Welcome to Our Hen House.

This is Mary Ann Sullivan.

And this is Jasmine Singer.

And this week, Jasmine will be speaking with Carmela Lonnie, an amazing activist in Philadelphia.

I think we all know, well, if you don't know, you should know,

that Philly is known as a great destination for vegan food.

Really, just really amazing restaurants in Philadelphia,

which is not a huge city, but it has as good vegan food as any city in this country, I think.

But it wasn't always that way. Carmela is one of the

activists who helps to cultivate the plant-based abundance Philly is now known for by a pop-up

events and Philly Vegan Restaurant Week. Yes, and she is kind of heroic to me, to be honest. So I'm

super excited about sharing this interview with everyone,

and I'm looking forward to hearing what you think. I lived in Philly in 97 and 98 when I was in

college at the beginning of college, and then I transferred to New York City. But it was a very

special place then. I was vegetarian then, not vegan.

And it certainly... So neither you nor Philadelphia were vegan at the time. Right. But it's fun to kind of

remember what it was like before the vegan boom because that didn't exist then, of course. And now

it's like everywhere.

I think we actually recently talked about this on the show

and encouraged people to go to Philadelphia.

So still go to Philadelphia.

One note about the sound is that we had,

...