Brent Petersen, who grew up in the Chicago suburbs, never imagined he was one of the most productive food podcast hosts in the world.
“My first career was in radio,” he says of his stints in Champaign, Peoria and Providence, Rhode Island. “I was looking to find a way to get back to that audio medium because I love radio. You can paint a picture with words, brain theater. As a listener, you can believe in your brain everything the presenter is communicating. I like that. At the time, I was living in Hawaii and we had traveled all over the world, so my friend and I thought it would be fun to talk about all those other programs in audio format. In 2018, I hosted the Destination Eat Drink podcast on the Chicago-based Radio Misfits podcast network. We’ve done it, I haven’t. You know, 260,270 episodes.
The weekly Friday podcast takes you to exotic locations, talks to people who know that place, and sets the table with the best food and drinks.
“I like having other people in the exhibit who don’t particularly work in the food industry. It’s fun to do. You don’t have to be an expert because everyone eats. So when I have someone like Kate Pierson from the B52s, and she tells me how she started her life in Georgia on a biological farm and she tells me about the cabin of genuine love. This, to me, is fascinating. When I have a guy like CJ Chenier, who is the crown prince of Zydeco, talking to me about traveling to play his shows and keeping a portable kitchen on the bus so he and his bandmates can make their own special Louisiana meal. It’s awesome. When Grammy winner Sarah Jarosz talks about her favorite gas station burrito in Texas. This is a lot of fun. People get excited when they talk about their hometown or when they talk about food. And everyone loves food. That means I’m smiling when I do the podcast.
Although he features locations from all over the world, he has also presented his own on several occasions.
“I once had Lin Brehmer (former WXRT sports great) at the exhibition. He told me a hilarious story about breathing helium and creating a scene at one of Chicago’s most no-nonsense Michelin restaurants. I also had Jonathan Porter in the exhibit, who runs what I think is one of the most interesting things about Chicago, pizza rounds in Chicago. Take other people in the afternoon or evening to try all kinds of Chicago-style pizza, not just deep dishes.
If you’re going on vacation, check out Brent’s archives. He almost certainly put on a display about your vacation destination. But even if you don’t have time to pay attention to everyone, he has two generic tips.
“First, take a food tour. In any decent-sized city in the world, someone is on a food excursion. And take this gastronomic excursion from day one. This way you can identify the brain of the user who will take you on the gastronomic excursion. You’re passing by to flavor all those delicious foods that you’re probably passing by to savor, but you’re also using them as a resource. Figure out which sites you need to see, which ones suck, and which ones you don’t because you have limited time. That’s my number one tip: take a food tour. The advice I give you at the moment is to visit the local food market, especially in Europe, because each and every town has at least one market day a week. You can buy local products, local culmination, local vegetables and ask the distributors for information, because you will see culmination, vegetables and things that you have never seen. My thing is to buy some handheld food, some culmination and vegetables, maybe some bread, maybe some cheese, if you’re lucky, a bottle of wine and go to a park and sit in the park for a few hours. There is nothing more rewarding than seeing locals enjoying their day. This is something you won’t get by visiting the main tourist sites in the city.
Brent has taken his love of destinations, food and drink to the next level. A few years ago he moved to Europe.
“We arrived in Portugal in 2019, before the pandemic, and we didn’t seriously think about moving to Portugal, but then we found ourselves again with the surprise of COVID in the United States. And that’s what motivated us. Who knows what the long term will bring?Why wait? We sold all our stuff. And we packed everything we had left in 3 suitcases each and moved to a small town south of Lisbon in Portugal. And it was a fantastic decision. We’ve been here for a little over two years now. Many family and friends have come to make a stopover here. And the glorious thing about living in Portugal is that even if someone doesn’t come to Portugal if they’re in Italy or if they’re in Ireland, we can get on a plane and be there in an hour or two hours, or something like that. “
No regrets? Is there something missing in the United States?
“What I miss the most are the dumpsters. There are no rubbish bins in Portugal.
-Rick Kaempfer
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