Episodes

  • Rot and Renewal
    Mar 20 2024

    What happens to the foods that we don’t eat? Composting is a vital part of our food cycles, but it's so much more than recycling our food scraps. This episode takes us on a journey through New York City to explore how this age-old practice is thriving in even the densest of urban spaces, while uncovering how composting can hold the key to food sovereignty for so many.

    More about Earth Matter @ https://earthmatter.org/

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    Learn more about Food Culture Collective @ https://foodculture.org and HEAL Food Alliance @ https://healfoodalliance.org

    Take action with HEAL on the U.S. Farm Bill: https://healfoodalliance.org/farmbill/

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    22 mins
  • Other Futures Are Possible
    Mar 20 2024

    In the imaginations of some folks, movements towards food sovereignty live primarily in idyllic community gardens, small-scale organic farms, local farmers’ markets, and farm-to-table restaurants. But the work of sovereignty lives within spaces of deeper complexity – spaces woven together by the seeds of joys, suffering, commitments, creativity, and resilience. Derrick McDonald and Shephali Patel call in the stories and voices that remind us that sovereignty lives in our past, present, and futures.

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    Learn more and support Black Star Farmers @ blackstarfarmers.org

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    Learn more about Food Culture Collective @ https://foodculture.org and HEAL Food Alliance @ https://healfoodalliance.org

    Take action with HEAL on the U.S. Farm Bill: https://healfoodalliance.org/farmbill/

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    • Derrick McDonald: https://www.hackerarchitects.com/derrick-mcdonald

    • StoryMap of the initial seeding of Black Lives Memorial Garden in Cal Anderson

    • Coverage on 2021 Black Lives Matter protests and CHOP/CHAZ:

    • https://www.democracynow.org/2020/6/11/seattle_activists_create_autonomous_zone_near

    • https://crosscut.com/focus/2020/11/seattles-cal-anderson-park-microcosm-national-upheaval

    • Watch the documentary “As Long as the Rivers Run” to learn about Bernie Whitebear and a legacy of indigenous land and food sovereignty movements in the Pacific Northwest

    • Overview of Daybreak Star and the Fort Lawton occupation: https://www.seattle.gov/cityarchives/exhibits-and-education/online-exhibits/daybreak-star-indian-cultural-center

    • Omari Garrett and the occupation of the Colman School

    • Overview: https://www.historylink.org/File/8602

    • A complex history:

    • https://www.seattlemet.com/arts-and-culture/2008/12/1008-feat-divided

    • https://africanamericanheritagemuseumandculturalcenter.org/synopsis/

    • Stay connected with Shephali at shephali.earth

    Recommended Reading List inspired by Derrick

    • Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

    • Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy

    • Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

    • Kindred by Octavia Butler

    • The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

    • Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene by Donna J. Haraway



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    22 mins
  • Growing Community From Compost
    Nov 13 2023

    For the folks behind BK Rot, showing love to their community looks a lot like piles of old orange peels, used coffee grounds, and last week's leftovers — in other words, it looks like compost. BK Rot is New York City's first bike-powered composting and hauling service, run almost entirely by youth of color. It was created in response to the city's failure to bring curbside composting services to their neighborhoods — and to this day, the group plays a key part in their local food cycles.

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    Learn more about Food Culture Collective @ https://foodculture.org and HEAL Food Alliance @ https://healfoodalliance.org

    Take action with HEAL on the U.S. Farm Bill: https://healfoodalliance.org/farmbill/

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    19 mins
  • A Lesson From the Leaves
    Nov 13 2023

    The air has grown cooler, and the leaves are falling from the trees. We are in the thick of fall, which also means the thick of transformation. I’ve always heard that grief is something you grow through, so I sat with the soil and mirrored the earth's cycles. I sat with the trees, the falling leaves, and the wind to help me remember. That endings are endings, but they can also seed new beginnings.

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    Learn more about Food Culture Collective @ https://foodculture.org and HEAL Food Alliance @ https://healfoodalliance.org

    Take action with HEAL on the U.S. Farm Bill: https://healfoodalliance.org/farmbill/

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    27 mins
  • The Rivers Running Through Us
    Nov 6 2023
    The artists, musicians, and water protectors of South Seattle challenge flawed concepts of environmentalism by showing us that water is not a resource; but a sacred force that is inseparable from what it means to be a human being. Protecting our rivers and upholding water sovereignty is always a cultural and relational act - one that is a co-creation between the humans and the waters themselves. The Duwamish River invites us to take this journey back to ourselves. --- Learn more about Food Culture Collective @ https://foodculture.org and HEAL Food Alliance @ https://healfoodalliance.org Take action with HEAL on the U.S. Farm Bill: https://healfoodalliance.org/farmbill/ --- Simon Wolf, poet Website: https://www.simonwolf.xyz/ Music for Simon’s poetry by Sendai Mike Arturo Rodriguez, musician Website and Classes: https://arturorodriguez.com/ Stay in touch: https://www.facebook.com/RodriguezReneArturo Rainier Valley Water Resiliency Course: https://blackstarfarmers.org/waterresiliency Dynamic Waters: https://www.dynamicwaters.net/ Support the Duwamish River Community Coalition’s (DRCC) Environmental & Health Justice work: https://www.drcc.org/donate Stay connected with Shephali at shephali.earth Story Elements The Duwamish and Coast Salish peoples https://www.duwamishtribe.org/history https://www.burkemuseum.org/collections-and-research/culture/contemporary-culture/coast-salish-art/coast-salish-people The Waterlines Project identifies landscape and water entities in the Lushootseed language – and illustrates how Seattle is one of the most dramatically engineered cities in the U.S. Waterlines Map: https://www.burkemuseum.org/static/waterlines/project_map.html Cedar River Watershed Map: https://your.kingcounty.gov/dnrp/library/water-and-land/watersheds/cedar-river-lake-wa/watershed-map.pdf Introduction to Watershed Terminology The Superfund Status of the Duwamish River: https://www.drcc.org/what-is-superfund Duwamish River History & Photographs: https://www.drcc.org/river-history-and-photographs Recommended Reading and Listening List inspired by Simon, Arturo, Allie, and Orian: Listen to James Rasmussen, Duwamish Tribe and Founder of the DRCC The River that Made Seattle by BJ Cummings Haboo: Native American Stories from Puget Sound by Vi Hilbert One River, a Thousand Voices by Claudia Castro Luna When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through by Joy Harjo Occasional Objects by Simon Wolf and Cedar Sigo Learn Conga Drum technique from Arturo Rodriguez Watch Simon Wolf’s Place Based Poetics series Listen to drums played by rain at the Cedar River Watershed Education Center
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    25 mins
  • After Surgery, Food is Gender Affirming Care
    Nov 6 2023

    Recovering from top surgery is a chance to heal more than just your body. In this episode, Nino McQuown and friends DREAM Emmanuel, Leah Drew, and Ty Wilkerson talk about how food fit into their processes of recovery, and how sometimes moments of self-sovereignty arrive through openness to receiving care.

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    Learn more about Food Culture Collective @ https://foodculture.org and HEAL Food Alliance @ https://healfoodalliance.org

    Take action with HEAL on the U.S. Farm Bill: https://healfoodalliance.org/farmbill/

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    DREAM's Candle Company: We Live in Truth We L.I.T. @ https://www.weliveintruth.com/

    Follow Ty's Standup @ https://www.instagram.com/who_theythemty/


    Help fund surgery needs for Black trans folks @ https://www.forthegworls.party/home
    Get in touch with Nino @ allsoils.net

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    19 mins
  • Nourishing Black Food-Sovereignty in Bronzeville, OH, with Julialynn Walker
    Oct 23 2023

    In the Near East neighborhoods of Columbus, Ohio, generations of Black community leaders have worked together to nurture a center of Black life in Ohio. In this episode, we follow Julialynn Walker as she takes us through the Bronzeville Urban Growers community gardens, markets, and food programs and shares the history of the Near East, and the present and future of food sovereignty in Bronzeville.

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    Learn more about Food Culture Collective @ https://foodculture.org and HEAL Food Alliance @ https://healfoodalliance.org

    Take action with HEAL on the U.S. Farm Bill: https://healfoodalliance.org/farmbill/

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    Bethany Bronzeville Church Donations Page @
    https://onrealm.org/BethanyPresbyte/-/form/give/now

    African-American Settlements and Communities in Columbus, OH @
    https://www.columbuslandmarks.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/African-American-Comm.pdf

    Get in touch with Nino @ allsoils.net

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    18 mins
  • Seeding the Blues
    Oct 23 2023

    Indigofera is at the root of a fruitful friendship between three land stewards and natural dyers in the DMV area. Sun English Jr., Kenya Miles, and Rosa Chang walk us through the spiritual, medicinal, and historical elements of indigo dyeing. In this episode, we discuss how caring for this plant helps us connect to our ancestors and the soil through craft and stewardship.

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    Learn more about Food Culture Collective @ https://foodculture.org

    and HEAL Food Alliance @ https://healfoodalliance.org

    Take action with HEAL on the U.S. Farm Bill: https://healfoodalliance.org/farmbill/

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    Kenya’s Dye Studio @ https://www.bluelightjunction.com/

    Sun’s Farm and Apothecary @ https://www.melanatedmedicinals.com/

    Rosa’s website and Indigo Shade Map @

    https://rosafulgarden.com/
    https://www.indigoshademap.org/

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    24 mins