Regina Spektor: Chicken Broth

Your Last Meal with Rachel Belle

Rachel Belle

Music Interviews, Arts, Food, Comedy Interviews, Tv & Film, Film Interviews, Comedy, Music, Science, History

4.4 • 709 Ratings

🗓️ 17 July 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter and pianist Regina Spektor grew up in Soviet Russia, so when she moved to the Bronx with her family in 1990, American food was a bit of a culture shock. Cereal! Oranges! Chocolate pudding cups! It was all brand-new! Regina shares a handful of her family’s immigration eating stories.

When in doubt, order the soup! That’s what Regina does. She tells host Rachel Belle about her (nearly) lifelong love of soup, what caused her to rebel against it in high school and why the simplest of broths would be her last meal.

Cookbook author Caroline Wright never set out to have a career in soup, but a terminal cancer diagnosis resulted in a soup club, two vegan soup cookbooks and the title of Seattle Soup Lady. She tells Rachel her story.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Alaska Airlines has teamed up with Hawaiian Airlines to create new nonstop international flights.
0:05.6	Go to Alaskaair.com or Hawaiian Airlines.com and I'll tell you more details later in the show.
0:19.7	I'm Rachel Bell and this is your last meal.
0:23.2	The show where celebrities share stories about the foods they love most,
0:26.8	and we dig into the history, culture, or science of those meals with experts from around the world.
0:32.7	Today on the program, singer, songwriter, and pianist, Regina Specter.
0:38.8	Come into my world, I've got to show, show, show you.
0:45.7	Come into my bed, I've got to know, no, no, no.
0:51.7	Regina's on tour right now, through the end of August.
0:55.5	And you should probably get your tickets.
0:57.5	Shows are selling out fast.
0:59.8	Today's episode is dedicated to soup, a food that Regina has been in love with for most of her life.
1:07.5	It's funny because as a teenager, I totally rebelled against soup.
1:13.6	Can you imagine her poor parents? What a teenage nightmare.
1:16.9	And later in the show, they say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
1:21.5	But when my friend Carolyn Wright was given a year to live, she made a soup business.
1:27.2	We'll get into that in the second act of the show.
1:29.4	But first, my conversation with Regina Specter.
1:44.4	I'm a little bag of cocaine, a little bag of cocaine. so who's the girl wearing the dress?
1:47.7	I figured out a number of her.
1:51.3	I am a longtime fan of Regina Spector's music.
2:02.5	I've told friends that if I could press a magic button and, poof, instantly have a beautiful singing voice, I'd steal Regina's like Ursula stole Ariel's in The Little Mermaid. Her lyrics are whimsical,
	...

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