First up, fantastic news: The Europeans Podcast has been nominated for a prize! Hit play to find out all about it, we are over the moon.

What a delicious episode we have for you this week. Michelin-starred chef Christian Puglisi is on the line from Copenhagen to talk about how his heritage has helped him shape cuisine that defies the rules. Born to a Norwegian mother and a Sicilian father, Christian's ideas about where he comes from have changed with time, as have his ideas about food. We hear all about how his hit restaurant Baest has blurred the lines of what makes an 'authentic' pizza by going for freshness first — to the point of making Danish mozzarella — and his ongoing battle to make his restaurants as green as possible. Plus: how the French learned to love burgers; how the world learned to hate Cambridge Analytica; and a German footballer with a huge heart (and lucky blood).

Katy makes no secret of the fact that she records this podcast in her pyjamas, but she may need to up her game after this week's interview with Vogue's legendary international editor, Suzy Menkes, about the European fashion scene and the death of iconic French designer Hubert de Givenchy. In other news, Dominic comes clean about his traumatic experience as a 12-year-old child star in Siberia and gets mixed up (like everyone else this week) between Slovenia and Slovakia.

Plus: happy Finns, clowns, and a PR coup for some beer-brewing Belgian monks.

This week we're imagining a better future for baby Europeans and also what might happen after the nuclear apocalypse. Jennifer Pettersson is Swedish radio maker who's been based in Amsterdam for the last 20 years. She's always loved living in the city — until it came to putting her kids in school there. Dutch kids are famously supposed to be the happiest in the world, but is it really true?

Since we're planning for the future we might as look all the way ahead to Doomsday. Katy's been chatting to Asmund Asdal, the coordinator of Norway's Global Seed Vault, which keeps back-ups of the world's grains and seeds for use in case of disaster.

Also: good news for young Europeans with wanderlust, bad news for clocks, and some mile-high poetry.

Hello Europe! Your favourite continental podcast is back with everything from salted snails to middle-fingered salutes on the menu. Dominic's been walking on thin ice and Katy's been cocooning; there's good news for Angela Merkel and bad news for press freedom in Slovakia. Eckard Helmers is on the line from Germany to explain why Europe fell in love with diesel cars even though they're poisoning our air. And we're talking English — literally — with Marko Modiano, a linguistics expert in Gävle, Sweden, about how the language is taking on a life of its own in Europe.

Our first ever bonus episode! We enjoyed our conversation in this week's show with Alexandra Pascalidou so much that we're sharing the whole thing with you. Raised by Greek parents in a working-class Stockholm suburb, Alexandra went on to become a prominent journalist in Sweden. But along with the job came the threats: years and years of horrific threats from neo-Nazis who didn't like the way she stood up for multi-culturalism.

Last year, something unexpected happened: a former neo-Nazi got in touch to confess he had tormented her for years, and to say he was sorry. And Alexandra did something even more unexpected: she decided to meet up with her former tormentor for coffee.

Katy and Dominic rang Alexandra in Stockholm to discuss her remarkable decision to forgive Martin, and why Sweden needs to take its neo-Nazi threat much more seriously. But along the way they also talk about national identity, the Eurovision song contest, and what it means to be European. 

Who's afraid of the big bad wolf? Not Alexandra Pascalidou. The Greek-Swedish journalist did something that would scare many of us: after years of threats from neo-Nazis, she invited one of them for a cup of coffee. Alexandra gives us a masterclass in forgiveness — and stay tuned later in the week for a bonus episode featuring her full conversation with The Europeans.

But first, actual wolves. After Belgium saw its first in a century, we're taking a look at how different countries across the continent are dealing with 20,000 of the proud predators — and our guest Max Rossberg of the European Wilderness Society argues we need a total rethink.

Plus: the monster of Brussels, a monstrous week for Britain's Jeremy Corbyn, and some less monstrous news to cheer us up at the end.

We've got two birthdays to celebrate this week. Independent Kosovo is officially 10, and your host Dominic Kraemer is officially old. Congrats to both!

As Kosovo marks 10 years since declaring independence from Serbia, we give our man in the Balkans Andrew MacDowall a call to explain the challenges that lie ahead for Europe's youngest country. Meanwhile, Katy's been huddling under a duvet in Paris with a cold this week -- a great excuse to obsess over the Winter Olympics, not least that amazing Scottish invention, curling. Team Finland's Oona Kauste is on the line all the way from South Korea with a staunch defence of the sport against allegations that it 'looks weird', and how she manages to juggle the Olympics with her career as a hairdresser and make-up artist.

Plus: out and proud LGBT Olympians, happy news for German commuters, and political truth, Dutch-style. Oh, and a mysterious Finnish tongue-twister. Anyone that solves the mystery gets a gold medal of their very own.

Hello from Paris and Amsterdam! Since we’ve seen a huge rise in listeners this week (welcome!) we’re in a giving mood, so we’re talking about organ donation. As countries across Europe weigh up how to save the most lives, transplant ethicist Greg Moorlock is on the line from Birmingham, England to discuss why Spain sees so many more donations than Germany and whether or not the Netherlands should make giving up our kidneys an ‘opt-out’ affair. And Ania Jakubek in Warsaw is back to explain what’s going on with Poland’s new Holocaust law.

Plus: a good (ish) week for Angela Merkel, and a bad one for French fashion designer Christian Louboutin and his famous red-soled shoes.

This week on The Europeans, two interviews about building things from scratch. We speak to in-house IKEA designer Sarah Fager in Älmhult, Sweden, about the philosophy that drove the company’s late founder Ingvar Kamprad to take over the world with his flatpack furniture. And in Milan, Andrea Venzon is on the line to give us the lowdown on the new pan-European political movement he’s just set up, Volt. Plus: gassed monkeys, dabblings in erotica by Jean-Claude Juncker, and a whole lot of oranges.

A war between France and the Netherlands over fish (trawling), a beginner’s guide to waltzing in Vienna (balling), and a tragic ski accident (falling).

The Europeans comes to you from Amsterdam and Paris as always, but Katy and Dominic have both been in Austria this week and are taking a little inspiration from their (mis)adventures to delve into the traditions of the Viennese ball season. We’ve got devoted local fan Matthias Brandstetter on the line to run us through the do’s and dont’s of taking your first spin on the Viennese dance floor.

But first, to the sea! We speak to Pavel Klinckhamers from Greenpeace Netherlands about the controversial fishing technique that may have landed the hake on your plate and has French fishermen furious with their Dutch competitors.

The Europeans let loose discussing snus and fake news. German journalist Juliane von Reppert-Bismarck tells us all about her plans to teach school kids across Europe how to spot propaganda and media bias on the internet with her new project Lie Detectors. And we delve into the world of Scandinavian snus tobacco, illegal in most of the EU. For the first time, it’s more popular in Norway than cigarettes. But why? We find out from Kris Johansson in Oslo, and the author Christopher Snowdon is on hand to explain why this stuff is still banned around Europe despite growing evidence that it helps people quit smoking.

Plus: news from Davos with the tiniest mention of T***p, and a weaponised sausage for dessert.

Your favourite plucky Parisian reporter and glamorous Amsterdam opera singer are BACK. Episode 6 is about two people with bouffant hair but little else in common: Donald Trump and Catherine Deneuve. We’ve got a great interview with the voice of Trump on German television, Franz Kubaczyk, and his fellow interpreter Leonie Wagener about the perils of translating the most unpredictable president in US history. And the French writer Agnès Poirier is on the line to discuss Deneuve’s controversial letter criticising the #MeToo movement and what may have been lost in translation. Plus: fantastic plastic news and an unwelcome flashback from early-2000s pop.

Happy New Year, The Europeans are back! We’re kicking off 2018 by brushing up on our Luxembourgish, giving Nina Lamparski a call to find out why a language officially listed as endangered is making an unexpected comeback. And Georgi Gotev is on the line to talk about what we can expect from Bulgaria as the EU’s poorest country takes the helm as president for the next six months. We ask why a baby born in Bulgaria has a much lower life expectancy than one born in Spain; and there’s a feminist, vodka-flavoured happy ending for you. What more could you want from your favourite European podcast?

For the last episode of The Europeans before a little break to indulge in some festive merry-making, we talk to influential man about Brussels Ryan Heath of Politico about why the corridors of EU power are so goddamn white. Phosphate-laden euro kebabs and novelty avocados are also on the menu for our millennial listeners. And we give Dutch trans activist Jonah Lamers a ring to ask why the Netherlands picked ‘gender neutral’ as the most irritating word of 2017.

This week in The Europeans, we're looking at national icons -- the beloved, in the form of French rock star Johnny Hallyday who died this week -- and the controversial, in the form of the Netherlands' Black Pete. Dominic talks to Anousha Nzume from Dipsaus, the hit podcast for Dutch women of colour, about why the Netherlands insists on making blackface a festive affair at this time of year. And Katy makes a valiant attempt to explain why Hallyday wasn't remotely famous outside France despite being a legend at home.

Plus Ania Jakubek is back with news of a new Polish prime minister, with Dominic's Happy Ending bringing up the rear... Literally.

Episode 2 of The Europeans, in which Dominic stays in a German haunted house. It’s been a dramatic week on the continent, with a convicted war criminal committing suicide in the middle of a courtroom in The Hague. Elsewhere, we talk to journalist Claire Sergent about whether French could really one day be the world’s most widely spoken language, and to European gay travel supremos A Couple Of Men about their hugely successful blog. This podcast contains no traces of Brexit at all, it’s a near-Christmas miracle! Please leave us a review if you enjoyed The Europeans, and help us to spread the word.

Episode 1 is here! Featuring Angela Merkel, angry French nudists,  and charming interludes from Katy’s friends and colleagues Frank Zeller in Berlin and Ania Jakubek in Poznan, Poland.