07/01/2026
New Seeds and Their People episode out now!
Listen to EP. 41: the Siling Labuyo Pepper Portal from Philly to the Philippines at https://trueloveseeds.com/blogs/satpradio or anywhere you listen to podcasts
Nicky Uy, Omar Buenaventura, Maria Dumlao, and Bitter Kalli have been coming together over Filipino foods, seeds, and stories for many years now. In this episode, we hear about the ways they weave their connections back to the Philippines and within their networks in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, growing portals to memory, meaning, and each other.
We conducted this interview on January 30th, 2026 at Nicky and Omar’s dining room table in South Philly after a delicious dinner featuring many of the ingredients we explore in this conversation. We especially focus on Siling Labuyo, and many other plants and dishes, as well as collaborations with Truelove Seeds such as their art project with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, an exhibition with the Acadamy of Natural Sciences, Bahay215’s mobile seed library, and other ways the four of them share Filipino culture.
1. Presenting the Siling Labuyo and art by featuring this pepper and these friends at - this was a collaboration supported by Community Spotlight Initiative.
2. Nicky and Omar featuring Siling Labuyo in our Heirloom Plants exhibition.
3. Omar with a Siling Labuyo plant and harvested fruits.
4. Omar and Nicky with the top half of their mobile seed library.
5. Nicky with Ampalaya.
6. Our meal we ate right before this interview, which included:
7. Sawsawan from their Heirloom Plants exhibition case, made from coconut vinegar, ground peppercorns, smashed garlic, and Siling Labuyo
8. Pompano
9. Calamansi
10. Cassava Cake with young coconut strips and coconut cream dulce de leche
11. Bing the bird!
12. Maria’s beautiful artwork, created following meals and conversations with Nicky, Omar, Bitter, and Deja
