The Backpackchef

The Gentleman Chef | Podcast Description

The Gentleman Chef is a podcast about leadership, craft, and culture—told through the lens of food, travel, and lived experience.

Hosted by Chef Michael Swamy, each episode is an unhurried conversation with chefs, creators, thinkers, and cultural custodians who lead with integrity rather than noise. These are stories of discipline, patience, mentorship, and the values that shape enduring careers—both inside and outside the kitchen.

The podcast explores what it means to build legacy in a fast-moving world: how food becomes a language of diplomacy, how...

Vekeana Dhillon is a Indo-Canadian Screenwriter and Series Creator actively developing original IP in feature films and series as live action, audio, and animation projects for OTT platforms, channels in India as well as for North American/European Buyers. She’s diversified her professional media experience in film, television and radio as a writer, actor , VJ and playwright. She has five feature films produced and released internationally including including Sohail Khan Productions award-winning Kisaan and cult classic I- Proud to be an Indian. 

She's written Super V, a Virat Kohli superhero animation series for Disney+ Hotstar and Mar...

A Conversation with Carolina Vásquez | The Backpack Chef Podcast

In this episode of The Backpack Chef, I speak with Carolina Vásquez, former Trade Commissioner at the Embassy of Chile in India and Canada, whose work has bridged countries, cultures, and economies through trade, food, and dialogue.

Our conversation explores the role of food as a quiet but powerful tool of diplomacy—how ingredients, culinary exchange, and shared meals often succeed where formal negotiations cannot. Carolina reflects on her experiences representing Chile across continents, navigating cultural nuance, and buil...

In this episode of The Backpack Chef, I sit down with Mugdha Sudhir—a culinary researcher, food stylist, and storyteller whose work quietly shapes how we see, document, and understand food.

Our conversation moves through kitchens and cultures, books and broadcasts, tracing Mugdha’s journey through food media, research, and education. We speak about the unseen work behind cookbooks and television, the discipline of culinary research, and the responsibility of representing regional food with honesty and care. From styling food for the camera to working closely with chefs, communities, and institutions, Mugdha brings a thoughtful, grou...

The Backpack Chef: A Journey is an ongoing exploration of food, travel, and culture—told from the road, the forest, and the kitchen.

Hosted by Chef Michael Swamy, the series follows conversations and encounters shaped by place: cooks in remote regions, cultural custodians, conservationists, diplomats, and storytellers whose lives intersect with food in meaningful ways. Each episode reflects on how cuisine becomes a gateway to understanding land, history, and people.

This is not a destination-driven travel show. It is about process over spectacle, listening before speaking, and the quiet moments that shape how we...

Podcast Explanation — A Canticle for Christmas

A Canticle for Christmas is a quiet, reflective episode from Forest to Fork — The Backpack Chef, inspired by the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi and his reverence for the living world.

This podcast is about spending Christmas in the forest — not as an escape, but as a return. A return to fire, to simplicity, to listening. It is about cooking without a kitchen, without ceremony, and discovering that food, at its most honest, is an act of presence rather than performance.

In t...