SMNTY Classics: Michele Norris

Award-winning journalist, story collector and teller Michele Norris joins us for a wide-ranging discussion on women, race and identity - and how we often learn about it and see it play out in the kitchen. We chat about the podcast Your Mama's Kitchen, The Race Card Project and the power of curiosity in this classic episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff
I never told you Production by Heart Radio, and today
we are bringing back a classic that's relatively new. But
we talked about it in our recent end of the

(00:25):
year roundup of our favorite episodes, and it is our
interview with Michelle Norris. I just loved it. I thought
the conversation was so fantastic. I am kind of all
struck by her. I grew up listening to her with
my mom in the kitchen, So for her to have

(00:48):
a podcast called Your Mama's Kitchen, it just feels very Yeah,
it feels really perfect me. And it's so moving, Like
every episode is so moving. And she's done so much.
She's been NPR, she did the Race Card project, and
so we just have so much to talk about. As
mentioned in that end of the year wrap up, we

(01:10):
did discuss the mac and cheese and we did do it.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Pictures of it mine, I I froze.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Some of mine and I've looked it up. It should
still be good. What a year, Yeah, because it was
a Super Bowl, we were getting the big game, don't
sue me. Yes, I looked it up and it said
it probably won't taste good, but it's not going to
actually do any damage.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, as we've watched more and more like Zombie or
ind of World movies, I often think about like, but
we're gonna regret it, like things that we wish we
had even if it had been that old. I have
had those thoughts lately in that just popped in my
head without macaroni cheese, even though I'm like, you don't
eat it now, but at the same time, eat it
now because you might it might be dead, And you.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Know, I have kind of the opposite issue of I
might start the zombie back ups. It's like, this is fine.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Fun's the carrier all.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
I'm sure Michelle Norris will be like, you know a
lot about food, but no, this was a lovely episode
and please enjoy it. Hey, this is Anny and Samantha.
We're welcome to stuff I've never told you, protection by
hurried you, and today we have an interview for you

(02:53):
that we were so excited to share. As you know,
we often nerd out to perhaps get nervous fangirl over
amazing women who have done amazing things, and this was
one of those instances because we were fortunate enough to

(03:13):
get to interview Michelle Norris, and I'm still like, we're
recording this separately because she's really busy and was covering
a hearing in Washington, d C. In the middle like
she was like, I gotta go to get to this hearing,

(03:33):
right And she took the time to talk with us,
and it was amazing And it was an amazing conversation. We
have so much more we wanted to talk about, didn't
have the time. But hopefully, Samantha, you really you really
put down the seeds.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
I was really trying real hard. I'm like, I want,
I need this conversation to keep going. So I'm going
to put a teaser out bait her hopefully and how
she'll want to come back on. But you also did
a good job with the mac and cheese, Like a
wa need to follow up with that anyway, yeahs obviously.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Yes, you're gonna have to listen to learn about the
maca cheeese. But Michelle Norris, if you don't know who
she is, she has done amazing work. She was a
correspondent for ABC News in the nineties and early two thousands.
She got a Peabody for her coverage of nine to eleven.

(04:24):
She was the first black woman to host NPR of
All Things Considered, and she's done so much more than that.
She's got the Race Card Project, which you can learn
more about at the Racecardproject dot com. She's got a
book that came out called Our Hidden Conversations, What Americans

(04:47):
Really Think about Race and Identity. She's got a memoir
called The Grace of Silence. She has done so much.
Really check her out and she's really really she's just
someone who's so curious. And even in this interview, we
kept getting kind of caught in her interviewing us. And

(05:13):
I grew up my mom loves All Things Considered, and
I kind of talk about it in this episode, but
we would listen to it in the kitchen while we
were cooking, and my mom when I was lucky enough
to interview Michelle Norris on other podcasts, I do Saver

(05:35):
and at the end, she did the thing she does,
which is ask you a question. And I was talking
about my mom in my mom's kitchen because this question
just brings out so much in you. And my mom
listened to that episode and was so moved by it
and so like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that

(06:00):
this person I was listening to in the kitchen is
talking about my experience in the kitchen. It was really sweet.
It was a very sweet thing. So I'm very moved
by that. And we had a million things we wanted
to talk about we didn't get to. I would say

(06:20):
one of the things we didn't get to is that
you can you can find her her book and read
more about it. But her grandmother was someone who was
one of the performers who went around and portrayed Aunt Jemima,

(06:41):
who cooked and portrayed Aunt Jemima. It's really fascinating. But yeah,
I mean, Samantha, I'm sure you could speak more to it,
but it was difficult to limit our questions.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
Or there's so much she's doing so much. I think
that's the bigger portion is like the amount of content
she has is overwhelming, especially in the last year, like
just in the last year alone, and we were trying
to kind of kind of just keep it in that
realm because she also is a fabulous storyteller, as she
will say it, and a story collector, and I don't

(07:19):
think there's any other way to describe her because like
just being a journalist, which is a big feat in
it self like all of that, it's not enough to
describe her, like it's not who she is what she does.
So it was a phenomenal conversation and she does so
well in giving intense questions but in the simplistic way

(07:40):
that opens up so many doors. And it was beautiful. Yeah,
and we definitely were like, no, I'm not telling you this.
You have to come back, because she was trying to interview,
plit the tables on us. At one boy, she said,
I'm sitting on my hands trying not to ask you
more questions, follow up questions. I was like, no, ma'am,
we're not doing this.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
And I think that's the beauty of when a podcast
is at what I personally think is at its best,
is that curiosity that like, I want to know more,
let me listen, tell the story, let me collect the story,
let me tell the story, like all of those things.

(08:19):
So with all of that, let us get in to
our interview with Michelle Norris. So today we are so
thrilled and excited to be joined by Michelle Norris. I'm
honestly like, I'm so excited to talk with you. Can

(08:41):
you introduce yourself to our audience?

Speaker 3 (08:43):
Hi, Hello. First, Hello Sam and Annie. So good to be.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
With you, So good to be We're so excited.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
I am. My name is Michelle Norris. I am a
storyteller and a story collector. I'm a storyteller in that
I am a longtime journalist. I am a senior contributing
editor at MSNBC. Prior to that, I was a columnist
at The Washington Post. I've worked. I worked for ten
years as a host of a little show on NPR

(09:14):
called All Things Considered, and before that worked at ABC
News and the Chicago La Times and The Washington Post
earlier in my career. So longtime storyteller. For the last
fifteen years, I've been a story collector. I run something
called the Race Car Project, where I collect stories from
people about race and identity that begin with just six words.

(09:35):
So they start with a little microburst and they often
grow into something bigger. And I now host a podcast
called Your Mama's Kitchen, where I collect stories from fairly
famous people who tell me about how the kitchens that
they grew up in shaped the people that they became.

(09:55):
And the theory of the case there is that the
kitchens are incubators. As Conan O'Brien said, it's like the
killing where the bricks are made. You learn about justice
and generosity and grace and grievance and all kinds of
things in the kitchen. A lot more goes on in
the kitchen beyond nutrition.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
Your podcasts and just the way you described your work
and who you are the story collector, that's exactly the
perfect description of what you do. It's not just a conversation,
it's not just a podcast, it's not just a book.
It seems that your work in its entirety, even though
the basis and your education and your background is journalism,

(10:34):
it is story collecting. It is storytelling, and you do
a beautiful job and relaying different people's different backgrounds stories
in such a way that you feel like you know
these people, which really like tugs. I think I was
gushing right before. I know I was gushing right before
we got onto record about your ability to talk to

(10:54):
people in such a way and ask the questions that
are seemingly so simple, like you literally said, give me
six words about race, and you gave out postcards, and I,
by the way, that format is so Roman romantic to me,
it just got me. I was like, yes, and you're
talking about how you put them in bibles. Don't think
I didn't know what you were doing. I love that
you did that, but.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
We should explain that.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
We should.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
So I developed the race Card Project while I was
on a thirty five city book tour. And I developed
the race car Project in part because I wrote a
book about my family's very complex racial legacy, called The
Grace of Silence, and I knew I would be going
out in the world talking to people about race and
I thought no one wanted to have that conversation. So
the race Card Project was created to create an entry
point with postcards. Just give me a postcard with your

(11:45):
six words on it. And I had to figure out
how to distribute the postcards. And so when I was
traveling across the country, I was leaving them in the
back of airline, you know, little little marsupio pouch. I
was leaving them in the airline pouch. I was leaving them,
and restaurants, I was leaving them behind mind on tables
and in hotels where the Bible comes in the nightstand.

(12:08):
You know, there's often a little Bible in the nightstand,
And so I put postcards in the Bible so I
figured if somebody was like, you know, meaning a good word,
that they were trying to find the palm psalmer proverb. Yeah, yeah,
I would fall a post card.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
I mean to be honest in my mind if I
had found a postcard in the Bible, which I don't
necessarily looked at them, but every now and then you're like,
there it is. You're like, what did the Mormons want
from me? Like what are these questions that the Mormons
are asking me? But no, it was such a fascinating
and amazing beginning. And like I said, I love like postcards.
Those are so romantic, and I love that in general.

(12:45):
But you have an amazing way of transforming people's stories
into this beautiful, beautiful narrative where you just feel that
you feel where there's these where they people are coming
from and the hurt, the beauty of finding themselves. Like,
this's such an amazing thing. And you have taken that

(13:06):
all the way from again postcards. Of course, you've been
a journalist, You've done this. Now you're here at podcasting
and you do the same thing. You do the same
thing with that question, tell me about your mama's kitchen.
So can you talk to us a little bit about
this podcast and what it's about and how you got here.

Speaker 3 (13:24):
Well, isn't it interesting? That's that's I was reminded when
I was in San Antonio recently that even that question
is six words, tell me about your mama's kitchen. I
never put that put the two together. But the idea
for the podcast grew out of my work in public radio.
And you two live behind the microphone, so you understand

(13:44):
that you want people to talk a little bit before
you are off to the racist and you start recording
your show, and it's something called a mic check. And
at NPR, the standard question for the mic check was
what did you have for breakfast? Samantha Wood, you have breakfast.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
I haven't had breakfast coffee.

Speaker 3 (14:03):
Okay, that's see, that's the issue. Ms Reese, what did
you have for breakfast coffee? Okay? So no one talks
en up, right. You never have the person who says, oh, girl,
I had French toast and it was dredged in eggs
that were harvested down the road, and it was dusted

(14:25):
with cinnamon sugar, and I had it along with some
beautifully scrambled eggs and some country fried bacon and I
had a glass of no one says that, they say coffee,
they say nothing, they say toast, they say oat mill.
And it's never enough time for people to talk. And
so I started asking odd ball questions. Do you use

(14:47):
paper or plastic when you go to the grocery store?
What did you do for fun on a Saturday night?
Tell me about your first summer job. What is your
favorite pair of shoes? And why all of them were?
You know, you'd learn something about someone and you would
get them talking a lot more. But the one that
was the gold the golden question was tell me about

(15:10):
your mama's kitchen. Because people would go to a different
place in their head and they would start talking. And
even if it wasn't a good experience, you know, they
just it just rendered the pot. It just got them looselimmed,
and it made for different conversation once we got into

(15:32):
whatever we were talking about. I mean, even if we
were talking about, you know, military expenditures, it was it
was just a deeper, richer, better conversation because we loosened
the guest up. And I always thought that that would
be a great idea for a podcast, and then I
wound up connecting with the good people at Higher Ground Media,
which is the production company that is owned by Barack

(15:54):
and Michelle Obama, and the light bulbs went off and
we said, let's create a really wonderful podcast around this.
And the theory of the case was that we become
who we are in the kitchen. And it's interesting how
we asked this question to all these different guests, same question,
a bunch of different guests, and it goes in completely

(16:15):
different directions. You know, there's no there are a few redundancies,
but even so there's difference even if the experience is similar.
And so I know, it's an interesting experience for the listener.
And it sure is a heck of a lot of
fun from me to get to know people in a
different way because often these are famous people, they've done

(16:35):
lots of interviews. But we learned things that no one
else has heard before because we're entering through a different door.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Right, I mean listening to Michelle Obama talking about how
much she didn't like eggs.

Speaker 4 (16:48):
She like anything, Yes, I was like I would have
not imagined.

Speaker 3 (16:56):
And you know, and missus Robinson, who's recently gone to glory,
we both lost our moms right around this in the
same week, actually right around the same time. Was a
tough cookie. I mean, she was a very you know,
disciplined woman, but she indulged a little. Michelle Obama said, baby,
if you want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, that's
what we're going to give you. I Mean, the piece

(17:16):
of that episode that I really appreciated was when she
talked about her cousin who came who went off and
came back with all these radical ideas about what a
woman could and should do. And you also learn about
those sort of smaller characters in someone's life. She probably
wound up having a really big influence on Michelle Obama

(17:37):
and who she became and how she saw the world.
And you know, because Chicago is basically like being in
the South. If you're on the South side of Chicago,
it's you know, black people who all came from the South,
brought Southern values, Southern ideas with them about all kinds
of things, religion, gender, race, and then when people started

(17:58):
to break out of those cocoons and explore bigger worlds
and then bring those ideas back, they were not often
met with an open armed embrace. What'd you talk about?
You know, trying to shake up the world order, you know,
and and that was she had never talked about that before,
you know, And so it was really interesting and I

(18:19):
spent you know, a lot of time with her. I've
interviewed her over years. I've read her books, I've traveled
with her on book tour, I've read a bunch of
her interviews. And that was like new material that helped
us understand her origin story.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
I love that. Yeah, and I love that beginning you
talked about feminism in the kitchen and you actually brought
that up into it, and I was like, here we go,
here we go, and talking about the growth of the
matriarch and what feminism was then was just the mere
fact that, yes, the household was run by women and
there was no plan about But then you had the
cousin coming in talk about a different narrative of like, no,

(18:52):
I'm not coming here to serve you, this is not
this is not happening. It was such an amazing conversation.

Speaker 3 (18:57):
But all you can to understand that in a black
household in the nineteen sixties, for a young women to
come in and say I'm not here to serve you, thunderclass.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
You know that was a silent moment.

Speaker 4 (19:10):
Everybody is what's going to happen here, you know, But
that that that theme comes up over and over and
over again because.

Speaker 3 (19:21):
For some of us of a certain age, feminism came
along and changed the world underneath our mother's feet, I mean,
the world shifted. They had made choices or choices were
foisted upon them, and then suddenly things were different or
there was the possibility of things being different. But there's

(19:42):
a group of women that were sort of caught, you know,
in the middle of seeing a possibility of change but
not being able to execute on that because of where
they were stuck, you know, in that timeline. But at
the same time, we've also learned that for some women,

(20:03):
the idea of feminism was interesting because the kitchen was
their domain and it was the one place where they
could be fully in control, right and in other spaces
they couldn't, But the kitchen was one place where they
could be in control. And then for some women, and
I'm finding particularly for women of color, was a case

(20:24):
where the idea of feminism not even you know, within
the kitchen or outside of it, but the idea of
feminism was interesting because in some spaces, particularly educated when
we were fighting to have a home and family, to
have a home, family and work, to work outside the home,
and for a lot of women of color or women
women who were of working class or lower it's like, well,

(20:48):
we've been doing that all along, right, the struggle is real,
but so is the juggle, right, you know, we have
we have already been doing this exact and to be
able to explore that through a child's eyes from someone
who is now an adult has been really really interesting.
I mean, Terry Jones. I don't know if you listen
to that episode, but that was another example. She went
to college and it blew her mind and she just thought,

(21:10):
I am never going to be that person. I love
my mom, but I am never going to be that person.
I don't want to cook. And now she's a cook
and fool she makes cakes on you know, all the time.
But there was a she had to figure out, how
do I do this without it being subservient? Right, how
do I do this on my own terms? And realizing
that her mother had made a beautiful home for the family,

(21:31):
but also realizing that wondering what kind of sacrifices that
she made right right in order to create that space
and did she had to subjugate her own ambitions right
or sort of pretzel twist herself to fit into a mold.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
I mean, you definitely mentioned about having it all in
that false narrative in itself and how it can feel
overwhelming in that whole level, like you do want to
be the perfect cook and have the perfect home. And
the narrative was for the longest time that if you're
not doing these things, you're not fulfilling your role as
a true woman, as a good woman, uh, not having

(22:08):
that perfect household as well as juggling the perfect job,
and like rising up in that industry to make sure
that you are showing that a woman can do this.
Like all of these narratives.

Speaker 3 (22:19):
I have two thoughts on that. I am fascinated by
old magazines, old emity magazines, old calls magazines old and
the idea of prof Who were these people who were
who were like pushing the idea of perfection on women,
Like you couldn't just serve jello. It had to come

(22:39):
in a mold and it had to be topped, It
had to be ambrosia, It had to have like stuff
on top of it. You couldn't just serve lemonade. It
had to have like little grown wedges of lemons with
Maraschino cherries in it. I mean, who were these people
who were forcing you know, this idea of womanhood on

(23:06):
I would love, you know, not like I have all
the time in the world, but part of me wants
to go back and go inside those editorial pages. You know,
you look at the editorial page like who was this?
How did they come up with these ideas? Did they
live lives of perfections themselves? Or were were they doing
this to women? They were going home and you know

(23:28):
and eating boiled eggs for dinner because they you know,
if you were doing this and you were a woman,
you were working yourself and raising a family. Or was
there secretly a cabal of men, you know, who were
coming up with these ideas and forcing it on women?
And then even into the nineteen seventies, I mean Michellebaum
and I talked about this in her episode that Angelie
ad that add about you can bring home the bacon, Yeah,

(23:51):
fry it up in the pan and never let them
forget you're a man. And when I was an NPR,
I actually thought about doing this, and I because we
can so all things, and I actually thought about doing
it and I just never have and maybe after this conversation,
I should actually go ahead and do it, because I
actually wanted to find the person and talk to them
who came up with that ad, you know, I wanted

(24:13):
to actually talk to them. And it was at about perfume.
It wasn't even about food, you know, And it's and
she's got a trench coat on. You should go back
and look at the you can find it.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
On you I know you're talking about it. She has
held this vague memory.

Speaker 3 (24:29):
Of that, yes, and she's you know, and that she
takes it off and she's got like that Keana dress
on and you know, and then the idea is that
she's frying at bacon, and I guess the implication is
that the dress is going to come off and she's
going to go, you know, make somebody happy.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
But she can do all that and still make bacon.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
And still be perfect and smell good because she's wearing
an Julie.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
Well, she don't smell at macon. Yeah. We actually had
a conversation because we had this similar with my partner's
mother talking about how like southern and magazines really messed
her up and saying that she had to make the
perfect Christmas or she was failing as a mother and
a wife. Like she held that for the longest time.

(25:09):
And I'm like, what is this culture that has done this?
And you are right as men and capitalism that's what
it like simple terms.

Speaker 3 (25:17):
Yeah, I mean I have I have theories about this.
I think that you know, I think that they were
just trying to figure out at a post war period
how to create new roles for people, you know, And
I think that that's why men were There was a
whole culture of men mowing.

Speaker 4 (25:29):
Lawns, and I think it was frankly to get them
out of the house. Yes, you know, go mow the lawn,
Go do something.

Speaker 3 (25:34):
Go do something, just so you're not home like lording
over everybody else and think of break. Maybe that's why
fishing culture grew also, get out of the house.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
Oh my god, I love this. I really want you
to do this, becaure because I need to know. For me,
the kitchen has always been kind of a fraught space

(26:05):
of like, I enjoyed the time with my mom, but
then like I guess the men and my family's felt
bad and so they would come in and start talking
to us, and I'm like, no, I don't want you
to be in here. If you're not gonna help, like,
then get out. But I actually do enjoy the cooking
part with my mom. But it's also one of my

(26:27):
earliest memories of getting really angry is I'm like, I
don't get what you're expected to do this. I don't
understand it. And I feel like the kitchen, as you
mentioned it's been, it's the space where you learn so
much because it's the kitchen table is like a place
where the bills are building up, or the homework is
being done, or the arguments are being had or all
of these things, and it's just when you look back

(26:51):
at it, you're completely right. It makes so much sense.
People have all these stories that maybe they're like, oh,
I haven't thought about that in a long time because
I wasn't processing it then, but now I am. And
the kitchen has become a really political space. It is
like one of the I've tried to get to the
bottom of this, Michelle, is why do we still tell

(27:13):
women to get back to the kitchen or go make
a sandwich today? Like, why is that still one of
our biggest.

Speaker 3 (27:20):
Yeah, you know we're talking right now, and there's actually
a hearing going on in Washington, d C. Where Nominee
is being questioned about, you know, denigating the idea of
women in combat and the idea that women should be
moms and not in combat, as if you can't be both,
you know, both things. I think it's so interesting that
you understood gender dynamics in your house at such an

(27:45):
early age because of what happened in the kitchen. What
did you learn about that? What did you divine from that?

Speaker 1 (27:57):
At the time, I was very I just thought it
was unfair. I remember thinking, like in a very childish
I don't have like the understanding necessarily to define why.
But I thought it was unfair because she would be
like sitting down and my little brother would ask her, like,
can you go get me something that he could have done.

(28:18):
He could have just done it, but she would get
up and do it, and she was like, no, it
doesn't bother, it's easy. She wasn't upset by it, but
I there was something in me that was like, I
just don't like this. I don't get why he can't
just do it. And I felt like I would have
gotten up and done it. I wouldn't have asked her,
And so there's just something in me that was, like,
I thought it was unfair.

Speaker 3 (28:38):
I guess is this And it's so deep because for
some people it may be just a natural There are
people who really get get great pleasure out of serving people,
you know, and I totally understand that I probably fall
within that category, cooking as an act of love, you know,

(28:59):
presenting aqut to people as a act of love. But
there also is an element of keeping the peace, you know,
and there is an element of keeping up with the culture,
you know, the cultural expectations, and then there's just you know,
there's so much that goes into this. When I was
writing my first book, I came upon this book about

(29:21):
the Great Migration, but it was written through the prism
of marriage and the pressures around people who were trying
to figure out how to make it in new environments,
who had fled, who were refugees from the Jim crowsout
and brought all that trauma along with them because they

(29:42):
had escaped terrorism. I mean, let's just be honest about that.
They were running towards something better, but going out into
the world and having to deal with all the outside
pressures particularly around race and around finances, and around inequality,
and not ever being able to be fully who you

(30:03):
have the potential to be because of the strictures that
keep you from doing that, and the double stricts that
keep you from doing that as a person of color
and a woman of color. And then coming home, and
the book talked about that home was often the one place.
We talked about the kitchen being the one place where
a woman had there, you know, had filled domain. Well,
the home was the one place in a heteronormative marriage

(30:27):
where the man had filled domain. And so all the
outside expectations, all the pressures would come home and you know,
Nikki Giovanni, we just lost. And that wonderful exchange with
Nikki Giovanni and James Baldwin where she's talking about fake
it for me, Like you go out in the world
and you smile, and you figure out how to go

(30:48):
along and get along because you have to go along,
and you come home and you you have the benefit
of letting your hair down and being your full self
and bringing all that anger home with you. But sometimes
I wish you would just fake it for me. So
I'm not the repository of all of that you know,
anger and frustration, and the kitchen was often you know,
I imagine it probably played out in the bedroom, and

(31:10):
it probably played out in the driveway, and it probably
played out in the car on the way to church
or whatever, but the kitchen was definitely a place where
that played out. And as the kids, you know, you
didn't see what happened in the kitchen. You maybe saw
what happened in the front seat of the car, but
you saw the back of their heads, so you weren't
seeing the sideways glances, you know, and all the stuff
that happens. But the kitchen is everything is on full display,

(31:32):
so you're seeing, you know, everything, and it winds up
being a certain kind of education for the family members
who are in the kitchen, for the kids, for the
mother in law who's visiting, for the neighbor who's you know,
checking everybody out, you know, and the kind of inside voice,

(31:55):
outside voice. I mean, another thing that comes up in
the episodes over and over and over again, regardless of
what kind of kitchen we're talking about, is people talk
about the moms phone voice. Do you know what I'm
talking about?

Speaker 4 (32:08):
Your mom was talking and then you know, fussing at
the kids speaking in a certain octave, and then the
telephone rings Hello. That just goes away, you know, like suddenly,
you know you better get yourself downstairs and get it
together and get out the door.

Speaker 3 (32:26):
But Hello, switch it.

Speaker 2 (32:29):
Up, just like yeah, yeah, I I have so many
memories with the kitchen. When you were talking and asking
about the kitchen and what it looked like, tell me
about the setup of the kitchen, of your mom's kitchen,
and I remembered immediately, like when I was young coming in.
I was adopted at seven, so I was somewhat older

(32:51):
learning English. But one of the things that I love
to do. The way that my parents' kitchen was set
up was the stove and the oven or next to
each other, but it like had a little nook thing
in between the dining room and the kitchen, so I
could sit on the other side of the stove to
watch my mother cook whatever it was cooking, and I
would sit and have a conversation with her, whether I

(33:12):
was singing to her about some made up song I
had for the day, or telling her what happened at
school or to that she would she would listen, like
you know, she did, uh huh uh huh, but I
just remembered that memory so much because I was so
they renovated it and they took that down and that
was very hurt, like they did.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
But on top of that, that's also how my mom
realized one time that she forgot me because I wasn't
present while she was cooking, that she was supposed to
pick me up somewhere. But all of those stories, it
does feel like that kitchen is this moment of core
memory of my childhood. Like my childhood was good. There

(33:54):
was a lot of trauma like most people, I think
in general, but like there was a lot of trauma
in trying to figure out my identity. But one of
the things that I loved was feeling connected to my
mother in that moment to seeing her cooking and she
wasn't she wasn't a bad cook, but she's cooked simply
for four kids, very quickly. Whatever she had, so Hamburger

(34:14):
Helper was always on the menu, Sloppy Joe's were on
the menu, you know, stuff like that. I had a
weird relationship with that. I had to back and forth
with that, but it was something about that the kitchen
is like the heart of our home, and that's that
familiarity of my mother, Like, no, I didn't want anyone

(34:34):
to ever touch me when I was sick except for
my mom. I needed her to give me a hug.
And that's that feel in that kitchen. Why do you
think that it does belong to women like that? Why
does it belong to the matriarch?

Speaker 3 (34:47):
Well, you know, going back over centuries, this is the
division of labor, you know, And gendered roles have been
prescribed going back over centuries, you know, And there are

(35:09):
aberrations to that. There are places where women do the
hunting and gathering, but those are few and far between.
So I think that it's something that is, you know,
and I'm not sure that it's nature. I think that
it's sort of decisions that were made about who was
who was going to be viewed as strong and going

(35:29):
to go out and fight wars and and hunt and gather,
and who is going to like do the child rearing. Now,
the child rearing is part of that, because women produce
children and there's a certain point where they do have
to quite literally feed a new human being with their bodies,
and an out of that may have grown the expectation
that they would that they would just be you know,

(35:53):
the person that would handle the kitchen handle the and
and you know, if you understand what life was like
before there were stoves and refrigerators, you know, the idea
that women were doing this because they were the weaker sex. Well,
I invite you to go out and gather water and
carry you know, two buckets of water across broom handle
on your shoulder. That's the equivalent of like deadlifting. You know,

(36:17):
I invite you to go out and use an axe
to split wood and then carry all that wood into
a cook stove and keep things going. I invite you
to spend time with livestock, and so it's it's not
necessarily that they were the weaker sex. There was an
argument over time that women have been weaker of mind

(36:39):
and you know, and then maybe that was an effort
to keep them out of they didn't call it the
workforce at that time, but to keep them away from
life and letters. But this, this continued, and then there's
a certain degree of social engineering that uh, you know,
has happened over time and in capitalism. You know, there's
a there's a book by Juju the Shapiro. I can't

(37:01):
remember the name of it, but she writes about the
evolution of the kitchen and and how that was you know,
aimed at women and the lives that they led. And
then there's cultural forces. So I can remember my own kitchen,
but I could describe to you the Breedy Bunch kitchen.

(37:23):
I remember where the oven was. I remember, you know,
the color scheme. It looked like inside of a burger
king kind of orange and brown. I remember Laura Petree's kitchen,
you know, in the Dick Van Dyke Show. So there
were all kinds of cultural clues. I can describe with
great detail that fabulous kitchens that the Cospy's had, you know,
with the big table in the center of the kitchen.

(37:45):
I don't know if anybody in New York City has
a kitchen that that's lot, that is that large, But
they managed to create a massive farm house style kitchen
in a brownstone in New York City that you know
that we all want. Yeah, so there's there's no you know,
easy answer to that, but there are a lot of
ingredients that went into that stew. I'm kind of curious

(38:09):
about life now because cooking, and I'd love to hear
more from you because I'm older than both of you,
cooking has become it's something that we have to do
to feed ourselves, but it's it's an obsession with I
think millennials, and in a different kind of way, you know,

(38:29):
Instagram shows us that there's a kind of afformative aspect
of cooking. There's a kind of communal dinners, there's there's
there is a greater interest in this, and I'm wondering
if there's more gender parity because of that.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
That's I mean, again, Michelle, I wish we could just
there's so many things we could talk about with this,
because I think I was thinking about We've done episodes
on like Betty Crocker and women kind of being alone
in the kitchen and having this person that wasn't real
but they really connected to because they felt so isolated,

(39:07):
and then that moved into like food shows, and then
that moved into Instagram and social media and from there,
it just there are so many issues to unpack because
I do think it has become at least in my
friend group, I feel a lot of times it is

(39:27):
more equitable with the cooking. There's still sort of lanes
people seem to stay in, but there's also kind of
there's the whole trad wife thing, which we've talked about before.
And there's this food prep thing that I feel I
don't think it's as prevalent now, but it got really

(39:48):
out of hand for a while where it.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
Was still happening. It still happened, like preparing your meals
for the week and in that little tiny container.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
Oh, I'm a I'm a fan of Sunday for the
whole I prepped for Sunday for the whole week.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
It got out of hand though, like people all excel
based on that, like let me help you with the
specific type of continent, like the capitalism that came from
the capitalism that came from that. It became such a
thing and it had to be manly and or if
you're not eating all proteins and you're not doing.

Speaker 3 (40:22):
Oh, it's like yeah, I mean, I'm a big fan
of the prepping. I did that for years when I
and I was working, I would prep for the week
and it would just I could cook so much faster.
I would just spend Sunday watch something on you know,
watch a great movie, listen to something and just prep
for the week. But I understand what you're saying that Instagram.

(40:43):
I mean, it's like the butter board. Remember for a
while everyone was doing those butterboards.

Speaker 4 (40:47):
Like nobody wants to spread butter on a wooden board
and then like like dip stuff into butter.

Speaker 3 (40:51):
I mean, that's so things take off. But one of
the reasons I asked the gender question because you know,
even though the world of the kitchen has been gendered
toward women, if you look at celebrity chef culture, right,
it's still so male. Yes, And I'm noticing if you're

(41:12):
on Instagram, a lot of the most popular people on
Instagram are who are cooking and doing that kind of
performa of cooking are also men. So but I wonder
if that translates into people picking up the kind of
the responsibility of cooking at home. It's different to cook
on Instagram with the right lighting and you know, the

(41:34):
right angles and everything else. Something that can feel like drudgery,
you know, because people you got to eat, so someone's
got to cook. And when that happens. Is there still
the sort of what's for dinner culture as opposed to
you know, what can we cook for dinner? The what's
for dinner? What's for dinner is such a loaded question

(41:56):
because it's the expectation that you were going to you're
going to perhaps something to the dinner, as opposed to
let's talk about what we should have for dinner, right,
because what's for dinner means it kind of means what
are you serving me for dinner?

Speaker 2 (42:12):
Exactly. I think we did talk about this in the
line of that, Yes, chefs is more dominated as a
profession by men, but even still today women are more
likely to be the home cooks. And you can even
tell almost in the type of food being served that
women are more likely going to have a little homage
to the old style or their family style versus like

(42:36):
being the professional French cuisine like you see that line up.
Still even though, because just like in everything we talked
about with brewing beer, it was that same mentality. You
used to be women who did that. Then it became profitable,
so men started taking it.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
I didn't know that that women used to they were
the home brewers.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
They were called witches.

Speaker 3 (42:55):
Sometimes, Okay, learn something new.

Speaker 2 (42:58):
You're interviewing us. This is not going.

Speaker 3 (43:02):
I can't help it.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
This is not the way they're supposed to go. One
of the things that I love about food in general.
And again you spoke to me with your books as

(43:28):
well as your questions and everything, because you did hit
into like race identity in your book book you released
uh last year and it's still going strong, and I
was able to do it on audible, not a sponsor
a y'all, but that uh, it does so well you
bring in people. I almost it's almost like a podcast.
I was like, WHOA, what's happening here? And then with

(43:48):
the jazz transitions, I was like, yes, I I wanted
to ask you about this.

Speaker 3 (43:54):
The first music that came back with it, I was like.

Speaker 2 (43:57):
The jazz transitions, like, I see what she's doing. She's
trying to listen to being comfortable before we get like
our hearts smashed. I'm fine. But the one of the
things that that connection for me in finding my identity
is not necessarily just cultural, but it's food. It's food based.
I really have been triggered by food memories, like to

(44:17):
the point that I would have like panic attacks. I'm like,
oh no, this is too real to my pre adoption era,
but really like taking it on and honing and all
and realizing, no, these are things that I know. The
memories that I have of my biological grandmother was that
she owned the snack bar or a restaurant, and I
remember distinctly smells from that, foods that I ate from that,

(44:40):
and I can't like, I have discovered it as an
adult and it has brought me into such a place
that I'm like, where am I? Like? I feel like
there are memories in the back of my head that
I can't quite grasp onto, but I feel it. And
this is this level of knowing that this is about
part of my identity and it's because of food. And
obviously that connection is so deep. You were talking to

(45:01):
Eric Knam about this and his culture and trying to
get that southern which, oh love, that was like from Atlanta. Yeah,
where's he at?

Speaker 3 (45:09):
You should find him? Yeah, you do, you need to
be friends.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
But like the fact that he does have this connection
of like being you know, first generation with his mother
who still has very very like dominance in the kitchen,
but teaching that to him and learning that culture and
learning his identity of being both about being from the

(45:34):
US and then also being from current culture. It just
spoke so much. Why do you think these types of
conversations are so important to be had, especially when it comes.

Speaker 3 (45:43):
To identity because they help us understand ourselves and each
other and our complex world. I you know, people say, oh,
we've got to have a conversation about race, or we
have to have a conversation about identity. I'd like us
to get to a point where we can say, we
get to have a conversation because you know, I just

(46:04):
learned eighty five things about you and in that short exchange,
you know, and if we kept going, because you know,
I want to ask you, like when you discovered that
you remembered I can't help myself, but you know when
you realize, oh I have that food memory. Were you

(46:25):
in a market, you know, were you out in the
world someplace? I mean our food memories the kitchen. I
think the other reason that I think it's important for
us to have these conversations because it's how we find
each other. It's it's how we educate ourselves about each other.
It's how we do self exploration. And it's because it's

(46:46):
interesting because people are very interesting and the kitchen is
such a interesting space to do that. Also, because the
kitchen animates every single one of your senses. It's it's
you know, it's all there. And so those early kitchen
memories are are not just about food. They're not just

(47:08):
about nutrition, They're about emotion. Food is linked to emotion,
the emotion of the event, the emotion behind who gave
that to you, the emotion attached to where you were
at in your life, the emotion around a memory that
you've you just haven't had enough time to go back
and explore. And so that's why it's a it's a

(47:31):
you know, if we said, tell me about your your
mama's dining room, a lot of stuff happens in the
dining room, it would be a very different conversation than
tell me about what happens in your kitchen.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
True.

Speaker 3 (47:47):
And I am sitting on my hands right now because
I do want to ask you, like, what are you
going to do to go back and and excavate and
cultivate those memories? And did your parents ever try to
help you explore your culture through food? You know?

Speaker 2 (47:59):
I want to hold on that so that you have
to come back. I'm gonna make it come back. I'm
gonna make you get interested. This is this is me
you know of you?

Speaker 1 (48:13):
Oh wow, I love that well. I also got I
had the honor to talk to you on the other
podcast I do Saver, which is about food. And one
thing that we were talking about over there is that
I think a lot of people make the mistake of

(48:36):
divorcing food in the kitchen from everything that it that
like history and identity and gender dynamics and all of
that stuff. What do you think, through your work and
through doing this show, how do you think we can
see all of that through those conversations and how is

(49:00):
it shape as and to who we are when we
become adults.

Speaker 3 (49:04):
Well, I hope that when people hear these episodes that
they wonder about their own lives. And we now are
creating a space, and I know that people do because
we've created a space where people can send their own
audiograms or video messages to YMK at higher Own Productions
dot com, and you know, we listen to them tell

(49:26):
their own stories. And so I hope that it's much
like the book. Also that if you read the book
or listen to the book, if you listen to the
podcast or eventually watch it, because we're going to be
doing video episodes, also now that you will have a
greater curiosity about your own space, that you might pick
up your phone and call your cousin do you remember

(49:46):
you know this, or you might if you're lucky enough
to still have living parents, that you might want to
talk to them, that you might sort of explore. Okay,
is this why I keep a can of bacon grease
next to because my mom did? Or do? I never ever, ever, ever,
ever want to do this because I don't want to

(50:07):
do what my mom did. I don't want to actually
follow that path. So I hope it leads to to exploration,
you know, perhaps more listening of course, and more reading
of you know, deeper exploration of the projects, but also
a little bit of self self exploration. I think that's
that is the highest compliment I get when people say,

(50:31):
you know, it made me really think about my own space,
and you know, now I want to go back and
explore my own kitchen. And one of the things that
we hear over and over again on the show is
I've never said this before. I've never told anyone this before.
We learn about things that people haven't talked about before.

(50:51):
Conan O'Brien tell us this great story. It's one of
the stories that really sticks with me. His mother. Conan O'Brien,
the comedian, late night host now head of Team cocoa
his podcast Empire and really is an Empire.

Speaker 4 (51:07):
Grew up in.

Speaker 3 (51:08):
Brookline, Massachusetts, and his mother. They have working classroots, and
his mother did well in school and went off to
fancy university and became one of the first women at
a white shoe law firm in Boston, Massachusetts, and excelled
there and did really well, and while at the same
time raising like a passel of kids back home, you know,

(51:28):
Irish Catholic family, and I imagine, I'm you know, the
juggle for her must have been incredible, right, because the expectations,
you know, for her to you know, maybe I don't
know if she felt the expectation to be perfect, but
there's a lot of moths that had to be fed,
while you also definitely had the expectation to be perfect
on a law firm where there weren't a lot of

(51:48):
other women. And he tells this great story about how
she brought the kids to work and they got to
see her office and how proud she was for them
to see that. But he also remember this story about
how she was and he just recently lost both of
his parents, and so it really means a lot to
me that he shared the story with us that she

(52:14):
was not allowed to be in the boardroom when they
had meetings lunch meetings with big clients, but she was
so respected that they needed her close by, so she
would eat at a card table outside the boardroom. And

(52:36):
Conan is telling the story, and it's kind of funny.
He's talking about, well, they're you know, lawsuit. I mean
that would in today's environment, you probably couldn't do that.
But he mentioned something that I've always thought of is
that he said there were few people, few lawyers had
such respect for her. I think her name was Ruth,
that they would no, I'm good, I'm going to go

(52:56):
and eat with her outside, and if you need me,
I'll be outside with her. And I love that he
shared that story. I love that she shared it with
him because she wanted him to know that the hill
was pretty steep for her. And I think that she
was conveying to him at least the message I took
from it, and I shared the story with my own

(53:16):
kids who are adults. I said, be the person who
gets up and goes and has has lunch with her,
you know, because that's the real power. And the people
who were in the room excluding her, they think they
have the power. The real power is to change the
dynamic and be the person who gets up and says,
you know, I'm good. I'm going to go out lunch
with her if she's smart enough to be outside the room,

(53:36):
because we need her. She's the one who deserves to
be in my she deserves my company, I deserve and
I'm honored to be with her. You know, that's not
I don't. I don't think Conan sharing that story in
Late Night, you know. And and so I'm glad that
we have an opportunity to mine those kinds of stories
so that we understand a little bit about this person

(53:58):
who makes us laugh, but also that we just are
able to send those really little intimate moments out into
the world to better understand our culture. I mean, right now,
we do this with primarily people who have a certain
amount of acclaim or their marquee figures. But that's why

(54:20):
I wanted to open up the inbox, because I much
like I do with the Race Car Project and I
did in the book Our Hidden Conversations, I want to
hear from all kinds of people. I know someone, for instance,
his mom had a kitchen and it was a stop
in the green book, you know, the Green Book that
people used when they traveled in the South as people
of color and they couldn't go and she had stop
in the Green Book on Memphis. I would love you know,

(54:42):
I'm trying to get him to record his story because
I mean imagine, and he would help her peel potatoes
and he would chop up stuff with her. And a
lot of famous people went through Memphis and they couldn't
go to restaurants or hotels, and so they'd wind up
eating in her kitchen. And I think things like that
probably happened all over the place.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
Well this because this Yeah, so I'm gonna have to
tap in before you leave us, because you are a
masterclass in interviewing and story collecting, which is why I
love that title, because being on a podcast, you know,
and doing this interviewing is a skill. It is a
talent that is difficult to do sometimes, especially when trying

(55:23):
to get that personal story, that depth that you want
to see this person. So can you advise us, oh
master of interviewing this story collecting, on how to do
a good interview?

Speaker 3 (55:36):
Well, I think curiosity is a superpower. Yeah, so you
have to be curious. It helps to be informed. It
helps to have an idea of an arc of the conversation,
but to then have a complete willingness to throw that
out the window. So you go where the story takes you.
But I think a big part of it. And I'm

(55:58):
going to be careful about how I say this because
I don't want to impune anybody. But you know, we
all listen to a lot of podcasts, we all watch
a lot of interviews. I think one of the things
that people sometimes lose truck of is a good interviewer
gets out of the way. You know, you're I'm there
to make room for someone else to tell their story,

(56:21):
and so I keep the balloon up in the air,
but I try to recede. I try to pull back
so they fill in the spaces. And and to think about,
you know, some of the best answers come from the
oddest questions. I just I don't know why this came

(56:43):
into my head, but I was interviewing Dave Brubek, the
jazz musician, and I was able to do it in person.
And as I was talking to them, and I realized,
you know, as you get older, your hands tighten up,
you know, And I said, tell me about your hands.
He said, no one has ever asked me that he's
a pianist. You know, no one has ever, So you know,

(57:05):
to think about that sort of simple thing and sometimes
those yield the best, the best answers, I mean, the
crazy idea, tell me about your mom's kitchen, to go
go where it sounds like star trek, to go where
no man has gone.

Speaker 2 (57:22):
But but you.

Speaker 3 (57:24):
Know, think of the questions that no one is asking.

Speaker 1 (57:28):
Yeah, well, thank you so much for submit. I feel
like you're to like work advice.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
Sorry I had to get them while she was here. Yeah,
this is invaluable.

Speaker 4 (57:39):
Well, there's one other thing I would say is stop
talking sometimes, you know, especially in a difficult moment, because
if it's difficult, your instinct is to fill void m
with your voice, and sometimes it's hard to do.

Speaker 3 (57:55):
But let's be the one that was it's like a
game of chickens.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
Well, thank you so much for being here. It's amazing.
When you were talking about you know, quote unquote simple
question that has so much to it, I've like honestly
fighting back tears that Conan O'Brien story, because you can
relate so much to it and you can connect so
much to it. Through these stories, and we got a

(58:36):
little bit of a teaser for your next season of
Your Mama's Kitchen, and I'm very, very excited. But is
there anything that you want to to tease or that
you're excited about that's coming up?

Speaker 3 (58:50):
Oh with the first three episodes are just gold. It's
Stephen and Ebbie Colbert and you know, in their partnership
and they just love food and they're so funny and
they're so funny together. Ina Garten. Have you read her book?

(59:11):
I highly recommend it's Be Ready When the Luck Happens.
She had a very I mean, for someone who brings
so much joy to people, she had a very unhappy
childhood and emotionally violent and sometimes physically violent. And she
overcame that and she found someone who understood her. And
she writes with clarity and honesty and it's a great

(59:35):
book and it's a great conversation. And she is someone
who just broke molds and created new paths and I
think people will really dig that. And we sat down
with John Legend in his creation house, like Goals, he
has a house that he and Chrissy don't live in,

(59:55):
but it's where they create. She creates recipes, he creates music,
and he too had a very difficult childhood that he's
only now just starting to open up about. And so
you understand not just John Legend as an artist. He
is a beautiful man inside and out. I've got to
know him over many years. But you understand that great,

(01:00:17):
big heart of his, you know, because you realize that
it was broken pretty early and he had to figure
out how to put it back together. And it's almost like,
I can't remember the name of the art, but the
Chinese principle they break a piece of art and then
you put it back together, using gold to put the
pieces back together. It's almost like that represents what happened
to him, that his heart is stronger, his soul is richer,

(01:00:39):
his life is stronger because of the brokenness. It's there's
strength in that brokenness. And all this talked about, you know,
through the prism of the Kitchen, and in every episode,
I guess I should remind people that everyone we talk
to gives us a delicious recipe. Yes, so it's going
to be a great season. We also talked to Big

(01:01:00):
Freda and Wendell Pierce and Susan Orlean and Leshana Lynch
who is in Jamaican and lives in Britain, and she,
you know, talked about life growing up there. It's it's
good stuff. We serve up some delicious every week starting
January twenty eighth, So pull up the seat and join
us every week.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
Yes, I heard there's mac and cheese involved, and I'm
incredibly excited.

Speaker 3 (01:01:25):
Yes, and he claims it's the best mac and cheese
on the planet.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
So oh, I will be very happy to test that theory.

Speaker 3 (01:01:33):
Maybe we should have a mac and cheese Sunday where we, like,
everybody like we can could we recruit you to do that.
It's like in early February, everybody everybody makes John Legends
mac and cheese on an appointed Sunday, and then we
all should we do that?

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
Have you done all these recipes or or have you
had favorites and any of these recipes?

Speaker 3 (01:01:54):
I wrote test the recipes, and I do have a
few favorites. Michelle Obana's red rice is a banger. Okay,
is a banger. It is really good hot or cold
that's worked its way into the rotation. Andy Garcia's Pooficacy
took a lot of time. I mean it was a

(01:02:19):
labor intensive labor of love. But the results were crazy good.
I mean, my family is like, and then you put
raisins in there?

Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
Wait what what?

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
Wait what?

Speaker 3 (01:02:31):
Yeah? But you put the raisins in and they stay
and they they sop up all the like the wine
and the marinade and everything else, and they become these
little flavor bombs. They reconstitute and turn into almost like grapes,
and so they you know, they're dried up. I mean
that's what they are, dried grapes, right, and they turned
back into grapes, but the filling is got out of

(01:02:53):
the marinade and so when you bite them, this little
explosion of deliciousness. So that that was a real winner.
Abby Wombo's mom makes this pasta dish, which my family
really loves. There were the snow cookies that Nicole avant

(01:03:15):
Or that her mother makes were a big hit for
the holidays. So yeah, the food has been the food
has been spot on. For the mac and cheese, my
son now makes the mac and cheese. In our family,
all my kids cook and he has taken over the
mac and cheese. So he's actually going to make the
John Legend mac and cheese coming up. And I actually

(01:03:36):
liked the idea, though, I think I'm gonna we may
need to run with that, is to like everyone do,
because remember Samin Nosrat did the big lasagna where everyone
made her lasagna during COVID at the same time, and
that's the first time I made lasagnah is when I
did that. And so her chicken soup also, she did
a Persian chicken soup that was super lemony, like so

(01:03:58):
much that your cheeks kind of yeah, and she then
layered it with a little bit of ghee mm hmm.
And it's it's you know, it's winter in much of
the country right now, and that's a that's a really
good one for this time of the year.

Speaker 2 (01:04:14):
I'm getting very hungry.

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
Yes, yes, one of the risk of the job of
food journalists.

Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
Yeah, yes, well.

Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
I am so down for mac and cheese.

Speaker 3 (01:04:30):
Okay, I'll let you know. We'll pick a Sunday, maybe
like Super Bowl Sunday or right before Super Bowl. But yeah,
we definitely let's do that. And I think John and
Chrissy would probably we'll recruit them also when.

Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
Obviously, yes, we know you're so busy, I have so
many other questions.

Speaker 3 (01:04:50):
Well, you know, maybe I'll come back one day.

Speaker 1 (01:04:52):
Samantha has already laid the track.

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
I'm trying. I'm trying. Look, we have so many things
to talk about. I'm just saying.

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
Because I feel like I wanted to talk about price
dynamics because a lot of times I think when people
talk about their mama's kitchen, there's always like she made
this cast role that was just cans and stuff. Yeah,
but then there's also the very labor intensive things that
takes so long. So yes, definitely please come back. Is

(01:05:20):
there any where can the good listeners find you? Is
there anything else you want to shout out?

Speaker 3 (01:05:26):
Well, you know, they can find us wherever you your mama's kitchen,
you can find wherever you listen to podcasts. Our Hidden
Conversations is sold in bookstores across America. It's still it's
you know, was released a year ago, almost a year
ago this week, and people are still finding it and
elevating it. I always encourage people to listen as well
as read it because you want to see it, because

(01:05:47):
the pictures are beautiful, but the audio, many of the
people are telling their own stories. So when Samuel said
it felt like a podcast, it was meant to feel
like a podcast. I mean, I really wanted to create
a real experience. And if you've listened to this, you
know I have six words I want to send. You
can find us at the Racecard project dot com. You
can send us your six words story I am. I
write columns for MSNBC, and I show up, you know,

(01:06:09):
occasionally sharing my thoughts on air, so you can find
me lots of different ways. I what's the fake back
to all fields? You know?

Speaker 1 (01:06:20):
Yes? Yes, well, thank you, thank you, thank you so
much for being here.

Speaker 3 (01:06:23):
I have love talking to both of you. Thank you.
Hope we do it again.

Speaker 2 (01:06:27):
Yes, please cheese.

Speaker 1 (01:06:31):
And that brings us to the end of our interview
with Michelle Norris. It was so delightful, if so lovely.
Hopefully we're going to get to do this mac and
cheese thing. I am so in.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
Yeah, I don't think I'll be good at it. I
might have to put my partner onto it, because he
does a really good mac and cheese, except for I
can't trust him because he likes to deviate from the
actual recipe and that drives me crazy. Like it's both
good and bad.

Speaker 1 (01:06:56):
I think that would be interesting to talk about though,
because we kind of touched on that when she was
talking about her son making the mac and cheese and
like the yeah, the gender equity when it comes to
social media and cooking, that would be interesting if you
made one and he made one.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
Mine would stick to the recipe for like absolute I
don't like my first time, especially making it something for
the first time. I follow the recipes strictly, and then
after that I'll see what I want to do. But
he is all over the.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
Place, and I am like, what do I have?

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
I mean, and that's talent though I've been talking about that,
the talent of being able to create from what you
have but actually make like intensive recipes with like oh
I have these beans and this kind of protein, I'm
gonna do this broth. Then maybe I could add this.
That's at bit because I also was thinking about the
fact that she had people coming on sharing family recipes.
I'm like, I don't have everything I have either comes

(01:07:57):
from another recipe or from my mom never teaching me
something like even I don't know she could, she doesn't
know how to do that. But most of her recipes,
as I mentioned, was like an easy to go box
dinner or something that's just simple enough. Because she was
feeding so many of us, but like, yeah, we don't
have that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:17):
Right And honestly, if we had had more time, I
would have loved to hear your conversation expand about because
she have such an interesting like southern food and career.

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
Right well, like I told you, Like in the interview,
we talk about Eric Nahm, who is from He says Atlanta.
I have a foot like he says, on the outskirts
of Atlanta. But his mom, you know, cooks all Korean cuisine.
To the fact that she flies to Korea, gets supplies
and comes back Wow. But then he grew up in
Atlanta and has his own style. That's both of those things.

(01:08:53):
So I really love bad perspective and I love that
that's common enough because we also like Edward Lee. I
was talking about the cooking show that's the Korean Cooking
Show and he was on there, but he we went
to his restaurant and I realized way later who he was.
I was like, oh, because I was very critical at first.
I was like, who is this dude combining Korean in

(01:09:14):
Southern and DC. Who is this And it turned out
to be Edward Lee, who was from Kentucky. I was like, Okay,
that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, and I felt
a certain way. I was like, who is this Who's
representing my life in a restaurant?

Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
Well, that's the thing, uh is we talked about it
in this episode, but all the histories and identity and
all that stuff. But also like I do that too,
where I'm like, who who are you making this food?
I'm just curious does.

Speaker 2 (01:09:45):
It come from your heart? Does it come from money?
But yeah, so those are the conversations that Man, I
think there's so many subjects that we could come on to,
and we were all because essentially she's not necessarily like
a food journalist like that, she's there for the story
that it happens to be about food. Like it's very
interesting because I was talking if you get a chance listeners,

(01:10:05):
and I think we probably should do her book as
a book. Like I said, it's listening to it. It's
a different whole different scenario because she is doing interviews
because she didn't want to tell their story for them,
and so she had different actors or different people come
in and represent their own six words story that interjects

(01:10:26):
and then it's beautiful how she does it with her
own research and work behind it. So definitely worth to listen.
They do have in the audible or audio version the
pictures that come with it, so they're also gorgeous. But
I think we're going to have to pick that one
up soon.

Speaker 1 (01:10:43):
I think. So it's amazing how quickly she and the
people she interviews will move you to tears. I did
not describe wow, but there are stories we all can
connect or really to in some way that I think
that's why they're so powerful. I would also say check

(01:11:09):
out if you want to learn more about her history
in food journalism or why she was interested in it,
check out the episode I did over on Saver with
Lauren interviewing Michelle Norris, because it was great. It was
a great interview, but also, yeah, she's done all of
these things. She's got the second season coming out of

(01:11:32):
Your Mama's Kitchen, and it's really beautiful and it's amazing,
So please check it out listeners, and if you would
like to contact us, if you have any thoughts about
Your Mama's Kitchen, you can contact Michelle. She gave you
the information, but you can also contact us if you
would like. You can email us at Hello at Stuffmennever

(01:11:57):
Told You dot Com or stuff medium Stuff at iHeartMedia
dot com. Both work. You can find us on Blue
Sky at mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok
at Stuff When ever told you. We're also on YouTube.
We have a tea public store, and we have a
book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
as always to our super producer Christina, our executive Bruce

(01:12:19):
and Maya, and our contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks
to you for listening Stuff one ever told you to
prediction of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
you can check out your iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
where you listen to your favorite show