Bitefully

What happens when a single bite unlocks cultural history, a buried truth, or a complicated family relationship? Bitefully explores the stories we inherit through food — the memories, migrations, traditions, and transformations that shape who we are. Host and MasterChef winner Claudia Sandoval traces personal food pathways back to culture, lineage, and land, revealing how flavor defines identity, recipes carry ancestral knowledge, and storytelling sustains community. From a grandmother's comfort dish to the street food that marked a first-generation immigrant's arrival, each episode is a journey through memory, heritage, and lived experience. Food opens the door — but the stories are what keep us at the table. New episodes every Wednesday, starting June 3rd. Host & Executive Producer: Claudia Sandoval | Producer: Shei Yu I Executive Producer: Saadia Khan I Sound Designer & Editor: Lou Raskin I Theme Music: Lou Raskin | Other Music: Epidemic Sound | Cover Art: Mike Fennessy Love the show? Leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and subscribe to stay at the table. Follow along on socials: Instagram · TikTok · Twitter Support the show by subscribing to our channel on Apple: Immigrantly Uninterrupted Bitefully is an Immigrantly Media Production. For advertising inquiries, you can contact us at info@immigrantlypod.com

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  1. 4 hr ago

    Winis, Fig Leaves, y un Café Cometa

    This episode of Bitefully is a little different. It's a Spanglish episode, with the majority of the conversation en español, as Chef Claudia sits down with Chef Adria Marina to talk food memories, life on both sides of the border, and the experiences that shaped her. Prefer to follow along in English? The full video episode is available on YouTube with English captions. Adria es la mujer y Chef detrás de Georgina, uno de los restaurantes más reconocidos de Tijuana. También la hemos visto como juez en Top Chef VIP, MasterChef Celebrity Colombia y otros proyectos de televisión. Más recientemente, abrió las puertas de su nuevo proyecto, Café Cometa. Bilingüe y criada entre Tijuana y San Diego, Adria creció devorando tortillas recién salidas de la tortillería camino a casa, renegando de niña de la sopa de pollo y los sándwiches de atún de su mamá, que ahora pide para su cumpleaños, y comiendo un meatloaf que su madre hacía suyo con jalapeños y chipotle. Adria abre su archivo de memorias culinarias y nos lleva a los viajes de su infancia al Convoy District de San Diego, mucho antes de que el pho y el Korean BBQ se pusieran de moda, a los árboles de higo de su abuela y a aquel restaurante al aire libre que ella y su prometido apodaron "Café Cometa" mucho antes de que se convirtiera en un lugar real. Adria y Claudia hablan de por qué replicar una receta sin alma puede ser uno de los mayores pecados en la cocina, del viaje a Israel que dejó huella en el menú de Georgina y de lo que significa pasar ocho años viendo crecer un restaurante y, con él, a las personas que lo hacen posible. Y luego la conversación se pone verdaderamente seria: Trader Joe's como "happy place", mantequilla de maní crunchy vs. creamy y, por supuesto, el orden definitivo de las diferentes formas de los chocolates Reese's. Nuevos episodios cada miércoles. [ENGLISH] This episode of Bitefully is a little different. It's a Spanglish episode, with the majority of the conversation in Spanish, as Chef Claudia sits down with Chef Adria Marina to talk food memories, life on both sides of the border, and the experiences that shaped her. Prefer to follow along in English? The full video episode is available on YouTube with English captions. Adria is the woman and Chef behind Georgina, one of Tijuana's most well-known restaurants. We've also seen her as a judge on Top Chef VIP, MasterChef Celebrity Colombia, and other television projects. More recently, she opened the doors to her new project, Café Cometa. Bilingual and raised between Tijuana and San Diego, Adria grew up devouring tortillas fresh off the press on the way home, refusing as a kid to eat her mom's chicken soup and tuna sandwiches — which she now requests for her birthday — and eating a meatloaf that her mother made her own with jalapeños and chipotle. Adria opens up her archive of culinary memories and takes us back to childhood trips to San Diego's Convoy District, long before pho and Korean BBQ became trendy, to her grandmother's fig trees, and to that outdoor restaurant that she and her fiancé nicknamed "Café Cometa" long before it became a real place. Adria and Claudia talk about why replicating a recipe without soul can be one of the biggest sins in cooking, about the trip to Israel that left its mark on Georgina's menu, and about what it means to spend eight years watching a restaurant grow and, with it, the people who make it possible. And then the conversation gets truly serious: Trader Joe's as a "happy place," crunchy vs. creamy peanut butter, and of course, the definitive ranking of the different shapes of Reese's chocolates. New episodes every Wednesday. You can find Chef Adria Montaño on Instagram ⁠@adriamarina⁠.  Follow along on Instagram⁠ ⁠@bitefullypod⁠⁠ and⁠ ⁠@chefclaudiasandoval⁠⁠ Host & Executive Producer: Claudia Sandoval | Producer: Shei Yu I Executive Producer: Saadia Khan I Sound Designer & Editor: Lou Raskin I Theme Music: Lou Raskin | Other Music: Epidemic Sound | Cover Art: Mike Fennessy Bitefully is an Immigrantly Media Production. If you like what you hear, write a review at ⁠Bitefully⁠ and subscribe to ⁠Immigrantly Uninterrupted ⁠for ad free episodes For advertising inquiries, you can contact us at ⁠info@immigrantlypod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  2. 15 Jul

    Velveeta Cheese Dreams

    Chef Susan Feniger has spent more than four decades building one of the most beloved culinary partnerships in America: Border Grill, City Café, and a restaurant empire stretching from Las Vegas to the new Burbank Airport. But her food story starts much smaller — on a step stool in Toledo, Ohio, licking the fudge paddle while her mom worked her magic. Chef Claudia Sandoval has admired Susan's career for years, and in this episode, she asks about the moments that aren’t Googleable: the green file box holding three generations of handwritten recipes, the first restaurant with no stove and two hibachis in the parking lot, and the Velveeta creation that just might deserve a comeback. Together, they dig into what it means to feed a city when it needs it most: Feed Folks, the commissary kitchen serving thousands of meals a day to food-insecure Angelenos, the culinary program Susan championed at the Los Angeles LGBT Center, and the World Central Kitchen call that turned her team into first responders, during COVID and again during the LA wildfires. Because for Susan, food is the best communicator there is. And if you have a voice, it's your responsibility to use it. New episodes every Wednesday. You can find Chef Susan @susanfeniger and World Central Kitchen @wckitchen on Instagram. ⁠Susan Feniger. Forked⁠ is streaming now. Follow along ⁠@bitefullypod⁠ and ⁠@chefclaudiasandoval⁠ on Instagram Host & Executive Producer: Claudia Sandoval | Producer: Shei Yu | Executive Producer: Saadia Khan | Sound Designer & Editor: Lou Raskin | Theme Music: Lou Raskin | Other Music: Epidemic Sound | Cover Art: Mike Fennessy Bitefully is an Immigrantly Media Production. If you like what you hear, write a review at Bitefully and subscribe to Immigrantly Uninterrupted for ad-free episodes. For advertising inquiries, contact us at info@immigrantlypod.com Would you let your Tía pick your next date? On TIA'S CHOICE, the new YouTube dating show, three New York Tías grill four potential dates — and the lucky single gets zero say in who she ends up with. Subscribe to TIA'S CHOICE on YouTube.https://www.youtube.com/@TiasChoice Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  3. 17 Jun

    No Rocks in the Beans

    She made history as the first Native American and Mexican American woman to win a televised cooking competition, but Chef Pyet DeSpain's food story doesn't start with a garden or a grandmother's recipe. It starts with struggle meals. Government commodities. A childhood spent moving from city to city. And a grandfather in Kansas City who put a bowl of beans in front of her and made her feel like she had the most important job in the world. In this episode, Pyet joins Chef Claudia Sandoval to talk about the foods that were handed to their communities and the ones they're reclaiming. For Indigenous communities, Pyet says, food was never just nutrition — it's about rootedness. This conversation is about what happens when that connection gets severed, and what it looks like to find your way back. New episodes every Wednesday. You can find Pyet on Instagram @chefpyet and grab her cookbook, Rooted In Fire, here.  Follow along ⁠@bitefullypod⁠ and find Chef Claudia ⁠@chefclaudiasandoval⁠ on Instagram Host & Executive Producer: Claudia Sandoval | Producer: Shei Yu | Executive Producer: Saadia Khan | Sound Designer & Editor: Lou Raskin | Theme Music: Lou Raskin | Other Music: Epidemic Sound | Cover Art: Mike Fennessy Bitefully is an Immigrantly Media Production. If you like what you hear, write a review at Bitefully and subscribe to Immigrantly Uninterrupted for ad-free episodes. For advertising inquiries, contact us at info@immigrantlypod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  4. 10 Jun

    Yogurt, Eggplant, and a Deep-Fried Oreo

    Charlie Boghosian, better known as Chicken Charlie, came to America at 11 from Damascus, Syria, with his family, a produce store, and a work ethic that never quit. What started as a 14-year-old's summer job turned into a 30-plus-year career feeding tens of thousands of people a day across California's county fair circuit. Oh, and somewhere along the way, he invented the deep-fried Oreo. In this episode, Chef Claudia Sandoval and Chicken Charlie trace their food memories back to the dishes that made them: a mother's fried eggplant stuffed into pita with fresh yogurt and tomatoes, the Armenian and Middle Eastern cooked on the stove, and the accidental cookie that launched a food empire. Along the way, they talk about what it means to feed 20,000 people a day, why the county fair is a world unlike any other, and why the best things in life — like deep-fried Oreos — are sometimes just sitting on the counter waiting to happen. This episode is in partnership with the San Diego County Fair. Learn more at sdfair.com New episodes every Wednesday. You can find Chicken Charlie's on Instagram @chickencharlies Follow along on Instagram ⁠@bitefullypod⁠ and ⁠@chefclaudiasandoval⁠ Host & Executive Producer: Claudia Sandoval | Producer: Shei Yu | Executive Producer: Saadia Khan | Sound Designer & Editor: Lou Raskin | Theme Music: Lou Raskin | Other Music: Epidemic Sound | Cover Art: Mike Fennessy Bitefully is an Immigrantly Media Production. If you like what you hear, write a review at Bitefully and subscribe to Immigrantly Uninterrupted for ad-free episodes. For advertising inquiries, contact us at info@immigrantlypod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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About

What happens when a single bite unlocks cultural history, a buried truth, or a complicated family relationship? Bitefully explores the stories we inherit through food — the memories, migrations, traditions, and transformations that shape who we are. Host and MasterChef winner Claudia Sandoval traces personal food pathways back to culture, lineage, and land, revealing how flavor defines identity, recipes carry ancestral knowledge, and storytelling sustains community. From a grandmother's comfort dish to the street food that marked a first-generation immigrant's arrival, each episode is a journey through memory, heritage, and lived experience. Food opens the door — but the stories are what keep us at the table. New episodes every Wednesday, starting June 3rd. Host & Executive Producer: Claudia Sandoval | Producer: Shei Yu I Executive Producer: Saadia Khan I Sound Designer & Editor: Lou Raskin I Theme Music: Lou Raskin | Other Music: Epidemic Sound | Cover Art: Mike Fennessy Love the show? Leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and subscribe to stay at the table. Follow along on socials: Instagram · TikTok · Twitter Support the show by subscribing to our channel on Apple: Immigrantly Uninterrupted Bitefully is an Immigrantly Media Production. For advertising inquiries, you can contact us at info@immigrantlypod.com

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