February 16, 2021 • 35 mins
Food is a love language. In this season finale, Virgie and good friend Angela Trakas talk about the power of sharing a meal, and all the ways food has made their friendship stronger.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh, my mouth is salivating as I'm thinking about this.
So I have this beautiful, pink, shallow bowl of green
dandelions and they've been cooked just in a little bit
of salted water, and I've prepared them with lemon juice,
olive oil, and just a sprinkle of salt. This is
(00:22):
my friend Angela Trachis. She's also my roommate. We live
together in the far western outpost of San Francisco, in
a chilly neighborhood full of surfers that borders the Pacific
Ocean and Golden Gate Park, where sometimes the sound of
fog horns wakes you up in the morning, where sometimes
(00:46):
if you go out at night at high tide, you
can smell the salt and seaweed. Since we lived together,
I got to sit in our little breakfast nook next
to the kitchen that's all painted Robin's Egg blue and
watch Angela prepare the snack for this episode. Yeah, she
(01:06):
was barefoot like always, and I and my slippers on
like always, and we were laughing also like always, because
she and I are both into big joy. She walked
me through the art of preparing the dandelion because I'm
(01:28):
a Greek girl, I had to add a million things
so we could really enjoy, you know, eating the dandelions.
You know, a Greek table is never gonna have just
one thing. It's just not allowed. So I have some
kalamata olives that I sprinkled some Greek oregano on, and
then we have this gorgeous olive loaf that definitely feels
(01:51):
freshly baked. It's soft, it's chewy, there's a nice crust
to it, and that is going to be the vehicle
for sopping up our beautiful um dandelion broth with olive
oil and lemon juice. M I'm just gonna mirror everything
that you do. So what are we doing first? Okay,
we're gonna just swirl around our green. So you know,
(02:12):
all of these beautiful liquids are coming together, and because
of these red stalks, like the broth is is this
gorgeous like fusia. And I mean I didn't plan this,
I mean I really didn't, but we have these pink bowls,
the fusia liquid and these greens. I mean, it's really
kind of impressive that a humble weed can become something
(02:35):
so beautiful. Yes, okay, are we putting it in our mouth.
Now take a bite. I'm doing it too. Okay. M
oh my god, wow m and mhm boom boom oom.
I just got a little bit of that salt. Yeah, okay.
(02:56):
So the first overwhelming taste is the bitterness of the greens.
I mean what I'm getting is I mean, it's kind
of like the It's like the greens equivalent of gaminess.
Do you know what I'm talking about? I do. I do.
And I think that's why, you know, as someone who
(03:17):
is a child of Greek immigrants, both sides of my
family are farming families, and you know, being close to
the earth is something that is just part of who
we were. You know, it's not who we are now,
but it's still like, I think, eating something that's wild
like connects us to that. Yes, I'm just in love
(03:41):
the humble weed. The humble weed. Angela and I have
traveled the world together in search of delicious food from
the knockoff markets of la with the most insane hot dogs.
Anything you could possibly want on a bacon dog, I mean,
available to the buffets of ship Showanna, Indiana ended up
(04:04):
at the Amish Easter Feast. We waited three hours in
line to have this Easter buffet. Oh to the villages
of Greece. There's this really great bakery in Athens, who
you know, makes one of the best sudekis, and they've
introduced the chocolate covered tudeki. And you know, sometimes I'm
(04:24):
a purist, I don't think we need the chocolate, but
in this case, we loved the chocolate sudeki. Part of
what makes something a comfort food is who you eat
it with. Food is a love language for me and Angela.
A couple of years ago, we decided we wanted to
go on a road trip together and we made it
(04:46):
all about a truly iconic American dessert item, pie. We
dubbed the trip I Only Have Pies for you. We
ate pie all the way from Philly to Chicago, through
over eight hundred miles of US highways in the rain
(05:06):
and shine. We ate apple pie, cherry pie, chocolate cream pie,
key lime pie, and something called shoefly pie, a molasses
pie which is sort of like pecan pie without the nuts.
And we stopped along the way to enjoy lakes, forests,
hot tubs, and of course the Church of Chocolate Hershey World.
(05:31):
We have so much appreciation for food in part because
we each have a mom with hunger in her past.
Angela's mom lived through German occupation during the Second World War.
My mom had a full blown eating disorder. I can't
prove it, but I one hundred percent believe that the
(05:52):
memory of hunger gets passed on somehow, and that when
we eat unapologetically, we feed our spirits, which helps heal
our families and our bloodlines. While we were eating greens
in our kitchen, Angela told me why dandelions are so
special for her family. I would probably if I think
(06:15):
back to, you know, my childhood days where I just
wanted to be like every other kid um in my school. Um,
I probably balked at something like dandelions. You know, it
was definitely like oh, jortha again, jortha is the Greek word. Um.
It was not the thing, you know. We want to
eat pizza, we want to eat hamburgers. We wanted to
(06:36):
eat little debbies right like everyone else. Little debbies. Yes,
But as I grew older, I really started to appreciate
the dandelions. As the girlder, I paid attention to how
important they were to my mother. Um. I mean, it's
it's the thing that she always goes to. I mean
it's her comfort food. And my mother, my aunts, Um,
(06:58):
you know, our extended family the Chicagoland area. When we
couldn't find dandelions, we would go hunting for them, and
you know, you had to leave, you had to leave,
you know, the city or the suburbs a little bit
because because they do grow wild, right, and so you know,
you want to avoid the dog pee and pesticides and
(07:19):
other things like that. So I could probably put money
on this, but every Greek household probably has a pairing
knife or some kind of sharp tool in the trunk
of their car. And you know, the mother, my mother,
every mother, every Greek mother has like dandelion radar, and
(07:41):
they we could be on the highway and like, you know,
pull over because I see a patch of dandelions, and
those dandelions look like no one's been around them, no
stray dogs are near them. You know, it looks like
a good bet for a nice little dandelion harvest. Yes,
I'm curious about when it comes to food, what was
(08:01):
it like growing up in a Greek household. Um, there's
just so much that happens around the Greek table. And
one of the things that I love most about it,
even from a young age, is that my parents always
encouraged my sister and I to you know, be an
(08:24):
active participant in the conversation. And that meant that we
could say and think whatever we wanted to, and you know,
like they encourage that like philosophical kind of questioning, you know,
what does this mean and why and all of that,
and you know that often leads to debate, and that
often leads to you know, intense conversations. But there's also
(08:48):
this like beautiful connection to a country that seems very
far away, and and often that's like a very bittersweet
kind of thing to to witness as a child whose
parents who who but whose parents really like you know,
(09:09):
I could see that one foot was in one country
and one foot was in the other, and neither of
them was stable, you know, right. I think back to
the dandelion and why it's so important, and I think about,
you know, the circumstances that my parents grew up in.
My dad was born in nineteen thirty nine and my
(09:30):
mom was born in nineteen forty five. This was the
height of access occupation in Greece. My father's family home
was occupied by soldiers there was scarcity. I mean there
was there were so many people that died because there
wasn't enough food. And also, you know, after the occupation ended,
(09:54):
in World War two ended, there was a civil war
in Greece because of kind of the fact actions that
built up as a result of the occupation. And so
you know, this is this is the most traumatic experience
that that you know, my parents were born into. But
then you know that I inherited, right, And I think
(10:17):
I think of the scarcity um that comes with that,
and the pain and the suffering um. And I think
of you know, why something like dandelions, why something like
a weed is so important? You know, because when you
have nothing and you can offer someone food, you know,
(10:38):
that is love, right um. And you know they were
so proud of where they came from. UM. I think
the reason that dandelions are so special is or just
like food, you know, Greek food is something that is
(11:00):
so meaningful for me, is because it was really like
it's not a stretch to say, the only or best
way that my mother could show her love, you know, Oh,
like I can feel that. I mean I grew up
with you as you know, sort of like a lot
(11:21):
of love, but not a lot of safety. But one
of the ways that my grandmother, who raised me as
someone who was deeply traumatized by her own childhood and
the loss of her mother, food and cooking and the
kitchen were a place that she clearly felt power and
(11:46):
she could consistently show up in that space, even when
she couldn't consistently show up emotionally for us or for
me otherwise. And I think I also relate to And
I don't know if this is something that you feel
connected to, but this sort of way in which food
becomes how our parents teach us about gets like the
(12:12):
education in our own identity, that that non American identity
that gets translated through food in a sort of obviously
like non linguistic way. And but there's so much in it, right,
Like I just think, like I'm thinking literally of you know,
you didn't grow up in Greece, but when I think
(12:34):
of how you cook, um, I always am reminded of
the Mediterranean son and the landscape. And I mean, having
been to the village where your mom grew up, having
visited with you, Um, just sort of like how those
things are, you know, they're sort of their own special
kind of storytelling age. I mean, and I think there's
(12:55):
something so metaphorical about it right where it's like, you know,
this this weed, which is it's sort of it's it's resilient,
right like it's like it grows everywhere, and it's not
it's not a high maintenance plant, and yet it is edible,
and yet it is delicious, and yet it is complex.
And I think there's something I don't know like that,
(13:18):
that simplicity and that availability and that resiliency I think
tells a story about you know, your family. Yeah, I mean,
resiliency is absolutely you know the word that stands out
for me too. You know, we were joking about how
many times I had to rinse the dandelion leaves. But
as I was rinsing them, I really like, you know
(13:41):
what came to mind. We're just like images of all
of my aunts and you know, these women that work
the fields and we're so industrious and you know, took
care of land and their kids. And I just saw
all of their faces that was cleaning these and you know,
like their strength comes through Even now. I want to
(14:07):
go back to what Angelo was saying about how dandelions
helped people survive a war in Greece. I wondered, how
does war affect food? What's the social history of hunger?
A twenty eighteen report by the UN's World Food Program
pointed out that there's an unequivocal link between conflict and hunger.
(14:32):
In twenty sixteen, of people suffering from chronic malnutrition, sixty
percent of them lived in areas affected by armed conflict.
In fact, damage to local food systems can have a
bigger impact on the people who live there than guns, bombs,
or rifles. In war, farms can be destroyed. That means
(14:56):
the land and the animals on it are taken out
of the food system. Farmers can be forced to abandon
their land, which means no one is growing whatever they
were before. This means there's less supply. Less supply means
higher costs. Higher costs mean more people can't afford to
(15:17):
buy food for their families. In war, markets and grocery
stores that stock food can be accidentally or intentionally destroyed.
Though it's considered a war crime now, military forces can
block outside food aid, literally preventing people from getting food.
(15:37):
Pregnant women who are exposed to more conflicts often have
babies with low birth weight. It's harder to survive infancy
if you're a low birthweight baby, and there can be
long term health and developmental impacts. Could it be that
some of these war babies remember being hungry. Resiliency is
(15:58):
more than our will to survive. It's our ability to
create and grow. We've talked a lot about resiliency this season.
It's exemplified in Deshawn's velvety yet grainy Reese's peanut butter cups,
in the potato chips that Janet enjoys, and the finger
licking that Jennifer practices in the face of a culture
(16:21):
that vilifies it, in the cup of noodles that Francis
has reclaimed, and in joe Anne's span. Food tells all
these stories, it's a marker of place, space, and time
of relationships as well as loss, celebration and mourning, war
(16:45):
and peace. We'll be right back. Angela and I are
(17:18):
two fat women united in our pursuit of yummy snacks
and in our culture. That's kind of a big deal.
We met back in twenty fourteen at a retreat for
fat women called Abundia. It's a conference for and buy
fat women who want to live fully joyfully and abundantly.
(17:41):
At a Bundia. There were workshops on love and desirability, disability,
and aging, but the real magic was just all of
us hanging out with each other. It feels so good
to laugh, relax and eat with other fat women away
from the eyes of a culture that dismisses us as broken, pathetic, lonely,
(18:05):
or sick. Angela and I were conference roommates and we
became instant friends. Angela was new to fat positivity, but
you never would have known it because she already seemed
like a pro at being a proud fat babe. We
would stay up until two or three in the morning
(18:25):
talking about art and philosophy, travel and fashion hopes and
histories and how much we hated dating. My friendships with
other fat women like Angela are sacred to me. There's
so much shared experience right there under the surface that
we don't really have to say out loud, like a
(18:47):
silent footnote that reads I know a lot of what
you've been through and you are more beautiful to me
because of it. When I meet a new fat friend,
it's like when a single string of notes becomes a harmony.
I love how our bellies touched when we hug. I
love how our laugh is often rounder and lower, and
(19:09):
I love eating with that friends. One of our top
food experiences, this one is someone you know, some might
say humble, but so important to our friendship. And it
is Grocery Outlet aka gross Out affectionately known as but
(19:31):
So for those who don't know, Angela, like, if an
alien visited the Earth and you had to describe grocery outlet,
what would you tell our alien friend? Oh, it's just
a treasure hunt. So it's a grocery store that for
whatever reason, has pulled in items. They could be considered gourmet,
(19:55):
they could be considered artisan, they could be considered special,
and they're usually really expensive at a regular grocery store
like a Whole Foods. So these are the kinds of
things that you know, we would cove it, but can
sometimes we ought of reach find, you know, economy. Yeah,
I literally called the Ross for food. Any consistent Ross
(20:18):
shopper knows you. You know, you go there for some
of the staples, but you really are holding out for
that thing that got weirdly rejected or returned and it
was from Nordstrums and you're like, how did it get here,
it's normally seventy four dollars, but here it's six. And
it's like, that feeling is what you're holding out for
a grocery outlet, right right, I feel like grocery outlet
(20:42):
ties into our identities so deeply. We're both children of immigrants.
We are both women who have epigenetically inherited the ecstasy
of a bargain from our mothers. We are both people
who enjoy the finer things in life and believe that
perhaps maybe they are made better by getting them on sale.
And I think also, I think it also connects to
(21:05):
our identity as fat women. UM. And so I'm like,
I want you to unpack this. Where do we start?
Everything that you said resonates with me. Um. You know,
the quality is something that that will never be sacrificed, um.
But money is something that was never um in abundance. Right.
(21:29):
So it's like, well, how do you get the best
thing for the least amount of resources? And I think
there's something beautiful about your knowing that you deserve the
best thing. And as we see, how like you know,
in in modern culture, like all the beautiful things tend
to be reserved for people with the most resources, and
(21:50):
I just think that is just unjust, you know, like
everyone deserves something delicious um And I think as an
immigrant kid, that's just like a lesson that you learn
kind of intrinsically. In diet culture, women are taught to
bond over diets, hating our bodies and calorie counting. Creating
(22:15):
friendships that celebrate food feels like repairing the years and
years of being told I wasn't allowed to enjoy eating
because of my body size. Eating with Angela is as
therapeutic to me as an actual mental health appointment, because
we are doing the repair work. Like. There's a word
(22:37):
for this that I love. It's called praxis. It's when
an idea, like food positivity or fat positivity meets the
real world and becomes an embodied action. Eating with Angela
is that when the rubber meets the road, when an
idea moves from our minds into our bodies and the
(22:59):
ripple of fact begins. When we fill our tummies. We
aren't just doing it for us. We're doing it for
our moms and grandmas. We're doing it for other fat people.
We're doing it so that all of us can feel
a little more free. There are two really important hot
(23:23):
dog stories in our life, Virgie, I'm ready. A more
recent one is with San Francisco's Sticks Cafe, which is
their version of a Korean hot dog, which is it's
this really savory hot dog with a big hunk of
mazzarella cheese dipped into this mochi batter which is like
(23:47):
a rice flower, so it becomes very gelatinous, and then
it's like breaded with panko and deep fried and you
eat it with with sabi mayonnaise or spicy mayonnaise, and
it's just like the most playful, indulgent, decadent, fun delicious
thing on a stick that you might ever eat if
(24:08):
it wasn't for the bacon wrapped hot dog of Santie
Alley Alle. I was like wondering if you're gonna remember that.
I was wondering in my memory it is all caps insane,
fully loaded hot dog. Um. So we ended up at
the knockoff sunglasses mecca of the world, Santie Alley, essentially
(24:32):
like it's on the street, they're cooking it. The fragrance
of the tot dogs. They're wrapped in bacon and there's
grilled onions. I mean the aroma is so distinct and
so intoxicating, and it literally seduced us in and we
were just like, yep, fully loaded everything. I don't even
know what was on there, Like it was like, manis
(24:52):
nanto cheese onions? I don't even know how. Yeah, everything
anything you could possibly want on a bacon dog. I
mean it was available, yes, And then we just sat
there and we wore those amazing sunglasses that look like
lips that are open, and we ate our santi Alli dogs. Yeah.
(25:14):
And I think we haven't already talked about this, but
like eating while fat in public is not easy to do,
and you really have to lean into your enjoyment of
it to really kind of like, you know, not give
a shit what people are doing or saying and you
know around you. So, yeah, you've got to lean into
(25:35):
the idea that I mean, first of all, when you're fat,
you're you know, according to the culture, you're already always
theater for people. And then when you're eating while fat,
it's like you've really just got to like there's no
point in not leaning it. I mean, it's going to
be theatrical whether you want it to be or not.
So it's like it doesn't make any sense to just
(25:55):
not go, you know, like lean all the way into
the experience because like people are already having the thoughts
like to then not moan and scream and laugh with joy.
It just makes so sad. It's just like you're just
it's just self sacrificial for no purpose, you know what
I mean? Agree, Okay, when you're fat, eating in public
(26:18):
is kind of a revolutionary act. We're breaking all the
fat lady rules. Those rules say don't eat just don't,
but for sure don't eat in public, and certainly don't
eat in public with other fat people and triple dog
all caps definitely don't hang out with other fat people
(26:41):
in public, and eat anything that isn't steamed vegetables and
cardinal sin. Never be caught enjoying food when you're fat.
The rules are often silent stuff we learned as kids
or on TV, but sometimes they really are one hundred
percent clear, Like when someone yells weight loss advice out
(27:03):
of a moving vehicle when you're walking home. Yes, true story.
I don't get to consent to this experience. It happens
whether I wanted to or not. I love trolling these
stupid rules by playing into the stereotype. Extra hard, marginalized
people do stuff like this all the time. We take
(27:26):
back a little bit of power, a little bit of
dignity by saying I see your rules, and I raise
you an act of absurdity. I will become the most
ridiculous version of your expectation and expose you and your
bigotry through that act. I take back the power. And
(27:48):
Angela is often my collaborator in this project because she
has also been on the receiving end of fat phobia.
I mean, like I remember, and this could be triggering,
but I remember when I was in high school and
they're all these diets going around, like the cabbage suit
diet and the like turkey and egg or turkey and
tomato diet and this and that, and like, I mean
(28:11):
people were cruel. People would like mail these things to
our house anonymously. I mean, like theephobia is legit people, right,
And so there was this cabbage suit diet, which essentially
was like you just like it's like cabbage and some
vegetables and you just eat that all all the time.
And I'm like, this is like rationing form like a
war torn country, right, this is what people eat when
(28:33):
they don't have anything else, Like it didn't make any
sense to me that like this was what I needed
to do, Which doesn't mean that like I wasn't still
shaming myself and feeling bad about myself and like thinking
about how I could miraculously, you know, be different. But
the restriction never made sense to me. The shame was
always there, but the food piece it never clicked. I guess,
(28:56):
like I've never been the kind of person that can
like just not eat, like I just have to, Like
food was so essential to my to like to who
I was, that I couldn't just not eat. I don't
know if that makes sense. Yeah, no, I get it,
And I mean I think that that's really that's really powerful.
(29:16):
How were you in diet culture and yet having this
sort of like very clear boundary around I'm not restricting
things that I love. I don't know. I mean, I
don't know if it's like because it was like such
an innate like joy that I got that I didn't
(29:37):
experience in a lot of other places. I love that.
I mean, I'm thinking back on what you said about
the cabbage diet and how it is it reminded you
of like rations and food during wartime. And I mean
as someone who has pretty consistently used the metaphor of
(29:57):
war and food yet culture as the war against women,
it makes complete sense. And like, of course it's war food.
There's a lot of reasons why I do not limit
my intake of food, and a lot of them are
like they're political, they're personal, they're human, and and you know,
(30:20):
I think there's sort of a bigger you know, maybe
feminists maybe spiritual refusal to play along, you know, right,
and and we don't. We can't change it all overnight, right,
So you have to find your way in. You have
to find the way that makes sense to you. You
have to find the way that makes you feel like
you matter. Worthiness is something that I you know, talk
(30:43):
about all the time with people, Like our sense of
worthiness is just like a really critical point of entry
and learn. You know, this is like it took me
thirty plus years of living in a world that made
me think that there was something wrong with me, and
it's gonna take a long time to unravel that. But
(31:04):
you know, there's something bigger at stake, Like your true
liberation is what is at stake? I love it. What
was that transition into fat activism into fat liberation. What
was that? Like? Yeah, well one, it took a long time.
I remember the moment where I identified my own internalized
(31:27):
fat phobia, my own internal fat shame, like where I
named it as such and something that I could no
longer live with, right like that was the first shift
I knew I wasn't putting up with the bullshit anymore,
and I was celebrating being in community with all of
these like wonderful fat women. Like you know, when you
(31:48):
sit in a room and you see the multiplicity and
you feel the energy, and you feel the power, and
you feel like the strength of all these people who
until that moment like had like I. You know, it's
so rare to be in a room like that and
see yourself, you know, mirrored and all these other people
and you don't feel alone, and you don't feel like
there's something wrong with you. You actually feel like there's
(32:10):
something absolutely right with you. And that's when you know
the healing accelerates. There's something absolutely right with all of us.
My friendship with Angela is magic. I think of all
the times we've driven down the highway on the way
(32:31):
to our next food adventure, the windows down Stevie Nicks
blasting and our tummies grumbling. Friendships built on celebrating our bodies,
our joy, and our appetites defy diet culture. You know,
food is so many things. Food is pleasure, food as sustenance,
(32:54):
food is experience. Food can be your friend if you
need it to be in that moment, and that is
absolutely okay. And the fact that people are trying to
take that away from us is it's just it destroys
the spirit. And so my recipe is to find things
(33:15):
that you like to eat and don't be so hard
on yourself ever. I love it, Angela. Thank you again
for being an amazing rebel eater. Thank you it was
so much fun. Thank you Angela for giving us the
permission slip. We all need rebel eaters. This is the
(33:40):
final episode of the season. I'm sad to see you go,
but before you do, let's get in the kitchen for
a second and imagine whipping up a truly unique Rebel
Eaters Club dish. Start with a cup of Deshawn's fat Love.
Add a heaping tablespoon of Janet's passion for exposing shitty science,
(34:06):
a pinch of Francis Loving to watch his daughter, eat
some finely chopped resilience inspired by Joanne's spam, half a
cup of Jennifers fill up your tummy, and a dash
of friendship mixed together. Bake it up and La, You've
(34:28):
got a whole new world. We'd love to hear from you.
What did you take away from season two? Hit us
up at Rebel Eaters Club at gmail dot com. Rebel
Eaters Club is produced by Transmitter Media. Our lead producer
(34:50):
is Jordan Bailey. Lacy Roberts is our managing producer. Sarah
nix edits the show, and our executive producer is Gretta
Khne and I'm your host Verge Tobar Ben Shano is
our mix engineer. Special kudos to James T. Green, Jessica Glazer,
and Mitchell Johnson for the production assist an Taka Yasuzala
(35:11):
who wrote some of the music we use in the show.
And a big thank you to Maggie Taylor and Alca
Carl who helped the show marketing, and Lucilla Parini who
designed our beautiful show art. And thank you for listening,
for snacking with us, and for helping to make the
world just a little bit yummier. Yeah, yes,
Oh, my mouth is salivating as I'm thinking about this.
So I have this beautiful, pink, shallow bowl of green
dandelions and they've been cooked just in a little bit
of salted water, and I've prepared them with lemon juice,
olive oil, and just a sprinkle of salt. This is
(00:22):
my friend Angela Trachis. She's also my roommate. We live
together in the far western outpost of San Francisco, in
a chilly neighborhood full of surfers that borders the Pacific
Ocean and Golden Gate Park, where sometimes the sound of
fog horns wakes you up in the morning, where sometimes
(00:46):
if you go out at night at high tide, you
can smell the salt and seaweed. Since we lived together,
I got to sit in our little breakfast nook next
to the kitchen that's all painted Robin's Egg blue and
watch Angela prepare the snack for this episode. Yeah, she
(01:06):
was barefoot like always, and I and my slippers on
like always, and we were laughing also like always, because
she and I are both into big joy. She walked
me through the art of preparing the dandelion because I'm
(01:28):
a Greek girl, I had to add a million things
so we could really enjoy, you know, eating the dandelions.
You know, a Greek table is never gonna have just
one thing. It's just not allowed. So I have some
kalamata olives that I sprinkled some Greek oregano on, and
then we have this gorgeous olive loaf that definitely feels
(01:51):
freshly baked. It's soft, it's chewy, there's a nice crust
to it, and that is going to be the vehicle
for sopping up our beautiful um dandelion broth with olive
oil and lemon juice. M I'm just gonna mirror everything
that you do. So what are we doing first? Okay,
we're gonna just swirl around our green. So you know,
(02:12):
all of these beautiful liquids are coming together, and because
of these red stalks, like the broth is is this
gorgeous like fusia. And I mean I didn't plan this,
I mean I really didn't, but we have these pink bowls,
the fusia liquid and these greens. I mean, it's really
kind of impressive that a humble weed can become something
(02:35):
so beautiful. Yes, okay, are we putting it in our mouth.
Now take a bite. I'm doing it too. Okay. M
oh my god, wow m and mhm boom boom oom.
I just got a little bit of that salt. Yeah, okay.
(02:56):
So the first overwhelming taste is the bitterness of the greens.
I mean what I'm getting is I mean, it's kind
of like the It's like the greens equivalent of gaminess.
Do you know what I'm talking about? I do. I do.
And I think that's why, you know, as someone who
(03:17):
is a child of Greek immigrants, both sides of my
family are farming families, and you know, being close to
the earth is something that is just part of who
we were. You know, it's not who we are now,
but it's still like, I think, eating something that's wild
like connects us to that. Yes, I'm just in love
(03:41):
the humble weed. The humble weed. Angela and I have
traveled the world together in search of delicious food from
the knockoff markets of la with the most insane hot dogs.
Anything you could possibly want on a bacon dog, I mean,
available to the buffets of ship Showanna, Indiana ended up
(04:04):
at the Amish Easter Feast. We waited three hours in
line to have this Easter buffet. Oh to the villages
of Greece. There's this really great bakery in Athens, who
you know, makes one of the best sudekis, and they've
introduced the chocolate covered tudeki. And you know, sometimes I'm
(04:24):
a purist, I don't think we need the chocolate, but
in this case, we loved the chocolate sudeki. Part of
what makes something a comfort food is who you eat
it with. Food is a love language for me and Angela.
A couple of years ago, we decided we wanted to
go on a road trip together and we made it
(04:46):
all about a truly iconic American dessert item, pie. We
dubbed the trip I Only Have Pies for you. We
ate pie all the way from Philly to Chicago, through
over eight hundred miles of US highways in the rain
(05:06):
and shine. We ate apple pie, cherry pie, chocolate cream pie,
key lime pie, and something called shoefly pie, a molasses
pie which is sort of like pecan pie without the nuts.
And we stopped along the way to enjoy lakes, forests,
hot tubs, and of course the Church of Chocolate Hershey World.
(05:31):
We have so much appreciation for food in part because
we each have a mom with hunger in her past.
Angela's mom lived through German occupation during the Second World War.
My mom had a full blown eating disorder. I can't
prove it, but I one hundred percent believe that the
(05:52):
memory of hunger gets passed on somehow, and that when
we eat unapologetically, we feed our spirits, which helps heal
our families and our bloodlines. While we were eating greens
in our kitchen, Angela told me why dandelions are so
special for her family. I would probably if I think
(06:15):
back to, you know, my childhood days where I just
wanted to be like every other kid um in my school. Um,
I probably balked at something like dandelions. You know, it
was definitely like oh, jortha again, jortha is the Greek word. Um.
It was not the thing, you know. We want to
eat pizza, we want to eat hamburgers. We wanted to
(06:36):
eat little debbies right like everyone else. Little debbies. Yes,
But as I grew older, I really started to appreciate
the dandelions. As the girlder, I paid attention to how
important they were to my mother. Um. I mean, it's
it's the thing that she always goes to. I mean
it's her comfort food. And my mother, my aunts, Um,
(06:58):
you know, our extended family the Chicagoland area. When we
couldn't find dandelions, we would go hunting for them, and
you know, you had to leave, you had to leave,
you know, the city or the suburbs a little bit
because because they do grow wild, right, and so you know,
you want to avoid the dog pee and pesticides and
(07:19):
other things like that. So I could probably put money
on this, but every Greek household probably has a pairing
knife or some kind of sharp tool in the trunk
of their car. And you know, the mother, my mother,
every mother, every Greek mother has like dandelion radar, and
(07:41):
they we could be on the highway and like, you know,
pull over because I see a patch of dandelions, and
those dandelions look like no one's been around them, no
stray dogs are near them. You know, it looks like
a good bet for a nice little dandelion harvest. Yes,
I'm curious about when it comes to food, what was
(08:01):
it like growing up in a Greek household. Um, there's
just so much that happens around the Greek table. And
one of the things that I love most about it,
even from a young age, is that my parents always
encouraged my sister and I to you know, be an
(08:24):
active participant in the conversation. And that meant that we
could say and think whatever we wanted to, and you know,
like they encourage that like philosophical kind of questioning, you know,
what does this mean and why and all of that,
and you know that often leads to debate, and that
often leads to you know, intense conversations. But there's also
(08:48):
this like beautiful connection to a country that seems very
far away, and and often that's like a very bittersweet
kind of thing to to witness as a child whose
parents who who but whose parents really like you know,
(09:09):
I could see that one foot was in one country
and one foot was in the other, and neither of
them was stable, you know, right. I think back to
the dandelion and why it's so important, and I think about,
you know, the circumstances that my parents grew up in.
My dad was born in nineteen thirty nine and my
(09:30):
mom was born in nineteen forty five. This was the
height of access occupation in Greece. My father's family home
was occupied by soldiers there was scarcity. I mean there
was there were so many people that died because there
wasn't enough food. And also, you know, after the occupation ended,
(09:54):
in World War two ended, there was a civil war
in Greece because of kind of the fact actions that
built up as a result of the occupation. And so
you know, this is this is the most traumatic experience
that that you know, my parents were born into. But
then you know that I inherited, right, And I think
(10:17):
I think of the scarcity um that comes with that,
and the pain and the suffering um. And I think
of you know, why something like dandelions, why something like
a weed is so important? You know, because when you
have nothing and you can offer someone food, you know,
(10:38):
that is love, right um. And you know they were
so proud of where they came from. UM. I think
the reason that dandelions are so special is or just
like food, you know, Greek food is something that is
(11:00):
so meaningful for me, is because it was really like
it's not a stretch to say, the only or best
way that my mother could show her love, you know, Oh,
like I can feel that. I mean I grew up
with you as you know, sort of like a lot
(11:21):
of love, but not a lot of safety. But one
of the ways that my grandmother, who raised me as
someone who was deeply traumatized by her own childhood and
the loss of her mother, food and cooking and the
kitchen were a place that she clearly felt power and
(11:46):
she could consistently show up in that space, even when
she couldn't consistently show up emotionally for us or for
me otherwise. And I think I also relate to And
I don't know if this is something that you feel
connected to, but this sort of way in which food
becomes how our parents teach us about gets like the
(12:12):
education in our own identity, that that non American identity
that gets translated through food in a sort of obviously
like non linguistic way. And but there's so much in it, right,
Like I just think, like I'm thinking literally of you know,
you didn't grow up in Greece, but when I think
(12:34):
of how you cook, um, I always am reminded of
the Mediterranean son and the landscape. And I mean, having
been to the village where your mom grew up, having
visited with you, Um, just sort of like how those
things are, you know, they're sort of their own special
kind of storytelling age. I mean, and I think there's
(12:55):
something so metaphorical about it right where it's like, you know,
this this weed, which is it's sort of it's it's resilient,
right like it's like it grows everywhere, and it's not
it's not a high maintenance plant, and yet it is edible,
and yet it is delicious, and yet it is complex.
And I think there's something I don't know like that,
(13:18):
that simplicity and that availability and that resiliency I think
tells a story about you know, your family. Yeah, I mean,
resiliency is absolutely you know the word that stands out
for me too. You know, we were joking about how
many times I had to rinse the dandelion leaves. But
as I was rinsing them, I really like, you know
(13:41):
what came to mind. We're just like images of all
of my aunts and you know, these women that work
the fields and we're so industrious and you know, took
care of land and their kids. And I just saw
all of their faces that was cleaning these and you know,
like their strength comes through Even now. I want to
(14:07):
go back to what Angelo was saying about how dandelions
helped people survive a war in Greece. I wondered, how
does war affect food? What's the social history of hunger?
A twenty eighteen report by the UN's World Food Program
pointed out that there's an unequivocal link between conflict and hunger.
(14:32):
In twenty sixteen, of people suffering from chronic malnutrition, sixty
percent of them lived in areas affected by armed conflict.
In fact, damage to local food systems can have a
bigger impact on the people who live there than guns, bombs,
or rifles. In war, farms can be destroyed. That means
(14:56):
the land and the animals on it are taken out
of the food system. Farmers can be forced to abandon
their land, which means no one is growing whatever they
were before. This means there's less supply. Less supply means
higher costs. Higher costs mean more people can't afford to
(15:17):
buy food for their families. In war, markets and grocery
stores that stock food can be accidentally or intentionally destroyed.
Though it's considered a war crime now, military forces can
block outside food aid, literally preventing people from getting food.
(15:37):
Pregnant women who are exposed to more conflicts often have
babies with low birth weight. It's harder to survive infancy
if you're a low birthweight baby, and there can be
long term health and developmental impacts. Could it be that
some of these war babies remember being hungry. Resiliency is
(15:58):
more than our will to survive. It's our ability to
create and grow. We've talked a lot about resiliency this season.
It's exemplified in Deshawn's velvety yet grainy Reese's peanut butter cups,
in the potato chips that Janet enjoys, and the finger
licking that Jennifer practices in the face of a culture
(16:21):
that vilifies it, in the cup of noodles that Francis
has reclaimed, and in joe Anne's span. Food tells all
these stories, it's a marker of place, space, and time
of relationships as well as loss, celebration and mourning, war
(16:45):
and peace. We'll be right back. Angela and I are
(17:18):
two fat women united in our pursuit of yummy snacks
and in our culture. That's kind of a big deal.
We met back in twenty fourteen at a retreat for
fat women called Abundia. It's a conference for and buy
fat women who want to live fully joyfully and abundantly.
(17:41):
At a Bundia. There were workshops on love and desirability, disability,
and aging, but the real magic was just all of
us hanging out with each other. It feels so good
to laugh, relax and eat with other fat women away
from the eyes of a culture that dismisses us as broken, pathetic, lonely,
(18:05):
or sick. Angela and I were conference roommates and we
became instant friends. Angela was new to fat positivity, but
you never would have known it because she already seemed
like a pro at being a proud fat babe. We
would stay up until two or three in the morning
(18:25):
talking about art and philosophy, travel and fashion hopes and
histories and how much we hated dating. My friendships with
other fat women like Angela are sacred to me. There's
so much shared experience right there under the surface that
we don't really have to say out loud, like a
(18:47):
silent footnote that reads I know a lot of what
you've been through and you are more beautiful to me
because of it. When I meet a new fat friend,
it's like when a single string of notes becomes a harmony.
I love how our bellies touched when we hug. I
love how our laugh is often rounder and lower, and
(19:09):
I love eating with that friends. One of our top
food experiences, this one is someone you know, some might
say humble, but so important to our friendship. And it
is Grocery Outlet aka gross Out affectionately known as but
(19:31):
So for those who don't know, Angela, like, if an
alien visited the Earth and you had to describe grocery outlet,
what would you tell our alien friend? Oh, it's just
a treasure hunt. So it's a grocery store that for
whatever reason, has pulled in items. They could be considered gourmet,
(19:55):
they could be considered artisan, they could be considered special,
and they're usually really expensive at a regular grocery store
like a Whole Foods. So these are the kinds of
things that you know, we would cove it, but can
sometimes we ought of reach find, you know, economy. Yeah,
I literally called the Ross for food. Any consistent Ross
(20:18):
shopper knows you. You know, you go there for some
of the staples, but you really are holding out for
that thing that got weirdly rejected or returned and it
was from Nordstrums and you're like, how did it get here,
it's normally seventy four dollars, but here it's six. And
it's like, that feeling is what you're holding out for
a grocery outlet, right right, I feel like grocery outlet
(20:42):
ties into our identities so deeply. We're both children of immigrants.
We are both women who have epigenetically inherited the ecstasy
of a bargain from our mothers. We are both people
who enjoy the finer things in life and believe that
perhaps maybe they are made better by getting them on sale.
And I think also, I think it also connects to
(21:05):
our identity as fat women. UM. And so I'm like,
I want you to unpack this. Where do we start?
Everything that you said resonates with me. Um. You know,
the quality is something that that will never be sacrificed, um.
But money is something that was never um in abundance. Right.
(21:29):
So it's like, well, how do you get the best
thing for the least amount of resources? And I think
there's something beautiful about your knowing that you deserve the
best thing. And as we see, how like you know,
in in modern culture, like all the beautiful things tend
to be reserved for people with the most resources, and
(21:50):
I just think that is just unjust, you know, like
everyone deserves something delicious um And I think as an
immigrant kid, that's just like a lesson that you learn
kind of intrinsically. In diet culture, women are taught to
bond over diets, hating our bodies and calorie counting. Creating
(22:15):
friendships that celebrate food feels like repairing the years and
years of being told I wasn't allowed to enjoy eating
because of my body size. Eating with Angela is as
therapeutic to me as an actual mental health appointment, because
we are doing the repair work. Like. There's a word
(22:37):
for this that I love. It's called praxis. It's when
an idea, like food positivity or fat positivity meets the
real world and becomes an embodied action. Eating with Angela
is that when the rubber meets the road, when an
idea moves from our minds into our bodies and the
(22:59):
ripple of fact begins. When we fill our tummies. We
aren't just doing it for us. We're doing it for
our moms and grandmas. We're doing it for other fat people.
We're doing it so that all of us can feel
a little more free. There are two really important hot
(23:23):
dog stories in our life, Virgie, I'm ready. A more
recent one is with San Francisco's Sticks Cafe, which is
their version of a Korean hot dog, which is it's
this really savory hot dog with a big hunk of
mazzarella cheese dipped into this mochi batter which is like
(23:47):
a rice flower, so it becomes very gelatinous, and then
it's like breaded with panko and deep fried and you
eat it with with sabi mayonnaise or spicy mayonnaise, and
it's just like the most playful, indulgent, decadent, fun delicious
thing on a stick that you might ever eat if
(24:08):
it wasn't for the bacon wrapped hot dog of Santie
Alley Alle. I was like wondering if you're gonna remember that.
I was wondering in my memory it is all caps insane,
fully loaded hot dog. Um. So we ended up at
the knockoff sunglasses mecca of the world, Santie Alley, essentially
(24:32):
like it's on the street, they're cooking it. The fragrance
of the tot dogs. They're wrapped in bacon and there's
grilled onions. I mean the aroma is so distinct and
so intoxicating, and it literally seduced us in and we
were just like, yep, fully loaded everything. I don't even
know what was on there, Like it was like, manis
(24:52):
nanto cheese onions? I don't even know how. Yeah, everything
anything you could possibly want on a bacon dog. I
mean it was available, yes, And then we just sat
there and we wore those amazing sunglasses that look like
lips that are open, and we ate our santi Alli dogs. Yeah.
(25:14):
And I think we haven't already talked about this, but
like eating while fat in public is not easy to do,
and you really have to lean into your enjoyment of
it to really kind of like, you know, not give
a shit what people are doing or saying and you
know around you. So, yeah, you've got to lean into
(25:35):
the idea that I mean, first of all, when you're fat,
you're you know, according to the culture, you're already always
theater for people. And then when you're eating while fat,
it's like you've really just got to like there's no
point in not leaning it. I mean, it's going to
be theatrical whether you want it to be or not.
So it's like it doesn't make any sense to just
(25:55):
not go, you know, like lean all the way into
the experience because like people are already having the thoughts
like to then not moan and scream and laugh with joy.
It just makes so sad. It's just like you're just
it's just self sacrificial for no purpose, you know what
I mean? Agree, Okay, when you're fat, eating in public
(26:18):
is kind of a revolutionary act. We're breaking all the
fat lady rules. Those rules say don't eat just don't,
but for sure don't eat in public, and certainly don't
eat in public with other fat people and triple dog
all caps definitely don't hang out with other fat people
(26:41):
in public, and eat anything that isn't steamed vegetables and
cardinal sin. Never be caught enjoying food when you're fat.
The rules are often silent stuff we learned as kids
or on TV, but sometimes they really are one hundred
percent clear, Like when someone yells weight loss advice out
(27:03):
of a moving vehicle when you're walking home. Yes, true story.
I don't get to consent to this experience. It happens
whether I wanted to or not. I love trolling these
stupid rules by playing into the stereotype. Extra hard, marginalized
people do stuff like this all the time. We take
(27:26):
back a little bit of power, a little bit of
dignity by saying I see your rules, and I raise
you an act of absurdity. I will become the most
ridiculous version of your expectation and expose you and your
bigotry through that act. I take back the power. And
(27:48):
Angela is often my collaborator in this project because she
has also been on the receiving end of fat phobia.
I mean, like I remember, and this could be triggering,
but I remember when I was in high school and
they're all these diets going around, like the cabbage suit
diet and the like turkey and egg or turkey and
tomato diet and this and that, and like, I mean
(28:11):
people were cruel. People would like mail these things to
our house anonymously. I mean, like theephobia is legit people, right,
And so there was this cabbage suit diet, which essentially
was like you just like it's like cabbage and some
vegetables and you just eat that all all the time.
And I'm like, this is like rationing form like a
war torn country, right, this is what people eat when
(28:33):
they don't have anything else, Like it didn't make any
sense to me that like this was what I needed
to do, Which doesn't mean that like I wasn't still
shaming myself and feeling bad about myself and like thinking
about how I could miraculously, you know, be different. But
the restriction never made sense to me. The shame was
always there, but the food piece it never clicked. I guess,
(28:56):
like I've never been the kind of person that can
like just not eat, like I just have to, Like
food was so essential to my to like to who
I was, that I couldn't just not eat. I don't
know if that makes sense. Yeah, no, I get it,
And I mean I think that that's really that's really powerful.
(29:16):
How were you in diet culture and yet having this
sort of like very clear boundary around I'm not restricting
things that I love. I don't know. I mean, I
don't know if it's like because it was like such
an innate like joy that I got that I didn't
(29:37):
experience in a lot of other places. I love that.
I mean, I'm thinking back on what you said about
the cabbage diet and how it is it reminded you
of like rations and food during wartime. And I mean
as someone who has pretty consistently used the metaphor of
(29:57):
war and food yet culture as the war against women,
it makes complete sense. And like, of course it's war food.
There's a lot of reasons why I do not limit
my intake of food, and a lot of them are
like they're political, they're personal, they're human, and and you know,
(30:20):
I think there's sort of a bigger you know, maybe
feminists maybe spiritual refusal to play along, you know, right,
and and we don't. We can't change it all overnight, right,
So you have to find your way in. You have
to find the way that makes sense to you. You
have to find the way that makes you feel like
you matter. Worthiness is something that I you know, talk
(30:43):
about all the time with people, Like our sense of
worthiness is just like a really critical point of entry
and learn. You know, this is like it took me
thirty plus years of living in a world that made
me think that there was something wrong with me, and
it's gonna take a long time to unravel that. But
(31:04):
you know, there's something bigger at stake, Like your true
liberation is what is at stake? I love it. What
was that transition into fat activism into fat liberation. What
was that? Like? Yeah, well one, it took a long time.
I remember the moment where I identified my own internalized
(31:27):
fat phobia, my own internal fat shame, like where I
named it as such and something that I could no
longer live with, right like that was the first shift
I knew I wasn't putting up with the bullshit anymore,
and I was celebrating being in community with all of
these like wonderful fat women. Like you know, when you
(31:48):
sit in a room and you see the multiplicity and
you feel the energy, and you feel the power, and
you feel like the strength of all these people who
until that moment like had like I. You know, it's
so rare to be in a room like that and
see yourself, you know, mirrored and all these other people
and you don't feel alone, and you don't feel like
there's something wrong with you. You actually feel like there's
(32:10):
something absolutely right with you. And that's when you know
the healing accelerates. There's something absolutely right with all of us.
My friendship with Angela is magic. I think of all
the times we've driven down the highway on the way
(32:31):
to our next food adventure, the windows down Stevie Nicks
blasting and our tummies grumbling. Friendships built on celebrating our bodies,
our joy, and our appetites defy diet culture. You know,
food is so many things. Food is pleasure, food as sustenance,
(32:54):
food is experience. Food can be your friend if you
need it to be in that moment, and that is
absolutely okay. And the fact that people are trying to
take that away from us is it's just it destroys
the spirit. And so my recipe is to find things
(33:15):
that you like to eat and don't be so hard
on yourself ever. I love it, Angela. Thank you again
for being an amazing rebel eater. Thank you it was
so much fun. Thank you Angela for giving us the
permission slip. We all need rebel eaters. This is the
(33:40):
final episode of the season. I'm sad to see you go,
but before you do, let's get in the kitchen for
a second and imagine whipping up a truly unique Rebel
Eaters Club dish. Start with a cup of Deshawn's fat Love.
Add a heaping tablespoon of Janet's passion for exposing shitty science,
(34:06):
a pinch of Francis Loving to watch his daughter, eat
some finely chopped resilience inspired by Joanne's spam, half a
cup of Jennifers fill up your tummy, and a dash
of friendship mixed together. Bake it up and La, You've
(34:28):
got a whole new world. We'd love to hear from you.
What did you take away from season two? Hit us
up at Rebel Eaters Club at gmail dot com. Rebel
Eaters Club is produced by Transmitter Media. Our lead producer
(34:50):
is Jordan Bailey. Lacy Roberts is our managing producer. Sarah
nix edits the show, and our executive producer is Gretta
Khne and I'm your host Verge Tobar Ben Shano is
our mix engineer. Special kudos to James T. Green, Jessica Glazer,
and Mitchell Johnson for the production assist an Taka Yasuzala
(35:11):
who wrote some of the music we use in the show.
And a big thank you to Maggie Taylor and Alca
Carl who helped the show marketing, and Lucilla Parini who
designed our beautiful show art. And thank you for listening,
for snacking with us, and for helping to make the
world just a little bit yummier. Yeah, yes,
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