This week on The Leftovers, never-before-heard audio from Hrisihikesh Hirway, musician and prolific podcast host and producer!

Hrisihi shares:

• His favorite places to get delicious, vegan fast food
• The show he watches when he wants comfort & what he likes to eat while he watches it
• and more!

Listen to the full episode of Your Last Meal with Hrisihikesh Hirway here.

• Become a Cascade PBS member and support public media!   
• Watch Rachel’s Cascade PBS TV show The Nosh with Rachel Belle. 
• Sign up for Rachel’s (free!) biweekly Cascade PBS newsletter for more food musings. 
• Follow along on Instagram. 
• Order Rachel’s cookbook Open Sesame. 

Your ears are in for a treat -- this week they'll be graced by the velveteen voice of Hrishikesh Hirway! Hrishikesh is a prolific podcaster & he hosts and produces many, including my favorite food podcast of all time, Home Cooking, co-hosted by past Your Last Meal guest, Samin Nosrat, and the excellent music podcast, Song Exploder, that was turned into a Netflix show. He's also a musician and his new album is out now!

Hrishikesh tells host Rachel Belle:

•  How his lifelong cookie obsession began
• About his mom's mango pie, which has been featured in the New York Times and turned into a Salt & Straw ice cream flavor
• Why he started drinking coffee, for the first time, in his mid-40s

Then we're joined by Jim Henson Company "puppet wrangler" Lara MacLean, who took it upon herself to start baking the cookies that Cookie Monster demolishes on Sesame Street, because she wasn't happy with the last iteration! 

• Become a Cascade PBS member and support public media!   
• Watch Rachel’s Cascade PBS TV show The Nosh with Rachel Belle. 
• Sign up for Rachel’s (free!) biweekly Cascade PBS newsletter for more food musings. 
• Follow along on Instagram. 
• Order Rachel’s cookbook Open Sesame. 

This week on The Leftovers, never-before-heard audio from Eve Plumb, the actor who played Jan Brady on The Brady Bunch!

After spending most of her life in southern California, Eve moved to New York City and in this week's lightning round, she talks about the food she misses most from her home state. 

Listen to the full episode of Your Last Meal with Eve Plumb here.

• Become a Cascade PBS member and support public media!   
• Watch Rachel’s Cascade PBS TV show The Nosh with Rachel Belle. 
• Sign up for Rachel’s (free!) biweekly Cascade PBS newsletter for more food musings. 
• Follow along on Instagram. 
• Order Rachel’s cookbook Open Sesame. 

Eve Plumb was 10 years old when she landed the role of Jan Brady, the middle daughter on The Brady Bunch, and now she's sharing what was going on behind-the-scenes in her new memoir, Happiness Included: Jan Brady and Beyond.

The night Eve got the part, in 1969, her parents took her out for a celebratory dinner at Martoni’s, a martini-soaked, Italian-American Hollywood hot spot popular with folks in the music industry. Los Angeles culinary historian Katherine Spiers spills the tea on all the juicy Martoni’s celebrity gossip and tells host Rachel Belle which unsuspecting dish was all the rage in 1960s L.A. 

Eve connects the dots between her favorite fast food order and her last meal and talks about which The Brady Bunch cast member she still has monthly drinks with! 

• Become a Cascade PBS member and support public media!    
• Watch Rachel’s Cascade PBS TV show The Nosh with Rachel Belle.  
• Sign up for Rachel’s (free!) biweekly Cascade PBS newsletter for more food musings.  
• Follow along on Instagram.  
• Order Rachel’s cookbook Open Sesame. 

This week on The Leftovers, never-before-heard audio from Dawn Richard, singer; animator and Adult Swim creative consultant and owner of Papa Ted’s vegan food truck in New Orleans.   

In a lightning round, Dawn talks about graduating from college at the same time as her dad and her grandma, which food celebrity she admires most and how she finds a way to "New Orleansify" everything she cooks!  

Listen to the full episode of Your Last Meal with Dawn Richard here.

Become a Cascade PBS member and support public media!   

Watch Rachel’s Cascade PBS TV show The Nosh with Rachel Belle. 

Sign up for Rachel’s (free!) biweekly Cascade PBS newsletter for more food musings. 

Follow along on Instagram. 

Order Rachel’s cookbook Open Sesame. 

Dawn Richard is a proud New Orleans native and a true Renaissance Woman: singer; animator and Adult Swim creative consultant and owner of Papa Ted’s vegan food truck in New Orleans.  

Dawn went vegan back in 2013, in solidarity with her dad after he received a non-Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis. She talks about getting naked for PETA, the ethical intentionality behind her food truck and what (not-vegan) food she misses the most but will never eat again.  

Then we crack into the history & explore the culture of what is, perhaps, New Orleans’ oldest food tradition: crawfish! Food historian Dr Zella Palmer introduces host Rachel Belle to Al Scramuzza, the city’s late Crawfish King, and shares her favorite places to experience a crawfish boil in the city.   

• Become a Cascade PBS member and support public media!    
• Watch Rachel’s Cascade PBS TV show The Nosh with Rachel Belle.  
• Sign up for Rachel’s (free!) biweekly Cascade PBS newsletter for more food musings.  
• Follow along on Instagram.  
• Order Rachel’s cookbook Open Sesame. 

This week on The Leftovers, never-before-heard audio from singer-songwriter and guitarist M. Ward.

In this week’s lightning round, Ward talks about his favorite American cities to get an amazing Mexican meal and what holiday dessert he'd prefer to have on his birthday.

Listen to the full episode of Your Last Meal with M. Ward here. 

Become a Cascade PBS member and support public media!   

Watch Rachel’s Cascade PBS TV show The Nosh with Rachel Belle. 

Sign up for Rachel’s (free!) biweekly Cascade PBS newsletter for more food musings. 

Follow along on Instagram. 

Order Rachel’s cookbook Open Sesame. 

Singer-songwriter and guitarist M. Ward is also half of She & Him (with volcalist Zooey Deschanel) and a member of the indie supergroup Monsters of Folk. And I don't know how to tell him that he may never have his last meal ever again - the restaurant that makes the dish shut down late last year! 

M. Ward's last meal comes from Tucson, Arizona, one of only two UNESCO Cities of Gastronomy in the United States. What does that mean? What makes Tucson's food scene so special? You're about to find out! 

Ward also shares why he became a vegetarian, his family's immigration story and the Mexican dishes that he grew up with that he still makes to this day. 

• Become a Cascade PBS member and support public media!
• Watch Rachel’s Cascade PBS TV show The Nosh with Rachel Belle. 
• Sign up for Rachel’s (free!) biweekly Cascade PBS newsletter for more food musings. 
• Follow along on Instagram. 
• Order Rachel’s cookbook Open Sesame. 

This week on The Leftovers, never-before-heard audio from Karen Akunowicz, James Beard Award winning chef, Top Chef contestant & chef/owner of Boston’s Fox & the Knife and Bar Vulpe. 

In this week’s lightning round, Karen talks about the surprising rules and regulations of opening a restaurant in an airport; what her favorite restaurant in Boston is and where to get the world's best carrot cake. 

Listen to the full episode of Your Last Meal with Karen Akunowicz here!

Become a Cascade PBS member and support public media!   

Watch Rachel’s Cascade PBS TV show The Nosh with Rachel Belle. 

Sign up for Rachel’s (free!) biweekly Cascade PBS newsletter for more food musings. 

Follow along on Instagram. 

Order Rachel’s cookbook Open Sesame. 

Chef Karen Akunowicz is a Northeast gal through and through. The James Beard Award winning Top Chef alum is chef-owner of Boston’s Bar Vulpe and Fox and the Knife, named best new restaurant in America in 2019 by Food & Wine Magazine, Eater and USA Today. And her last meal is sun-drenched and summery, enjoyed on the deck of her favorite Maine seafood restaurant, overlooking sparkly water and the Five Islands.  

Karen tells host Rachel Belle what it’s like raising a bougie, foodie toddler; ranks French fry shapes from best to worst; tells the story of how she fell in love with cooking (spoiler: she was trying to get a coworker to fall in love with her) and her secret to making fantastic, award-winning Italian food (an Italian couple once made a reservation at her restaurant 17 nights in a row!). She also talks about her management style, and how she has worked to make her employees happy in a fair and equitable way. 

Then Rachel chats with John Birdsall, author of the book What is Queer Food? John shares several stories from his book, from a charming, personal childhood tale about the culinary awakening he had when his gay neighbors cooked for him in the 1960s, to the story of the man who invented the chiffon cake, to the historical connection between lesbians and potlucks.  

Become a Cascade PBS member and support public media!         

Watch Rachel’s Cascade PBS TV show The Nosh with Rachel Belle.       

Sign up for Rachel’s (free!) biweekly Cascade PBS newsletter for more food musings.       

Follow along on Instagram.       

Order Rachel’s cookbook Open Sesame. 

This week on The Leftovers, never-before-heard audio from Padma Lakshmi, Emmy nominated TV host, executive producer, best-selling author and activist. Padma hosted Top Chef for 17 years and her brand new show, America’s Culinary Cup, recently premiered on CBS.   

In this week’s lightning round, Padma talks about how she decides whether to eat the food fans bring her at meet-and-greet events; what she ate as a 16-year-old teenager in Los Angeles; what the ultimate New York City food is and her perfect birthday dessert.  

Listen to the full episode of Your Last Meal with Padma Lakshmi here! 

Become a Cascade PBS member and support public media!   

Watch Rachel’s Cascade PBS TV show The Nosh with Rachel Belle. 

Sign up for Rachel’s (free!) biweekly Cascade PBS newsletter for more food musings. 

Follow along on Instagram. 

Order Rachel’s cookbook Open Sesame.