Meet the food, then hear its story.
Hannah and Harry take one food at a time, from lentils to lemonade, and work through it with games and plain explanations. Guests then bring the stories: new pasta shapes sketched on graph paper, potatoes frozen for storage in the Andes, and a mother's dal remembered in a book.
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Most titles on Time For Lunch read like an exclamation at the table: 'Lentils!', 'Pasta!', 'Potatoes!', 'Lemonade!', 'Rolling Pins!'. Together they show the range: foods, a drink and a kitchen tool, each with an episode to itself. Hannah Fordin and Harry Rosenblum host, and their segments lean on games. The banter is quick, but it never turns chaotic, because the structure keeps each segment tidy. Along the way the hosts explain words a young listener might trip on. A joke or two keeps the pace brisk. Listening here means taking part. The guest segments are where the show slows down for a story. In the pasta episode, a guest describes filling a graph-paper sketchbook with shapes meant to combine ruffles and tubes, only to hear from the mold maker that many of them could not be made. The same guest remembers the pasta aisle feeling a little boring and wanting to bring back shapes nobody was making anymore. The potatoes conversation goes to the Andes, where potatoes were stepped on and left to freeze overnight, again and again, until they became thin pieces that could be kept for months or years against famine. It even gets compared to astronaut food. For lentils, a guest talks about a book grown from memories of a mother cooking dal: mustard seeds popping like fireworks, blooming curry leaves, the sweet smell of rice and the courage it takes to try something unfamiliar. The rolling pin episode brings in pie, with memories of wild blackberries and raspberries, bushels of corn turning up on the porch and apple pie for breakfast, and a guest named Cynthia confirms that pie is one of the best breakfasts there is. The tone can also turn grave without losing its warmth. In the lemonade episode, a guest tells how a girl's front-yard lemonade stand, expected to raise a few dollars, grew into Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation, which raises money to find a cure for pediatric cancer. The story includes her death as a child. Kids are invited in directly as well: with a grown-up's help they can record themselves on a phone and email the recording, and the show offers to send something back. One item in the feed, 'Presenting: Mystery Recipe!', previews a separate, more scripted kids' audio play with talking farm-fresh eggs, so it does not show the usual format.
Made for: Suits a curious kid, and the grown-up listening alongside, who enjoys games and jokes and likes knowing where a food comes from. It also fits a young eater working up the nerve to try something new.
What sets it apart: It treats a single food as a game first and a story second: kids play along, then hear a guest story about how it was designed, preserved or remembered. The guest stories go beyond recipes into design, history and even loss, while the framing stays warm and easy to follow.
Time For Lunch is a place to learn about eating, cooking, enjoying and sometimes playing with your food. Each episode will cover a new subject; taking a close look at one item, or ingredient, that might be found at the lunch table. Listeners are invited to participate, sharing jokes on-air or following along with in-episode quizzes and games. Hosted by Harry Rosenblum and Hannah Fordin, the show looks at food through the lens of history, culture, and play to celebrate and learn about the people and places that feed us. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Time For Lunch makes everyday food legible to children through concrete questions, guest stories, cultural context, and playful explanation.
Time For Lunch turns familiar foods into routes through invention, culture, and family memory. Harry Rosenblum and Hannah Fordin move from the engineering of pasta shapes to the sensory memories surrounding dal, giving guests room to explain how food carries both practical…
A pasta shape fails the mold maker's test, and your dinner has an engineering problem.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Dal, memory, and bravery come together through vivid kitchen detail.
The episode uses sensory detail to make dal feel immediate and lived in, especially through memories of a mother cooking in the kitchen and the sounds and smells of mustard seeds, curry leaves, and rice.
A lemonade stand becomes a lasting fundraising movement, and the numbers make the impact clear.
The story follows how a four-year-old's front-yard lemonade stand grew into Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation, beginning with $2,000 on the first day and expanding into yearly stands with support from around the country and the world.
A focused look at pasta shapes, from sketchbook ideas and impossible molds to Zucca.
The episode treats pasta shapes as design problems, moving from sketchbooks and graph paper to a dye maker who keeps insisting the ideas cannot be made.
Three farm fresh eggs make packaging and shell colors feel clear, light, and easy to follow.
This episode stays focused on three farm fresh eggs, Shelby, Sheldon, and Ralph, and it keeps the food lesson easy to track. It explains what an egg is, how it is packaged, and where it can be sold, while the color lesson comes through clearly: different chicken breeds lay…
Daily TED and TEDx talks hosted by Elise Hu, spanning science, psychology, and creativity.
Pop culture, personal stakes, and room for a tangent.
Lawfare's weekly panel turns Supreme Court rulings and war-powers fights into legal debate.
Time for Lunch’s “Rolling Pins!” traces the tool from Etruscan Tuscany and Indian chakla boards to modern kitchens, including Hannah Forden’s family nightstick-turned-rolling-pin.
What can dal remind you of?
A lemonade stand gets bigger.
The episode follows a pasta-shape puzzle: a guest talks about sketching ruffles and tubes on graph paper, then taking those drawings to the dye maker, who keeps saying the ideas are impossible to make.
Chunio uses freeze-thaw drying in the Andes, and some preserved potatoes survived 500 years.
Three eggs introduce themselves as Shelby, Sheldon, and Ralph.
A playful, interactive episode where hosts and listeners guess a mystery kitchen tool (spatula) through clues, blending food history and fun.
A playful, interactive episode where hosts and a special guest (cheese) engage in a guessing game about food.
A podcast exploring food through history, culture, and play, with quizzes and games about lunchtime ingredients.