Tip of the Tongue

Liz Williams
Tip of the Tongue

Liz's explorations into food and drink and culture, who she is talking to, what she is cooking and eating, recipes, and her podcast guests. tipofthetongue.substack.com

  1. Tip of the Tongue Episode 251: The Cook- Off

    DEC 2

    Tip of the Tongue Episode 251: The Cook- Off

    Are you ready for an opera about macaroni and cheese? Will we recognize ourselves in an opera about a cooking contest with contestants representing America and the different versions of macaroni and cheese that can be found all over the country? Listen to the conversation with conductor, Josh Slater, and General Manager of the New Orleans Opera, about the opera, The Cook-Off. It is performed at the Southern Food & Beverage Museum in New Orleans. Joshua Anand Slater is an Indian-American conductor and composer, known equally for his work in new music and for “rich, full-throated” interpretations of established repertoire. Equally at home in the concert hall and the theater, his most recent opera credits in the 2024 season include the Toronto Premiere of the Pulitzer Prize winning Angel’s Bone and jumping in to lead the piano vocal workshop for Des Moines Metro Opera’s world premiere of American Apollo. Librettist Lila Palmer is deeply committed to expanding the perspective of stories on operatic stages. Her advocacy for arts across the public sphere has led to ground-breaking collaborations with active-duty female military personnel (Dead Equal), healthcare professionals and patients (The Jewel Merchants), and several heritage spaces, including The Museum of London, The London Transport Museum, and Trebah Gardens. Her operatic work has recently been recognized with an Edinburgh Fringe Lustrum Award, and she was honored to be named an Aix-en-Provence Festival Women in Opera Professional Artist. In art song repertoire, This Be Her Verse, her song cycle with Kathleen Tagg for soprano Golda Schultz, earned critical acclaim for international premieres in Canada, Scotland, Switzerland, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Hailed by Opera News as “a new repertoire staple,” the work’s Alpha Classics album was named one of The Times 10 Best Classical Records of 2022. Get full access to Tip of the Tongue at tipofthetongue.substack.com/subscribe

    35 min
  2. Tip of the Tongue Episode 249: Why Food Matters

    NOV 18

    Tip of the Tongue Episode 249: Why Food Matters

    This is a reprise of my interview with Paul Freedman about his book Why Food Matters. We talked in 2021, shortly have the book came out. As we approach Thanksgiving, a holiday about gratitude that uses food and communal eating as its primary symbol - move over symbolic turkey - I thought that it would be interesting to hear Paul Freedman discuss this book about so many of the reasons that food represents everything about life. Yale University Press, the publisher, has this to say about the book, "Why does food matter? Historically, food has not always been considered a serious subject on par with, for instance, a performance art like opera or a humanities discipline like philosophy. Necessity, ubiquity, and repetition contribute to the apparent banality of food, but these attributes don’t capture food’s emotional and cultural range, from the quotidian to the exquisite. In this short, passionate book, Paul Freedman makes the case for food’s vital importance, stressing its crucial role in the evolution of human identity and human civilizations. Freedman presents a highly readable and illuminating account of food’s unique role in our lives. It is a way to express community and celebration, but it can also be divisive. This wide-ranging book is a must-read for food lovers and all those interested in how cultures and identities are formed and maintained." Get full access to Tip of the Tongue at tipofthetongue.substack.com/subscribe

    2 min
4.9
out of 5
26 Ratings

About

Liz's explorations into food and drink and culture, who she is talking to, what she is cooking and eating, recipes, and her podcast guests. tipofthetongue.substack.com

You Might Also Like

To listen to explicit episodes, sign in.

Stay up to date with this show

Sign in or sign up to follow shows, save episodes, and get the latest updates.

Select a country or region

Africa, Middle East, and India

Asia Pacific

Europe

Latin America and the Caribbean

The United States and Canada