Neko Case: Popovers

Your Last Meal with Rachel Belle

Rachel Belle

Arts, Food

4.8 • 730 Ratings

🗓️ 8 January 2026

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The only thing Grammy-nominated musician Neko Case craves more than crisp-on-the-outside, fluffy-on-the-inside popovers is Hungarian food from a 61-year-old restaurant in Ohio. Neko tells host Rachel Belle about her favorite Eastern European dishes and how eating at The Balaton helped her reconnect with her long-lost heritage.

But back to popovers! We’re joined by a pastry chef who baked thousands of popovers every day, five days a week, for five years at Acadia National Park’s Jordan Pond House, the popover epicenter of the United States. Sign up for Rachel’s The Nosh Newsletter to get her recipe.

Neko Case’s new album is Neon Grey Midnight Green.

Become a Cascade PBS member and support public media!
Watch Rachel’s Cascade PBS TV show, The Nosh with Rachel Belle.
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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Rachel Bell, and this is your last meal.
0:12.3	The show where celebrities share stories about the foods they love most,
0:15.6	and we dig into the history, culture, or science of those meals with experts from around the world. Today on the program,
0:22.6	Grammy-nominated musician Nico Case.
0:26.6	Please come back soon. Sooner than you want to. It's the only thing in this whole world that would please me.
0:41.9	That song is called Rec, and it's from her new album, her ninth album, Neon Gray Midnight Green,
0:48.9	her first new record since 2018.
0:52.1	Last January, Nico released her New York Times best-selling memoir,
0:56.2	The harder I fight, the more I love you. And she's been hard at work composing the music
1:01.7	for a stage adaptation of the film Thelma and Louise. She and the film's original screenwriter
1:07.9	hoped to bring it to Broadway in the next couple years.
1:16.8	Nico is a big fan of popovers, which automatically made me think of Jordan Pondhouse,
1:21.5	a historic restaurant and tea room located inside Maine's Acadia National Park.
1:29.9	They have been serving their famous popovers since 1893, so I tracked down a former Jordan Pondhouse pastry chef, who is most likely the world's biggest popover fan and hype woman. That is coming up later in the show. But first, my
1:35.9	conversation with Nico Case.
1:46.0	Where are you in the world? Possibility Of dollars Where are you in the world right now?
1:49.0	I'm in Salt Lake City, Utah right now.
1:51.0	Okay.
1:52.0	My favorite thing about Salt Lake City, Utah is that there's a calzone that's filled with spaghetti and meatballs at this pizzeria that's like completely changed my whole life.
1:59.0	What is the pizzeria called? It's called, yeah, I think it's just called pie pizzeria that's like completely changed my whole life. What is the pizzeria called?
2:01.7	It's called, yeah, I think it's just called pie pizzeria. And my friend was like, oh, yeah, that was around when I was in middle school. It's like an old school place. It's called the Basuvius. It is so good. It's so good. Okay. I'm going to need to write that down before we finish because there's a lot of foodies in our band, one who writes a food blog, which I don't know what it's called, but I'll find out. Okay. He would want to know that. Yes. Yes. I mean, you know, foodies, it's not like fancy, but it's good. Oh, there's no such thing is only fancy if you're a touring band.
2:34.3	There's no way.
	...

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