Matt Hershberger is Living La Vida Jersey Fresh

05/18/21 • 49 min

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 Withdrawn from the local community in his new home he started experiencing depression with a whole cavalcade of symptoms that were only exasperated by growing anxieties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.

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.

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

Previous Episode

Sam Slaughter: Food and Nostalgia

What do the '90s taste like? If this is something you’ve been pondering, you’re in luck! Food and drink writer, Sam Slaughter, has captured the spirit of the decade in his cocktail book "Are You Afraid of the Dark Rum?: and Other Cocktails for '90s Kids" with delightful concoctions like "I'm too sexy for this grog" and "Pickelodeon." But successfully pulling off nostalgia takes more work than just clever puns and repeating old catch phrases. Sam talks with Kae Lani Palmisano about how much he had to study the decade and what he had to consider when making original cocktails that bring us back to the '90s.

You can follow Sam at @SlaughterWrites on Twitter and Instagram. His cocktail book "Are You Afraid of the Dark Rum?: and Other Cocktails for '90s Kids" on Amazon.

Next Episode

Annemarie Dooling on the sweetness of doing nothing

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.