Food is the ultimate love language: with Chef Joshna Maharaj

12/15/22 • 61 min

This episode is full of bravery and mega flavours.

I interview Chef Joshna Maharaj, and we talk about comfort food, food as a trigger, healing through food, and finding our way back to ourselves through food. I also go on a bit of a pre-ramble about my own journey with food post-divorce.

ANNOUNCEMENT - My season finale recorded with a live studio audience (you?!) will be Thursday, January 19th, 2023 in downtown Toronto, and my guest will be Samantha Bitty. Tickets will go on sale tomorrow! Stay tuned to my Instagram @BigDPod.

Joshna Maharaj is a chef, a two-time TEDx speaker, & activist who wants to help everyone have a better relationship with their food. She believes strongly in the power of chefs & social gastronomy to bring values of hospitality, sustainability, & social justice to the table.

Joshna works with hospitals & schools in Canada to build new models for institutional food service. Her first book entitled Take Back the Tray (May 2020), captures the lessons and experience from her work in changing institutional food systems around the globe. She is an enthusiastic instructor of both culinary and academic students, constantly finding ways to make food stories come alive.

Joshna hosts Kitchen Helpdesk, a weekly call-in food show on CBC Radio, and she co-hosts a food & drink podcast called HotPlate, currently in its 4th season.

@joshnamaharaj

@takebackthetray

This episode is full of bravery and mega flavours.

Joshna hosts Kitchen Helpdesk, a weekly call-in food show on CBC Radio, and she co-hosts a food & drink podcast called HotPlate, currently in its 4th season.

@joshnamaharaj

@takebackthetray

Previous Episode

Mental health trials, errors, and finding your way out: Kat's divorce story

This episode features Kat Foldvari, and we’re talking about mental health. Kat also shares some of her own divorce story.

She talks about her own high expectations of herself to navigate her mental health through divorce, stigma, stress responses, triggers and ways we can pull ourselves through.

Recognizing that there is a huge gap in mental health services and support, especially for people going through separation and divorce, Kat’s dedicated to providing mental health education, helping people navigate the system and advocating for the development of additional resources.

Join The Big D community by supporting on Patreon or following along on Instagram!

Kat Foldvari is a mental health social worker with a masters in public health systems research. Most recently she’s worked on projects building comprehensive mental health strategies and designing wellness programming for healthcare workers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She’s a fierce advocate for empathy and understanding, and passionate about the strength-based approach to coaching and guiding others.

She’s a certified daydreamer and avid trail runner; mother of three bio-kids and two bonus kiddos.

Resources:

Thinking Traps

Hypo- and Hyper-Arousal

Rejection and the Brain

Divorce and Suicide

How to Put Kids First

Tips from Canadian Mental Health Association

Next Episode

Proof of healing: with sexual health and consent educator Samantha Bitty

In this episode I chat with Samantha Bitty about her own divorce story, how a relationship with an ex can evolve, how divorce impacts us in relationship to and with our communities, astrology, intimacy after rejection, healing... and her glam divorce photoshoot.

samantha bitty (she/her) is an award-winning, interdisciplinary sexual health and consent educator, speaker, certified Emotional Intelligence coach and social change Entrepreneur. With humour, empathy and liberation as central to her work, Samantha uses games, drag, and media to push the boundaries of propriety and facilitate entry points into challenging conversations.

An education and media polymath, samantha has worked independently and in collaboration, at all phases of development, production and execution of small and large scale projects. Prioritizing art, aesthetics and accessibility, her practise is rooted in pleasure, anti-racism, disability justice, and is affirming to folks across the gender/sexuality spectrum and survivors of gender-based violence.