The Compendium Podcast

Julia Child celebrated household name, started as a wartime OSS desk jockey who later conquered Le Cordon Bleu and American TV - loudly, brilliantly, and without apologising.

Starting with Julie & Julia, we follow her late-in-life Paris awakening, the brutal Le Cordon Bleu learning curve, and the obsessive testing that became Mastering the Art of French Cooking. There’s OSS shark repellent, Paul Child’s steady love, and then the moment she turns a TV omelette into a second career. Suddenly it’s The French Chef - and dinner becomes comedy.

 

Topics include


Julie & Julia and what the film gets right (Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci)


Le Cordon Bleu, French cuisine, and learning late


Mastering the Art of French Cooking and why it mattered


OSS shark repellent and the strangest pre-chef CV


The French Chef, cooking show chaos, and the Dan Aykroyd SNL skit

Resources and Further Reading

Julia Child - Wikipedia

Julie & Julia - by Nora Ephron

SNL The French Chef - youtube

Shark Repellant Work - cia.gov

Julias Kitchen - Smithsonian Museum

Mastering the Art of French Cooking - Wikipedia

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
Intro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland
Community & Calls to Action
Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple Podcasts
Instagram: @theCompendiumPodcast
Website: thecompendiumpodcast.com
Support us: Sign up to Patreon
Circus Job Board: Apply to join the Circus
Share this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway.

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H.H. Holmes built the infamous Murder Castle during the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. This episode explores the true story behind the disappearances, the fraud, and how one of America’s first serial killers was finally caught.

Using false identities, staged scams, and a building designed to confuse and trap, Holmes turned murder into a business model. As victims vanished and his schemes began to collapse, investigators uncovered a case of fraud, deception, and calculated killing that helped turn him into one of the most notorious figures in American crime history.

Topics include

the design and purpose of the Murder Castle

Holmes’ life as Herman Mudgett

insurance fraud, false identities, and calculated killings

the role of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair

how H.H. Holmes was finally caught

Resources and Further Reading

H.H. Holmes - Wikipedia

The Devil in the White City - by Erik Larson

American Horror Story: Hotel - Ryan Murphy

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
Intro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland
Community & Calls to Action
Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple Podcasts
Instagram: @theCompendiumPodcast
Website: thecompendiumpodcast.com
Support us: Sign up to Patreon
Circus Job Board: Apply to join the Circus
Share this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Biosphere 2 was meant to prove we could build a world from scratch. Instead, it became a fight to keep the air breathable and the story from turning toxic.

In 1991, eight people sealed themselves inside a vast Arizona terrarium designed to test whether a closed ecosystem could sustain human life and one day help us survive on Mars. What followed was not just a biosphere experiment under glass, but a slow collision between science, survival, collapsing oxygen levels, and a press narrative determined to call it a joke. This week, we dig into what really happened inside Biosphere 2, why the project began to unravel, and whether it was ever the failure people still think it was.

Topics include


The Biosphere 2 experiment and its original Mars habitat ambitions


Why oxygen levels dropped inside the sealed ecosystem


The biospherians, food shortages, and life inside the dome


How media coverage helped distort the story of Biosphere 2


Whether Biosphere 2 failed, or was misunderstood from the start

Resources and Further Reading

Biosphere 2 - Wikipedia

Life under the bubble - Discover magazine

The Human Experiment - by Jane Poynter

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
Intro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland
Community & Calls to Action
Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple Podcasts
Instagram: @theCompendiumPodcast
Website: thecompendiumpodcast.com
Support us: Sign up to Patreon
Circus Job Board: Apply to join the Circus
Share this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Morgan Metzer survived a home invasion that ended with a far darker truth: the man who came to save her may have known exactly what happened.

On New Year's Eve in Canton, Georgia, a masked attacker entered a locked home, used intimate knowledge of the house, and left one woman bound, beaten, and terrified. The first person to find her was the ex-husband she still trusted, but the details of the night pointed somewhere far closer to home. This is a chilling story of gaslighting, coercive control, psychological abuse, and the case that later inspired Gaslit by My Husband.

Topics include

The New Year's Eve home invasion at the centre of Morgan Metzer's story

How gaslighting and coercive control shaped the years before the attack

The warning signs of psychological abuse hidden inside an old relationship

The real case behind Gaslit by My Husband

Resources and Further Reading

Gaslit by My Husband: The Morgan Metzer Story - Stream on Paramount

Georgia man who attacked - CBS News

From hero to villain - CBS News

Saved by Her Ex-Husband - People.com

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
Intro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland
Community & Calls to Action
Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple Podcasts
Instagram: @theCompendiumPodcast
Website: thecompendiumpodcast.com
Support us: Sign up to Patreon
Circus Job Board: Apply to join the Circus
Share this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Nellie Bly faked madness to enter Blackwell's Island asylum, then turned fearless reporting into a 72-day race around the world.

Before she became a legend, Elizabeth Cochran was a young reporter trying to force her way into a profession that barely made room for women. This episode follows her rise from sharp-tongued columnist to daring undercover journalist, as she exposes the cruelty inside Blackwell's Island, builds her reputation through investigative journalism, and catches the eye of Joseph Pulitzer. From Ten Days in a Mad House to a globe-spanning stunt that made her famous, it is a story about nerve, performance, ambition, and the price of becoming extraordinary.

Topics include:

Her early career and the making of Nellie Bly

Going undercover inside Blackwell’s Island asylum

What her investigation revealed about care, cruelty, and institutional neglect

Investigative journalism as performance, risk, and public spectacle

Joseph Pulitzer, the New York World, and the machinery of sensational reporting

Her 72-day trip around the world and the frenzy that followed

Resources and Further Reading

10 days in a madhouse - by Nellie Bly

Nellie Bly - Wikipedia

Woman & The American Story - nyhistory.org

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
Intro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland
Community & Calls to Action
Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple Podcasts
Instagram: @theCompendiumPodcast
Website: thecompendiumpodcast.com
Support us: Sign up to Patreon
Circus Job Board: Apply to join the Circus
Share this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.