited the Radio Curious studios on October 18, 2016, we began our conversation with his reflections on the history wine making.

The book Glenn McGourty recommends is “Cold Mountain,” by Charles Frazier.

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Why do we eat some animals and not others? That is the topic of this conversation with Melanie Joy, Ph.D. She is the author of “Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism.” 

Carnism is the invisible belief system, or ideology, that conditions people to eat certain animals. Carnism is essentially the opposite of vegetarianism or veganism; “carn” means “flesh” or “of the flesh” and “ism” denotes a belief system. Most people view eating animals as a given, rather than a choice; in meat-eating cultures around the world people typically don’t think about why they find the meat of some animals disgusting and the meat of other animals appetizing, or why they eat any animals at all.

The interview with Melanie Joy, Ph.D. was recorded in Ukiah, California on November 29, 2010 and began when I asked her to describe the term ‘carnism.’ 

The book she recommends is, “Food Revolution: How your diet can save your life and our world,” by John Robbins.

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Eric Herm is a 4th generation farmer from Ackerly Texas and author of, “Son of a Farmer, Child of the Earth: A Path to Agriculture’s Higher Consciousness.” Herm is transitioning his family farm into an organic farm. He recently returned from a march that began in Baltimore, Maryland and ended in front of the White House in Washington D.C. to oppose the use of genetically modified organisms, GMO’s. We spoke with Eric Herm from his farm in Ackerly, Texas on October 24th, 2011 and asked him to describe his experience in Washington D.C.

The book that Eric Herm recommends is, “The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture,” by Wendell Berry.

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This program is about honey. We visit with Keith Feigin, owner of Lovers Lane Farm, at his bee keeping center in Ukiah, California. We discuss bees on the loose, how they orient themselves to a new location, communicate with each other and how Keith harvests the “liquid gold.”  Keith was just leaving to catch up with some bees on the loose when I arrived, and that’s when our conversation began in mid August 2011.

The book that Keith Feigin recommends is the “Secret Life of Bees,” by Sue Monk Kidd.  You may contact Keith Feigin via email at loverslanefarm@gmail.com.

This interview was recorded on the streets of Ukiah and at Lovers Lane Farm in Ukiah, California on August 15, 2011.

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In this edition of Radio Curious we visit with Les Blank, film maker extraordinaire. Les Blank will receive the Albert Maysles award at the 2011 Mendocino Film Festival where his films “Burden of Dreams” and “The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins” will be presented.  John Rockwell, writing in The New York Times, describes Les Blank as, “…a documentarian of folk cultures who transforms anthropology into art.”

Though he had a long fascination with films, his career turned to film making after he saw “The Seventh Seal,” by Ingmar Bergman.   Our conversation, which was recorded by phone from his home in Berkeley, California on May 23, 2011, began when I asked him why he makes films.

The films Les Blank recommends are “The Seventh Seal” and “Through a Glass Darkly,” both by Ingmar Bergman.

Les Blank’s website is www.lesblank.com

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Carnism is the invisible belief system, or ideology, that conditions people to eat certain animals. It is the opposite of vegetarianism or veganism; “carn” means “flesh” or “of the flesh” and “ism” denotes a belief system. Most people view eating animals as a given, rather than a choice; in meat-eating cultures around the world people typically don’t think about why they find the meat of some animals disgusting and the meat of other animals appetizing, or why they eat any animals at all.  This is the topic of a conversation with Melanie Joy, Ph.D., author of , “Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows, an Introduction to Carnism.”

The interview with Melanie Joy, Ph.D. was recorded in Ukiah, California on November 29, 2010.  Joy’s website is www.carnism.com The book she recommends is, “Food Revolution: How your diet can save your life and our world,” by John Robbins.

Click here to listen to the program or on the media player below.

Click here to download and subscribe to our podcasts.

Podcast: Download

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