Episode 4: “Listen to the Land”, feat. Jamie Raftery, The Holistic Chef Love & Laughter with LittlePod Hosts: Janet Sawyer & Sally Sedgman Guest: Jamie Raftery, The Holistic Chef Episode description: Pull up a chair, because our next guest is joining from a farm in the West of Ireland. Jamie Raftery, The Holistic Chef, has been a friend and champion of LittlePod for more than 15 years, ever since Janet turned up at his kitchen in Taunton with a box of vanilla. Since then he’s swapped cooking in Michelin-star kitchens to cooking for health, gone from butcher to vegan and back to hunting his own venison, and taken over Tanglewood Farm, his family’s land, where he’s planting trees, coppicing hazel and building an educational food studio. Over a plate of his hemp seed muffins, he talks soil, forests, why hemp might be the crop of the future, and why we all need to listen to the land. Sally, meanwhile, would like it on record that she hates vegetables. Challenge accepted. In this episode: Janet and Sally welcome Jamie Raftery, joining from Tanglewood Farm in the West of Ireland (https://holisticchefacademy.com/services/tanglewood-farm-food-studio/)They sample the “bake of the episode”: Jamie’s vegan Hemp Seed Muffins, made with LittlePod REAL Vanilla Paste and baked for the studio by chef Peter Gorton. Recipe can be found here: https://holisticchefacademy.com/hemp-seed-muffins/How Janet and Jamie first met over a box of vanilla at The Castle in Taunton, 15-plus years agoWhy Jamie left Michelin-star kitchens to “cook for health”, and what holistic really means to himTanglewood Farm: three generations, native woodland, ten acres of new agroforestry and a storm that changed everythingFrom butcher to vegan to deer hunter, and finding balance in how we eatFarming through record rain and sudden drought, and what Ireland can learn from hotter countriesThe Wood Wide Web, the 12 inches of soil we all live on, and why food education should be a basic life skillHemp, the superfood that can also build houses and make clothes, so why isn’t more of it grown?Jamie’s plans for a food studio, woodland classroom and wood-fired sauna at TanglewoodCarrying LittlePod vanilla across four countries this year, coconut and vanilla ice cream included Mentioned in this episode: Holistic Chef Academy – https://holisticchefacademy.com/ / @the_holistic_chefTanglewood Farm & Food Studio – https://holisticchefacademy.com/services/tanglewood-farm-food-studio/Hemp Seed Muffins recipe – https://holisticchefacademy.com/hemp-seed-muffins/LittlePod Natural Vanilla Paste – https://www.littlepod.co.uk/product/natural-vanilla-paste/The Campaign for Real Vanilla – LittlePod’s founding fight against artificial vanilla – https://www.littlepod.co.uk/ Follow along: New episodes every two weeks. Subscribe wherever you listen so you don’t miss one, and if you enjoyed pulling up a chair with Janet, Sally and Jamie, leave a rating or review, it genuinely helps other people find the show. Got a question or a story of your own? We’d love to hear it, bring a friend and come back next time.