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SMNTY Interviews: Michele Norris · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Samantha. We're welcome to stuff
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I've never told you a production of iHeartRadio, and today
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: we have an interview for you that we are so
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: excited to share. As you know, we often nerd out,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: perhaps get nervous, fangirl over amazing women who have done
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: amazing things, and this was one of those instances because
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: we were fortunate enough to get to interview Michelle Norris.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: And I'm still like, we're recording this separately because she's
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: really busy and was covering a hearing in Washington, DC
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: in the middle like she was like, I gotta go
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: to get to this hearing, right, And she took the
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: time to talk with us, and it was amazing and
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: it was an amazing conversation. We have so much more
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: we wanted to talk about, didn't have the time. But hopefully, Samantha,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: you really you really put down the seeds.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: I was really trying real hard. I'm like, I need
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: this conversation to keep going, so I'm going to put
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: a teaser out bait her hopefully and how she'll want
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: to come back on. But you also did a good
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: job with the mac and cheese, Like a we need
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: to follow up with that anyway. Yeah, a teasers obviously.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Yes, you're gonna have to listen to learn about the
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: mac and cheese. But Michelle Norris, if you don't know
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: who she is, she has done amazing work. She was
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: a correspondent for ABC News in the nineties and early
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: two thousands. She got a Peabody for her coverage of
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: nine to eleven. She was the first black woman to
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: host NPR of All Things Considered. And she's done so
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: much more than that. She's got the Race Card Project,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: which you can learn more about at the racecardproject dot com.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: She's got a book that came out called Our Hidden Conversations,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: What Americans Really think about race and Identity. She's got
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: a memoir called The Grace of Silence. She has done
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: so much. Really check her out, and she's really really
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: she's just someone who's so curious. And even in this interview,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: we kept getting kind of caught in her interviewing us.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: And I grew up. My mom loves All Things Considered,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: and I kind of talk about it in this episode,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: but we would listen to it in the kitchen while
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: we were cooking, and my mom when I was like
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: key enough to interview Michelle Norris on other podcasts I
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: do Saver and at the end, she did the thing
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: she does, which is ask you a question, and I
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: was talking about my mom and my mom's kitchen because
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: this question just brings out so much in you. And
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: my mom listened to that episode and was so moved
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: by it and so like, oh my gosh, I can't
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: believe that this person I was listening to in the
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: kitchen is talking about my experience in the kitchen. It
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: was really sweet. It was a very sweet thing. So
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: I'm very moved by that. And we had a million
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: things we wanted to talk about we didn't get to.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: I would say one of the things we didn't get
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: to is that you can you can find her her
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: book and read more about it. But her grandmother was
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: someone who was one of the performers who went around
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: and portrayed Aunt Jemima, who cooked and portrayed Aunt Jemima.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: It's really fascinating. But yeah, I mean, Samantha, I'm sure
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: you could speak more to it, but it was difficult
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: to limit our questions.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Right, there's so much she's doing so much. I think
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: that's the bigger portion is like the amount of content
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: she has is overwhelming, especially in the last year, like
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: just in the last year alone, and we were trying
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: to kind of just keep it in that realm because
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: she also is a fabulous storyteller as she will say it,
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: and a story collector. And I don't think there's any
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: other way to describe her because like just me in
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: a journalist, which is a big feat in it self,
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: like all of that, that is not enough to describe her,
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Like it's not who she is what she does. So
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: it was a phenomenal conversation and she does so well
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: and giving intense questions but in the simplistic way that
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: opens up so many doors and it was beautiful. Yeah,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: And we definitely were like, no, I'm not telling you this.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: You have to come back, because she was trying to
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: interview flip the tables on us. One boy, she said,
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: I'm sitting on my hands trying not to ask you
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: more questions, follow up questions. I was like, no, ma'am,
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: we're not doing this.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that's the the beauty of when
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: a podcast is that what I personally think is at
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: its best is that curiosity that like I want to
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: know more, let me listen, tell the story, let me
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: collect the story, let me tell the story, like all
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: of those things. So with all of that, let us
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: get in to our interview with Michelle Norris. So today
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: we are so thrilled and excited to be joined by
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Michelle Norris. I'm honestly like, I'm so excited to talk
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: with you. Can you introduce yourself to our audience?
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: Hi? Hello, First, Hello, Sam and Annie. So good to
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: be with you, So good to be so excited. I am.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: My name is Michelle Norris. I am a storyteller and
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: a story collector. I am a storyteller in that I
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: am a longtime journalist. I am a senior contributing editor
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: at MSNBC. Prior to that, I was a columnist at
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: The Washington Post. I've worked. I worked for ten years
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: as a host of a little show on UNPR called
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: All Things Considered, and before that worked at ABC News
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: and the Chicago La Times and The Washington Post earlier
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: in my career. So longtime storyteller. For the last fifteen years,
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: I've been a story collector. I run something called the
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: Race Car Project, where I collectoes from people about race
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: and identity that begin with just six words, so they
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: start with a little microburst and they often grow into
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: something bigger. And I now host a podcast called Your
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: Mama's Kitchen where I collect stories from fairly famous people
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: who tell me about how the kitchens that they grew
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: up in shaped the people that they became. And the
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: theory of the case there is that the kitchens are incubators.
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: As Conan O'Brien said, it's like the kiln where the
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: bricks are made. You learn about justice and generosity and
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: grace and grievance and all kinds of things in the kitchen.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: A lot more goes on in a kitchen beyond nutrition.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: Your podcasts and just the way you described your work
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: and who you are the story collector, that's exactly the
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: perfect description of what you do. It's not just a conversation,
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: it's not just a podcast, it's not just a book.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: It seems that your work in its entirety, even though
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: the basis and your education and your background is journalism,
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: it is story collecting. It is storytelling, and you do
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: a beautiful job and relaying different people's different backgrounds stories
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: in such a way that you feel like you know
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: these people, which really like tugs. I think I was
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: gushing right before. I know I was gushing right before
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: we got onto record about your ability to talk to
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: people in such a way and ask the questions that
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: are seemingly so simple, Like you literally said, give me
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: six words about race, and you gave out postcards, and I,
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: by the way, that format is so Roman romantic to me.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: It just got me. I was like, yes, and you're
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: talking about how you put them in bibles. Don't think
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: I didn't know what you were doing.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: I love that you did that, but we should explain that.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: We should.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: I just so. I developed the race Card Project while
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: I was on a thirty five city book tour, and
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: I developed the Raskar project in part because I wrote
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: a book about my family's complex racial legacy, called The
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: Grace of Silence, and I knew I would be going
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: out in the world talking to people about racing. I
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: thought no one wanted to have that conversation. So the
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: race Card Project was created to create an entry point
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: with postcards. Just give me a postcard with your six
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: words on it. And I had to figure out how
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: to distribute the postcards. And so when I was traveling
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: across the country, I was leaving in the back of airline,
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: you know, little little marsupial pouch. I was leaving them
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: in the airline pouch. I was leaving them. And restaurants,
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: I was leaving them behind on tables and in hotels
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: where the Bible comes in in the nightstand, you know,
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: there's often a little Bible in the nightstand, And so
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: I put postcards in the Bible. So I figured if
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: somebody was like, you know, needing a good word, that
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: they were trying to find them a palm, a psalm
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: or proverb ye out would follow a postcard.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, to be honest, in my mind, if I
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: had found a postcard in the Bible, which I don't
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: necessarily looked at them, but every now and then you're like,
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: there it is. You're like, what are the Mormons want
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: from me? Like what is the questions that the Mormons
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: are asking me? But no, it was such a fascinating
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: and amazing beginning. And like I said, I love like postcards.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: Those are so romantic, and I love that in general.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: But you have an amazing way of transforming people's stories
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: into this beautiful, beautiful narrative where you just feel it,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: You feel where there's these where they people are coming
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: from and the hurt or the beauty of finding themselves, Like,
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: this's such an amazing thing. And you have taken that
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: all the way from again postcards. Of course, you've been
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: a journalist, you've done this. Now you're here in podcasting
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: and you do the same thing. You do the same
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: thing with that question, tell me about your mama's kitchen.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: So can you talk to us a little bit about
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: this podcast and what it's about and how you got here?
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: Well, isn't it interesting? That's I was reminded when I
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: was in San Antonio recently that even that question is
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: six words, tell me about your mama's kitchen. I never
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: put that put the two together. But the idea for
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: the podcast grew out of my work in public radio.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: And you two live behind the microphone, so you understand
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: that you want people to talk a little bit before
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: you are off to the racist and you start recording
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: your show, and it's something called a mic check. And
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: at NPR, the standard question for the mic check was
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: what did you have for breakfast? Samantha, what did you
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: have for breakfast?
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: I haven't had breakfast coffee?
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: Okay, that's that's see, that's the issue, Ms Reese, what
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: did you have for breakfast?
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Coffee?
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: Okay, so no one talks it up, right. You never
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: have the person who says, oh girl, I had French
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: toast and it was dredged in eggs that were harvested
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: down the road and it was dusted with cinnamon sugar,
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: and I had it along with some beautifully scrambled eggs
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: and some country fried bacon, and I had a glass
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: of No one says that. They say coffee, they say nothing,
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: they say toast, They say oah mill. And it's never
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: enough time for people to talk. And so I started
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: asking odd ball questions. Do you use paper or plastic
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: when you go to the grocery store? What did you
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: do for fun on a Saturday night? Tell me about
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: your first summer job. What is your favorite pair of shoes?
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: And why all of them were? You know, you'd learn
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: something about someone and you would get them talking a
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: lot more. But the one that was the gold the
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: golden question was tell me about your mama's kitchen. Because
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: people would go to a different place in their head
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: and they would start talking, and even if it wasn't
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: a good experience, you know, they just it just rendered
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: the pot. It just got them loose limbed, and it
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: made for a different conversation once we got into whatever
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: we were talking about. I mean, even if we were
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: talking about, you know, military expenditures, it was just a deeper, richer,
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: better conversation because we loosened the guest up. And I
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: always thought that that would be a great idea for
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: a podcast, and then I wound up connecting with the
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: good people at Higher Ground Media, which is the production
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: company that is owned by Baraka Michelle Obama, and the
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: light bulbs went off and we said, let's create a
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: really wonderful podcast around this. And the theory of the
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: case was that we become who we are in the kitchen.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: And it's interesting how we asked this question to all
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: these different guests, same question, a bunch of different guests,
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: and they it goes in completely different directions. You know,
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: there's no there are a few redundancies, but even so
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: there's difference even if the experience is similar. And so
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: I know, it's an interesting experience for the listener. And
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: it sure is a heck of a lot of fun
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: from me to get to know people in a different
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: way because often these are famous people. They've done lots
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: of interviews, but we learned things that no one else
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: has heard before because we're entering through a different door, right.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, listening to Michelle Obama talking about how much
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: she didn't like eggs, she like anything, Yes, I was
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: like I would have not imagined.
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: And you know, and Missus Robinson, who's recently gone to
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: glory and we both lost our moms right around this
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: in the same week, actually right around the same time,
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: was a tough cookie. I mean, she was a very
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: you know, disciplined woman, but she indulged a little. Michelle
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: Obama said, baby, if you want a peanut butter and
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: jelly sandwich, that's what we're going to give you. I Mean,
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: the piece of that episode that I really appreciated was
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: when she talked about her cousin who came who went
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: off and came back with all these radical ideas about
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: what a woman could and should do. And you also
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: learn about those sort of smaller characters than someone life.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: She probably wound up having a really big influence on
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: Michelle Obama and who she became and on how she
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: saw the world. And you know, because Chicago is basically
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: like being in the South. If you're on the South
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: side of Chicago. It's you know, black people who all
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: came from the South, brought Southern values, Southern ideas with
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: them about all kinds of things, religion, gender, race, and
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: then when people started to break out of those cocoons
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: and explore bigger worlds and then bring those ideas back,
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: they were not often met with an open, armed embrace.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: What'd you talk about, you know, trying to shake up
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: the world order, you know, And that was she had
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: never talked about that before, you know, And so it
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: was really interesting and I spent you know, a lot
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: of time with her. I've interviewed her over years. I've
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: read her books, I've traveled with her on book tour,
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: I've read a bunch of her interviews. And that was
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: like new material that helped us understand her origin story.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: I love that, Yeah, and I love that beginning you
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: talked about feminism in the kitchen. You actually brought that
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: up into it, and I was like, here we go,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: here we go, and talking about the growth of the
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: matriarch and what feminism was then was just the mere
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: fact that, yes, the household was run by women and
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: there was no plan about But then you had the
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: cousin coming in talk about a different narrative of like, no,
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: I'm not coming here to serve you, this is not
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: this is not happening. It was such an amazing conversation.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: But all you can to understand that in a black
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: household in the nineteen sixties, for a young women to
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: come in and say I'm not here to serve you, thunderclass.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Was you know, it was a silent moment. Everybody is,
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: what's going to happen here?
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: You know? But that that the theme comes up over
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: and over and over again because for some of us
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: at a certain age, feminism came along and changed the
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: world underneath our mother's feet, I mean, the world shifted.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: They had made choices or choices were foisted upon them,
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: and then suddenly things were different or there was the
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: possibility of things being different. But there's a group of
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: women that were sort of caught, you know, in the
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: middle of seeing a possibility of change but not being
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: able to execute on that because of where they were stuck,
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: you know, in that timeline. But at the same time,
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: we've also learned that for some women, the idea of
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: feminism was interesting because the kitchen was their domain. And
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: it was the one place where they could be fully
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: in control, right, And in other spaces they couldn't, But
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: the kitchen was one place where they could be in control.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: And then for some women, and I'm finding particularly for
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: women of color, was a case where the idea of
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: feminism not even you know, within the kitchen or outside
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: of it, but the idea of feminism was interesting because
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: in some spaces, particularly educated, when we were fighting to
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: have a home and family, to have a home, family
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: and work, to work outside the home, and for a
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: lot of women of color or women who were of
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: working class or lower it's like, well, we've been doing
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: that all along, right, the struggle is real, but so
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: is the juggle, right, you know we have we have
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: already been doing this, and to be able to explore
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: that through a child's eyes from someone who is now
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: an adult has been really really interesting. I mean, Terry Jones,
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you listen to that episode, but
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: that was another example. She went to college and it
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: blew her mind and she just thought, I am never
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: going to be that person. I love my mom, but
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: I am never going to be that person. I don't
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: want to cook. And now she's a cook and fool
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: she makes cakes on you know, all the time, but
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: there was a she had to figure out, how do
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: I do this without it being subservient, right, how do
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: I do this on my own terms? And realizing that
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: her mother had made a beautiful home for the family,
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: but also realizing that wondering what kind of sacrifices that
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: she made right, right in order to create that space,
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: and if she had to subjugate her own ambitions right
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: or sort of prestil twist herself to fit into a mold.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, you definitely mentioned about having it all in
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: that false narrative in itself, and how it can feel
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: overwhelming in that whole level, like you do want to
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: be the perfect cook and have the perfect home, And
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: the narrative was for the longest time that if you're
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: not doing these things, you're not fulfilling your role as
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: a true woman and as a good woman, not having
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: that perfect household as well as juggling the perfect job,
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: and like rising up in that industry to make sure
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: that you are showing that a woman can do this.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: Like all of these narratives.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: I have two thoughts on that I am fascinated by
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: old magazines, old emity magazines, old calls magazines, old and
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: the idea of profect Who were these people who were
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: who were like pushing the idea of perfection on women,
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: Like you couldn't just serve jello. It had to come
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: in a mold and it had to be topped. It
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: had to be ambrosia, and it had to have like
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: stuff on top of it. You couldn't just serve lemonade.
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: It had to have like little throwing wedges of lemons
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: with Maraschino cherries in it. I mean, who were these
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: people who were forcing, you know, this idea of womanhood
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: on I would love, you know, and not like I
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: have all the time in the world, But part of
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: me wants to go back and go inside those editorial pages.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: You know, you look at the editorial page, like who
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: was this? How did they come up with his ideas?
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: Did they live lives of perfections themselves? Or were were
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: they doing this to moment they were going home and
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: you know and eating boiled eggs for dinner because they
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: you know, if you were doing this and you were
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: a woman, you were working yourself and raising a family,
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: or was there secretly a cabal of men you know,
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: who were coming up with these ideas and forcing it
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: on women, and then even into the nineteen seventies, I mean,
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: Michelle Obama and I talked about this in her episode
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: that Angelie ad that add about you can bring home
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: the bacon. Yeah, fry it up in the pan and
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: never let them forget you're a man. And when I
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: was an NPR, I actually thought about doing this, and
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: I because we considered all things, and I actually thought
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: about doing it, and I just never have. And maybe
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: after this conversation, I should actually go ahead and do it,
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: because I actually wanted to find the person and talk
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: to them who came up with that ad. Yes, you know,
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: I wanted to actually talk to them. And it was
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: at about perfume. It wasn't even about food. You know,
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: it makes sense, and it's and she's got a trench
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: coat on. You should go back and look at the
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: you can find it on.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: You know, you're talking about it. She has held this
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: vague memory of the yes.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: And she's you know, and that you take off and
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: she's got like that Keana dress on, and you know,
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: and then the idea is that she's frying at bacon.
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: And I guess the implication is that the dress is
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: going to come off and she's going to go, you know,
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: make somebody happy. But she can do all that and
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: still make bacon and still be perfect and smell good
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: because she's bearing Anjuli.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: Well, she don't smell at bacon. But yeah, we actually
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: had a conversation because we had this similar with my
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: partner's mother talking about how like southern magazines really messed
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: her up and saying that she had to make the
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: perfect Christmas or she was failing as a mother and
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: a wife. Like she held that for the longest time.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, what is this culture that has done
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: this thing? You are right as men and capitalism.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: Like simple, Yeah, I mean I have I have theories
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: about this. I think that you know, I think that
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: they were just trying to figure out at a post
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: war period how to create new roles for people exactly.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: And I think that that's why men were There was
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: a whole culture of men mowing lawns. And I think
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: it was frankly, get them out of the house. Yes,
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: you know, go mow the lawn, Go do something, Go
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: do something, just so you're not home like lording over
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: everybody else.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: And thanks break.
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: Maybe that's why fishing culture grew also, get out of
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: the house.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I love this. I really want you
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: to do this, becaure because I need to know. For me,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: the kitchen has always been kind of a fraught space
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: of like, I enjoyed the time with my mom, but
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: then like I guess the men in my family felt bad,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: and so they would come in and start talking to us,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, no, I don't want you to be
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: in here. If you're not gonna help, like, then get out.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: But I actually do enjoy the cooking part with my mom,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: but it's also one of my earliest memories of getting
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: really angry. So I'm like, I don't get what you're
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: expect to do this. I don't understand it. And I
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: feel like the kitchen, as you mentioned, it's been it's
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: this space where you learn so much because it's the
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: kitchen table is like a place where the bills are
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: building up, or the homework is being done, or the
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: arguments are being had or all of these things, and
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: it's just when you look back at it, you're completely right.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: It makes so much sense. People have all these stories
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: that maybe they're like, oh, I haven't thought about that
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: in a long time because I wasn't processing it then,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: but now I am, and the kitchen has become a
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: really political space. It is like one of the I've
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: tried to get to the bottom of this, Michelle, is
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: why do we still tell women to get back to
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: the kitchen or go make a sandwich today?
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: Like?
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Why is that still one of our biggest.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know we're talking right now, and there's actually
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: a hearing going on in Washington, d C. Where Nominee
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: is being questioned about, you know, getting reading the idea
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: of women in combat and the idea that women should
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: be moms and not in combat, as if you can't
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: be both, you know both things. I think it's so
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: interesting that you understood gender dynamics in your house at
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: such an early age because of what happened in the kitchen.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: What did you learn about that? What did you divine
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: from that?
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: At the time, I was very I just thought it
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: was unfair. I remember thinking, like in a very childish
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: I don't have like the understanding necessarily to define why,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: but I thought it was unfair because she would be
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: like sitting down and my little brother would ask her, like,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: can you go get me something that he could have done.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: He could have just done it, but she would get
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: up and do it, and she was like, no, it
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: doesn't bother, It's easy. She wasn't upset by it. But
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: II there was something in me that was like, I
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: just don't like this. I don't get why he can't
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: just do it. And I felt like I would have
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: gotten up and done it. I wouldn't have asked her.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: And so there's just something in me that was like,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: I thought it was unfair, I guess.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: And it's so deep because for some people it may
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: be just a natural There are people who really get
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: get great pleasure out of serving people, you know, and
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: I totally understand that I probably fall within that category.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: Cooking is an act of love, you know, presenting a
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: banquet to people as a act of love. But there
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: also is an element of keeping the peace, you know,
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: and there is an element of keeping up with the culture,
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: you know, the cultural expectations, and then there's just you know,
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: there's so much that goes into this. When I was
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: writing my first book, I came upon this book about
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: the Great Migration, but it was written through the prism
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: of marriage and the pressures around people who were trying
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: to figure out how to make it in new environments,
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: who had fled, who were refugees from the Jim Crow
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: South and brought all that trauma along with them because
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: they had escaped terrorism. I mean, let's just be honest
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: about that. They were they were running towards something better,
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: but going out into the world and having to deal
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: with all the outside pressures, particularly around race, and around
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: finances and around inequality, and not ever being able to
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: be fully who you who you have the potential to
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: be because of the strictures that keep you from doing that,
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: and the double strictures that keep you from doing that
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: as a person of color and a woman of color.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: And then coming home, and the book talked about that
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: home was often the one place. We talked about the
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: kitchen being the one place where a woman had their
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: you know, had full domain. Well, the home was the
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: one place in a heteronormative marriage where the man had
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: full domain. And so all the outside expectations, all the
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: pressures would come home and you know, Nikki Giovanni and
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: we just lost and that wonderful exchange with Nikki Giovanni
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: and James Baldwin where She's talking about fake it for me.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: Like you go out in the world and you smile
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: and you figure out how to go along and get
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: along because you have to go along, and you come
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: home and you have the benefit of letting your hair
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: down and being your full self and bringing all that
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: anger home with you. But sometimes I wish you would
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: just fake it for me, so I'm not the repository
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: of all of that, you know, anger and frustration. And
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: the kitchen was often you know, I imagine it probably
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: played out in the bedroom, and it probably played out
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: in the driveway, and it probably played out in the
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: car on the way to church or whatever, but the
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: kitchen was definitely a place where that played out. And
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: as the kids, you know, you didn't see what happened
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: in the kitchen. You maybe saw what happened in the
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: front seat of the car, but you saw the back
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: of their head, so you weren't seeing the sideways, glances,
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: you know, and all the stuff that happens. But the
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: kitchen is everything is on full display, so you're seeing,
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: you know, everything, and it winds up being a certain
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: kind of education for the family members who are in
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: the kitchen, for the kids, for the mother in law,
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: who's visiting for the neighbor, who's you know, checking everybody out,
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: you know, and and the kind of inside voice outside voice.
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: I mean, another thing that comes up in the episodes
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: over and over and over again, regardless of what kind
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: of kitchen we're talking about, is people talk about the
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: mom phone voice. Do you know what I'm talking about?
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: Your mom talking it and then you know, fussing at
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: the kids speaking in a certain octave, and then the
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: telephone rings Hello, all that just goes away, you know,
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: like suddenly, you know, you better get yourself downstairs and
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: get it together and get out the door. Hello. They
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: just can switch it up, just.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Like, Yeah, I I have so many memories with the kitchen.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: When you were talking and asking about the kitchen and
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: what it looked like, tell me about the setup of
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: the kitchen, of your mama's kitchen, and I remembered immediately,
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: like when I was young coming in. I was adopted
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: at seven, so I was somewhat older learning English. But
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: one of the things that I love to do. The
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: way that my parents' kitchen was set up was the stove,
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: uh and the oven were next to each other, but
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: like had a little nook thing in between the dining
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: room and the kitchen, so I could sit on the
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: other side of the stove to watch my mother cook
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: whatever it was cooking, and I would sit and have
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: a conversation with her, whether I was singing to her
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: about some made up song I had for the day,
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: or telling her what happened at school, or to that
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: she would she would listen, like you know, she'd do that,
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: uh huh, uh huh. But I just remembered that memory
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: so much because I was so they renovated it and
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: they took that down and that was very hurt, like
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: they did. But on top of that, that's also how
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: my mom realized one time that she forgot me because
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: I wasn't present while she was cooking, that she was
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: supposed to pick me up somewhere. But all of those stories,
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: it does feel like that kitchen is this moment of
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: core memory of my childhood. Like my childhood was good.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: There was a lot of trauma, like most people, I
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: think in general, but like there was a lot of
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: trauma in trying to figure out my identity. But one
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: of the things that I loved was feeling connected to
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: my mother in that moment, to seeing her cooking and
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: she wasn't she wasn't a bad cook, but she's cooked
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: simply for four kids, very quickly. Whatever she had. So
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: Hamburger Helper was always on the menu, Sloppy Joe's were
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: on the menu, you know, stuff like that. And I
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: had a weird relationship with that. I had to back
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: and forth with that, But it was something about that
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: the kitchen is like the heart of our home, and
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: that's that familiarity of my mother. Like no, I didn't
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: want anyone to ever touch me when I was sick
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: except for my mom. I needed her to give me
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: a hug. And that's that feel in that kitchen. Why
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: do you think that it does belong to women like that?
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: Why does it belong to the matriarch?
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, going back over centuries, this is the
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: division of labor, you know, in gendered roles have been
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: prescribed going back over centuries, you know, and there are
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: aberrations to that. There are places where women do the
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: hunting and gathering, but those are few and far between.
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: So I think that it's something that is, you know,
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: and I'm not sure that it's nature. I think that
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: it's sort of decisions that were made about who was
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: who was going to be viewed as strong and going
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: to go out and fight wars and and hunt and gather,
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: and who was going to like do the child rearing. Now,
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: the child rearing is part of that, because women produce
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: children and there's a certain point where they do have
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: to quite literally feed a new human being with their bodies,
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: and an out of that may have grown the expectation
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: that they would that they would just be, you know,
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: the person that would handle the kitchen handle the and
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: you know, if you understand what life was like before
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: there were stoves and refrigerators, you know the idea that
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: women were doing this because they were the weaker sex. Well,
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: I invite you to go out and gather water and
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: carry you know, two buckets of water across a broom
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: handle on your shoulder. That's the equivalent of like deadlifting,
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: you know. I invite you to go out and use
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: an axe to split wood and then carry all that
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: wood into a cook stove and keep things going. I
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: invite you to spend time with livestock. And so it's
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: it's not necessarily that they were the weaker sex. There
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: was an argument over time that women have been weaker
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: of mind and you know, and then maybe that was
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: an effort to keep them out of they didn't call
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: it the workforce at that time, but to keep them
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: away from life and letters. But this, this continued, and
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: then there's a certain degree of social engineering that uh,
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: you know, has happened over time and in capitalism. You know,
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: there's a there's a book by Juju the Ship here.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: I can't remember the name of it, but she writes
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: about the evolution of the kitchen and and how that
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: was you know, aimed at at women and the lives
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: that they led. And then there's cultural forces. So I
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: can remember my own kitchen, but I could describe to
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: you the Brady Bunch kitchen.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: I remember where the oven was. I remember, you know,
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: the color scheme. It looked like inside of a Burger King,
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: kind of orange and brown. I remember Imber Laura Petrie's kitchen,
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: you know, in the Dick Van Dyke Show. So there
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: were all kinds of cultural clues. I can describe with
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: great detail that fabulous kitchens that the Cosby's had, you know,
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: with the big table in the center of the kitchen.
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: I don't know if anybody in New York City has
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: a kitchen that that's that is that large, but they
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: managed to create a massive farmhouse style kitchen in a
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: brownstone in New York City that you know that we
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: all watched. Yeah, so there's there's no you know, easy
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: answer to that, but there are a lot of ingredients
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: that went into that stew. I'm kind of curious about
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: life now because cooking, and I'd love to hear more
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: from you because I'm older than both of you. Cooking
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: has become it's something that we have to do to
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: feed ourselves, but it's it's an obsession with I think millennials,
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: and in a different kind of way, you know, Instagram
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: shows us. There's a kind of afformative aspect of cooking.
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: There's a kind of communal dinners. There is a greater
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: interest in this, and I'm wondering if there's more gender
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: parody because of that.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: That's I mean again, Michelle, I wish we could just
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: there's so many things we could talk about with this,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: because I think I was thinking about we've done episodes
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: on like Betty Crocker and women kind of being alone
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: in the kitchen and having this person that wasn't real
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: but they really connected to because they felt so isolated. Yeah,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: and then that moved into like food shows, and then
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: that moved into Instagram and social media, and from there
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: it just there are so many issues to unpack because
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: I do think it has become, at least in my
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: friend group. I feel a lot of times it is
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: more equitable cook king. There's still sort of lanes people
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: seem to stay in, but there's also kind of there's
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: the whole trad wife thing, which we've talked about before,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: and there's this food prep thing that I feel I
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: don't think it's as prevalent now, but it got really
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: out of hand.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: For a while, it was still happening. It still happened,
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: like preparing your meals for the week, and that little
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: tiny container.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Of that I did, Oh I'm a I'm a fan
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: of it for.
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: The whole I prepped for Sunday for the whole week.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: It got out of hand, thought like.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: People all excel based on that, like let me help
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: you with this specific type of containent, like the capitalism
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: that came from that came from that. It became such
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: a thing and it had to be manly and or
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: if you're not eating all proteins and you're not doing.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: Oh, it's like, yeah, I mean I'm a big fan
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: of the prepping. I did that for years when I
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: was working. I would prep for the week and it
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: would just I could cook so much faster. I would
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: just spend Sunday watch something on you know, watch a
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: great movie, listen to something, and just prep for the week.
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: But I understand what you're saying that Instagram. I mean
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: it's like the butter board. Remember for a while everyone
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: was doing those butterboard Like nobody wants to spread butter
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: on a wooden board. I mean, like like dip stuff
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: into butter. I mean that's so things take off. But
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: one of the reasons I asked the gender of question
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: because you know, even though the world of the kitchen
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: has been gendered toward women, if you look at celebrity
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: chef culture, right, it's still so male. Yes, And I'm
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: noticing if you're on Instagram, a lot of the most
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: popular people on Instagram are who are cooking and doing
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: that kind of performative cooking are also men. So but
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: I wonder if that translates into people picking up the
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: kind of the responsibility of cooking at home different to
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: cook on Instagram with the right lighting and you know,
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: the right angles and everything else. Something that can feel
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: like drudgery, you know, because people you got to eat,
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: so someone's got to cook. And when that happens, is
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: there still the sort of what's for dinner culture as
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: opposed to you know, what can we cook for dinner?
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: The what's for dinner? What's for dinner is such a
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: loaded question because it's the expectation that.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: You were going to you're going to perhaps something.
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: The dinner, as opposed to let's talk about what we
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: should have for dinner, right, because what's for dinner means
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: it kind of means what are you serving me for dinner?
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: Exactly. I think we did talk about this in the
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: line of that, yes, chefs is more dominated as a
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: profession by men, but even still today women are more
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: likely to be the home cooks. And you can even
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: tell almost in the type of food being served that
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: women are more like going to have a little homage
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: to the old style or their family style versus like
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: being the professional French cuisine like you see that line up.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: Still even though because it's just like in everything we
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: talked about with brewing beer, it was that same mentality
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: it used to be women who did that. Then it
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: became profitable, so men started taking it.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: I didn't know that that women used to they were
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: the home Brewers.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they were called witches sometimes.
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: Okay, learn something new.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: You're interviewing us. This is not going.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: I can't help it.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: This is not the way it's not supposed to go.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: One of the things that I love about food in general.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: And again you spoke to me with your books as
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: well as your questions and everything, because you did hit
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: into like race identity in your book book you released
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: uh last year and it's still going strong, and I
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: was able to do it on audible not a sponsor ya,
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: but that uh, it does so well. You bring in people.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: I almost it's almost like a podcast. I was like, WHOA,
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: what's happening here? And then with the jazz transitions, I
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: was like, yes, I I wanted to ask you about this.
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: Is the first music that came back with it. I
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: was like.
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: The jazz transitions, I'm like, I see what she's doing.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: I see what she's trying to listen to. Being comfortable
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: before we get like our hearts smashed. I'm fine. But
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: the one of the things that that connection for me
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: and finding my identity is not necessarily just cultural, but
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: it's food. It's food based. I really have been triggered
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: by food memories, like to the point that I would
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: have like panic attacks. I'm like, oh no, this is
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: too real to my pre adoption era, but really like
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: taking it on and honing and all and realizing, no,
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: these are things that I know. The memories that I
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: have of my biological grandmother was that she owned the
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: snack bar or a restaurant, and I remember distinctly smells
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: from that, foods that I ate from that, and I
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: can't like, I have discovered it as an adult and
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: it has brought me into such a place that I'm
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: like where am I Like, I feel like there are
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: memories in the back of my head that I can't
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: quite grasp onto, but I feel it. And this is
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: this level of knowing that this is part of my
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: identity and it's because of food, and obviously that connection
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: is so deep. You were talking to Eric Nahm about
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: this and his culture and trying to uh get that
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: southern ga I love that was like from Atlanta. Yeah,
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: where's the Yeah, you.
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: Should find him. I need to be friends.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: But like the fact that he does have this connection
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: of like being you know, a first generation with his
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: mother who still has very very like dominance in the kitchen.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: But teaching that to him and learning that culture and
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: learning his idea of being both about being from the
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: US and then also being from current culture. It just
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: spoke so much. Why do you think these types of
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: conversations are so important to be had, especially when it
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: comes to identity.
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: Well, because they help us understand ourselves and each other
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: and our complex world. I you know, people say, oh,
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: we've got to have a conversation about race, or we
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: have to have a conversation about identity. I'd like us
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: to get to a point where we can say, we
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: get to have a conversation because you know, I just
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: learned eighty five things about you and in that short exchange,
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: you know, and if we kept going, because you know,
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: I want to ask you, like when you discovered that
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: you remembered I can't help myself, but you know when
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: you realized, oh, I have that food memory. Were you
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: in a market, you know, were you out in the
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: world someplace? I mean our food memories the kitchen. I
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: think the other reason that I think it's important for
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: us to have these conversations because it's how we find
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: each other, it's how we educate ourselves about each other,
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: it's how we do self exploration. And it's because it's interesting,
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: because people are very interesting and the kitchen is such
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: a interesting space to do that. Also because the kitchen
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: animates every single one of your senses. It's you know,
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: it's all there. And so those early kitchen memories are
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: not just about food. They're not just about nutrition, They're
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: about emotion. Food is linked to emotion, the emotion of
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: the event, the emotion behind who gave that to you,
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: the emotion attached to where you were at in your life,
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: the emotion around a memory that you just haven't had
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: enough time to go back and explore. And so that's
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: why it's it's you know, if we said, tell me
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: about your your mama's dining room, a lot of stuff
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: happens in the dining room, it would be a very
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: different conversation than tell me about what happens in your kitchen.
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: It's true.
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: And I am sitting on my hands right now because
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: I do want to ask you, like, what are you
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: going to do to go back and and excavate and
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: cultivate those memories and did your parents ever try to
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: help you explore your culture through food?
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: You know, I want to hold on to that so
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: that you have to come back. I'm gonna make you
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: come back. I'm gonna make you get interested.
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: This is this is me, you know, conversation, I will
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: interview the two of you.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, I love that. Well, I also got I
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: had the honor to talk to you on the other
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: podcast I do Saver, which is about food. And one
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: thing that we were talking about over there is that
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of people make the mistake of
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: divorcing food in the kitchen from everything it that like
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: history and identity and gender dynamics and all of that stuff.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: What do you think, through your work and through doing
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: this show, how do you think we can see all
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: of that through those conversations and how does it shape
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: us and to who we are when we become adults.
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: Well, I hope that when people hear these episodes that
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: they wonder about their own lives. And we now are
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: creating a space, and I know that people do because
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: we've created a space where people can send their own
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: audiograms or video messages to YMK at Higher Round Productions
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: Dot com and you know, we listen to them tell
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: their own stories. And so I hope that it's like
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: the book. Also that if you read the book or
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: listen to the book, if you listen to the podcast
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: or eventually watch it, because we're going to be doing
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: video episodes. Also now that you will have a greater
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: curiosity about your own space, that you might pick up
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: your phone and call your cousin. Do you remember? You
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: know this, so you might if you're lucky enough to
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: still have living parents, that you might want to talk
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: to them, that you might sort of explore. Okay, is
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: this why I keep a can of bacon grease next
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: to the stove because my mom did or do I
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: never ever, ever, ever ever want to do this because
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: I don't want to do what my mom did. I
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: don't want to actually follow that path. So I hope
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: it leads to to exploration, you know, perhaps more listening
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: of course, and more reading of you know, deeper exploration
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: of the projects, but also a little bit of self
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: self exploration. I think that's that is the highest compliment
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: I get when people say, you know, it made me
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: really think about my own space, and you know, now
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: I want to go back and explore my own kitchen.
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: And one of the things that we hear over and
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: over again on the show is I've never said this before.
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: I've never told anyone this before. We learn about things
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: that people haven't talked about before. Conan O'Brien tell us
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: this great story. It's one of the stories that really
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: sticks with me. His mother, Conan O'Brien, the comedian late
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: night host now head of Team Coco his podcast Empire
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: and Really is an Empire, grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts,
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: and his mother. They have working classroots, and his mother
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: did well in school and went off to fancy university
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: and became one of the first women at a white
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: shoe law firm in Boston, Massachusetts, and excelled there and
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: did really well, and while at the same time raising
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: like a passle of kids back home, you know, Irish
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: Catholic family, and I imagine, I'm you know, the juggle
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: for her must have been incredible, right, because the expectations,
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: you know, for her to you know, maybe I don't
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: know if she felt the expectation to be perfect, but
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of months that had to be fed.
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: While you also definitely had the expectation to be perfect
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: in a law firm where there weren't a lot of
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: other women. And he tells this great story about how
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: she brought the kids to work and they got to
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: see her office and how proud she was for them
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: to see that. But he also remembered this story about
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: how she was and he just recently lost both of
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: his parents, and so it really means a lot to
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: me that he shared the story with us that she
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: was not allowed to be in the boardroom when they
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: had meetings, lunch meetings with big clients, but she was
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: so respected that they needed her close by, so she
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: would eat at a card table outside the boardroom. And
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: Conan is telling the story and it's and it's kind
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: of funny. He's talking about, well, they're you know, lawsuit.
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: I mean that would in today's environment, you probably couldn't
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: do that. But he mentioned something that I've always thought
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: of is that he said there were few people, few
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: lawyers had such respect for her. I think her name
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: is Ruth, that they would no, I'm good, I'm going
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: to go and eat with her outside and if you
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: need me, I'll be outside with her. And I love
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: that he shared that story. I love that she shared
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: it with him because she wanted him to know that
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: the hill was pretty steep for her. And I think
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: that she was conveying to him, at least the message
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: I took from it, and I shared the story with
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: my own kids who are adults. He said, be the
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: person who gets up and goes and has has lunch
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: with her, you know, because that's the real power. The
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: people who were in the room excluding her, they think
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: they have the power. The real power is to change
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: the dynamic and be the person who gets up and says,
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm good. I'm going to go out lunch
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: with her if she's smart enough to be outside of
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: the room, because we need her. She's the one who
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: deserves to be in my She deserves my company, I
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: deserve and I'm honored to be with her. You know.
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: That's not a I don't. I don't think Conan's sharing
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: that story in late night, you know. And and so
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: I'm glad that we have an opportunity to mine those
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: kinds of stories so that we understand a little bit
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: about this person who makes us laugh, but also that
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: we just are able to send those really little intimate
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: moments out into the world to better understand our culture.
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, right now, we do this with primarily people
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: who have a certain amount of acclaim or their marquee figures.
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: But that's why I wanted to open up the inbox
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: because I much like I do with the Race Card
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: Project and I did in the book Our Hidden Conversations,
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: I want to hear from all kinds of people. I
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: know someone, for instance, his mom had a kitchen and
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: it was a stop in the Green Book, you know,
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: the Green Book that people used when they traveled in
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: the South as people of color, and they couldn't go
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: and she had a stop in the Green Book on Memphis.
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: I would love you know, I'm trying to get him
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: to record his story because I mean imagine and he
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: would help her peel potatoes and he would chop up
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: stuff with her. And a lot of famous people went
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: through Memphis and they couldn't go to restaurants or hotels,
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: and so they'd wind up eating in her kitchen. And
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: I think things like that probably happened all over the place.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: Well this because this, Yeah, so I'm gonna have to
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: tap in before you leave us, because you are a
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: masterclass in interviewing and story collecting, which is why I
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: love that title because being on a podcast, you know,
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: and doing this interviewing is a skill, is a talent
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: that is difficult to do sometimes, especially when trying to
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: get that personal story, that depth that you want to
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: see this person. So can you advise us, oh master
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: interview in his story collecting, on how to do a
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: good interview?
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: Well, I think curiosity is a superpower. Yeah, So you
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: have to be curious. It helps to be informed, It
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: helps to have an idea of an arc of the conversation,
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: but to then have a complete willingness to throw that
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: out the window. So you go where the story takes you.
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: But I think a big part of it. And I'm
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: going to be careful about how I say this because
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: I don't want to impune anybody. But you know, we
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: all listen to a lot of podcasts, we all watch
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: a lot of interviews. I think one of the things
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: that people sometimes lose track of is a good interviewer
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: gets out of the way. You know, you're I'm there
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: to make room for someone else to tell their story,
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: and so I keep the balloon up in the air,
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: but I try to recede. I try to pull back
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: so they and the spaces and and to think about.
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: You know, some of the best answers come from the
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: oddest questions. I just I don't know why this came
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: into my head, but I was interviewing Dave Brubeck, the
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: jazz musician, and I was able to do it in person.
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: And as I was talking to them, and I realized,
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: you know, as you get older, your hands tighten up,
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: you know. And I said, tell me about your hands.
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: They said, no one has ever asked me that he's
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: a pianist. You know, no one has ever. So, you know,
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: to think about that sort of simple thing and sometimes
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: those yield the best, the best answers, I mean, the
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: crazy idea, tell me about your mom's kitchen, to go
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: go where it sounds like star trek, to go where
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: no man has gone.
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: But but you know.
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: Think of the questions that no one is asking.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, thank you so much for submit. I feel
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: like you to like work advice.
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: Sorry, I had to get it while she was here. Yeah,
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: this is invaluable.
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: Well, there's one other thing I would say is stop
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: talking sometimes, you know, especially in a difficult moment, because
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: if it's difficult, your instinct is to fill void with
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: your voice, and sometimes it's hard to do, but that's
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: be the one that wishes for It's like a game
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: of chicken.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for being here. I it's
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: amazing when you were talking about you know, quote unquote
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: simple question that has so much to it. I've like
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: honestly fighting back tears that Conan O'Brien story because you
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: can relate so much to it and you can connect
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: so much to it through these stories. And we got
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: a little bit of a teaser for your next season
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: of Your Mama's Kitchen, and I'm very, very excited. But
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: is there anything that you want to tease or that
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: you're excited about that's coming up?
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: Oh? With the first three episodes are just gold. It's
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: Stephen and Ebbie Colbert and you know, in their partnership
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: and they just love food and they're so funny and
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: they're so funny together. Ina Garten, have you read her book?
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: I highly recommend it to be ready when the luck happens.
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: She had a very I mean, for someone who brings
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: so much joy to people, she had a very unhappy
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: childhood and emotionally violent and sometimes physically violent. And she
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: overcame that and she found someone who understood her, and
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: she writes with clarity and honesty, and it's a great
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: book and it's a great conversation. And she is someone
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: who just broke molds and created new paths and I
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: think people will really dig that. And we sat down
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: with John Legend in his Creation House, Life Goals. He
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: has a house that he and Chrissy don't live in,
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: but it's where they create. She creates recipes, he creates music,
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: and he too had a very difficult childhood that he's
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: only now just starting to open up about. And so
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: you understand not just John Legend as an artist. He
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: is a beautiful man inside and out. I've got to
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: know him over many years. But you understand that great,
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: big heart of his, you know, because you realize that
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: it was broken pretty early and he had to figure
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: out how to put it back together. And it's almost
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: like I can't remember the name of the art, but
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: the Chinese principle of the break a piece of and
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: then you put it back together, using gold to put
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: the pieces back together. It's almost like that represents what
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: happened to him. That is, his heart is stronger, his
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: soul is richer, his life is stronger because of the brokenness.
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: It's there's strength in that brokenness. And all of this
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: talked about, you know, through the prism of the Kitchen
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: and in every episode. I guess I should remind people
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: that everyone we talk to gives us a delicious recipe. Yes,
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: so it's going to be a great season. We also
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: talked to Big Freda and Wendell Pierce and Susan Orlean
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: and Lashana Lynch who is in Jamaican and lives in Britain,
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: and she, you know, talked about life growing up there.
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: It's good stuff. We serve up some delicious every week
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: starting January twenty eighth, So pull up the seat and
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: join us every week.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: Yes, I heard there's mac and cheese involved, and I'm
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: incredibly excited.
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: Yes, and he claims it's the best mac and cheese
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: on the planet.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: So I will be very happy to test that theory.
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: Maybe we should have a mac and cheese Sunday where we, like,
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: everybody like we can, could we recruit you to do that.
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: It's like in early February, everybody, everybody makes John Legends
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: mac and cheese on an appointed Sunday, and then we
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: all should we do.
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: That haven't you done all these recipes or or have
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: you had favorites and any of these recipes?
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: I wrote test the recipes, and I do have a
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: few favorites. Michelle Obama's red rice is a banger. Okay,
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: is a banger. It is really good hot or cold
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: that's worked its way into the rotation. Andy Garcia's pocacy
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: took a lot of time. I mean it was a
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: labor intensive, labor of love, but the results were crazy good.
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, my family is like, and then you put
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: raisins in there?
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: What what? Wait?
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: What? Yeah? But you put the raisins in and they
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: stay and they stop up all the like the wine
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: and the marinate and everything else, and they become these
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: little flavor bombs. They reconstitute and turn into almost like grapes,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: and so they you know, they're dried up. I mean
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: that's what they are, dried grapes, right, And they turned
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: back into grapes, but the filling is got out of
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: the marinate, and so when you bite them, this little
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: explosion of deliciousness. So that that was a real winner.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: Abby Wombox mom makes this pasta dish, which my family
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: really loves. There were the snow cookies that Nicole avant
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: or that her mother makes were a big hit for
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: the holidays. So yeah, the food has been the food
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: has been spot on. For the mac and cheese. My
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: son now makes the mac and cheese and our family,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: all my kids good and he has taken over the
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: mac and cheese. So he's actually going to make the
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: John Legend mac and cheese coming up. And I actually
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: liked the idea, though I think I'm gonna we may
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: need to run with that, is to like everyone do,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: because you remember Samin Nosraat did the big Lasagna where
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: everyone made her lasagna during COVID at the same time,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: and that's the first time I made lasagnah is when
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: I did that. And so her chicken soup also, she
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: did a Persian chicken soup that was super lemonye like,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: like so much that your cheeks kind and she then
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: layered it with a little bit of ghee. Hmm. Yeah.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: It's it's you know, it's winter and much of the
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: country right now, and that's a that's a really good
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: one for this time of the year.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: I'm getting very hungry.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, one of the risk of the job of
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: food journalists. Yeah, yes, well, I am so down for
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: mac and cheese.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: Let us know today, Okay, I'll let you know. We'll
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: pick a Sunday, maybe like Super Bowl Sunday or right
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: before super Bowl. But yeah, we definitely let's do that. Yeah,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: and I think John and Chrissy would probably we'll recruit
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: them also, obviously.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: Yes, we know you're so busy. I have so many
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: other questions.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: Would well, you know, maybe I'll come back one day.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: Samantha has already laid the track.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: I'm trying. I'm trying. Look, we have so many things
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: to talk about. I'm just saying.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: Because I feel like I wanted to talk about price
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: dynamics because a lot of times I think when people
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: talk about their mama's kitchen, there's always like she made
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: this cast role that was just cans and stuff. But
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: then there's also the very labor intensive things that takes
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: so long. So yes, definitely please come back. Is there
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: any where can the good listeners find you? Is there
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: anything else you want to shout out?
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: Well, you know they can. They can find us wherever
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: you your mama's kitchen, you can find wherever you listen
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: to podcast. Our Hidden Conversations is sold in bookstores across America.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: It's still it's you know, was released a year ago,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: almost a year ago this week, and people are still
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: finding it and elevating it. I always encourage people to
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: listen as well as read it because you want to
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: see it, because the pictures are beautiful, but the audio,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: many of the people are telling their own stories. So
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: when you when Samuel said it felt like a podcast,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: it was meant to feel like a podcast. I mean,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: I really wanted to create a real experience. And if
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: you've listened to this and you thought, you know, I
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: have six words I want to send, you can find
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: us at the Racecard Project dot com. You can send
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: us your six words story. I am. I write columns
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: for MSNBC, and I show up, you know, occasionally sharing
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: my thoughts on air, so you can find me lots
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: of different ways. I as what's the fake back to
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: all fields? You know?
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, well, thank you, thank you, thank you so
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: much for being here.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: I have love talking to both of you.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: Hope we do it again, yes please.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: And that brings us to the end of our interview
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: with Michelle Norris. It was so delightful, if so lovely.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: Hopefully we're going to get to do this mac and
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: cheese thing. I am so.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: In Yeah, I don't think I'll be good at it.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: I might have to put my partner onto it, because
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: he does a really good mac and cheese, except for
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: I can't trust him because he likes to deviate the
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: actual recipe and that drives me crazy, Like it's both
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: good and bad.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: I think that would be interesting to talk about though,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: because we kind of touched on that when she was
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: talking about her son making the mac and cheese and
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: like the yeah, the gender equity when it comes to
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: social media and cooking, that would be interesting. If you
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: made one and he made one.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: Mine would stick to the recipe for like absolute I
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: don't like my first time, especially making it something for
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: the first time. I follow the recipe strictly, and then
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: after that I'll see what I want to do.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: But he all over the place, and I am like,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: what do I have?
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, And that's talent though, I've been talking about that,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: the talent of being able to create from what you
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: have but actually make like intensive recipes with like oh
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: I have these beans and this kind of protein, I'm
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: gonna do this broth. Then maybe I could add this
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: that's in it because I also was thinking about the
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: fact that she had people coming on sharing family recipes.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't have everything I have either comes
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: from another recipe or comes from my mom never teaching
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: me something like even I don't know she could. She
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: doesn't know how to do that. But most of her recipes,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: as I mentioned, it was like an easy to go
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: box dinner or something that's just simple enough because she
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: was feeding so many of us. But like, yeah, we
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: don't have that.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: Right, And honestly, if we had had more time, I
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: would have loved to hear your conversation expand about because
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: you have such an interesting like southern Korea.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: Well, like I told you, Like in the interview, we
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: talk about Eric Nahm, who is from He says Atlanta.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: I have a like he says, on the outskirts of Atlanta,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: but his mom cooks all Korean cuisine to the fact
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: that she flies to Korea, gets supplies and comes back wow.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: But then he grew up in Atlanta and has his
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: own style. That's both of those things. So I really
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: love bad perspective, and I love that that's common enough
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: because we also, like Edward Lee I was talking about
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: the cooking show that's the Korean cooking show and he
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: was on there. But he we went to his restaurant
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: and I realized way later who he was. I was like, oh,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: because I was very critical at first. I was like,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: who is this dude? Combining Korean in Southern and DC.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: Who is this? And it turned out to be Edward Lee,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: who was from Kentucky. I was like, Okay, that makes
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: a lot of sense. Yeah, and I felt a certain way.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: I was like, who is this? Who's representing my life
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: in a restaurant?
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: Well, that's the thing, uh is we talked about it
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: in this episode, but all the histories and identity and
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: all that stuff. But also like I do that too,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: where I'm like, who are you making this food? I'm
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: just curious does it.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: Come from your heart? Does it come from money? But yeah,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: so those are the conversations that man, I think there's
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: so many subjects that we could come on to, and
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: we were all because essentially she's not necessarily like a
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: food journalist, like she's there for the stories and it
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: happens to be about food, Like it's it's very interesting
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: because I was talking if you get a chance listeners,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: and I think we probably should do her book as
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: a book. Like I said, it's listening to it is
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: a different, whole different scenario because she is doing interviews
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: because she didn't want to tell their story for them,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: and so she had different actors or different people come
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: in and represent their own six words story that interjects
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: and then it's beautiful how she does it with her
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: own research and work behind it, So definitely worth to listen.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: They do have in the audible or audio version the
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: pictures that come with it, so they're also gorgeous. But
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: I think I'm going to have to pick up that
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: one up soon.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: I think. So it's amazing how quickly she and the
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: people she interviews will move you to tears. I could
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: not describe.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: But there are stories we all can connect or relate
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: to in some way that I think that's why they're
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: so powerful. I would also say check out if you
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: want to learn more about her history in food journalism
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: or why she was interested in it, check out the
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: episode I did over on Saver with Lauren interviewing Michelle Norris,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: because it was great. It was a great interview, but also, yeah,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: she's done all of these things. She's got the second
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: season coming out out of Your Mama's Kitchen and it's
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: really beautiful and it's amazing, so please check it out listeners,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: and if you would like to contact us. If you
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: have any thoughts about Your Mama's Kitchen, you can contact
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: Michelle she gave you the information, but you can also
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: contact us if you would like. You can email us
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: at Hello at Stuffmenever Told You dot com or Stuff
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: Media mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. Both work. You
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: can find us on Blue Sky at mom Stuff podcast
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff When Ever Told You.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: We're also on YouTube. We have a tea public store,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: and we have a book you can get wherever you
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: get your books. Thanks as always too, our super producer Christina,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: our executive Bruce and Maya, and our contruger Joey. Thank
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: you and thanks to you for listening Stuff One Never
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: Told You Just Prediction by Heart Radio. For more podcasts
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: from my Heart Radio, you can check out your ieartradio app,
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or reever you listen to your favorite show.