In episode 10 we speak with with Kristina Gill. Kristina lives in Rome and is a woman who wears many hats; she’s a humanitarian adviser, a photographer, author, and columnist. Her first cookbook Tasting Rome was inspired by the conversations she had with Roman taxi drivers while scooting from one meeting to the next. The conversations and notes stayed with Kristina planted a seed which turned into a collaborative book project which saw Kristina develop her craft with writing, photography, and recipe testing.
Her food and travel photography has also appeared in magazines such as Atlas Quarterly, Australian Gourmet Traveller, Bon Appetit, Kinfolk, National Geographic Traveler.
Today we hear about her life in Nashville, her experience at Stanford and how her ideas take seed and time to grow as she collects and researches the things she finds interesting. We also chat about food security and the role food and documenting what we eat online. As Kristina accurately describes; it's a balance of feast and famine.
Kristina also shares the first heady days of blogging into the early 2000s where she established her role as a columnist for her website Three Layer Cake. With her website she interviewed chefs, writers, designers and other people she found curious and leaders in her field. This style of writing online quickly led her to strike a friendship with Grace Boney of Design*Sponge and eventually established her column on the popular lifestyle blog.
Kristina shared an amazing list of people and the work she most admires and in the process captured the very meaning of Brown Girl Pod. In Kristina's words:
I'll tell you a tiny bit about a few and the overarching theme for me-- For these are extremely talented people who practice what they preach, have a very unwavering set of morals they believe that is consistent and visible in their work.They are people who ask absolutely nothing from anyone else, but go the extra two miles to help others. Sometimes 'famous' people you don't know make an impression on you. For me, however, I'm more influenced by people I do know. They are all incredibly intelligent, personable people who have grown brands (some personal, some global) into careers. That means they were able to take their vision and translate it into something the rest of us could appreciate and 'consume'. Most of all, for the people on the list I do know, they are down to earth absolutely kind people, dedicated to leaving things better than how they found them and giving others the opportunity they never had themselves when starting out.
Debbie Allen is someone I've admired from as early as I can remember. I was dazzled by her dancing, her beauty because as a child that's what you see. As I grew older, I have just been inspired by everything she does and how much she gives back. She's royalty to me!
Ava Duvernay started as a publicist and in a very short time became the powerhouse screenwriter, director, producer she is known as today. She makes it her business to address the lack of opportunities for women of color in Hollywood. She's part of a small group of Black women (among whom Debbie Allen, Shonda Rhimes, Oprah Winfrey, Issa Rae) putting their money and reputations behind making Hollywood more diverse.
Shelley Simpson and James Kirton are the founder of Mud Australia. Like Ava Duvernay, they are the change they'd like to see in businesses, from their approach to employee management, their impact on the environment, and their insistence on keeping their production in Sydney (Marrickville).
Nicole Taylor is a food journalist and author. A good Southerner, she always has time to welcome newcomers to the food community and make introductions. She is always there with advice and ideas-- something not so common in the food industry.
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