Dick Stein and Nancy Leson: Hosts of the local radio program about food—Food for Thought

Dick Stein and Nancy Leson in their younger days. The two have so much in common but never met until they started Food for Thought 13 years ago.

Every week, Dick and Nancy share their views on cooking and eating as they joke, bicker and laugh. They have fun together while discussing anything and everything related to food. Think Car Talk, NPR’s long-running radio program, except Dick and Nancy discuss edibles instead of automobiles.

As Dick explains, “We’re a couple of friends talking about cooking and eating. Of course, the show is about food, but mostly we want to entertain each other and hopefully the people listening will have fun, too.” They both love to cook, and discuss recipes and their latest cooking adventures, but, as Dick says, “We’re not chefs, we’re just a couple of everyday people who like to talk about it. I think we have the most fun when we disagree. We’re good enough friends that we can tell each other ‘you’re full of it.’ ”

“Yes,” says Nancy. “We’re like an old married couple giving each other the business. Our banter works because we have the same sensibilities and grew up in similar households. In the end, we truly love and respect one another. We are the yin to each other’s yang.”

A Food for Thought retrospective earlier this year had the two looking back on some of their favorite shows – these exchanges illustrate the couple’s dynamic:

Nancy exclaims, laughing, “Our Great Bagel Bake-Off! My one-hour bagels versus your three-day bagels!

Dick: “And guess which won? Mine.”

“No!” responds Nancy emphatically.

Dick: “That’s right, it came out a push (a tie) ...at least that’s what you claimed, and I let it go.” Later online he added, “I have chosen to let her believe that.”

During the same show, Dick asked Nancy if she had any regrets about Food for Thought.

“You bet I do,” she retorts. “I still can’t believe you lost our outtake tape!”

“Count your blessings, Leson,” was Dick’s rejoinder. “Those outtakes were my retirement plan. I was going to blackmail you with them. Now I just gotta hope I croak before I run out of money.”

Between all the banter are some great cooking tips, recipes, favorite restaurant dishes, food blogs and other resources.

Over the 13 years of the show, the two have become close friends. Before that, even though they had much in common, they had never met. Now they talk and text almost every day and look forward to some good laughs during their weekly shows. “We don’t have specifically defined roles,” says Dick. “We both cook, but I would defer to Nancy on anything to do with restaurants.”

Nancy adds, “In a lot of ways, we’re like a couple of neighbors leaning over the fence talking about food.” She hears from people all the time who don’t cook but love the show because it’s so much fun. “Whether you cook or not, we all eat, everyone has that in common.” That, and the laughter ain’t bad, either.

Dick’s and Nancy’s tips for hosting holiday gatherings:

NANCY: I make the main dish and the rolls (because I make great rolls!). Ask your guests to bring the rest. Sub things out... it makes things easier. Don’t be shy.”

DICK: When we host any big family meals, I always put a sign on the front door: “No Politics.”

Links to recipes can be found at www.knkx.org/term/food or www.nancyleson.com, including one of Nancy’s favorites—cranberry sauce with sour dried cherries and rum: www.knkx.org/post/save-time-stress-and-sanity-thanksgiving-make-aheads.

“It’s famous, it’s really easy and you can make it in advance. It lasts forever."

Dick Stein

Dick Stein started his radio career back when he was in the Air Force stationed in Alaska. In addition to co-hosting and producing Food for Thought, he’s hosted jazz and other shows with KNKX since 1992.

“I’ve been a jazz fan since I was a kid,” says Dick, who grew up in New Rochelle, NY. “I used to go to Birdland as an underage kid. I got to see Stan Getz, John Coltrane and the Maynard Ferguson Big Band. I can’t tell you how many different acts we saw. Me and my friend, Frank, would go down a little set of stairs where you could buy a ticket, just like at a movie theater. We were 15 or 16 and really felt like a couple of sophisticates.” They would also stand outside of the Metropole listening to jazz, freezing but taking in the fog of warm air that wafted out whenever anyone came or went, smelling of cigarette smoke, perfume and liquor. “To our 15-year-old noses, it smelled like heaven,” he recalls fondly.

When he joined the Air Force, Dick started out in teletype maintenance and cross-trained into radio. Soon enough he had a part-time radio job off-base, and stayed with radio after leaving the Air Force. Long before joining KNKX, he hosted country, classical, top-40 and, for five years, had a call-in talk radio show.

“After five years of the call-in show, I thought I was done with radio,” says Dick. “It was very stressful.”

In 1976, he and his then-girlfriend decided to move to Washington. They lived in a ’59 VW bus for six months, seeing the country and visiting friends along the way before settling in the Tacoma area. They weren’t hippies, he claims, “but we sure looked like it.”

Dick still lives in Tacoma, although now with his two cats and wife of 30 years, Cheryl De Groot. “She would say 30 long years,” quips Dick. Cheryl is a nationally noted metalsmith and jewelry designer. In addition to her work as an artist, Cheryl's website, https://www.cheryldegroot.com/, reveals that she has "also worked as a shipyard welder and rigger, Alaskan commercial fisherman, artist’s model, bartender, cab driver and assistant chimney sweep." ​To learn more about Cheryl De Groot, you can catch a video about her created by the City of Tacoma Arts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ltv6gSFRWg&t=23s

In between moving to Tacoma and starting with KNKX, Dick began a chimney sweep business (named Pickwick), freelanced as an advertising copywriter, and dabbled in voice-over, character modeling and corporate films.

“I never thought I would be in radio again.” But, as fate would have it, his neighbor across the street, Nick Morrison, was the morning jazz host at KNKX (then KPLU). “He talked me into filling in at the station,” says Dick. “One thing led to another, and I went fulltime 28 years ago.”

Dick is a serious poker player who also enjoys reading and movies. But what he really likes to do is cook. He does all the cooking at home and when he retires someday, he looks forward to “more cooking!”

Does Dick have any advice about growing older? “If you can avoid it... No, wait a minute, I just realized what that would mean. I wonder how it all happened so fast.”

Nancy Leson

Nancy Leson is an award-winning food writer, radio personality, cooking instructor, public speaker and she leads international food tours with Earthbound Expeditions. She was restaurant critic and food writer for The Seattle Times for nearly two decades.

Nancy Leson was a foodie from a young age.

Nancy started cooking when she was still a child but feels that she learned much of what she knows about food during her first career: waiting tables. She started in her teens and continued for 17 years. “I could always move around and get a job anywhere,” says the adventurous Nancy.

And move around she did. Between Philadelphia and her current home in Edmonds, she lived in South Jersey, California, Puerto Rico and Anchorage, among other places.

“When you live in Anchorage, you always have to stop in Seattle when going anywhere. I had a close friend in Seattle I often stayed with. I fell in love with the place as we walked around Pike Place Market and ate at wonderful restaurants. I finally moved here in 1988.”

A native of Philadelphia, Nancy is the oldest of four children. “I pretty much left home as soon as I possibly could,” she says. “In fact, even before that, I went to a small Quaker school on scholarship that I got on my own. It was an extraordinary experience. The school had a strong arts bent in addition to the academics. We were free to pursue our own interests.” Pursuing her own interests has been a good choice for Nancy.

At age 32, she got a degree in Journalism from the University of Washington. “Going to school while working was exhausting,” she recalls. After graduation, she “was broke” and continued waiting tables for a year at Saleh al Lago, then a high-end Italian restaurant in Green Lake. “Then I saw a job offer for an unpaid internship in the food section at the Seattle Weekly.” She sent a funny cover letter...My mother always wanted me to be a doctor. Maybe now, at least, I can tell her I’m an intern? Call me, I’m your girl. “That was the last job I ever looked for. Every other job came over the transom.” The Weekly immediately gave her a restaurant column. That column enabled Nancy to transition out of restaurants and into a job editing Sasquatch Publishing’s Best Places series. She later worked as the back-up restaurant critic for the Seattle P.I. and began freelancing with other publications, including Bon Appetit and Gourmet.

Nancy has a great story about one of her big breaks: writing a four-page spread about the Herb Farm, a very exclusive restaurant which was normally booked six months in advance. This break came about because, as Nancy puts it, “I’ve never met a stranger.” When the writer assigned to cover the Herb Farm couldn’t accept the assignment, she recommended Nancy, who had driven her around one time as a favor. “Be nice and mean it,” advises Nancy. “I was and I did.” This assignment cemented Nancy’s growing reputation.

In 1998, she was hired fulltime by The Seattle Times to write two columns a week. She replaced the retiring John Hinterberger, the Times’ longtime restaurant critic.

Now Nancy claims she has “pre-tired” from The Seattle Times...retired from her fulltime job, but busier than ever. “I do keep busy. I love reading and cooking and hanging out with my friends. But I don’t have much spare time. I would love to travel more.”

Last year, Nancy started volunteering for an elementary school in the Edmonds School District helping kids with reading and writing. “I really encourage anyone with the time to do what they can to help in their local school. Every school needs help and it’s so rewarding.”

Nancy now lives “15 miles north of the Space Needle with her husband and a couple of (absurdly) well-fed dogs.” Her husband, Mac, a marine environmental consultant, often travels for his work. “I’m out a lot, he’s often gone, but when we’re both home we always sit down and gab while we have a nice dinner together with a bottle of wine. It’s special for us.”

Their son, Nate, is in college at Quest University in British Columbia. “He is a brilliant kid,” says the proud mother, and not only because her son turned out to be a great cook. “Nate is applying to grad school at the London School of Economics. If that doesn’t work, he’ll stay in B.C and continue school there. He loves B.C. so it’s a win-win situation.” Visiting him in person in Canada is easy, she says. “We just get in the car and drive straight up there.” If he moves to London, staying in touch will still be easy, according to Nancy.

“Thank God for FaceTime,” she says. “FaceTime Cocktail Hour is a thing in my family. No matter where we are, we talk, we share photos and texts.”

When asked if she has any advice about growing older, Nancy says, “Older people’s stories are fascinating to me. The longer you live, the more stories you have. I really love older women who’ve lived it, seen it, done it all and love a good laugh.”

Dick Stein and Nancy Leson are interested in your topic suggestions for the show. They can be reached at dstein@knkx.org or nancy@nancyleson.com. You can catch their delightful chatter, recipes, cooking tips and more on Food for Thought, 88.5FM Wed: 5:45am, 7:45am, 4:44pm, Sat: 8:35am or listen anytime at KNKX.org. KNKX is ranked as one of the most popular public radio stations in the nation and is an ambassador for jazz and blues, NPR news and local programming.