Have you been listening to the White On Rice Podcast hosted by Chef Yia Vang and David Crabb? Well, ya should — and not just because they were kind enough to invite Minnevangelist co-founder Ashlea Halpern to guest on this week’s show.

You should listen because Yia and David are terrific interviewers — interested, engaging, and truly curious about the world around them, the people who inhabit it, and what makes them tick.

Since launching the pod last August, the longtime friends have interviewed actors, authors, TV anchors, retired soccer players, mayors, and more. You never know who’ll turn up on the show next, which is part of the fun.

Recent episodes have featured Rob Bathe, founder of Folly Coffee; Katherine Luber, president and director of the Minneapolis Institute of Art; Ben Spangler and Gabriella Grant, the mad scientists behind our favorite local ice cream shop, Bebe Zito; and omnipresent mover-and-shaker Sarah Edwards, founder of Some Great People and co-founder of Fashion Week MN.

The conversations are entertaining because they are so wide-ranging. Ours covered travel, books, museums, restaurants, why we moved to Minnesota, and Ashlea’s terrible taste in music. Other episodes tackle heavier topics like toxic kitchen culture, coping with pandemic-induced depression, and race relations in Minnesota.

Stream the latest episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.