Feeding People Amy Dolan

Liz Abunaw, the founder and owner of Forty Acres Fresh Market in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood, joins Amy to talk about everything that makes grocery stores great—including “grocery theater,” the music that’s played, and the ideal size of shopping carts. Liz shares her journey of starting Forty Acres Fresh Market, which broke ground last year and will be the Chicago’s first Black female-owned grocery store. In this episode and in her work, Liz challenges the standard narratives around which neighborhoods can support grocery stores, and how Forty Acres can provide neighborhoods like Austin with good food for all.

Raeghn Draper, a Chicago-based community organizer, writer, and hospitality professional, joins Amy to discuss the current state of Chicago’s hospitality industry, the history of tipping in America, and how Raeghn’s organization, the CHAAD project, is working to advance accountability and end labor abuses within the industry. Raeghn shares their vision for an equitable hospitality industry and practical ways customers can show support when visiting restaurants.

Elsie DuBray, an Oóhenuŋpa Lakxóta, Nueta, and Hidatsa woman and enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Lakxóta Nation, joins Amy to discuss her role in the film Gather, her life growing up on her family’s buffalo ranch, and her vision of food sovereignty for her community. Elsie shares the importance of buffalo, and how her work as a community health graduate student at Stanford is leading her towards buffalo restoration and creating a just and beautiful food system for Native people.

In this encore episode from 2019, Julia Turshen, bestselling cookbook author, food writer, and food equity advocate, discusses with host Amy Dolan how food can and has changed history. Julia reflects on the writing of her book, Feed the Resistance, and describes the crucial role food played during the Civil Rights Movement and the Stonewall Uprising. She also shares how her Jewish identity informs the way that she views and experiences food and cooking.

Sebastian White, private chef and Founder and Executive Director of The Evolved Network, joins Amy to discuss his journey from psychotherapist to chef to creator of The Evolved Network. Sebastian shares how he’s using the vision of The Evolved Network—a farm to table process—as a means to create space for kids that is both healing and therapeutic, and how he hopes the kids see their infinite possibilities, versus their limitations, when they cook.

Dr. Evelyn Figueroa, Family Physician, Professor at University of Illinois Chicago, Director of Pilsen Food Pantry, and Executive Director of the Figueroa Wu Family Foundation, joins Amy to discuss the social determinants that affect health and poverty, how her personal journey in medicine led to the creation of the food pantry, and the role we all can play in assuring that everyone has the food they need.