Big Blend Radio

Wine country, waterparks, supper clubs, and yoga with alpacas: Wisconsin Dells has something for every season, and it’s not just a summer destination.
On this episode of Big Blend Radio’s "Food, Wine & Travel" Show with the International Food Wine Travel Writers Association (IFWTWA), host/producer Lisa D. Smith talks with Ken Leiviska of the Wisconsin Dells Visitor & Convention Bureau. He shares what to see, taste and do in the Dells all year long.
Ken explains how the Ice Age shaped Wisconsin’s wine country and why the Dells’ wineries are worth a stop. You’ll also hear about:- Harvest season and fall color- Winter markets and the Tree of Light- Ice fishing- Indoor waterparks that stay open all year, in the “Waterpark Capital of the World”- Classic Wisconsin supper clubs, from relish trays to brandy old fashioneds- Alpaca yoga, cheese curds and farm visits- Where to stay, and what to know before you go
Pack a sweater, a swimsuit, or both. Whatever the season, the Dells is ready for you.
Piece together our Wisconsin Dells fall colors jigsaw puzzle of a Dells boat tour, and get the episode highlights:https://www.bigblendmediahouse.com/p/wisconsin-dells-in-every-season 
Learn more and plan your trip:- Wisconsin Dells: https://www.wisdells.com - Food, Wine & Travel Podcast with IFWTWA: https://www.bigblendmediahouse.com/food-wine-travel-ifwtwa - Travel, Food & Wine Digital Podcast Magazine: https://www.bigblendmediahouse.com/p/travel-food-wine-magazine - International Food, Wine & Travel Writers Association (IFWTWA): https://www.ifwtwa.org 

Come hungry! Every third Sunday, Travel Avoyelles hosts Wilbert Carmouche and Mary Guillory join Lisa D. Smith for a visit to Avoyelles Parish in Central Louisiana. This time they brought a special guest: caterer John Ed Laborde of Panaroma Foods in Marksville, the creator of Crawfish Bread®.
We talk crawfish étouffée, boudin and boucherie, cracklins, court-bouillon, sweet potato crunch, king cakes, cinnamon rolls, drive-through daiquiris and gas station plate lunches. Then each of them plans a full day of eating for first-time visitors, from breakfast to dinner. Pull up a chair!
LINKSPlan your visit: https://TravelAvoyelles.com Panaroma Foods, John Ed Laborde: https://panaromafoodsinc.com Crawfish Bread: https://www.nolacrawfishbread.com Big Blend Radio: https://bigblendmediahouse.com 
New episodes of the Travel Avoyelles Podcast air every 3rd Sunday at 6pm CST on Big Blend Radio. Listen: https://travel-avoyelles.podbean.com/ 

Victoria Chick, the artist spearheading the Southwest Regional Museum of Art & Art Center in Silver City, New Mexico, joins Lisa D. Smith on Big Blend Radio’s "World of Art" Podcast. They start with October’s pop-up museum weekends, where temporary walls and museum-quality exhibitions showed Silver City what’s coming. Victoria also explains why a first-rate art museum matters for the whole southwest corner of New Mexico, a region about 270 miles wide with no museum close by.
Then the conversation turns to Leighton Fossum (1922–2011), a graphic designer and illustrator born in Thief River Falls, Minnesota, a destination on the historic Jefferson Highway. He retired to Tucson and later New Mexico and became a fine artist. Several of his paintings are now in the museum’s permanent collection. Victoria shares what she found going through his belongings: patents for his inventions, his Air Force discharge papers, and an easel covered in faces. She also talks about his tiny pen-and-ink detail, his fast-drying casein paints, a cow at a gas pump, a tumbleweed flying through the air, and why she thinks he pushed his compositions to the edge on purpose.
Read Victoria’s article on Leighton Fossum, play the online puzzle of his painting Going Home, and learn more about the museum using the links below.
LINKS:- Read the article: https://www.southwest-art-museum.org/articles/leighton-fossum - Episode highlights and "Going Home" painting jigsaw puzzle: https://www.bigblendmediahouse.com/p/artist-leighton-fossum-southwest-regional-museum-of-art - Southwest Regional Museum of Art & Art Center: https://www.southwest-art-museum.org - Victoria Chick: https://victoriachick.com - World of Art Podcast on Big Blend Radio: https://www.bigblendmediahouse.com/the-world-of-art 

We’re building the Big Blend Media House pixel by pixel, room by room, and we’re reintroducing our Big Blend Radio experts so you can get to know your friends and family. In this "Getting to Know You" interview, organizational coach and author Rita Sever joins Lisa D. Smith for seven fun questions.
Rita is the author of "Supervision Matters," the book Big Blend first met her through about ten years ago, and "Leading for Justice." She hosts Big Blend Radio’s "Supervision Matters" Podcast every third Friday. She begins by explaining why she believes the heart of supervision is partnering with people to help them succeed. Then the questions begin. Rita’s spirit animal is the otter, which leads to Lisa’s story about visiting the Tunica-Biloxi Cultural Center in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana. Rita talks about why play and connection matter so much to her, shares the life lesson she’d pass to the next generation, and names the place she wants to visit next: the San Juan Islands.
We also ask what theme song she’d pick for her own TV talk show, what she hopes a dinner host doesn’t serve (creamed corn is a hard no), and what she wants in the Big Blend Media House game room.
MORE:- Rita’s website: https://supervisionmatters.com - Supervision Matters Podcast: https://www.bigblendmediahouse.com/p/supervision-matters-podcast-with-rita-sever - Supervision Matters Digital Podcast Magazine: https://www.bigblendmediahouse.com/p/supervision-matters-magazine - Visit the Big Blend Media House: https://www.bigblendmediahouse.com/ 
New episodes of Big Blend Radio’s Supervision Matters Podcast air every third Friday.

Award-winning crime novelist James W. Ziskin joins Matt Cost and BJ Magnani on Big Blend Radio’s "Pets, Plots & Poisons" Podcast to talk about his "Ellie Stone" Mysteries, set in the 1960s, and his new standalone suspense novel, "The Prank."
The conversation starts with pets: Saint and Millie’s dirt-road romance, Dr. Watson the fetch-playing cat, and Jim’s cats Tuppy and Boko, including Tuppy’s ice cube “launch pad.” 
Then Jim explains how a pug named Little Leon sneaks into every "Ellie Stone" book, why he’s named after Trotsky, and what it takes to write a 1960s female reporter as a man. They also dive into Dante, the Decameron and Ellie’s trip to Italy, how Jim wrote about 80,000 words of "The Prank" in roughly 40 days, and a plot tip on pantsers, plotters and keeping your continuity straight. BJ closes with her poison of the month: cyanide, plus the 1982 Tylenol poisonings that changed packaging forever.
Pets, Plots & Poisons airs every 3rd Thursday on Big Blend Radio.
LINKS:- James W. Ziskin: https://jameswziskin.com/ - BJ Magnani: https://www.bjmagnani.com - Matt Cost: https://www.mattcost.net - Pets, Plots & Poisons podcast channel:  https://www.bigblendmediahouse.com/p/pets-plots-poisons-podcast 

Author Kayla Hardy on "The Quarter Queen," her debut historical fantasy reimagining Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, and her rebellious daughter, Ree. 
Voodoo queens, secret societies, and the mother-daughter bond that can make or break a family. For National Book Month, Kayla Hardy joins Big Blend Radio’s "Books & Authors" with Books Forward, to talk about The Quarter Queen, a lush, richly researched story of two generations of powerful women in a magically and racially divided 1840s New Orleans.
In the novel, Ree finds her formidable mother, Marie, comatose in the bayou and has to uncover the secrets of Marie’s past to save her. Enemies are circling, including a puritanical Brotherhood of alchemists, the slaveholding mayor of the city, and Ree’s childhood best friend turned witch hunter.
In this conversation, Kayla talks about:- Growing up between Ohio and Louisiana Creole country, and how childhood summers hooked her on Marie Laveau- Why slavery itself, the system, is the true villain of the book- Voodoo’s blend with Catholicism: magic, psychology, or both?- The Brotherhood’s obsession with purity, secret societies, and alchemy- Ree’s coming-of-age and mothers and daughters seeing each other as whole people- Her years of writing and querying before the book deal, and how a TV pilot became a novel
Kayla Hardy is a mythology expert and multi-hyphenate author and screenwriter of Louisiana Creole descent. She earned her PhD in creative writing and African American literature from SUNY Binghamton University, where she is an adjunct professor and an accomplished scholar of Black folklore, mythology, and Voodoo. "The Quarter Queen" (Ballantine) is her first novel, named an Essence Most Anticipated Book of 2026 and a Book Riot Best New Book of March.
Kayla Hardy’s website: https://KaylaHardy.com Books Forward: https://booksforward.com/ Big Blend Media House: https://www.BigBlendMediaHouse.com 

Why would a cruise line skip the hot seafood chowder in the Caribbean, then serve it on deck in Glacier Bay? 
On this episode of BIg Blend Radio's "Food, Wine & Travel" Podcast with the International Food Wine & Travel Writers Association (IFWTWA), host Lisa D. Smith sets sail with Emma Ciciriello, Senior Manager of Food & Beverage Product Development for Holland America Line and Seabourn, for a behind-the-scenes look at destination dining at sea.
Emma explains how menus, cocktails, table settings and even a Panama hat help guests taste the place they are visiting, from Alaskan halibut and glacial ice cocktails to Caribbean rum and a global fresh fish program. We also visit Half Moon Cay, Holland America Line’s private Bahamian island, where a new beach club is bringing an all-inclusive day on the sand. Plus: Magnolia Bakery banana pudding, baked Alaska nostalgia, Marmite versus haggis, Emma’s perfect day of eating at sea, and tips for breaking into cruise food and beverage.
MORE INFO:- Holland America Line: https://www.hollandamerica.com - IFWTWA: https://www.ifwtwa.org - More Food, Wine & Travel podcast episodes: https://www.bigblendmediahouse.com/p/food-wine-travel-with-ifwtwa - Travel, Food & Wine Podcast Magazine:https://www.bigblendmediahouse.com/p/travel-food-wine-magazine 
Photos courtesy of Holland America. 

Harry Belafonte was a legend in music, but the film "Following Harry" isn’t about his music. It’s about what he did when the music stopped. In this Big Blend Radio conversation, host Lisa D. Smith talks with Emmy-nominated filmmaker and editor Susanne Rostock, director of "Following Harry" and its companion film, "Sing Your Song," about the last twelve years of Harry Belafonte’s life and the new generation of artists and activists he mentored.
Susanne shares how the film began. "Sing Your Song" ended with Harry looking straight at the audience and asking, “What do we do now?” Not long after, he invited her to move her editing equipment into his brand-new office, which became a hub of activism where you never knew who might walk in. She talks about the podcast she once planned to make there, and how a front-row seat to Harry’s conversations with young people turned into a film about how movements are built.
You’ll hear why young people listened to Harry: he was gentle, he was a true conversationalist, and he wasn’t there to lecture. He left what Susanne calls “a trail of crumbs” and invited the next generation to pick it up, or bring something better. We talk about the mentors who shaped him, including Paul Robeson, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela, and about why passing the baton mattered so much to him.
Lisa also shares her own connection to the story. She grew up in Kenya and South Africa listening to Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela, and Susanne talks about Harry’s love for African music and the power of the album he made with Makeba. We also talk about love with conviction, doing what you can with the platform you have, the role of the arts in crossing divides, and Susanne’s work editing the film, which Nancy J. Reid (Big Blend Media) called seamless.
Perfect for Global Diversity Month, this episode is about common humanity, mentorship, and what we choose to leave behind for the next generation. Following Harry is available on Amazon Prime in the US and Canada, starting October 13, 2026.
Watch the trailer and get more information on the film:https://www.followingharry.org/ 
More from Big Blend Media House:https://www.bigblendmediahouse.com