Hard candy…it’s just sugar, water and flavors, right? Yes, it is…but…it takes some technique to turn it into what you want. But what if you want words inside your candy? It’s pretty simple, apparently. Craig Montgomery of Sticky Candy how simple playing with candy is.

This episode feature a celebrity on Playing With Food! PBS broadcast a new cooking show called Great American Recipe. 10 home cooks shared themselves, their recipes and their families with all of America for the judges. One of those contestants just happened to be from the Central Coast: Silvia Martinez from Morro Bay.

In the shadow of the iconic volcanic plug rising from the middle of Morro Bay, Lisamu or Morro Rock, are some farms hidden in plain sight. The Playing With Food Team visited the Grassy Bar Oyster Company’s farm, watched an oyster planting and tasted some of the produce.

The Peace Academy of the Sciences and Artssummer camp included preparing and sharing food. Having the kids playing with food was a small part of their week-long program. But like all the other elements of the program, the Peace Academy leadership knew that preparing and sharing food is a vital element in achieving their pillars and values.

Wandering through the Botanical Gardens was yet another eye-opening experience of just how much edible bounty there is here on the Central Coast.

Beer has been around for a long time, about 13,000 years. It’s since been refined into stouts, pale ales, hefeweizens, lagers and other classic styles. But recently, the craft beer explosion has led to some pretty interesting flavors: Belgian fruited beers, milk stouts, orange wheat, habañero IPA, chocolate stouts and many more. Central Coast Brewing in San Luis Obispo has a very popular Peanut Butter Stout. Playing With Food met up with George and Matthew at CCB to find out how a Peanut Butter Stout is made…and why.

Some people made handmade tortillas every single day. In King City, Isabel Garcia does just that. Her experience, skill and love produce amazing tortillas with just a few ingredients.The song in this segment is "There's No Tortillas" by Lalo Guerrero.You can listen to the full song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbZo42AczmY

Foraging for mushrooms is a fun way to get exercise while hunting for food. However, with California's lack of rain, there are more mushroom graveyards than there are mushroom fields. Some have taken an entrepreneurial approach and are growing them in their homes. Note: if you forage in the wild, be sure it's legal to do so where you are looking.

The siege on Ukraine is an atrocity playing out before our very eyes. How are local Ukrainians coping? Canadian-Ukrainian Annie Capelli makes Ukrainian Borscht for Fr. Ian as she describes the scene in Ukraine that her family and friends are endeavoring to endure.

During the George Floyd Black Lives Matters Protests, food blogger and podcaster Jaime Lewis decided to remove from her deed the restriction that read: No person of any race other than a Caucasian race shall use or occupy any building or any lot. She worked with Race Matters SLO to document the process in a film titled "Restrictions Apply". Jaime and Race Matters SLO Executive Director Courtney Haile share their journey of racial justice since the completion of the film over a dinner of salad, paella and apple empanadas.