Annemarie Dooling on the sweetness of doing nothing

06/01/21 • 42 min

Annemarie Dooling is constantly in motion. When she's not performing her duties as the Engagement Experiences Product Lead with the Wall Street Journal, she's a writer, burlesque dancer, magician, a fan of antiques, and a home cook. Between her job and her cultural pursuits, it's rare for Annemarie to slow down. But in her recent Wall Street Journal article, "How Being More Productive Starts with Doing Nothing," she's embracing the Italian concept of dolce far niente, the sweetness of doing nothing.

In this episode, Annemarie shares how activities like brewing a pot of old fashioned coffee and constantly whisking the cream and cheese for Cacio e Pepe are opportunities to embrace the nothingness.

You can follow Annemarie Dooling at @TravelingAnna on Twitter and Instagram.

Follow Amuse-Bouche at @AmuseBouchePod on Twitter and Instagram. For more food stories and recipes, subscribe to the Amuse-Bouche newsletter at amusebouche.substack.com. And to see what our host Kae Lani Palmisano is doing check her out on Twitter and Instagram at @KaeLaniSays.

In this episode, Annemarie shares how activities like brewing a pot of old fashioned coffee and constantly whisking the cream and cheese for Cacio e Pepe are opportunities to embrace the nothingness.

You can follow Annemarie Dooling at @TravelingAnna on Twitter and Instagram.

Previous Episode

Matt Hershberger is Living La Vida Jersey Fresh

When Matt Hershberger moved from Cincinnati to New Jersey, he felt a little out of place. Withdrawn from the local community in his new home he started experiencing depression with a whole cavalcade of symptoms that were only exasperated by growing anxieties around climate change and the uncertainty of our planet’s future.

Over time, Matt found that making simple things whether it was perfecting his tomato sauce, making bread, or whipping up some fresh pesto with his children, helped to alleviate his depression. But food became this point of connection to a lot of areas of Matt's life. Exploring New Jersey's local foodways gave him a meaningful way to interact with his new home state, focusing on local foods gave him actionable ways to help lower his own carbon footprint, cooking has been an enjoyable activity he shares with his family, and starting up a seed library at his local library is helping him spread the word of climate change and food sovereignty.

In this episode, Matt and Kae Lani discuss the many ways that food connects us to the land and each other. Plus, they dig into awesome topics like how Guerilla Gardening can help rebuild local habitats, what small things we can do in our everyday lives to live more sustainably, and how Jersey Fresh blueberries deserve to be a Protected Geographical Indication.

You can follow Matt Hershberger at @MattHershberger on Twitter and Instagram. You can read more of his work on www.matthershberger.com.

Next Episode

Emily Contois: Food and Gender

Why are salads considered feminine? Why is steak seen as a manly meal? Gender and the roles they have come represent is one of the many factors that shape the way our culture perceives food, thus dictating our relationship with eating. Emily Contois has spent her career as an interdisciplinary researcher and teacher exploring the ways in which gender, power dynamics, marketing and media contort our views on food. Her recent book, Diners, Dudes and Diets: How Gender and Power Collide in Food Media and Culture is an analysis on the rise of the “Dude" and how Diet culture and marketing companies changed their messaging to target the dude demographic.

In this episode of Amuse-Bouche Emily Contois joins host Kae Lani Palmisano to discuss food and gender, how the Great Recession changed the way marketers position diet programs, how Guy Fieri fuels the dude machine, and ways we can challenge the patriarchy through the media we consume and produce.

You can find more of Emily’s work on her website EmilyContois.com and at @EmilyContois on Instagram and Twitter. And you can buy Diners Dudes and Diets wherever books are sold!

Follow Amuse-Bouche on at @amusebouchepod on Twitter and Instagram and be sure to subscribe to the Amuse-Bouche newsletter on Substack. Every week you’ll find even more food stories, recipes, and gardening updates. It’s a free newsletter at the moment, but I do accept tips. So consider helping a sister out by throwing her a few bucks a month. You can also support me by engaging with the show and following Kae Lani at @KaeLaniSays on Instagram and Twitter.