Advertise on podcast: The Table Underground

How communities are restoring Long Island Sound one shell at a time. Recorded live at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, we hear from shellfish farmers Chief Sagamore Buddy Pocknett of the First Light Farm of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and Beth Simonds of Stonington Farms Shellfish & Tim Macklin of CORR (Collective Oyster Recycling & Restoration) for a conversation about how local aquaculture, indigenous stewardship and community shell recycling are working hand in hand to restore one of our most treasured waterways.  Thank you to Tiffany Hopkins and the whole team at the festival for producing this event. The New Haven Museum for hosting us, and Robyn Doyon-Aitken Deputy Director of Storytelling and Talk Shows are CT Public for editing this show and being a fabulous supporter and partner. The Table Underground airs on WPKN 89.5fm in Bridgeport and you can find more content on our website www.TheTableUnderground.com. Our theme song is by the Passion Hifi.

Chef's Emily Mingrone, Damon Sawyer, and Arturo Franco Camacho in a Chefs Roundtable discussion on sourcing ingredients, the values and creativity that drive their kitchens, and the people that make it all possible. Recorded live at the 2026 International Festival of Arts and Ideas as part of the Sustainable Kitchens/Thriving Oceans event series. Many thanks to Tiffany Hopkins of The International Festival of Arts & Ideas, who conceived of this Sustainable Kitchen’s / Thriving Oceans event series, and partnered to make it all happen. Great appreciations go out to the New Haven Museum for hosting us, to all the staff and volunteers for your help. And last but not least HUGE thanks to the extremely talented and kind Robyn Doyon Aitken Deputy Director of Audio Storytelling and Talk Shows at CT Public, for editing this episode!  Go to www.TheTableUnderground.com for more info. We broadcast on WPKN 89.5fm Community Radio in Bridgeport, CT.

Protests in recent years have mobilized millions of people across the country and world, and brought attention to issues of great injustice. Despite these mass actions, real systemic change on issues from genocide to immigration, to food and farm worker abuses have remained out of reach. One reason for this lack of change is that when people are mobilized without a coordinated organizing strategy, and without the support of a broad coalition - we are not able to build the power we need to bring about transformative change.  Our guest today, Jose Oliva is the Strategic Campaigns Director for HEAL Food Alliance and has a long history of organizing and coalition building for workers rights and system change. Through HEAL, Jose works in an alliance of 52 groups that represent over 2 million people working in the food and farm sectors. He was the co-founder and former director of the Food Chain Workers Alliance, he led organizing with the Chicago Interfaith Workers’ Center, Casa Guatemala, and The Restaurant Opportunities Centers United among many others. Jose joins us for this timely conversation on the whys and hows of strategic organizing for social change in our food system and beyond. Jose shares about non-violent direct action organizing, grassroots organizing practices and details about HEAL's current campaigns to expose and limit corporate control of our food system and their city and state level Good Food Purchasing Policy work. If you are interested in applying for HEAL's School of Political Education to build political power to transform our food and farm systems, check out the link above. The Table Underground airs on WPKN 89.5fm community radio in Bridgeport, CT on the first Tuesday of every month at 6pm - and by podcast or on our website any time! Please "follow" our podcast to support our show and leave a review if you like what you hear!  Our theme song is by The Passion Hifi.

Chef, activist, artist and author Bryant Terry on his 5th book, Vegetable Kingdom - cooking for his kids - uplifting Black and Asian food traditions -  and collective actions to transform our "messed up food system". A show from our archives, first aired in 2020. Thanks to the Yale Sustainable Food Program and the Yale Afro-American Cultural Center for their partnership on this episode. Music credit: "Sprout That Life" by DJ Cavem. Check out our full post at www.thetableunderground.com from 2024 with photos and lots more info. To learn more about Bryant Terry and what he's been up to since 2020, go to: https://www.bryant-terry.com/ The Table Underground airs on WPKN 89.5fm community radio in Bridgeport, CT at 6pm EST, on the first Tuesday of every month, and by podcast or on our website anytime. Our theme song is by The Passion Hifi. Please follow our podcast or leave a review to help others find us. Thanks for listening!

Tim Macklin & Todd Koehnke of CORR: Collective Oyster Recycling and Restoration and Kim Granbery a wild oyster farmer and owner of Leetes Island Oysters share about their work to return oysters to Long Island Sound. This farming and stewardship work helps to rebuild habitat, filter water, prevent erosion, and cultivate biodiversity as well as a love of oysters and our ocean and water ways. Find more info on this episode and many others at www.TheTableUnderground.com. The Table Underground airs on WPKN 89.5fm community radio in Bridgeport, CT. Please click "follow" to support our show and leave a review if you like what you hear!  Our theme song is by The Passion Hifi. All photos are courtesy of CORR, Leetes Island Oysters, and Tagan Engel.

Soraya Hosni is a French-Tunisian social entrepreneur, olive oil sommelier, farmer and environmental anthropologist. She speaks 8 languages and is as comfortable talking with North African olive farmers as she is with global leaders. Her innovative work to address systemic challenges and inequities in the olive oil supply chain led her to develop cultural, technical and economic solutions that benefit both farmers and the earth they farm on. Tunisia is one of the world's largest producers of olive oil, yet most of it gets mixed with oil from Spain and other countries and sold under labels with an Italian sounding name. Olive trees in Tunisia are hundreds and sometimes thousands of years old, drought resistant, and typically raised free of chemicals. Soraya shares about the many creative ways she has worked to uplift Tunisian olive oil to help return profits to farmers and preserve these heritage farming practices.  As with most social entrepreneurs, Soraya’s creativity and projects surpass the confines of one sector and one conversation. To learn more about the full breadth of her work check out The New Medina, a cultural heritage center she founded in Tunisia and @thenewmedina on Instagram. Clever Harvest is the agriculture tech company and system she started to help farmers coordinate their harvest, milling, and aggregation. Visit our website for photos and more links to her amazing work and many past shows at www.thetableunderground.com.  The Table Underground airs on WPKN community radio, 89.5fm in Bridgeport, CT, and by podcast any where and any time. Our theme song is by the Passion Hifi.

Rob Peck, aka Hood Farmer Rob is a Black urban farmer, mushroom grower and educator based in Bridgeport, Connecticut. His love of fungi has led him from cooking up mushrooms to foraging in parks and the forest, to growing mushrooms - both indoors and out -  and now, into the Lab to grow his own spawn. Through his business Hemp Milk & Honey, Hood Farmer Rob is focused on growing food and farmers for the future. One of the ways he’s doing this is through leading mushroom cultivation workshops for networks of Black, Brown and Indigenous growers. For more info, photos and links from this episode, go to www.thetableunderground.com. Follow Rob's work at @hoodfarmerrob and through his business @hempmilkhoney both on Instagram. And check out this sweet article about him from CT Farmland Trust.  The Table Underground is produced and hosted by Tagan Engel. It airs on the first Tuesday of each month on WPKN 89.5fm community radio in Bridgeport, CT and by podcast and streaming whenever and wherever you get your podcasts. Our theme song is by the Passion Hifi.

For our first show of 2026 - go behind the scenes with our Host Tagan Engel's family, her partner Enroue Onigbonna Halfkenny and children Tomitsela and Ayo Engel-Halfkenny. They talk about the themes of this show: food, radical love and creative social justice which are also pretty big themes in their family. Hear from these parents and teen/young adults in this progressive family who are muli-racial (Black, Ashkenazi, White - including Irish and Swedish, and Indigenous - Miq’Mac and Saponi) and also mulit-faith practicing both in Judaism and the Yoruba Tradition. They dig in about the food they love, their varried experiences, and the ways they engage in family, community and social justice work in the world. At this pivotal moment, where their son Ayo turned 21 this year and is in college, their daughter Tomitsela will be leaving for college in the fall, as well as in this moment of much political and social upheaval, it seemed like a special time to capture these reflections and a great way to start the new year. To find links to many of the things discussed in this episode go to www.thetableunderground.com. This episode was edited by Tagan Engel, and our theme music is by The Passion Hifi. We air on WKPN 89.5 Community Radio in Bridgeport, CT on the first Tuesday of each month at 6pm eastern.

Indonesian Chef and Farmer Ria Ibrahim shares on building loving relationship with soybeans through a multitude of methods to preserve and enjoy these sacred beans including as miso, tofu, and soy milk. As Farm to Table Director at Soul Fire Farm Ria brings deep cultural connections, love and spirit into her work to preserve the harvest for community, cook for programs, and teach cooking and foraging. She also speaks on her journey to learn plants and fungus in a new land and passing on this love and knowledge to her daughter. You can follow Ria at @kitchenmagician on Instagram and get notices about future workshops and soooo much more by signing up for the Soul Fire Farm newsletter. Go to www.thetableunderground.com to see photos and recipes for this and many past shows.

Lauren “Sun Turtle” Peters is a Mashpee Wampanoag seed keeper carrying on in the traditions she learned from her clan mother Anita “Mother Bear“ Peters. In 2021 Lauren helped to return the King Phillips variety of corn, also known as Metacom corn, to be grown on her people’s land for the first time in 300 years. Soon after, she founded Corn Sister Circle, a project powered by her love for her community and desire to connect Wampanoag peoples across generations to heal from colonialism and racism with each other through tending land and traditional food ways. For photos and links about things mentioned in this interview as well as many past episodes go to www.thetableunderground.com. You can also read Lauren's article Corn Sister Circle: Honoring Our Ancestors, Grounded on Our Ancestral Homelands where she writes beautifully about the complexity of this work and journey including the apology from the American Psychological Association to First Peoples in the US. To donate to support Corn Sister Circle and other work that Lauren is leading click here. You can also follow their work and see videos via their Instagram @wampumconsulting.  Much gratitude and love to Lauren Peters for sharing her story and for doing this vital work. Many thanks to the talented Meg Dalton for editing this episode. Our theme music is from the Passion Hifi. All episodes are produced and hosted by Tagan Engel. The Table Underground is available on any podcasting site, through our website and now airs on the first Tuesday of the month on WPKN community radio 89.5fm in Bridgeport, CT.

Most of the stories on this show are connected to food in some way - but as our byline says we also talk about radical love and creative social justice, and today’s show uplifts a beautiful example of both of these principles.  Mitch Levine is an OBGYN doctor based in the Boston area who has been helping to transform his profession towards women-centered holistic care for over 40 years. Starting from a place of respecting women’s bodies and wishes, he demonstrated that it was possible to support births and surgeries in ways that were previously unheard of in 1980’s western medical practices. He learned from and partnered with midwives and spread new techniques to residents and other doctors inside hospitals one birth or surgery at a time. This approach has contributed to changing what is considered standard practice for procedures such as births after c-section and removing fibroids - a major win for women’s health. Our host Tagan Engel has known Mitch for nearly 45 years, since she was a little kid, through a cooperative summer dance community they were both part of. She always knew he was a well respected women’s health doctor, but hadn’t talked with him about it… this summer was different. Mitch is dancing his way through terminal and painful late stage cancer, and Tagan was amazed at his vibrancy and joy even in the face of death. She made more time to sit and listen as he shared one amazing story after another about the groundbreaking work he has done to support and transform women’s healthcare. It was an honor that he made time to document these stories and we hope you enjoy hearing them as much as we did. Thanks to Meg Dalton for editing the interview and to the Passion Hifi for our theme song! The Table Underground airs on WPKN community radio 89.5fm in Bridgeport, CT the 4th Wednesday of every month at noon, and by podcast any time. Find 80+ past episodes, photos, articles, recipes and more at www.thetableunderground.com

First aired in 2019. Leah Penniman of Soul Fire Farm on her pivotal book Farming While Black, the Afro-Indigenous roots of sustainable agriculture and the work of supporting Black folks and other people of color in finding liberation on land. Plus Taina Asili’s 2025 Fever Pitch Pilgrimage and Song Tour for climate and social action, September 13-27, 2025.

Meg Fama of The Farm Belly and Raquel Rivera of A Pinch of Salt are two long-time food business owners showing us what successful women-owned businesses can look like all while supporting local farmers and entrepreneurs. They talk about how and why they do what they do and the evolution of their businesses over the years; The Farm Belly from food truck to caterer to a new restaurant in New Haven, CT, and A Pinch of Salt through cooking experiences, food entrepreneur mentorship and training, plus catering in Bridgeport, CT and beyond. This episode also features the song "No Es Mi Presidente" from Taína Asili y La Banda Rebelde. The Table Underground airs on WPKN 89.5 fm Community Radio in Bridgeport, CT the 4th Monday of every month, and by podcast any time. You can find more info on this episode, 85+ past interviews, photos, recipes, articles and more at www.thetableunderground.com

Mohammed Alqurnah is an agronomist, entomologist and Beekeeper living in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem. Hana' Maaiah is a Farmer and Beekeeper of Jordanian and Palestinian descent based in the upstate, NY. Hana' recently returned from a two month long trip visiting Mohammed and other beekeepers in the West Bank. These two passionate beekeepers share about their love of these beautiful honey producing creatures, the realities of living and keeping bees under Israeli occupation, as well as the impacts of war, genocide and the climate crisis on bees - the pollinators we humans need to survive. To see photos and more info go to www.thetableunderground.com This episode was edited by Meg Dalton. Our theme song is from the Passion Hifi.The Table Underground airs the 4th Monday of every month at 12pm eastern on WPKN community radio, 89.5 in Bridgeport, CT and is available by podcast anytime. Many thanks to Combcutters for connecting these two Palestinian Beekeepers, and for your work to uplift beekeepers, bees, their ecosystem and thriving life for all beings. To learn more and support Palestinian farmers and bee keepers  check out the Palestinian Union of Agricultural Worker Committees and you can donate to support them here.

Growing food in the city is also an opportunity to grow community and healing in more ways than one. Dishaun Harris, aka Farmer D and the founder of Rootlife is a Black urban farmer and filmmaker manifesting the change he wants to see in his community. He stewards 5 community farms around the city of New Haven, CT and collaborates to create programs and events that nourish people’s bodies, minds, and spirits. Briana Mclean, one of Farmer D’s collaborators - is the talented cook behind the culinary business By Bri Marie. With a focus on plant-based ingredients, she cooks up well seasoned dishes at the farm-based classes and as part of her weekly prepared meals and catering services. Briana and Dishaun joined me to talk about food as medicine, community and liberation. More info at www.thetableunderground.com and check out Rootlife's new documentary: Black, Brown & Green: A Digital Palette Of Agriculture In Elm City (New Haven, CT) and join the Liberated Land Cooperative's CSA - farm share delivery from CT Black and Brown farmers.