The Trip

My final Iraq episode is a necessarily intense conversation with Ahmed Najm, whose life changed when ISIS kidnapped his brother Kamaran Najm, co-founder of Iraq's Metrography Photo Agency, in 2014, Kamaran still hasn't been found, but his brother has become an invaluable guardian of his brother's life work and legacy. Links: Episode excerpt on R&K Metrography IG Metrography Website Rough Translation: The Search, a two-part series on Kamaran and Ahmed Roads & Kingdoms IG, Metrography Takeover Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Behind almost every great piece of war reporting is a local fixer. In Mosul, that fixer was Sangar Khaleel, whose LandRover and endless contacts kept him and the journalists he worked with safe through Iraq's darkest days. Show notes: Sangar Khaleel Instagram West Mosul Music in the Ruins Sangar and Jane Arraf’s NPR report on Syrian ISIS nostalgia NPR’s Rough Translation podcast with Sangar: DIY Mosul Kurt Schork Award page Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Telmary Díaz is one of the most innovative Cuban artists of the last two decades. She's also a really good person to drink rum with in Havana to talk about music, migration and more. Show notes: Telmary: Libre (music video) Telmary & HabanaSana YouTube channel Annia Linares: A Mi Manera Santiago de Cuba Rum Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Drinking tea and talking about long-term thinking in Kurdistan's capital city with civil engineer and sustainability expert Basima Abdulrahman. Show links: Basima Abdulrahman’s KESK Green Building Consultancy Basima Abdulrahman profile on Auburn Website City of Erbil website Basima Abdulrahman’s TEDx Nishtiman speech Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Cengiz Yar is an acclaimed American photojournalist and photo editor, He is also a longtime colleague and, for this podcast, our guide to northern Iraq, during Ramadan in 2019. He mixed us some excellent Old Fashioneds with Black Jack Jordanian whiskey and talked about war, peace and growing up Jersey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Drinking deeply in Berlin with Anton Newcombe, talking about growing up in Newport Beach, making his way to San Francisco, and everything in music from contracts to creativity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Chef Katie Button and her husband run an Asheville, NC restaurant group that includes Cúrate, one of America’s finest Spanish restaurants. In this interview recorded in 2019, she talks about making bagels in biscuit country, and how restaurants can be better workplaces for women. Show notes: Cúrate Restaurant Katie Button’s Announcement about the Closure of Button & Co. Bagels Vegetables Unleashed El Bulli Foundation Asheville’s Downtown Welcome Table Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A deep conversation about moonshine and life in Appalachia between host Nathan Thornburgh and his longtime Appalachia-whisperer Kevin Forrester outside of Damascus, Virginia Show notes: Abingdon Vineyards Channels State Forest Damascus, VA Kings County Distillery “Moonshine” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Moscow-born foreign correspondent Simon Shuster came to California as a child and returned to Russia as an adult to start his career in journalism. But it was Berlin that gave him a family and became a home base while doing some of his most impactful reporting, from the Trumpworld dealings in Ukraine to the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. He and host Nathan Thornburgh talk about all that, and about their similar life paths, from the nostalgic center of Berlin. Show notes: Meine Bar Berlin Simon’s recent investigation into Rick Perry’s oil dealings in Ukraine The podcast version of that investigation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Writer, podcaster and Appalachian culinary evangelist Mike Costello drinks with host Nathan Thornburgh at the Lost Creek Farm in West Virginia. Show notes: Lost Creek Farm Pickle Shelf Radio Hour Hawk Knob Appalachian Hard Cider Victuals: An Appalachian Journey, with Recipes, by Ronni Lundy Mike Costello on Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jeffery Lindenmuth and host Nathan Thornburgh sit down for a before-noon blind bourbon tasting at the Pennsylvania offices of Whisky Advocate. Among the topics of conversation: good value whisky, why "burning hospital" can be a desirable tasting note, and why Billy Joel did Allentown so dirty. Show notes: Whisky Advocate Jeffery Lindenmuth on IG Episode excerpt on Roads & Kingdoms Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Chicago native Jennifer Neal, author of the forthcoming novel The Colour of Her Blood, has spent her adult life trying out life overseas. In Berlin, she has found a home. For now. Jennifer and host Nathan Thornburgh sit in her apartment in Berlin and drink "hut dream" tea and talk about it all. Show notes: Perfect Dish: Singapore Perfect Dish: Jakarta Jennifer Neal on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Breddo's Tacos in London made a name for itself by combining deep flavors from Mexico with the kind of global inventiveness that London excels at. Nud Dudhia was born for this—born in Zambia, educated in the UK, converted to the joys of al pastor while on a break in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca. Nud and host Nathan Thornburgh sipped mezcal in the morning and talked through it all. Show notes: Breddos Tacos Bill Esparza’s Taqueando Nic Cage in Leaving Las Vegas The ‘mad clammer’ Roddy Sloan Cat & Mutton, the pub where Breddo’s was born Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hilary Whitney and Ian Hart make some of the best gin in the world. And they did it, until recently, all from a room in their home in leafy Highgate, north London. Hilary talks with host Nathan Thornburgh there about gin, writing, and seizing the means of Negroni production. Show notes: World Gin Awards 2019 In Our Time: The Gin Craze (BBC radio episode) Flask Fine Wines in Los Angeles (Sacred Spirits US distributor) Bounty Hunter Wine in Napa (Sacred Spirits US distributor) The New Gin Craze by Oliver Bullough in Roads & Kingdoms Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Drinking unique wines in Kreuzberg at the home of Billy Wagner, sommelier and proprietor of Berlin's Michelin-starred Nobelhart & Schmutzig. Episode two of five Berlin episodes on The Trip! Show notes: Nobelhart & Schmutzig Weingut Leiner Eva Fricke Rheingau winemaker profile from Punch The Carton Magazine shop Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sami Tamimi’s book Falastin: a Cookbook, co-written with Tara Wigley, is part travelogue, part guidebook for the home cook, it’s the first step into the spotlight for Tamimi’s gifted culinary mind and his own personal story. In this episode, he sat down with The Trip host Nathan Thornburgh over some Waitrose prosecco to talk about his life in cooking, navigating the tensions of the Middle East, and why hummus alone won’t solve our problems. This episode was previously paywalled on Luminary Podcasts but is being re-released now, free and for the people. Show notes: Sami Tamimi’s books: Falastin: A Cookbook (with Tara Wigley) Ottolenghi: the Cookbook (with Yotam Ottolenghi) Jerusalem (with Yotam Ottolenghi) Other links: How we met: Sami Tamimi and Yotam Ottolenghi Give Chickpeas a Chance Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oliver Bullough is one of my favorite journalists on earth, most recently the author of Moneyland: The Inside Story of the Crooks and Kleptocrats Who Rule the World. He is an expert at plainly describing the complex ways we’re all being screwed by the shadowy billionaire economy, a skill that is all the more vital during this pandemic which has been so strangely profitable for the elite. Oliver and I met up in London in 2019 and for this vodka-fueled conversation about the wild world of global cash. This episode was previously paywalled on Luminary Podcasts but is being re-released now, free and for the people. Show Notes: Subscribe to Oligarchy: Oliver Bullough’s newsletter for Coda Story Oliver Bullough’s books: Moneyland: The Inside Story of the Crooks and Kleptocrats Who Rule the World The Last Man in Russia: The Struggle to Save a Dying Nation Let Our Fame Be Great: Journeys Among the Defiant People of the Caucasus Michael Lewis’ books that Oliver mentions: The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine Liar

Musa Okwonga's upcoming novella In the End, It Was All About Love is a gorgeous meditation on being a foreigner, and a Black man, in today's Berlin. It's why I wanted to start The Trip's five episodes in Berlin with him: for a relatively recent arrival, he communicates the city on a deep and lyrical level. So we sat together (pre-COVID) in my friend's house in Berlin, drank several Moscow Mules, and talked about schnitzel, football, and what Musa calls the psychogeography—emotion imbued even into the cobblestone—of Germany's capital. Show notes: Stadio: A Ringer football podcast hosted by Musa Okwonga and Ryan Hunn Musa on Instagram Rough Trade Books (you can pre-order Musa's novella here in November) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How do you travel in a world on lockdown? Just start at home. And in this, now, I have a mighty advantage. Because this month, I moved from Manhattan to the Borough of Queens, the most linguistically diverse place on earth. This episode has three would-be guides to this new life: writers Laurie Woolever and Tiffany Langston, along with Astoria souvlaki legend Elpida Vasiliadis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode, we’re not talking about how the gifted journalist and traveler Kim Wall died, we’re talking about how she lived. And we’re doing it by talking with journalists Caterina Clerici, Christina Ayele Djossa, and Ingrid Wall—who is also Kim’s mother and author of A Silenced Voice of a new book about her life and work. This episode opens with the beautiful singing of Aidi Songlong, a musician who sings a traditional Moso music style called ahabhala. Christina Ayele Djossa reported on this remarkable matrilineal ethnic group who live near China's border with Tibet. Show notes: A Silenced Voice: The Life of Journalist Kim Wall  Christina Ayele Djossa on Twitter Christina Ayele Djossa's BBC report on the Moso music style, produced with funding from the Kim Wall Foundation Caterina Clerici homepage Kim Wall and Caterina Clerici on Haitian Tourism for Roads & Kingdoms Kim Wall Memorial Fund at IWMF  Kim Wall Memorial Fund: Donate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices