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April 1, 2020 48 mins

Just days before her second restaurant was set to open, we spoke to Bay Area-based chef and restaurateur Reem Assil. We discussed her feelings on the precipice of opening, but also, about the industry at large. Her answers about the state of the restaurant industry would prove painfully ominous. What they revealed are some of the pitfalls of the industry prior to its COVID-19-related collapse and underscores some of the challenges it now faces in rebuilding. 

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, point of origin listeners. It's Steven Saderfield and before
we begin today's episode, I feel I must acknowledge the
enormity of the global crisis we now face. COVID nineteen
has claimed the lives of thousands all over the world
and sadly untold numbers more we more in the loss

(00:24):
of life and livelihood, and particularly the collapse of the
US restaurant industry. I thought that is so difficult to
imagine that I'm not yet sure I can process its magnitude.
Today's interview is with Palestinian and Syrian chef and restaurants

(00:45):
who are Realms Hill Ream just one week before her
restaurants opening, and I had a chance to talk about
her forthcoming restaurant and what now seems like a very
long time ago and a much simpler times as MS
Place was closed down just two days after opening and

(01:09):
is now closed indefinitely. As we all collectively await the
fate of restaurants all over the country and over the world,
so we decided to play this interview in its entirety

(01:29):
for a couple of reasons. The first is that Realm
is a brilliant and important voice in the North American
restaurant industry, and we wanted to allow the proper space
for her wisdom and experience to come to the fore.
And you know, related to the crisis itself, what you
will hear is a brilliant person who's unique background in

(01:53):
worldview was really ahead of the curve in so many ways.
And what you will hear was a very broken system
within the restaurant industry. So when I believe this interview
provides for for us is a bit of organizational and
UH an intersectional roadmap for how we might be able
to better organize ourselves on the other side of this. So,

(02:16):
without further ado chef and Restaurants or reem a Seal, Hello, Hey,
there you go. Well, I really appreciate you taking time.
How are you spending your days these days? Yeah? I
sort of toggle between Footville and mission, but mostly trying

(02:38):
to open this space in the mission. And I believe
I read family life Hello right, shrinking somewhere shrinking. They
understand Mama, Mama's gotta get these bills paying. You know,
we just hired a new staff. It's a group of
ten lovely people. I'm like trying had to get too

(03:03):
attached them, like these are all natural board leaders. Like
we just had a three day training with all of them,
and it's not like your average restaurant training. I think
they're not a lot of them, you know, have like
come from the traditional setting where they just like go
around and they're a body anywhere they apply, And here

(03:23):
it's like no, like we're going to talk about systems
of oppression. It's like these are what our murals are.
Expect you all to like know these things, and we
did like Arab hospitality one oh one. So it's it's
cool to kind of see people, to spark in people's
eyes and like really kind of we we did a

(03:43):
really good job sort of like waning it down to
ten solid leaders and then hopefully it'll grow. Definitely, I
want to talk about some of the stuff you just
brought up, beginning with systems of oppression. So if I
come expecting to a restaurant job and um, I'm started,

(04:03):
I'm talking about systems of oppression, how do you lead
into that conversation. Well, it's it's more subtle. I mean,
I think part of what our job is. I think,
as as people who maybe come from a more privileged
background of understanding social justice, and like, you know, speaking

(04:25):
work for myself, I'm college educated and like my awakening,
I mean, I think being a Palestinian, you're always politicized
from a very early age. So I understood systems of
oppression to some extent. And I think, you know, community
is especially once who've been marginalized sort of understand it intrinsically.
They just maybe haven't been given the resources to articulate it.

(04:47):
So you know, what we sess out is just sort
of and our interviews we talk about sort of realms
core values, and then we have internal core values too,
so we have external all sort of the way that
we want the world to be and the way that
we want that to be reflected in our business. You know,
things like centering folks of color, immigrants, women, queer folks. First,

(05:11):
you know, supporting the local ecosystem, an already vibrant ecosystem,
you know, whether it be supporting local farmers or local businesses,
or providing our space to community organizations. And then community building,
which is like the most universal one. You know, like
you can't really organize unless you build trust and community

(05:31):
and cohesion, and you know, at it's very basics, that's
REALMS mission is to to build that community. So just
sort of having a conversation with people about that, but
then we really get we get deep where like these
are our core values. We have like four five core
values that we ask people, like, tell people right off

(05:52):
the bat, this is what we're looking for, and then
just see how they talk about it and react to
it and apply it to their daily lives. And you'd
be really surprised how much people really sort of understand
some of those core values. Sure, Um, well, the the
ultimate one. We we talk about integrity, So we want

(06:14):
people who are honest, who really believe in just mutual
respect and they would act the same way when people
are watching then when people are not watching, right, Um,
that they really value sort of the basic tenets of
human rights, right the people to stand in their dignity
and treat everyone that way. Um. We talk about commitment.

(06:37):
Commitment is a big thing, I feel like we and
it's hard in this economy where it is there's so
much instability. Like we're asking people to take that leap
of faith to commit to commit to this job, to
commit to the vision of realms. It doesn't mean they
have to stay forever, but they're we're asking them to
give us a commitment and commitment to themselves and their team.

(06:59):
So that's a really big one. We ask um desire
to grow, just like we want people who really not
just like our open feedback, will want to grow, want
to be transformed to think that, especially if you're going
to spend most of your time in the workplace, it
should be a transformative space. So, you know, we talk
about transformation in our communities and how we want to

(07:21):
do that for our customers, but really, you know, you
could teach some of them, but you know, and and
and the world is tough out there. You know, sometimes
it brings out the worst in us, even those of
us who you know have the potential to be our best. UM,
So we try to like really probe and and find
and learn about people and how they are in their

(07:42):
lives more than like how they are in the workplace,
because we understand that the workplace, especially in the restaurant industry,
is just plagued with racism, classism, able is um, all
of the things, right, So like it's it's hard to
just use that as an assessment for who we've ring
into the space, right, And I have to say, you're

(08:03):
speaking with a particular depth in fluency on this subject.
And if I'm not mistaken, don't you have a background
as a community organizer. Yeah? Right, so this is this
is all like new language and as someone who grew
up in restaurants, really new ideas about what's possible. Yeah,

(08:25):
it's like it's it's so interesting. I approach sort of
building my restaurant as an entrepreneur, like an organizer, Like
I mean, I was a labor organizer. I used to
you know, underground organized like airport workers and service workers,
people who wouldn't even tell me what they were making
on an hourly wage because they're afraid of retaliation. I

(08:47):
remember like those first days finally, like after recruiting ten people,
getting them in a room together and saying, this is
the beginning, right, this is the beginning of building your power.
I take. I think a lot of this skills that
I built as an organizer sort of helped translate to
this setting where you know you're as an organizer, you're

(09:08):
a facilitator, right, Um, you are obviously you're a leader,
you're you're inspiring folks, but you're more behind the scenes
to find to find ways to draw out the collective
power that's already there, you know. Um, and I think
that where this butts up and against sort of the

(09:30):
limitations working in sort of a capitalist system where you've
gotta you know, you gotta keep moving, you gotta make money,
you gotta turn a profit as you can't you know,
it's it's hard to find the ways to find that
time to make that transformation. But we have done it.
You know, We've taken the short term hit with the
hope that the investment in people, you know, spending time

(09:52):
and paying people to come for trainings and U spend
that time for them to really sort of understand their
skill set and be self perflective as a way to
like invest long term. I think about that even with
my staff have stayed with me to three to four years, Like,
how do we make sure that we continue to show

(10:12):
people growth and to get to new to inspire people
and motivate them. Um, that work doesn't just like stop
at one training, But unfortunately, it takes time and it
takes resources. And you know, I hope, I hope that
I'm sharing a model that would resonate with other like
minded folks in the industry where we could combine forces

(10:35):
to do more of that to scale because I think,
you know, not that we're going to start a revolution
within the industry, but most of low income communities of
color are working in the industry. It's one of the
It is, I think, the biggest employer of people in
the country. So why not start somewhere where we have

(10:57):
masses of people we have that can galvanize and politicize
and transform, you know. So yeah, I think we don't
beat people over the head with any of our politics,
but we really sort of hope that the space is
politicizing in and of itself. Right, And to your point,
you know, a lot of the conversations around the increase

(11:21):
in minimum wage, and in fact the actualization of that
increase can be credited to fast food workers campaigning. So this,
this mentality is obviously ingrained in you and your background.
Have you reached a point yet as an entrepreneur and
business owner in which your values in your background as

(11:43):
an organizer have felt challenged or conflicted as an entrepreneur
in business owner. When I made the switch to become
an entrepreneur, like I understood the contradictions, I struggled with
them for a little bit. You know, as someone who
has deep resentment for capital is m as a system
and understand that it is not the way and that

(12:04):
we won't really have true democracy or true liberation in
the context of capitalism. I also understand that in order
to you know, fight the good fight and to imagine
an alternative system, we need to build the resilience and
resources in our community. So we need we need to
take care of our own. You know, I would say

(12:26):
that I am trying to be outside the box, right,
I'm a little bit on the fringes of all of
it because I don't operate my business in in the
most traditional sense. You know, if you look at all
the rules of the game. You know, we run at
labor Liant, and we build our model around the we
you know this, this restaurant is not just a restaurant space.

(12:48):
We provide a business that is the destination spot and
hits the you know, all the coolests. Like we understand
that we are those contradictors. You know that we live
in that contradiction. Like we need the people with more
disposable income to understand and spend money on us and
pay for the true cost of food. Right, we need

(13:09):
to keep our prices high so that we can pay
our workers, but then we don't want to price out
our own community. So I'm constantly grappling with how do
I have both and um, you know, because you need that,
and um, yeah, I mean the way I think about
it is that, you know, restaurants are a conduit there

(13:29):
a conduit from urban to rural areas, or a conduit
from the rich to the poor that you know, like
we're Yeah, I'm constantly having to come up around hard
decisions around what's my values? Who who do we serve
versus who we do do we not serve? Like what
do we make explicit versus implicit? Um? You know, obviously
I took a really bold stance and Fruitville putting you know,

(13:52):
Palestinian activists on my wall. Um, I just I didn't
realize it was a problem until there was a sobering
reality the um of this political context that we're in.
So there are often times where I like, I don't
I think it's a problem until you know, then I'm
met with challenges and then I have to you know,

(14:13):
I'm I Then I'm faced with a choice either hied
or being visibilized the way you have, you know, And
and in times of my life, you know, I've had
to do that and my community has had to do
that or you know, double down and and be more outspoken,
and luckily I've chose the latter. Um. You know, I
think being outspoken has been really my greatest asset and

(14:39):
my best tool to really help other people come out
of the trenches and you know, join with me. But yeah,
certainly it's not easy on a day to day basis
to run a business. I mean even things of like
where I source, you know, like we unfortunately need to
rely on the gig economy of like delivery service. As

(15:00):
an entrepreneur myself agree and underscore the need for multiple
strategies in transformation like Um, so I want to talk
to you about that controversy of having an activist that really,
I feel was a definitive moment for you. I'm interested

(15:21):
in that you did something that doesn't happen very often,
which is stand your ground and really emerge within this
our institution will say of the culinary, conventional culinary world
and media even more beloved. Dare I say, um as

(15:44):
someone who has observed your work for the last few
years and up close, So, um, how do you feel
after that situation. I just want to know how you're
feeling in light of that. Yeah, I mean I still
really emotional about it. I think that, um, I'm really

(16:06):
really lucky. I mean, if the older version of myself
talked to the younger version of myself, I would have
told her, like, built community as soon as possible, because like,
I don't think that I could have stood my I mean,
I had a lot of people who came to my support.
So when I when we first got those attacks, you know,

(16:30):
organizations that I had worked for for years, worked with
for years basically like came to my side and like
set up an SS system and helped me build my narrative,
and it really helped me build the like inner strength
to to say, no, this is who I am and
this is this is I mean, clearly I had an

(16:50):
affinity towards wanting to make a stand. I called my
food Arab food rather than Middle Eastern or Mediterranean. Like,
you know, I was already making subtle political stances from
the very beginning. I may have not realized that, um
so this was just another part of that mission. And
so to have people by my side helping me build

(17:14):
those sort of inner reserves. I think is is really
what what helped me get through that process. So I'm yeah,
I feel like that that was a group effort. I mean,
obviously it took courage for me to do that, but
it just made me see the power of like community
and and and what I've built and what we've built.

(17:34):
You know, obviously it's scary running a business and ann
the ebbs and flows, but like you, it's sort of
like a security blanket, like I just know that my
community is going to have my back. But that doesn't
I mean, it doesn't negate all of the trauma and
the experiences I've had and sort of witnessed sort of

(17:57):
on the on the periphery of myself, my community. Any
time that we are our identity as Palestinians were punished,
you know, certainly rest me a who's who who you
know as an activist in my wall. And now that
I know, you know, she lost the little battle. She's
still winning because she is resilient and continuing to do

(18:18):
the work that she's doing in Jordan's after her deportation.
But it does feel like a little loss for our community,
you know. Um, And I think about all of these
these folks have taken a stance who did it for
the greater good, and you know you were murderred or
you know, lost their jobs over it. So like the

(18:43):
community that had your back is entirely a reflection of
you and all of the love and earnestness that you
put out in the world when you were building that community,
and in just your existence has done so much for
so many people who are not even Palestine, you know,

(19:04):
but just in terms of creating that much needed space
for so many of us. Um, So I appreciate you
for that. Thank you. Yeah, I'd like to think this
this really intersects. I mean, intersectionality is a big piece
of the work that I do. So you know, this
is just a it's a it's a symbol of the

(19:26):
bigger issues. Right. Last night, Selene, who is our producer

(20:02):
for this podcast, she came to see you talk, um,
and she told me this really great quotes which I'm paraphrasing,
basically went like, if you build it, then they will
come build it with me, right, which I feel isn't
a perfect encapsulation of what you're saying right now about

(20:24):
the community. So, UM, tell me if I got that right, Like,
what your philosophy is on that. Yeah. Yeah, I think
what I was saying last night was like a lot
of people are just like build it and they will come,
and I'm like, let them build it with me, because well,
one I don't have all the answers, you know, I
think that that is a fault. I think a lot

(20:45):
of people who want to present something to a community,
like I think it's two way process, right, and it's
very lonely. Especially I'm sure you can resonate with this
as an entrepreneur. Um. It can be very lonely not
having thought partners and not having community if you don't
seek them out, and like, what better way than to

(21:06):
be a sort of a partner, and especially if you
have For me, I have a physical space to be
able to meet my community and see where they're at
and see what they want, and to be able to
sort of give and take as we say, like we
haven't an Arabic, we say give and take. And that
has really served as well because it keeps Reams from

(21:26):
being stagnant, keeps us always evolving, It keeps us always
sort of self reflecting on what we're doing well and
what we're not. And I'm always just really amazed to
buy how brilliant people's ideas are, and also saddened when
people are so knocked down that like we've lost our
ability and imagine, so what would happen if we create

(21:48):
spaces where people can kind of think outside the box.
And you know, I think that's what I've done. It reams,
you know, both internally and externally. So like, internally, I
really try to build processes that are more collective, you know.
I mean it's kind of ironic that the business is
named after me, so much of the growth of it

(22:12):
has been sort of a collective effort of my leaders,
you know, So I think, yeah, it just keeps me
honest too, keeps me on my game, That's right. I
think that is the crucial Part two is about the
accountability it provides for you as the as the business
owner to write like totally, let's talk about food for

(22:35):
a little bit. I would love to know what some
of your earliest and most formative food memories are and
then tell us about like your transition from organizing into
food into food. Yeah, I've been reflecting a lot on this.
I feel sort of robbed of like my food memories

(22:58):
from my childhood a little bit. And it's not to
say I didn't have any experiences with food, but we
were very much like sort of, Uh, I was a
latchkey kid. Both my parents were working, and my mom
was going to school and working, so she didn't really
sort of cook the traditional foods, and so my my
life sort of toggled between macaroni and cheese, instant raman

(23:23):
and then sort of family gatherings of like big you know,
plates of herm us and all the different mesa spreads
with bread. But it was never sort of the home
cooked meal um that we had, I think when I
think about sort of and I grew up in the
oldest of three um, so it was me and my

(23:45):
sisters and my parents. When my mom did have time
to make food, you know, it was always sort of
incorporating you know, our flavors sort of traditional Arab foods
in American dishes, you know, so we would like have
cooked a meatballs in spaghetti, um and like classic and

(24:06):
the red sauce. Yeah. I mean that's kind of a
classic immigrant and first generation story, right, It's like these
iterations and adaptations I kind of yeah, and like um,
the pally Kali, which is like our popular dish on
the Realms menu is sort of emerged. It really isn't

(24:26):
homage to My mother likesachan, which is like the traditional
chicken dish that Palestinians enjoy. You know. It's traditionally made
on this thin bread, but my mom used to sort
of wrap it in tortillas for us and have these
little chicken burritos. And that's always how I grew up
eating it. Never grew up eating, you know, chicken like

(24:48):
open faced on pieces of bread. And I'm like that
it's just genius and it's just you know, for me,
I think I approached my food the way that my
mom approached food about you know what, what's familiar to people,
and what resonates and what's convenient, you know what, um
not taking food too seriously and so yeah, I think

(25:10):
it wasn't until sort of my adult life, you know.
And and and we have the like uh we we
grew up. Our home away from home was southern California,
where my grandmother was the matriarch of the family and
she was the master cook. But she was very very secretive,
not secretive. She was just like, I don't need no help,

(25:31):
I don't need any helpers. I will cook for an
army and everybody out of the kitchen, you know, and
so I have these memories and sort of peeking in
on her and like, you know, just like she was
the most amazing cook, and she was just like make
these elaborate spreads, and you know, for us, like the
biggest meal of the day was in the afternoon and

(25:54):
we would you know, go swimming, and it's she was
like sort of the central nexus of the family. We
were all over the place, everywhere, from Greece to different
parts of the States to back home in Lebanon, and
you know, California would be the place that we'd all meet,
you know. And then when her health deteriorated, a lot
of those food memories disappeared because she would no longer

(26:15):
cook for us. So it's you know, I'm still sort
of delving through all of that and trying to understand.
But for the most part, I feel like I really
had to kind of search deep for the food that
was politicized from a very young age, Like politics have
always been sort of a part um of my experience

(26:36):
and just being Palestinian, like my you know, we grew
up in New England and we would like take trips
to Plymouth Rock, you know, and learn about the Pilgrims.
And at the same time, like my uncle who's living
with us, would be like visiting the jails and like
showing solidarity with Native Americans because Palestinians and Native Americans
are upgraded from the land. Like so, I understood those contradictions,

(27:00):
or at least witnessed them from a very young age.
You know. I went to Gaza at the age of twelve,
and like, you know, two years after sort of went
to the Deep South, like organized a trip to the
Deep South with my history teacher because I wanted to
learn about the real history of civil rights. I was
able to mimic those connections to Gaza. So it was
like all this cumulative stuff. But it led to like

(27:22):
a deep depression um in two thousand one, and unfortunately
I manifested in like not being able to eat. I
think a lot of our communities food and the way
that we deal with our mental health food is very
intersectional with that. And you know, I dropped over thirty
pounds within two months. I was you know, in the hospital.

(27:46):
I was sick. I didn't know what was wrong with me.
Every time I wanted to eat. I couldn't keep it down.
So I had to leave that context of this like
sort of super neoliberal, you know, private college setting, and
you know, I found California. I rediscovered I was like,
let me get as far away from Boston as I can.

(28:08):
And it was in sort of my move to California
where you know, obviously it wasn't an overnight healing, but um,
it was in sort of finding activism and food at
the same time that my healing started to happen, and
slowly but surely I was starting to learn recipes that
I could eat. I remember my memory of the first

(28:29):
farmers market I had ever been to, which is like, yeah,
like my eyes just started to open to this world,
and I think, yeah, I started to like pick up
cookbooks and learn how to cook this that I had
grown grown up on and taken for granted as an adult. Wow.
I love that your journey is such a good representation
of who you are in that it's all encompassing, like

(28:53):
with the politics and the hell it's an unusual journey,
but I think it just speaks to why what you've
created is so unusual as well. And I think about
this when I share the story with other people. There
are similar stories, like people don't talk about sort of
their relationship to food and how it's evolved, you know,

(29:14):
through its intersection with trauma, it's intersection. There's just so
many things like we talked about, you know, physical health
and mental health are very interconnected, and especially for communities
who have been displaced or you know, have experienced trauma
in different ways, like it's very connected to food. I

(29:37):
want to ask you about Palestinian food in particular, or
really I guess this is this will also lead us
into the realm of language. Palestinian food is oftentimes absorbed
under these broader names like Middle Eastern or even Mediterranean

(30:04):
or Israeli. So as a Palestinian chef who also has
chosen to use Arab with purpose and intention, I was
hoping you could just kind of help us better understand
some things that are Palestinian. And you know what, do
you feel the role of these labels are in perpetuating

(30:26):
ideas about Palestinian food? Yeah, first off, context is everything
I choose to sort of so, so obviously the Arab
world and especially the levant, you know, which is all
part of Greater Syria. There was a lot of evolving
and moving of foods, and you know, the foods that
I grew up with. I mean, I'm Palestinian Syria, and

(30:47):
I grew up more with you know, my my mom's
and my mom's family's influence of the food than sort
of my Syrian side. And there's there's obviously distinctions, Like
I remember going to Syria as an adult and being like, oh,
I never grew up with this thing, right, So, and
that that is sort of a I think part and

(31:07):
parcel to colonization and sort of the drawing up in
lines and communities get more distinct as they're separated, right. Um.
But for the most part, you know, there's a lot
of similarities of the food. So I kind of sort
of deviate away from the jockeying for ownership of food. Um. However,

(31:27):
I choose to talk about my food in different ways
depending on the political context. And right now, for Palestinians,
we're living in the political context of a people that
have you know, for almost a century now, really since
the early nine hundreds, from the sort of British colonial

(31:48):
forces and then sort of the Zionist takeover of Palestine,
have basically exhibited genocide displacement, you know, a slow dying
death where you know, life for Palestinian and who are
living under those those conditions, there's there's a basically a
sint in line between life and death, you know. And

(32:09):
as an international community, calling these foods Israeli or calling
these foods, you know, just a complete sort of omission
of a Palestinian identity further works to normalize that reality
for us. And so the act of asserting you know
that these foods are Palestinian and they have been indigenous

(32:32):
to that land way before the takeover of the hell
and is a political act, right, It's a political act
to say that we're going to resist. You know that
our existence as resistance and I don't know, speaking for
myself and the diaspora, adds to my resilience, you know,
because identity and and and feeling a sense of identity

(32:53):
is so intertwined with like our motivation to live and
and be you know, so when you lose that, it
makes it really hard to to be motivated to sort
of be in this world and and find humanity with others,
right when you have a loss of identity, and so

(33:14):
in the context of occupation and apartheid, and not even
having our basic human rights, especially in occupied Palestine, the
food becomes a way to sort of assert that, you know,
where the one of the biggest refugee populations. Some of
us have lost our language, um lost our traditions, and

(33:35):
so food becomes a way of to keep those alive.
I remember, like, at a very young age, like why
why do we talk about Palestine all the time. Like
I remember like asking my uncle that, and he was like,
you know, we may not see the liberation of our
land in you know, in our lifetime, but we need
to keep this going because I need my children to

(33:57):
know that we're Palestina. I need my grandchildren to know
that their Palestinian, you know, and so on and so forth,
and so, you know, food becomes a way to keep
those alive. I I think about this a lot because,
you know, living in California and learning some of these
recipes and talking to my family or to my mom

(34:17):
about you know, and a lot of my mom's side
of the family is from Gaza and and still live there.
They can't cook these foods. Musachan, which is the main
ingredient of musa, and the chicken and onion dish is
olive oil. It's a dish that like, you know, really
celebrates the olive harvest, which is like so integral to
Palestinian cuisine. And because of the blockade and Gaza, people

(34:43):
cannot afford olive oil. They can't afford the thing that
is very indigenous to their land in the West Bank,
where the olives basically like make up a huge part
of like rural living. On a daily basis. They're dealing
with the Israeli government and the occupying for is you know,
raising their lands and uprooting their olive trees, things that

(35:04):
take forty years to grow and mature. So you know,
I feel very privileged to be able to keep that
dish alive and its truest form when my family cannot
make that dish to its truest potential because of the
conditions there. Fish and seafood is another thing, I mean Gaza.

(35:25):
In Gaza, you know that on the coast, a lot
of their cuisine was based on seafood, but no longer
can write because the Israeli government controls the waters, and
fishermen can no longer fish and subsist off of the
very thing that there they were subsisting off for many generations.
So yeah, I think it's very political, and so I

(35:49):
choose to tell those stories. I think it's more important
to tell the stories. And like with the Israeli food craze,
there's a very intentional sort of way in which Palestinian
identity is a met it. You know, they talk about
all the influences of Arab Jewish populations that immigrated there.
They have no problem talking about that, but there's like
this very stark omission of Palestinian, even the word Palestinian

(36:14):
and the cuisine because the very sort of speaking of
Palestinian is a threat, right, So yeah, we have to
talk about that. I think that that is really important.
That context not necessarily about who owns what, but what
is the story behind it that we're trying to either
mask or normalize er m hmm, Because, for instance, there

(36:41):
is no Palestinian coalition who will be funding the world
to come visit and eat their right exactly. Yeah, we
don't have those resources. So can you can you talk
about this because I know this is another really hotly
contested issue that you were a part of. Yeah, I

(37:03):
mean I think, I mean the US, I mean, the
I was just interchangeably used the Israeli government in the
US government, because they go hand in hand. Like if
anybody thinks that the US is under the lure of Israel,
it's it's it's a very symbiotic relationship. I mean, they
need each other right to sort of maintain control over

(37:24):
that region. But in the more recent years, and this
is I think this is just something for us in
the food world to really understand. Is that food maybe
one of the last frontiers of organizing. You know, Um,
it's really a way to galvanize the hearts and minds
of people. If you think about food, it's the it's
the thing that intersects with everybody's lives. And so it

(37:47):
doesn't surprise me that, you know. So the Israeli government
has put millions and millions of dollars into what they
call their gastrol diplomacy programs, and it's a way to
sort of combat the de normalization of Israeli apartheid, so
that there's a big movement globally over the last ten

(38:08):
years that have called for boycott, divestment, and sanctions. And
it's a way to sort of economically and politically sort
of isolate Israel until sort of the government makes mixed
changes right end apartheid, and it's modeled off of South
Africa in the eighties and which was a very successful

(38:29):
movement of people pushing on the US government and all
entities that were investing in the apartheid movement and eventually
apartheid fell. Um. So one of those avenues around it
is sort of the cultural boycott, right, and so people
are starting I mean, you know, with the advent of
internet and and all the things, people are not oblivious

(38:52):
to what's happening to the Palestinian people. So as a
way to sort of counteract that and sort of strike
their image, you know that we're like this haven and
you know, there's a certain whitewashing. We even say a pinkwashing.
There's a lot of you know, all the different greenwashing,
just like let me let's just like present Israel and

(39:13):
the best light to people so they can see it's
not all that bad. Right. And so they've like basically
done these sort of tours, these culinary tours for people
to come and it's like, you know, celebrating farm to
table cuisine. And how ironic that they're doing farm to table.
We're right next door. They're like raising farmlands on a

(39:33):
daily basis and kicking people out of their homes, you know,
and basically illegally putting settlements right in the middle of
people's villages. So, you know, we wanted to point the
hypocrisy of that, in the irony of that, and you know,
really pushed on people in the culinary word, especially because
they look for influencers. You know, this is not the

(39:55):
first time I think they The other arena they've done
a really good job is in the sports arena, in
which you know, people like Michael Bennett from and this
is gonna really reveal my lack of knowledge and yes
who you know read up on it was like, I'm

(40:16):
not going to be used as a tool to normalize this,
you know, but they find culinary influence. There is you know,
really sort of known chefs who have a following to
go there and to sort of normalize, and we pushed
back against that. I think the late the biggest victory
we had. We we we held sort of a series

(40:36):
of pop ups that really was like, Okay, if you
guys are going to have these events, we're going to
have our own, um what they were calling round tables.
We called it the asymmetrical table. Because the playing field
is not really leveled. And we held a series of
those in New York and they were like, it's amazing.
People really want to understand and learn about, you know,
what are the dynamics there. But the following year, we

(40:58):
pushed on Real Hamilton's and a few other chefs in
the US to pull out of their round tables, and
we were able to get them to do it. So
I think things are changing. People don't want to be
associated with apartheid, and you know, I feel like the
tides are shifting a little bit. I mean you see

(41:19):
this in the politicals three or like even the Democratic
Party doesn't want to go to the APAC conference right
because they don't want to be seen as So you know,
I just I feel like I'm part of that movement
sort of in my culinary setting to have these hard
conversations and you know, to engage people both on a
public and a private level of what do we do

(41:43):
to really use food as a tool to talk about
these stories and to reconcile and to also ensure justice.
You know, like people are like, oh, can your food
bring peace between you know, like that sort of can
your food big priests between the Arabs and Jews, and
like there's not a problem between Arabs and Jews, right,

(42:04):
Like that's not the actual issue at hand. And my
food isn't going to be the thing that brings peace.
It's justice that's going to bring peace. But if my
food can be a way to start conversations, then that's great,
you know, but I don't. I think it's going to
take the work of a lot of people who believe
in justice. I believe in social justice to really think

(42:26):
about how do we turn the system up on his head?
And and and and the biggest thing is, you know,
supporting Palestinians in their call for liberation, their right to return,
their right to have a seat at the table and
have the same human rights as everyone else. And you
can't really do that in an exclusionary form, right, Like

(42:48):
one people can't be promised something over another people. So
until we sort of get to that, and so, you know,
we continue to assert our identity, we can we continue
to try to live is and it's in those simple
acts of cooking and keeping our food alive, whether it's
here or there, that we do that. And I just

(43:08):
feel excited to be a part of that movement. I'm connection.
I'm We're working on a delegation in the fall. Harvest
of folks are interested in that between food sovereignty activists
here in the US and Puerto Rico and food sovereignty
activists in Palestine. And I'm really excited about that because

(43:30):
I think a lot of these delegations that go to
the region, it's like it feels a little extractive, and
this delegation is more like an exchange, you know, what
can we learn from each other, Like the work that
Palestinians are doing on the ground. I mean, from the
small little pop ups to you know, the more sort
of organizing efforts to get healthy foods in the schools.

(43:53):
It's really amazing, like what people are doing with so
little resources. And I think that there's a lot to
learn sort of across UM events. Definitely. Well, yeah, yeah,
we're having a series of events. We we just had
an event with Bryant Terry here at the moad UM

(44:13):
where we talked about sort of the intersections of black
liberation struggle around food sovereignty. We want to do an
event with indigenous communities here in San Francisco. We're looking
to do pop ups in Detroit for the outline media conference.
So yeah, just really using this as a way to
sort of engage people about the intersections too, because it's

(44:33):
not all that different what's happening on the ground over
there and what's happening here and in the US. I
want to ask you a question about the sanctions, because
the people who got really piste off about that basically said, well,
why are you isolating Israel? Why are you singling out

(44:54):
Israel when so many countries, including our own, as you
pointed out, commit horrible atrocities and we don't see the
same kind of organizing. So it's not that we have
anything against Palestine, but we really don't get why you're
singling us out. So what is your response to that?

(45:16):
I just think that's a pivot. I mean, I think
the biggest response to that is that the US is
an accomplice and in this system and what it's able
to do, so we have the power to do something
about that. You know, there's like billions of dollars that
go to one of the strongest militaries in the world.
You know, if they didn't have all of that tax

(45:37):
money that we pay as consumers, they wouldn't be able
to do what they do. So that's kind of how
I talk about that, Um that we have the power
as Americans, who you know, our government as an accomplice
to all of this. I would say the same thing
about our USA two dollars, two suny dollars, who are
creating a lot of if you if you follow the money,

(45:59):
the US isn't cprently sort of the the single culprit
and all of this right, and so as Americans, we
have the power and how we allocate our tax dollars
and all of this to really affect change on sort
of a massive level. But yeah, I mean without getting
into the geopolitics, that's the simplest way, but I could

(46:21):
connect all of these uh really horrible governments and and
how it's all actually connected to that. So that's another podcast,
that's a that's another that's another conversation. But yeah, it's
a bliss form obviously we're accomplices and sort of the
taxpayer dollars that we pay to this government and this

(46:42):
military and being able to do what it's doing. Ring
you are the best. I love talking to you. I
really appreciate everything you're doing. Such a great time chatting
with you today. Yeah, thank you so much. Thanks for me.

(47:16):
We hope you enjoyed that talk with rem M. Thank
you so much for sharing your time and wisdom with us.
If you all were moved by this discussion as I was,
and you would like to support Realm in her work,
you can donate to her go fund me entitled Reams
Fruit Veil Worker Relief Fund, which you can find linked

(47:37):
in the show notes for this episode, which is on
our website wet Stone Magazine dot com Backslash point of Origin.
Thanks again, Reim, and we will be back next week
with more from Point of Origin. Special thanks to my
business partner who makes all things possible at Whetstone, are
co founder Melissa she Thanks mel. Thank you to Selene Glazier,

(48:01):
who is our lead producer. To Cat Hong our editor,
to Havin Obasa Lassa and Quentin lebou our production interns.
To our friends at iHeart Radio for helping us bring
you this podcast. To Gabrielle Collins are supervising producer, engineer J. J. Pauseway,
and executive producer Christopher Hasiotis. I'm your host the origin

(48:24):
Forager Steven Saderfield, and we will be back here next
week with more from Whetstone Magazine's Point of Origin podcast,
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