Show notes
For the 100th episode of Your Last Meal, host Rachel Belle welcomes three, 100-year-old women to the show to share their extraordinary lives, their last meals and the secret to a long, happy life: red wine and “keeping your own teeth.” It is our pleasure to introduce you to Antoinette Underwood, a World War II nurse with a love of dry, Italian wines, Ruth Samuelson, who walked a half marathon at 96, and Eleanor Owen, whose career spans from Broadway actor to co-founder of NAMI, National Alliance on Mental Illness. IKEA’s US culinary director joins the show to tell us how an umlaut-happy furniture store became synonymous with Swedish meatballs and lingonberry jam. And if you're single, living alone and loathe eating solo during the pandemic, Sutanya Dacers, host of the podcast Dinner For One, shares the story of how learning to cook for herself, post-divorce, made her feel whole again. Here are some highlights from the past 99 episodes, in case you missed them: Ice cream icons, Ben & Jerry, reveal the reason their ice creams are so famously packed with sweet blobs, chunks and ribbons: Ben has no sense of smell or taste and insists on loads of texture in every bite. Fashion designer Betsey Johnson had us thinking about the intersection of fashion & food, so we called up Franc Fernandez, designer of Lady Gaga’s infamous meat dress, which is very appropriately made from...yes, skirt steak. Filmmaker John Waters wants to know how long it takes for a slice of coconut cream pie to show up as fat on his body. So Rachel interviews a dietician who explains the science of weight gain, busting just about every Internet myth in the process. François Clemmons, who played Officer Clemmons on Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, loves okra, even its notorious slime. As does Adrian Miller, the Soul Food Scholar, who shares the history of many African American dishes that came over from west Africa during the slave trade. Actor and activist Rose McGowan loves Taco Bell and maintains the exact same order since she was 13, which she can rattle off at record speed. Rachel chats with Taco Bell's unofficial historian about how a white guy started a Mexican fast food empire. Actor Danny Trejo, notorious for his villainous roles, has died on-screen more than any other actor. But in real life, he’s focused on living; he only serves healthy versions of Mexican dishes at Trejo’s Tacos in Los Angeles. Rachel chats with Denise Vallejo, vegan chef/owner of LA's Alchemy Organica, who says the original, pre-colonial Mexican food was practically vegan and completely void of the cheese, tortillas, pork and sugar you see today. Follow Rachel Belle and Your Last Meal on Instagram!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.Support Cascade PBS: https://secure.cascadepublicmedia.org/page/133995/donate/1/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.