In this episode of Creative Guts, co-hosts Laura Harper Lake and Sarah Wrightsman talk with John Fladd, food and cocktail writer with Hippo Press and Heavy Table! John spends his days developing recipes, weaving stories about food and drink, and talking with restaurateurs! In this episode we talk about the relationship between food and culture, John’s process for writing for digital and print, and how on Earth John got involved with a publication based in Minneapolis, MN! Find John Fladd’s writing in The Hippo (https://hippopress.com/author/john-fladd/) and The Heavy Table (https://heavytable.com/author/johnfladd/)! You can also find John on Instagram at www.instagram.com/woodenmask. Listen to this episode wherever you listen to podcasts or on our website www.CreativeGutsPodcast.com. Be friends with us on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/CreativeGutsPodcast and Instagram at www.Instagram.com/CreativeGutsPodcast. If you love listening, consider making a donation to Creative Guts! Our budget is tiny, so donations of any size make a big difference. Learn more about us and make a tax deductible donation at www.CreativeGutsPodcast.com. Thank you to our friends at Art Up Front Street Studios and Gallery in Exeter, NH and the Rochester Museum of Fine Arts in Rochester, NH for their support of the show!
In this episode of Creative Guts, co-hosts Laura Harper Lake and Sarah Wrightsman talk with John Fladd, food and cocktail writer with Hippo Press and Heavy Table! John spends his days developing recipes, weaving stories about food and drink, and talking with restaurateurs! In this episode we talk about the relationship between food and culture, John’s process for writing for digital and print, and how on Earth John got involved with a publication based in Minneapolis, MN!
Find John Fladd’s writing in The Hippo (https://hippopress.com/author/john-fladd/) and The Heavy Table (https://heavytable.com/author/johnfladd/)! You can also find John on Instagram at www.instagram.com/woodenmask.
Listen to this episode wherever you listen to podcasts or on our website www.CreativeGutsPodcast.com. Be friends with us on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/CreativeGutsPodcast and Instagram at www.Instagram.com/CreativeGutsPodcast.
If you love listening, consider making a donation to Creative Guts! Our budget is tiny, so donations of any size make a big difference. Learn more about us and make a tax deductible donation at www.CreativeGutsPodcast.com.
Thank you to our friends at Art Up Front Street Studios and Gallery in Exeter, NH and the Rochester Museum of Fine Arts in Rochester, NH for their support of the show!
[INTRODUCTION]
[00:00:00] LHL: I'm Laura Harper Lake.
[00:00:01] SW: And I'm Sarah Wrightsman.
[00:00:02] LHL & SW: And you're listening to Creative Guts.
[00:00:18] SW: Hey, friends. Thanks for tuning in to Creative Cuts.
[00:00:20] LHL: Today, we're chatting with John Fladd, the food and drink writer for the Hippo. And a cocktail columnist for Heavy Table. We were first introduced to John when he reached out to us around the time of the film festival and had a big interest in Creative Guts and all that we do. And his storytelling through food sounded so interesting. We had to take a peek into his mind and interview him.
[00:00:45] SW: Yep. We're super excited about this episode. So let's get cooking on this interview with John Fladd.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:00:54] LHL: Hi, John. Welcome to the Creative Puts podcast.
[00:00:56] JF: Thank you. I'm glad to be here.
[00:00:58] LHL: It's very exciting because we have not spoken with a food and cocktail editor and columnist before.
[00:01:05] SW: You know, I told my husband that we were talking to a food and cocktail writer tonight and he said, "I don't know what that is."
[00:01:12] JF: I get that. My wife's family still thinks I'm running some sort of scam. Because that can't be a real job.
[00:01:22] LHL: Yeah.
[00:01:22] SW: It just sounds too cool.
[00:01:23] JF: What I do is I develop recipes. I talk about how to make cocktails out of particular ingredients, with cooking recipes. Here's a seasonal ingredient. What can we do with it? I try to describe the experience in a way that a reader can relate to and is hopefully entertained by. I learned very quickly. You just can't say, "It's delicious." Because that tells you nothing.
[00:01:53] LHL: And that's subjective too in a way, right?
[00:01:56] JF: Well, it is. But you can explain why it works. Hey, this sour ingredient, because it's acidic, it goes well with the lime juice, which is also acidic. But then you need to balance that with something sweet. That's where the triple sec in a margarita comes in. Or what is the role that an egg plays when you're baking a cake?
[00:02:22] LHL: You're a part mad scientist then, in a way. Or you're at least talking about science in a way.
[00:02:28] SW: Food science.
[00:02:29] LHL: Yeah.
[00:02:31] JF: Yeah, in a way. I mean, it's not necessarily science. I couldn't tell you about the valence levels of the different molecules. But you do eventually learn, Oh, okay. If you're using baking soda, and we all remember in elementary school making a baking soda volcano.
[00:02:51] LHL: Best day in class.
[00:02:52] JF: Right. You're adding an acid of some sort. Back then, it was a vinegar. And that's activating the baking soda, which is giving off carbon dioxide. When you're putting baking soda into – you're baking with it, you want something acidic like buttermilk, or orange juice, or whatever to activate the baking soda and help it puff up while it's in the oven.
[00:03:17] LHL: Very cool.
[00:03:18] JF: Which sounds sciency, but I couldn't begin to tell you the actual science behind it. I know that this happens.
[00:03:24] SW: Can you tell us what your background is and sort of how you became a food and cocktail writer?
[00:03:29] JF: I've been a writer, a professional writer for 20 years or so. And I spent 25 years as a middle school teacher. I've got experience on explaining things to people with short attention spans. But I've always been a foodie. And I posted a couple of pictures on X, what used to be Twitter, when I cooked something that I was really proud of that looked good. And I posted a picture of a cocktail called A Lady in Blue. And it's really beautiful. It's in a martini glass. But it's got a little bit of blue curaçao that settles at the bottom. So you've got this layered look to it. It looks very sophisticated.
And a man I knew a little bit online — I've watched his food podcast back in the day and he runs a food magazine, it's on Substack actually, out of Minneapolis. And he said, "Hey, would you like to do some writing for me?" And I said, "Yeah, absolutely." And so, I wrote him a couple of pieces and he really liked it. And then we found out that he thought I was local to Minneapolis. But by that time, he really liked my stuff. And he's like, "Well, can you make occasional references to the Twin Cities?" "Yeah. Absolutely. I can do that."
And he was incredibly generous, editorially. Because it's online, there's no limit on word length. And he said I want you to take "a big swing" with this. And he said, "I'll tell you if you ever go too far." And he's never told me that. And he would let me go out on a limb doing some really creative writing as long as I tied it into cocktails.
And for instance, I ended up writing 3 or 4,000 words on the 1973 Sears Roebuck Wish Book. The Christmas Wish Book. And I went through there and found some cool things. And he said, "Oh, I remember that." And I either found or designed cocktails to go inspired by those things.
And he was just really generous. For two years, he let me do whatever I wanted. And then eventually the realities were, "Hey, this isn't driving traffic the way we'd hoped it would." And so, he changed my job. I still write once a month for Heavy Table, heavytable.com. And right now, what I do is something called Mystery Bottle. Where, once a month, I pick up a bottle of something that I've never had before and I write a little bit about it. And then I usually design, sometimes find, a cocktail recipe using it. And that's been – again, he and my other editor at Heavy Table are really generous in letting me go where I want to go.
[00:06:34] LHL: You're really telling a story with this. You're painting a picture.
[00:06:39] JF: I try to. And my goofy style of writing, it's light, it's fluffy. I try to bring a reader in with what I'm interested in. And if I can do it entertainingly enough, sometimes they say, "I have no intention of ever making this. But I really enjoyed reading it." And, yeah, that's nice too.
Anyway, getting back to your question. And I've been writing for the Hippo actually since the beginning, since the paper started 20 years ago. But, eventually, I did a lot of things. I was a columnist and I was the food editor for a while. And I did restaurant reviews and a bunch of other things. But, eventually, between a new baby, grad school, a commute, a full-time job, I had to stop writing for quite a while. And then about 2 years ago, the publisher, one of my good friends, and I sent him a picture saying, "Oh, look what I made." And he said, "Would you like to write a cocktail column?"
[00:07:37] SW: Oh, that's great. It's funny knowing that Heavy Table is based in St. Paul, Minneapolis, one of the questions I was going to ask you was how on Earth you got connected to them. Have you been to the Twin Cities?
[00:07:49] JF: About two summers ago, I actually flew out there for a week just so I could take a lot of pictures and find some really interesting things. For instance, there's a giant cemetery in Minneapolis with – I'm trying to remember what they call it. Like Performers Corner. Where it's all circus and carnival performers who are buried there. And I never ended up – I went there. I found it. I took pictures. But I never ended up using that. But on the way back, I found the grave of a dance marathon champion. And I did write about that.
And while I was out there, I was like, "You know, I've never been to a speakeasy." So I went to a speakeasy. And it was so fun. And, again, I wrote it up in a very light, semi-self-deprecating way.
[00:08:45] LHL: That's great.
[00:08:47] JF: And so, I did go out there. I went to the art museum. And I've done columns inspired by paintings before.
[00:08:55] SW: Oh, that's very cool.
[00:08:57] LHL: That's so cool. Can you tell us a little bit more about the process from having the idea to making it, or creating it, photographing it? I imagine the actual writing, how does it all work? It seems like you get inspiration from a lot of places.
[00:09:16] JF: I do.
[00:09:16] LHL: Yeah.
[00:09:17] JF: It depends on whether I'm writing for print or online. With print, you've got a certain number of column inches. It doesn't matter how brilliant – my deathless prose that's going to ring like a bell through the quarters of time. It doesn't matter how brilliant it is if I go over. And I'm very lucky I've got an excellent editor at the Hippo. And whenever she cuts something of mine, she makes it better. She's just really good at her job. Amy Diaz is her name.
What I've learned when I'm writing for print, let's write the recipe first. Because, sometimes I go off on a tangent while I'm doing that and explain, "Well, I juiced a watermelon this weekend." I was going to make some rum punch. And watermelon juice is really good. But then I ended up going on for a paragraph about how you do that. It's a little useless to tell a regular person, you know, "Hey, take 2 ounces of fresh watermelon juice." What? What? I write out the recipe.
And I know that for a column in print, I can go between 600 and 675 words. Once I've got the recipe down and I'm happy with it and I've talked about the flavor and whatever, okay, I've got 200 words to work with or 300 words. Okay, what can I do to work into a theme with this? A lot of times I just sit down and start writing and I'm surprised at what comes out.
Other times if I'm writing for an online publication and column inches are not an issue, okay, what does this make me think of? I just picked up a bottle of Stig's Fancy Pineapple Rum. It's made by – I think they used to be plantation rum and they finally realized, "Ooh, that is a phrase that hasn't aged well," especially for sugar plantations. And so, they've renamed themselves Plantera, I think.
Anyway, it's called Stig's Fancy because it's named after a character in a Charles Dickens novel. I think it was the Pickwick Papers. And there's this fire and brimstone preacher who preaches against the evils of alcohol but is extremely enthusiastic about pineapple rum on his own time. And so, they call this Stiggin's Fancy.
And I ended up talking about just how much I admire Charles Dickens as a writer. No one could put together a sentence like he could. But in terms of British writers, my loyalty goes to P.G. Wodehouse, who would write these very fluffy society comedies. Jeeves and Wooster, it was his invention.
And so, I ended up writing about the plot – if I were writing – if P.G. Woodhouse were writing about this rum, what would he have to say? And I worked it up. And at the end, one of the characters is standing on top of a table loudly singing A British Tar from Gilbert and Sullivan before falling down the stairs wrestling with a suit of armor. And, okay, and I was able to say, "Charles Dickens, Gilbert and Sullivan, and P.G. Wodehouse recommend this rum."
[00:12:50] LHL: That's so fascinating. Tell us about the photography that you do with this. Because you also have photos with them, right?
[00:12:57] JF: I do. And I do have an Instagram site where I post most of my –
[00:13:04] LHL: What's your handle on Instagram?
[00:13:06] JF: I believe.
[00:13:07] LHL: We will fact-check.
[00:13:10] JF: It's @woodenmask. Spelled like –
[00:13:13] LHL: Sarah is quickly typing it in right now.
[00:13:16] SW: Yep. That checks out.
[00:13:19] JF: Okay. And on Instagram, it's just the photos and an explanation about what the ingredients are for the cocktails.
[00:13:27] SW: Ooh, you made homemade yogurt pretty recently.
[00:13:29] JF: Yes, I did. That was for a Hippo recipe. And so, over the years, I've gotten better and better at learning how to stage a photograph. Learning how to shoot it on an iPhone. I finally realized, "You shoot it with regular photo and then do portrait mode." So that the drink, or the ice cream, or whatever is in focus but the background kind of fuzzes out and fades behind it. And sometimes that's what my editors want. Sometimes it's not. One of my passions cooking-wise is ice cream making.
[00:14:08] SW: I noticed that from your Instagram.
[00:14:10] JF: And this past week, I was listening to a cooking podcast, a food podcast out of Los Angeles, out of KCRW called Good Food. And they do what's called a market report. Where once every week they'll go to the farmers market and talk to some of the chefs that they see cruising around picking up fresh and seasonal ingredients. And they were talking about corn because they're just starting to get their sweet corn right now.
And one of the chefs, the interviewer said, "Oh, are you doing anything on the sweet side?" And she just said off the cuff, "Oh, our pastry chef has been grilling corn cobs and infusing that into the cream." And that's as far as she went. And I was like, "Okay, what's involved with that?"
And so, last week, I charcoal-grilled some corn cobs. I grilled them like you would a sausage so that there was a little char but basically golden brown. And I mixed up an ice cream base. A sweet cream base. And I just put them in the cobs and to soak for 24 to 48 hours. And then churned it. And it was so interesting. And that was one of the things I said is that if you've gotten into cooking seriously you try to give your food away to people, in this part of the world, you'll not have a lot of luck. They'll say, "Oh, I'm fine. No. It's okay. I'm good."
And you're like, "I didn't ask you if you were good. I said, here, please accept this gift from my heart." But anyway – and eventually I realized, "Oh, especially in Northern New England, people don't want interesting food. They want comforting food." And so, what I was saying is that this manages to be both interesting. And if you can get them to try it, it will become one of their comfort foods.
And it had this just really nice smoky, sweet, corny flavor. And at first, you're like, "Smoke and sweet?" And then you realize, "Oh, yeah. Grilled peaches, barbecue sauce." Yeah. In context, we're used to that kind of combination. It's just, "Hmm."
[00:16:29] LHL: Very interesting. You mentioned folks in this sort of region maybe have a different way of accepting food as gifts. And that sort of kind of goes to the next question about how does food connect to storytelling and beyond that to culture. Thinking about the culture of people, how that it's such an important part of a piece of who we are as humans. I guess you're really harnessing that power of storytelling. Can you talk a bit about how it connects to storytelling and culture?
[00:17:03] JF: Eating is something we all have in common. And it's such a profound statement of our culture of where we grew up, sometimes of our religion, sometimes of childhood trauma. I grew up in Vermont where salt and pepper is seen as dangerously adventurous or was when I was growing up. And any vegetable had to be boiled for at least half an hour. It's only now in my late middle age that I've learned, "Oh, you know what? Brussels sprouts can be really delicious." And then someone will say, "Hey, would you like a big play of Brussels sprouts?" I'm like, "Nope. Nope."
Northern New England, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine. Just traditionally the old Yankee culture, white Protestant, conservative, socially conservative, politically, and conservative in terms of the food that they ate, that's changing. Our population doesn't look like what it used to. Spend any time in Manchester or Nashua, you see a huge population of people speaking Spanish, of West Africans, of just people from all over the world.
[00:18:28] LHL: All over. Yeah. It's so fantastic.
[00:18:30] JF: We're having the next big thing food-wise here. I think is going to be Korean.
[00:18:38] LHL: Which I just had a little bit. And I was speaking with the owner of Sue's Kimbap House.
[00:18:44] JF: I was about to bring her up.
[00:18:45] LHL: And she mentioned you. And I was like, "I'm about to chat with John." That's so –
[00:18:50] JF: Susan Chung. Yes. The Capitol Center for the Arts. This is such a beautiful, brilliant thing. During COVID, they had to shut down pretty much completely. And they had two commercial kitchens for various things. And once they got up and running, it was just such a challenge to get shows put on, much less anything else. They said, "Hey, we've got these commercial kitchens just sitting there. And we've got an immigrant population here in Concord, people that would really like to open a restaurant but don't know how, don't have starting capital.
And so, now, Susan is their second culinary artist in residence. And the first one was doing Somali food. And she has a food truck now. And Susan, I talked to her on the phone for an interview, and she and her husband are just really excited about bringing a different side of Korean culture to New Hampshire.
[00:19:53] SW: Yeah. Absolutely.
[00:19:55] LHL: And it was delicious. I had some, and it was very, very good.
[00:20:00] JF: But as you say, there's a story behind every food, every cook. Every eater has a story. Sometimes a soap opera.
[00:20:11] LHL: Mm-hmm. Sometimes a soap box. I'm vegan.
[00:20:16] JF: I'm vegetarian and diabetic.
[00:20:18] LHL: Yeah. Sometimes there are restrictions in many different ways. Yeah.
[00:20:22] JF: Exactly. A few years ago, I was at a party for an extended family member of my wife's. And I happened to be there when a baby, maybe 9 or 10 months old, had her first Cheeto. She picked it up and clearly thought it was going to taste like carrot sticks. And just the way her eyes lit up. And you could see her worldview changing radically right in front of me. And how wonderful is that?
I've discovered that if you're at a party and you need to make small talk, ask about brownies. Middle of the pan. Side of the pan. Corner of the pan. And everyone's got an opinion.
[00:21:10] SW: Who picks the middle of the pan?
[00:21:11] LHL: Yeah, what's your answer, John?
[00:21:11] JF: Oh, a lot do.
[00:21:12] SW: Really?
[00:21:12] JF: Yeah. I like the corner.
[00:21:14] SW: Okay. Me too. I a corner too.
[00:21:16] JF: Because I like a fudgy brownie. But I like the chewiness. But I'm also kind of a purist. I don't like a lot of add-ins. Less so now. But growing up, there's a certain type of baker that insists on putting walnuts in everything. And I don't like it in most sweet applications. Although, it makes a fantastic part of a pie crust for a quiche.
[00:21:40] LHL: Oh. Wouldn't have thought of that. But yeah.
[00:21:44] SW: It's cool.
[00:21:44] JF: It is.
[00:21:46] SW: Back in the day – I don't know. Probably the early 2000s. There was this pan that you like to put the insert in so that every brownie was a corner piece.
[00:21:54] JF: Well, it all has edges at least.
[00:21:56] SW: Yes. All four sides were crispy.
[00:21:59] JF: The problem with it is – there's a couple of different people did it. But the silicone ones don't give you the texture that you want. Silicon is an insulator. Not a conductor.
[00:22:13] SW: It has to be metal.
[00:22:14] JF: You want the metal or glass there to give you a little bit of a sear. It's called the Maillard reaction. It's what makes meat turn golden brown. It's what makes toast brown up and has a toasty flavor. And you need that for the proper text texture on a brownie.
[00:22:30] SW: Yep, you do. You do.
[00:22:32] LHL: I am learning so much tonight.
[00:22:34] SW: Mine was metal. It was a little bit like once you inserted it, it would look sort of like an ice cube tray.
[00:22:39] JF: Yeah.
[00:22:38] LHL: Oh, okay.
[00:22:39] SW: I mean, I guess you could get the same sort of idea by putting it in like a muffin pan though.
[00:22:43] JF: Yeah. But then you end up with brownie muffins. And is it really brownie at that point?
[00:22:51] LHL: Clearly, there's a line.
[00:22:53] SW: So does shape determine a food then?
[00:22:56] JF: It can. It… absolutely.
[00:22:59] LHL: We're going to get into the philosophy.
[00:22:59] SW: I know. We're going down the, like, is a hot dog a sandwich? Is a taco a sandwich route?
[00:23:05] JF: Okay. Here's the thing. I don't know if it's a human thing, or if it's an American thing, or what. But we love designing artificial categories.
[00:23:16] SW: Everything belongs in its box.
[00:23:17] JF: And then getting mad when things don't neatly fit into it. Is cereal a soup?
[00:23:22] SW: Yes, it is.
[00:23:24] JF: The cereal doesn't care. Yeah. Is a hotdog a sandwich? Sure. Why not? But, again, the hotdog doesn't care. And categories are fine. It's a way of wrapping your head around a complicated and scary world. But then we start trying to shove everything in categories.
My only child, my wife’s, and my only child is non-binary. And people love to slap labels. And it's like why do you need to put a label on this beautiful person? Who, by the way, we're taking them to a sophomore year at school for the Art Institute of Chicago this weekend.
[00:24:16] SW: Cool.
[00:24:17] LHL: Congratulations to them. That is so exciting.
[00:24:20] JF: I'm achingly proud.
[00:24:22] SW: Yeah.
[00:24:23] LHL: Very cool to hear. Good for them.
[00:24:24] SW: It's so great. In addition to sort of developing recipes and cocktails in your writing, you also do a little bit of like interviewing chefs, which is really cool. And writing about, say, like food-centric festivals that are coming up.
[00:24:42] JF: Yes.
[00:24:42] SW: How do you decide what you're writing about? When you're writing about it? You mentioned seasonal being an inspiration. I assume new restaurants is a little bit of an inspiration. It's new. I'll cover that. What sort of drives what you're writing about?
[00:24:55] JF: The short answer is I write what my editor tells me to. But the Hippo, we are New Hampshire's largest newspaper in terms of circulation. 30,000 per week.
[00:25:08] SW: Really?
[00:25:09] JF: Yes. You don't think of it that way because most people – although we do have boxes out on the street in some of the cities, most people get the Hippo at the grocery store. It's in the rack as you're headed out. But we have just an enormous circulation. And because we're in arts and entertainment paper, we're not looking at hard news. We're not reporting on corruption at the fishing game department. By the way, I don't know about any corruption at the fishing game department.
[00:25:41] LHL: Don't start a scandal.
[00:25:43] SW: That was quite an interesting example.
[00:25:46] LHL: Hypothetically. Yeah.
[00:25:46] JF: If you want to know more, click on the links. Anyway, we basically cover, hey, Concord, Manchester, Nashua, and the surrounding town. And it's basically, "Hey, what do our readers want to know about what's going on? What they should do on the weekend?" Is there something interesting that they feel like they should know about but that it doesn't depend on them being a particular political party or whatever?
[00:26:21] LHL: Like a film festival.
[00:26:22] JF: Like a film festival.
[00:26:26] LHL: Is that how you heard about our film festival?
[00:26:29] SW: It was in the Hippo.
[00:26:30] JF: I'm trying to remember.
[00:26:34] LHL: You might have heard it on the podcast since you're a big listener, right?
[00:26:36] JF: I am. Oh, I was writing up listings. And there was an announcement, I forget if it was in a press release or not, about opening up for submissions for the film festival.
[00:26:50] LHL: I sent that press release out. It was on your radar pretty early.
[00:26:55] JF: It's on my radar. I put it on my calendar. Okay. When we get up a week or so away from there. Put it in the listings. And then I just got kind of fascinated. And I listened to a couple of your podcasts and I was fascinated. But what really hooked me was your bow tie artist.
[00:27:17] LHL: Lionel Loveless.
[00:27:18] JF: Lionel. Thank you. His name had escaped me. And he was so brilliant. And I've sent the link to that interview to any number of people. And one of my friends who's just a tremendously gifted musician and voice artist, she said it changed her life.
[00:27:38] SW: Really? Wow.
[00:27:40] LHL: That's some impressive –
[00:27:40] SW: Huge compliment.
[00:27:42] LHL: Yeah. That is really very moving. That's amazing.
[00:27:46] JF: Because she faced a lot of the same things that Lionel does being a black artist in this part of the world. And eventually, it just got too hard. She and her husband decided to move down near Washington, D.C. where she could have more connection with cultures that she was more directly tied into.
[00:28:10] SW: Yeah. Oh, I'm glad that it moved her and touched her in a way at least. That's that's really nice to hear.
[00:28:16] LHL: It's really unfortunate that New Hampshire loses folks of different backgrounds because of not feeling like it's a welcoming enough place or inclusive enough. And I think we're moving in that direction. But that's also just this one person's limited perspective.
[00:28:35] JF: Change and evolution is hard. And a lot of people are scared by that. I was talking to a couple of different people today about the murals that were done on the rail trail on the west side of Manchester. And the death threats that they got. And the swastikas that were spray painted on it. And just for the women, the harassment that they had to go through.
And I realized that, sadly, that's kind of part of modern life is the amount of harassment that a woman has to go through. But it's actually kind of funny. I was standing in the checkout line at the grocery store and one of the baggers, 15, 16-year-old boy, he said something like, "You know, one time, I helped the guy out with his bags and the dude hit on me." And he expected everyone to be really shocked. And I said, "That happens on a regular basis to everyone here in this line other than you and me." And he looked around, and the checker, she was nodding. The lady behind me was nodding. The old lady behind her was nodding. And on behalf of people who look like me, I apologize.
[00:29:53] SW: Thank you.
[00:29:55] LHL: Yeah. It's good that folks can recognize the we all have privilege in different ways. And there's so much intersectionality with that. I think the more that folks are open to talking about it and recognizing it is hopefully good and positive to slowly move in the right direction. But food.
[00:30:15] JF: Yes. Getting back to food. Well, I mean, if you talk to women chefs who've come up through – the old-fashioned. What they used to call the brigade system. Where you start out as a prep cook and you move up to sue chef if you're really good. And then maybe someday you become chef-chef. And the sheer amount of nonsense. But I don't think most people realize what a just brutal place a professional kitchen is. It's hot. You have to work fantastically long hours at a breakneck pace.
[00:30:58] LHL: Have you seen The Bear?
[00:30:58] JF: I haven't. Because –
[00:31:00] LHL: Is it too close to –
[00:31:02] JF: A little bit.
[00:31:03] LHL: I haven't seen all of it. But I definitely get very stressed. As someone who's never worked in a commercial kitchen, I am like, "Gosh. Those folks are –"
[00:31:12] JF: See? I don't need to see that. I've worked back of the house. I've worked in front of the house.
[00:31:16] LHL: You've been in the heat.
[00:31:18] JF: I've been there. Also, I'm very susceptible to cringiness. If someone's embarrassed or humiliated in a TV show or a movie, I cannot take it.
[00:31:28] LHL: Yep, me too.
[00:31:29] JF: And so, I watch a lot of British competition shows where people are nice to each other.
[00:31:35] LHL: Do you watch The Great British Bake Off?
[00:31:37] JF: Of course.
[00:31:37] LHL: I would imagine. Yes.
[00:31:40] JF: They also have a pottery version called The Great British Throwdown.
[00:31:44] LHL: Oh, my. That sounds lovely.
[00:31:47] JF: It is. It's fantastic. The first five seasons I think are on Max. And, basically, set up exactly the way the Great British Bake Off is. But one of the head judges, just like Paul Hollywood has the steely look that can make people cry. Keith – I'm gonna say Baron Jones. Anyway, the master potter who judges things, he is so moved by good work that he cries on a regular basis. The artists bring him to tears.
[00:32:20] LHL: That's so neat.
[00:32:22] JF: Yes. I watch a lot of these. Back in the day, I used to watch a lot of Food Network. And they're fine. But it's always, "Hey, we're going for this money." As opposed to a great British baking show. Or a great Canadian baking show is also really good.
[00:32:40] LHL: Oh, I've never seen that.
[00:32:42] JF: Oh. So you do this? What do you get? A cake plate. And one of the interviewers said – and we have national health insurance. We've got that too. Anyway, it takes a while for me to watch even really well-regarded things. I'm just now thinking about dipping my toe into Game of Thrones.
[00:33:11] SW: Yeah.
[00:33:13] LHL: It's an investment.
[00:33:13] JF: It is.
[00:33:16] LHL: Yeah. There's not much cooking in it. But – no. It is –
[00:33:18] JF: There's some torching.
[00:33:19] LHL: Yes. There's definitely something.
[00:33:24] JF: But as I say, I really enjoy watching people who were really good at something. Doing it and enjoying themselves and explaining what they're doing and why they're doing it. Whether that's tool restoration videos on YouTube. Or the Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year, which is a fantastic show out of the UK along with its partner show Landscape Artist of the Year.
[00:33:51] LHL: Yeah. Becky has been talking about this a lot.
[00:33:54] SW: Okay. That's cool.
[00:33:55] JF: And so, again, you've got people that are very good at what they do. They're almost universally supportive of each other.
[00:34:02] LHL: Which is really refreshing.
[00:34:04] SW: Huge deal, yeah.
[00:34:06] JF: No one ever says I'm not here to make friends.
[00:34:09] SW: Right. Have you ever been in a cooking competition?
[00:34:13] JF: I tried for many years to win a ribbon at the Deerfield Fair.
[00:34:19] SW: In what cat –
[00:34:21] JF: Pies. And once pickles. And I made these fantastic Indian lime pickles. And then I found out they don't eat them. They go entirely by appearance.
[00:34:33] LHL: Oh, that's a little disappointing.
[00:34:36] SW: That is disappointing.
[00:34:37] JF: Yes. Yeah. My lime pickles look like yellow mud with chunks in it.
[00:34:42] SW: But they taste the best.
[00:34:44] JF: Of course. Someone that's got a nice crisp dill pickle. And there's nothing better. Every year for Valentine's Day, my wife sends away to the pickle guys on the Lower East Side in Manhattan and gets me several quarts of half-sour pickles.
[00:35:02] LHL: See, that's romance right there.
[00:35:05] SW: I know, right? This summer, I went to the New England Hot Sauce Festival because it was in Hampton.
[00:35:15] JF: Oh, the one with the shark on the posters. Yes.
[00:35:18] SW: Yes. And I watched a hot-wing eating contest, which was really kind of weird.
[00:35:26] LHL: To watch folks eat?
[00:35:27] SW: To watch people eat hot wings.
[00:35:29] LHL: And probably sweat if it's really, really hot?
[00:35:32] JF: Well, if you've ever watched Hot Ones on YouTube.
[00:35:34] LHL: I've seen clips. Yeah.
[00:35:35] JF: Basically, what they found out was they could get a really good interview with a celebrity if they're eating progressively hotter wings, or vegan wings, or whatever. Because their defenses go down. They're trying to form a coherent sentence. And my feeling on hot foods is you find out what your level is and you stick to it. If you want to develop it a little bit more, that's fine. But, basically, where it comes down to a dare, it's disrespectful of the food. It's disrespectful. I don't know. And when you get to a lot of the really hot, 100,000-plus Scoville units –
[00:36:16] LHL: We have to sign a waiver.
[00:36:18] JF: – the food ends up tasting like tobacco. There's a weird back taste to it.
[00:36:22] SW: Interesting.
[00:36:23] JF: I'm not saying that there's tobacco in it. I'm just saying that's what it tastes like to me. Scoville units, it's not a very accurate scale but it's used to measure how spicy a chili pepper is. And I'm fine with the top end of a hot jalapeno, or a serrano, or a Fresno chili. Yeah, maybe 15 to 20,000 Scoville units. And that's fine. But when you get into people that are having Carolina Reapers, or ghost peppers, or scorpion peppers. That was the big one for a little while out of India.
[00:36:56] LHL: They all sound pretty terrifying to me. I can't do anything hot at all really. Pepper is like – ooh. I'm one of those folks.
[00:37:05] JF: I was writing a cover story on flea markets. And I was at the Salem flea market. And a lot of – I believe they're Cambodian. But a lot of Asian ladies there are selling plants, including pots of little Thai chilies. And so, I got one. And it turns out there was actually four or five plants in there once I teased the roots part and I put them in my raised bed. And one of those takes the top of my head clean off. It's just –
[00:37:36] LHL: Yikes.
[00:37:38] JF: Interestingly enough, I did a story several months ago about spicy food in the area. And I talked to different chefs. Well, here's what's interesting. If you'd said – asked people for their favorite spicy food 5, 10 years ago, they would have said hot wings or whatever. Almost universally, it was Thai and Indian food that people responded to.
[00:37:59] SW: My husband, he loves hot Thai food. Yeah.
[00:38:01] JF: But anyway, didn't matter whether it was Mexican, whether it was Thai, whatever. All the chefs said that they go with the little tiny Thai bird chilies. Because for whatever reason, the quality of jalapenos, especially jalapenos, it's very variable. Maybe one time in 10, it'll be nice, and spicy, and flavorful. And the rest of the time, it tastes like grass.
And so, hey, if we were someplace, Southern California, Texas, Arizona where we could get a reliable source of those peppers, it would be great. But anything that I would normally use a jalapeno for, I use a Fresno chili. But, anyway, getting back to the chefs, they said they just can't – even with a really good produce supplier, they can't depend on the quality of chili peppers. But for whatever reason, the Thai chilies are consistently hot. And so, they can vary the heat of a dish by more or less of the Thai chilies.
[00:39:07] LHL: Oh, that's really cool.
[00:39:08] SW: Yep. Yep. That makes sense to me. Jalapenos are super inconsistent. We grow them every summer and it's like you bite into it and you're like, "No. That's a bell pepper."
[00:39:20] LHL: I think we're going to shift gears a little bit. We're going to sneak into rapid-fire in a minute. But before we do that the last bigger thing, I want to make sure that we talk about plates and palettes. Or palettes and plates.
[00:39:32] JF: Palettes and Palates.
[00:39:34] LHL: Palettes and Palates. There are no plates. You knew what I was talking about. Please tell the folks what the heck I'm trying to say here.
[00:39:42] JF: I ran into Liz Pieroni of Mosaic.
[00:39:46] SW: Oh. Yes, I know what this is.
[00:39:49] JF: Yes. Now you know what I was trying to spit out.
[00:39:52] JF: Of the Mosaic Art Collective. And we were talking. And we hit it off. And I gave her my card and said, "Well, hey, get in touch if you ever have any food-related stories to talk about." And she goes, "Well, that doesn't seem likely." I said, "I know. But that would actually be a pretty good exhibition, the art of food." And she got thoughtful. And then we talked again a few weeks later and the upshot is that we are putting on an exhibition next July through Mosaic through the Chamber of Commerce offices there on Hanover Street in Manchester. And it's called Palettes and Palates. Palettes like you would paint from. And palates as in your sense of taste.
What we are doing is Liz is sending out an invitation to artists for submission. And we have maybe 15-word prompts; sweet, sour, salty. Different things that have to do with food or can be related to food in some way. And they'll submit their work. And then we will invite local restaurant owners and chefs to design a dish inspired by that piece of art.
And so, for our opening, it's going to be each one of those chefs will cater it at least with their one dish and be able to speak to, "Hey, this is why we're doing this." And we're hoping to have from white tablecloth restaurants down to food trucks. We're hoping.
[00:41:33] SW: Super cool. Yeah.
[00:41:33] LHL: I feel like this is going to be a very crammed exhibition. I feel like a lot of people are going to show up. Because whether you love food or you love visual art, boom. Putting those two together. What a pairing.
[00:41:44] SW: Yeah, that sounds amazing. I'm hoping Christina Lopez.
[00:41:51] LHL: Yes. Yes.
[00:41:50] SW: She's put a bunch of food art in our past works.
[00:41:52] LHL: That would be excellent.
[00:41:54] JF: After the past week when I've been researching murals, I would love it if Manny Ramirez did something.
[00:42:02] LHL: Oh, yeah.
[00:42:05] JF: Or Jmac also does some interesting murals.
[00:42:09] LHL: There's a lot of potential. I'm very excited. I can't wait to see the call. We'll definitely help spread that when it comes out so we can amplify the message and get some artists' bacon cooking.
[00:42:19] JF: We're looking forward to it.
[00:42:21] LHL: Yeah. That's going to be really amazing.
[00:42:23] JF: It's just really interesting how this part of the state, the Manchester, Concord, Nashua area has started to become a food destination. Whether it's the taco tour in Manchester. Whether it's the cultural festival in Concord. There was just so – we're getting a reputation for well-done, professionally-made foods. Chris Viaud in Milford was a James Beard nominee this past year.
[00:42:52] LHL: So great. I think we will end on that high note and move into rapid-fire questions. And we don't have much time left.
[00:43:02] JF: Yes, ma'am.
[00:43:03] LHL: Just a few minutes. These are going to be quick questions with quick answers.
[00:43:06] JF: I will try.
[00:43:07] LHL: Okay. That's what everybody says. Hopefully, some of these you will see, they will be quick. But what other artists has influenced you the most?
[00:43:15] JF: As a writer, Bill Bryson. And I have to be careful not to read anything of his before I'm writing or I find myself taking his style.
[00:43:24] SW: That's funny.
[00:43:25] LHL: Yeah.
[00:43:27] SW: Do you prefer cooking or baking?
[00:43:29] JF: At this point, baking. Or ice cream making.
[00:43:33] LHL: Another category we didn't think of.
[00:43:34] SW: Its own category. Yes.
[00:43:37] LHL: Favorite city specifically for the food?
[00:43:39] JF: Chicago. Chicago where my child goes to school is a fantastic food town. Fantastic art town. Fantastic music town.
[00:43:49] SW: Yep. What's your favorite color?
[00:43:51] JF: Bluish gray.
[00:43:53] LHL: Very specific.
[00:43:54] SW: Very New England.
[00:43:55] LHL: Yes. What's your favorite scent?
[00:43:58] JF: Baby powder.
[00:43:59] SW: Favorite sound?
[00:44:02] JF: Women's voices.
[00:44:04] LHL: Nice.
[00:44:07] SW: What a compliment.
[00:44:07] JF: No. As I've gotten older, I've realized that – not so much girls’ voices. Although they have lovely voices and stuff. But when a fully mature woman not only becomes more beautiful as she gets older, but the voice gets deeper, with more character, and –
[00:44:26] LHL: Usually, more confidence. More like I don't care what the world thinks of me when you get older.
[00:44:31] JF: There's that too. But it resonates with me.
[00:44:37] LHL: Favorite taste?
[00:44:38] JF: Salty sweet.
[00:44:40] SW: Favorite texture to touch?
[00:44:42] JF: Shoving my hands into a barrel of lentils or seeds.
[00:44:48] LHL: Yep. That’s in Amelie. Have seen Amelie? She puts her hand – yeah. I've went there when you said that.
[00:44:58] JF: It's my child's favorite movie.
[00:44:59] LHL: It's my favorite too.
[00:45:00] JF: And there are several beautiful food moments in that. Like they talk about the man who likes to cook a chicken and eat oysters. Meaning, the little muscle behind the wing.
[00:45:14] LHL: Right.
[00:45:13] SW: Yeah. So funny.
[00:45:16] LHL: Yeah. That's amazing. That's exactly what I thought. What is the last new thing you've learned?
[00:45:22] JF: I learn so many things every day. I'm listening to a podcast now from 99% Invisible, where they talk about design. And they've got a one-year side project that they're doing where they read the Power Broker about Robert Moses. And learning about how New York came to be the way it is in terms of infrastructure and just the ways that this one man amassed untold amounts of power and then didn't do anything good with it.
[00:46:01] SW: Yeah.
[00:46:04] JF: But just to learn about Robert Moses who had just been a name to me before. I knew he was widely disliked. But –
[00:46:11] LHL: Now you know why.
[00:46:12] SW: Yup. Interesting. Final question, if you could go back in time, what advice would you give your younger self?
[00:46:19] JF: As I've gotten older, I've come to realize that living a good life is less about accomplishing great things and more about listening. And I wish I could tell my younger self to shut up. You don't have to give everyone your opinion on everything. And you don't have to be the funniest one in the room every single time.
[00:46:46] SW: That's great. I love that.
[00:46:48] LHL: Yeah, that is really good advice.
[00:46:49] SW: Yeah.
[00:46:49] LHL: It has been an absolute pleasure to pick your brain and learn more about what you do creatively. This has been so fascinating.
[00:46:57] JF: I would love to take the two of you out to dinner sometime.
[00:47:00] SW: Oh. That would be really cool.
[00:47:02] JF: Oh, we could do a food crawl in Manchester.
[00:47:06] SW: Love it.
[00:47:07] JF: I've always thought the logistics would be a nightmare. But I would love to lead food tours.
[00:47:12] SW: Oh, that would be really neat.
[00:47:13] LHL: Yeah. That would be super-duper fun.
[00:47:15] SW: Yeah.
[00:47:16] LHL: Well, thank you for sharing your insight on the podcast. And I'm sure we'll have a lot of cool things cooking up in the future. Thank you again, John, for being on the show.
[00:47:26] JF: It was my pleasure.
[00:47:29] LHL: And with that –
[00:47:29] LHL, SW, JF: Show us your creative guts.
[OUTRO]
[00:47:37] SW: Another huge thank you to John Fladd for joining us on Creative Guts. That was such a fun conversation.
[00:47:42] LHL: Oh, my gosh. Yes.
[00:47:43] SW: He has so many great stories in a lot of what he said. For our listeners who don't know, my background is in dietetics. I took a bunch of food science classes when I was in college. And a lot of the stuff he said brought me back to my food science days.
[00:47:55] LHL: Yeah. It was like another language to me. I mean, I am the furthest thing from a cook, really. And it was really impressive. His knowledge, his excitement, and his heart that comes with the storytelling of food and how it intersects with culture, it just really swept me away.
[00:48:12] SW: Yep. Yeah. And he'll be a great source to get other people who are doing food-related creative things onto the podcast. I'd love to talk to like a baker, or another chef. It's been a long time since we've had a chef on the podcast. Maybe like a beer brewer would be very cool.
[00:48:28] LHL: Oh, yeah. I mean, there's so much out there. And as he said, it's booming in New Hampshire. And we need to have more folks on.
[00:48:34] SW: Absolutely.
[00:48:36] LHL: John, it was really, really awesome getting to know you. And your passion and excitement is infectious. I feel like I need to go home and bake something now, or do something to appreciate the ability and the accessibility that we have to create good things to eat.
[00:48:54] SW: Yeah. I'm personally going to go home and make some round brownies in my muffin pan. Hey, they count. I recently saw this recipe for brownies for vegans that has black beans in it. I love black bean brownies.
[00:49:09] LHL: Have you had them before?
[00:49:10] SW: I've made them before.
[00:49:11] LHL: Holy cow, Sarah. That's so cool.
[00:49:14] SW: I have made, in my day, brownies with black beans, with avocado, and with sweet potato.
[00:49:21] LHL: Oh, I want to try the sweet potato.
[00:49:23] SW: They're really good. Those are probably the best ones actually.
[00:49:24] LHL: Okay. I'm going to send you the recipe I looked up so you could tell me if it's like – and it has minimal ingredients. But I just want to make sure that I'm – I mean, a question I meant to ask John is what is the percentage of things that he's made that have been duds? Because as an amateur, very amateur person in the kitchen, I would say it's 50/50 for me, which is pretty bad percentage of like amazing versus like terrible.
[00:49:56] SW: I think that would have been really great question. Sorry, John's not here anymore. Because it's even harder when like you're on a deadline. What if he's making something for a piece and it doesn't turn out good? And like then what?
[00:50:08] LHL: Oh, my gosh.
[00:50:09] SW: Right? All right. Sorry, John. We've gotten a little off-tangent. But you just inspired us to talk more about food and cooking.
[00:50:16] LHL: Thank you so much for being on the show and for being our new friend. We're really excited. So you want to know more about John? You can find his writing on Hippo Press and at Heavy Table. Links will be in the description of this episode. And John is also on Instagram at @woodenmask.
[00:50:36] SW: Like Laura said, you can find the links to John's author pages on the Hippo, and Heavy Table, and his Instagram in the episode description on our website, creativegutspodcast.com. You can also find us, of course, on Facebook and Instagram @creativegutspodcast.
[00:50:51] LHL: This episode was sponsored in part by the Rochester Museum of Fine Arts. Thank you to our amazing friends in Rochester for their support of the show.
[00:51:00] SW: A big thank you to Art Up Front Street for providing a space where Creative Guts can record.
[00:51:03] LHL: And if you love listening to this show and you want to support Creative Guts, you can make a donation, leave a review, interact with our content on social media, purchase some merch. Whatever you're able to do, we appreciate you.
[00:51:16] SW: Thank you for tuning in. We'll be back next Wednesday with another episode of Creative Guts.
[END]