Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast - Al Roker

Episode Date: November 22, 2023

On this special Thanksgiving episode, we’re joined by America’s weatherman Al Roker. He shares Thanksgiving traditions new and old, plus tips on how to perfect his mama’s oxtail stew with dumplings.Al Roker is the longtime host of Today’s weather programing on NBC. He led NBC’s coverage of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade 26 years in a row, up until 2021. He had his own program on Food Network called Roker on the Road and a podcast, Cooking up a Storm with Al Roker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We didn't have a lot of money, but you shared yourself through food. If tragedy befell one of your neighbors, there was a corningware dish of something that went to that neighbor. There was always an opportunity to bring something to somebody, whether it was if one of the neighborhood kids was sick, played a brownies or something like that. Welcome to Your Momma's Kitchen, the podcast that explores how we're shaped as adults by the kitchens we grew up in as kids.

I'm Michele Norris. Today I spoke to someone whose name is synonymous with the Thanksgiving holiday for American families, the television legend Al Roker. If you've ever tuned in to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, you've probably witnessed his radiating personality and infectious smile as he usheres in the next big float or the big marching band.

He's been on the air for 40 years, predicting the weather on NBC's Today Show, winning 14 Emmys and earning the nickname America's Weatherman. He's also created a bit of a food empire of his own, hosting special cooking segments, authoring several cookbooks, and he's even hosted his own podcast called Cooking Up a Storm with El Roker.

All that is to say, he has never been shy about his skills in the kitchen and on the grill. And in this episode, you'll also hear some of his tips about how to make the perfect waffle. Now, before he became the charismatic TV personality, we all know and love. El Roker was a shy, bespectacled kid, obsessed with comics and audio equipment. In this conversation, we reach back to El's childhood in Queens outside New York City. You'll hear about how his mama cooked for a big family

on a tight budget out of a tiny kitchen and how her recipe for Jamaican ox tail stew with dumplings still makes El roger swoon. And since he's hosted the biggest televised Thanksgiving event every year since 1995, we also hear about what the holiday means to him, especially after he had to sit out his first parade in decades because of a health scare. So in this episode, a dose of gratitude layered with a little nostalgia and served up with a lot of laughter. Elroker, I'm so glad that you were with us. You spent a lot of time thinking about food.

Through the work that you do at the Today Show, we see you cook, I watch you today, making tacos. And through your own adventures, your show, your podcast, cooking up a storm with Elle Roker, your cookbooks, including the big, bad book of barbecue and your hassle-free holiday cookbook. So you know your way around the kitchen. Well, I do like food. I'm married to Deborah Roberts, ABC News, co-anchor of 2020, and we are obviously two different people,

but when it comes to food, we really are two different people. I mean, if she could subsist on air and water, I think she would be fine. Really? I am just the opposite. Well, food is the focus of this podcast. And so I'm glad that you bring that enthusiasm and that outlook to this, because I'm right there with you.

But I'm wondering, what is your favorite meal that was produced in your mom's kitchen? And which house was it in? Was it in the house that you were living in when you were born or the house you moved in to later on? It's interesting, you say, because before we had a house, we lived in a couple of different projects.

And I don't really remember when my mother's cooking because I was maybe, I think we moved into our house when I was eight. And before that, it was fairly rudimentary. But the house we lived in, that's where I remember holiday meals and people coming over. And before that, it was just kind of a blur.

And what I remember most, I mean, besides the food, and I don't know what the physical layout of your kitchen is as opposed to your mother's kitchen. My mother's kitchen, we had one oven. There was a four burner cooktop, I think a magic chef cooktop. And yet she could turn out for 12 people, a meal that included baked goods, a turkey and or ham,

and sides all at the same time. And, you know, I'm fortunate, I'm blessed, you know, I've got a great kitchen, I've got a six burner stove, a dual oven, you know, a warming drawer, and I still struggle to get it all out at once. And probably a microwave and an air fryer too. Yeah. I draw the line at the air fryer.

Okay, we're going to put a pin on that because I love the air fryer. Okay, but anyway, not only did I marvel at what she made, but how she was able to make it and seemingly all effortlessly. So you grew up in a neighborhood called St. Alvins, Queens. You had five siblings, so there were six of you in the household with your mom and dad. This sounds like a household that probably was a little bit loud and a lot going on. Yeah, we got calls from the airport to keep it down. So I'm wondering if you could go back in time and space and describe the kitchen and what it looked like.

Take me inside that space. Well, we lived in a three bedroom semi attached house on a corner lot in Queens in St. Albans. You know, you walk in the front door, there was a living room. If you kept going a little to the left, there was a very small dining room. Somehow though, my mother managed to cram in a break front hutch, a dining table, and 12 chairs. There were also two extensions that would go in it.

And then if you went straight, there was a small kitchen that had literally enough space for a very small kitchen table that could seat four people. There was a frigid air refrigerator that was yellowish color. There was a matching stove or oven, I should say, in a cabinet. And then there was a four toptop burner and then a sink. And there's no dishwasher. And the window looked out onto the backyard, which was a postage stamp with a car port in the back,

but that was the kitchen. And if you had three people in there, you were crowded. Mm-hmm. And you had a big family. Yes. So your mother and father, your father is a Bahamian. Is that correct? His family is from the Hamas.

First generation Bahamian. And your mother's family is from Jamaica. Yep. Jamaica and New York. Or I should say Boston. Was this a kitchen that had a very strong with indigate influence? It, you know, it did and it didn't.

You know, it depended on the day. My mother, like most first-generation folk, had her traditional food, but also made American food, or food of our neighborhood, which, like our first apartment, was in Rockaway, and it was a diverse neighborhood, white, black, Italian, Polish.

In fact, I remember my mother, when I was a baby, hard to believe, didn't eat very much. And she was talking to a neighbor who was Italian. And she said, oh, you know what you should try? There's this wonderful breakfast pasta called pastina. And it's noodles that are kind of very, very, very small. She said, you should try giving that to your son. And so my mother did, and I kept spitting it out, spitting it out, and spitting it out. My mother runs into her neighbor a few days later, and she goes, he just won't eat it.

And the woman said to my mother, well, how long are you cooking it for? And my mother looked at her, and said, oh, you're supposed to cook it? Oh. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. So, that's going for me. But you know, and you know, spaghetti and meatballs. And look, you know, my family was also, as many of the people in the neighborhood were,

because it was a project, you know, metal to lower metal income. And so there was a lot of food that you could stretch a budget. You know, spaghetti and meatballs or meatloaf or, you know, the things that we look at, we call comfort food. My mom, you know, one of my favorite meals as she would make would be ox tails stew. Back then, ox tails were poor people food. You know, nobody was serving oxtails at restaurants, unless you could find a Jamaican restaurant. So I remember my mother being upset with, I think it was Bobby Flank, I can't remember who it was,

but back in the 90s, all of a sudden, oxtail became hot, you know, these high-end chefs were cooking with oxtail. And my mother was just, I walked into the house one day and she said, you know, those people on the food, now I hate them. I said, okay, mom, why? Well, because they're making these recipes with ox tail

and now ox tail's gone through the roof. I said, okay, well, I'll be sure to bring that up. Next time I see somebody from the food network, that's like, okay. And because my mother wasn't a gourmet cook, she was, you know, she was feeding in quantity. There were eight people in the family. Except, and I know about your mom, I could probably count on one hand growing up that I actually saw her

eat. She was always getting up and back and forth, and she'd sit, and then she'd get up again, and say, which was why she was so small. Tell me about your mom. What was her name? And did she have a kitchen personality? Was she different in the kitchen than she was in the workplace or when she went to church or when she went elsewhere? Her name was Isabel Bernadette Smith. She was the second youngest of nine. In the kitchen, basically my mother was pretty much the same person, whether in the kitchen out of the gate. You know, she was a very dominant personality, but it is not like she kept us out of the kitchen.

It was just logistical. It just wasn't a lot of room in the kitchen. So we just kind of stayed out. She didn't ask for help and he didn't volunteer it because if you got into the kitchen, the odds are you would be drug-ooned into dish-washing duty or destroying duty. So if you could stand on her line of sight, you were probably better off. But no, she was a personality, if you will. She would create personalities.

She would tell my friends that she used to be an opera singer. Well, she was an opera singer. I mean, she sang in church, or she would create gibberish languages, just create phrases. And we're like, what is she talking about? We had no idea. Like pig Latin or something? Or just like, but not. Like she's like, shamele and blow the egg.

I was like, what is that mom? I'm like, I don't know. You know, you just accept what your mother says and does. So we just kind of, that was Israel or Izzy. Everybody called her Izzy. You know, she was a character, you know, but when it came to food, I remember early on, there was a Fanny farmer cookbook, but for the most part, she wasn't following recipes.

She kind of made it up as she went or somebody told her a recipe or she saw something in the paper. You know, it was just what was on sale. You know, what could she get in bulk? I remember my folks had a chest freezer in the basement so that when stuff was on sale at Western beef and queens, you know, they could buy like a side of beef. That's a big white fish.

Yeah, they'd buy some. Yeah, they'd buy some. Almost dive into to get to the bottom of it. You could put a body in there, basically. You know, as you were, if my parents were the homicidal type, they could have stored somebody in there. What did you learn about generosity in the kitchen?

And I asked this because we've never worked together. We've worked at one point on competing networks with both journalists. So I know a lot of people who've worked with you and known you over the years. And the thing that they always say about you is he is exceedingly generous with his time, with his resources, with his advice.

So what did you learn about generosity watching your parents in that kitchen? You know, I think it was one of the like a lot of people. I think we didn't have a lot of money, but you shared yourself through food. If tragedy befell one of your neighbors, there was a corningware dish of something that went to that neighbor. There was always an opportunity to bring something to somebody, whether it was if one of the neighborhood kids was sick, played a brownies or something like that. You know, members of my mother's rosary society would drop in and you'd hear them talking. And the funny thing was, my mother, when they weren't there, she'd talk about them.

Like, you know, it's like, oh, that misses so and so. I said, mom, so why are you going to the rosary society if they drive you all crazy? Well, that's, it's very important. You know, it's like, I mean, you know, we do a lot of good work. I said, okay, even though you're ready to kill half of them, but that's all right. I remember my mother was the keeper of the family books. You know, my dad literally came home, put his paycheck on the, this obviously before we had direct deposit or anything like that.

I remember that envelope on the table. And my mother doing the books and juggling. And so to the point where- Was that the kitchen table? They should be sitting at the kitchen table. And if she just be sitting there and again, because the table was so small, we things tended to happen more adjacent to the kitchen

or in the dining room. And that was like some of my memories of my mother going back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room, which was literally 10 steps. That's where everything really, in a sense, happened, whether it was Friday night board games, playing monopoly or Scrabble. Last Scrabble, you know, my mother was a big believer in words and reading. And we would pop popcorn or a big bowl of, and I don't know why this started, but a big bowl of in shell salted peanuts. I don't know why, but yeah.

That sounds delicious, but kind of messy. Yes, yeah, but we each had a bowl and there you go. I want to return to something you said, that scene where your dad would come home from work and put the paycheck on the table. That is not uncommon, but it's not something that I think is well-understood in American life that there was a time

when men were seen as the primary breadwinner and there was an assumption that they handled the finances, that since they often brought home the most money that they made the decisions about how that money was spent, what was put away, what investments did they make in their children's future and putting a little bit here and there for the holidays or maybe for a family vacation. But in a lot of households, that was actually the mother, that was actually the woman in the household that was making those decisions. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Yes. It's funny as I'm getting older. The memories are getting fuzzy. My dad's been gone for over 20 years. My mom's been gone for 15. But I seem to recall early on in their marriage when I was very small, he mismanaged the money. And so she took it over. What I learned equally from them was, hey, my mother's frugality,

but I also, I think inherited my father's entrepreneurial side, if you will. He was a bus driver, but he also, I think he actually, because again, he didn't have to do it constantly for the family. He liked to cook. And he had a couple of buddies at the depot because there was no lunch room, a cafeteria kind of thing.

They created their own lunch room, in a sense. And so they would cook for when my father wasn't on his shift. He'd come in early, depending on whatever shift you and would do lunches for the other bus drivers. At the depot, like, he had a really, yeah, they carved out an area. He and I think it was three other buddies and they created a lunchroom. And so he always had a little bit of a side hustle. And then with my uncle, they had a little bit of a, and if they were better businessmen,

they might have made it more of a go with this, but they had a bit of a moving company. But I think 40-hour, week, plus the food and trying to do moving was something had to give, so we gave up the moving. But so from both of them, I inherited, I think, something that's led me to where I am today. What was a eight-year old L. Roker like? I was, and still I'm, I was pretty shy. That's hard to believe because you're so outgoing now. Yeah, I was not like the class clown.

I was, you know, a chunky kid. You know, I wore glasses. I wouldn't consider myself one of the popular kids, but I had a sense of humor and I could draw. And I loved comics, comic strips, comic books. And so I would draw comics of my, I went to a Catholic school of some of the nuns and priests and classmates.

And I was always interested in media. My mother said when I was six or seven, I described live TV shows as dry shows and filmed TV shows as wet. Well, it's interesting. You understood even then. Yeah. And one of the things about a busty poem is that there would be a number of items that people would come to sell that quote fell off the back of a truck. This is a podcast. So people can see the air quotes that you just get the air quotes that fell off the back of the truck. Yeah. Yeah. That were procured and interesting. Yes. Yes. Interesting and nefarious. And so my dad would, I remember in bringing home when I was 11, a 3M wall and sack real to real tape recorder. And this is before

a track before cassettes. And I would read up on stuff. And I figured out that if you took the back of the TV set off and you ran wires from the speaker leads into the line end of the recorder, you could record audio off the television. And so I would record TV shows. And then I'd bring my mother down to the basement. I said, you've got to hear this. I just spliced together the theme from Batman and the theme from Superman. And of course, I was oblivious to this look of just abject terror on her face like this kid's never leaving this basement. He will be with us for the rest of his life. But, you know, so that was,

and she'd bring down a grilled cheese sandwich. And in fact, it's being a television and food, there was a comedian, I don't know if you're old enough to remember him. A TV comedian named Super Sale. Oh, I remember Super Sale. And Super Sale, he was famous for, you know, getting a pie in the face.

But early on, he had a kid show, a daily kid show in the face. But early on, he had a kid show, a daily kid show in the afternoon at 12 noon on the ABC stations. And every day at the beginning of the show, he would tell kids what he was having for lunch. And so you could have lunch with soupy. And so my mother, a couple of two or three times a week would make, and it was always like a ham sandwich, grilled cheese sandwich. And my mother would make that lunch for me, and I would have lunch with souping. You look, that is the, I know I'm jumping around here, but it was really the language of love.

Yeah, food is love. I got to go back though to the splicing of the tape and grabbing the audio from the back of the television. There are several things that are amazing about that. One, I can hear the mashup of Superman and Batman, and that sounds you were mixing before people were mixing, so that was interesting. I think it shows extreme genius and intellect on your part, but the thing that is most amazing to me is that your parents let you touch the television.

Yeah, we had an old set in the basement, an old black and white. I was, like I said, I was very interested in this. And so with a splicing block and a straight edge razor blade, you could splice stuff together. My sister told me one of the things I used to do was I would go to them and ask them like simple questions. Like do you like ice cream?

Yes. Do you like going to the doctor? No. And then I would re-record my questions and splice in their answers and blackmail them. Hey, do you think mom and dad are really kind of stupid? Yes, I do. Oh, you were a troublemaker. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I would bribe them. I kind of like blackmail them. And you would bribe them to do what? You do the dishes for me, and I'll never show this to mom and dad. Exactly, I'm gonna play this for them. I don't think I ever actually did, but it was the threat.

I'm sorry that I can't reach out to your sips to your version of the story. Yeah. You're listening to the Audible original, Your Mom is Kitchen. Like what you're hearing, the next episode is available now, exclusively from Audible. You can listen to new episodes on Audible two weeks before you can hear them anywhere else. You are for many of us a face and a voice associated with Thanksgiving because of your segments on the today show because of your role at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. So I'm curious about what that holiday has meant for you over years.

What was Thanksgiving like in your childhood home? And how do you celebrate Thanksgiving? Because it must be a complicated day for you now. But let's go first back to Saint Albans. And what was Thanksgiving like back there? I remember, and again, growing up in New York City, and this is probably unique to New York City, in that there probably unique to New York City, in that there were two broadcasts

that happened every Thanksgiving. There was the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. And then right after that, Channel 11, which is an independent station here, would run Laurel and Hardy's March of the Wooden Soldiers. And I'm a big Laurel and Hardy fan. Anyway, I remember, you know, we'd come downstairs and my mother would have a big bowl of fruit

and shelled nuts in the living room where our TV was. So we would come down to our pajamas and we'd start watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. And my mother would then start prepping the Thanksgiving meal, because we always ate early. And at some point during the parade, we'd go up, we'd get showered, bathed, and get dressed. I mean, not fancy dressed, but, you know,

shirt and pair of pants and everything. And by now you start to smell the turkey and my mother's making the dressing. And then we'd watch the March of the Wooden Soldiers, which was about 90 minutes. And so by 130, that was done. The table was set, and she'd call us in to help set the table. And by two o'clock, we were having dinner. And I always remember, there was always a, at each play setting, there was always a bowl of

Del Monte fruit salad there. I was a woman with a little maraschino cherry, the little red cherry. Yep, with that little red maraschino cherry, that has literally that color red does not exist in nature. I don't know what kind of red dye number 65 they used to get that. And then we, you know, we, there would be the blessing of the table and, and there wasn't enough room on the table so that there was some stuff in the kitchen, some food, you know, and you'd help yourself. It was kind of buffet and boom. And then, you know, you grow up and the right of passage

is an adult. I'm sure for you as well is when you have your family and you're prepping Thanksgiving dinner. And again, as you said, it became a little complicated because I'm doing the parade. So what I would do, I prep a lot of stuff at night. And this was teamwork. And are you the cook or is Deborah the cook? Who cooks in your family? I'm the cook, but Deborah was the facilitator. So while I'm at the parade, I've left kind of a schedule of what needs to go in when.

Are you leaving a schedule? So is it really like on the refrigerator or some sort of text that you give her? Is she to pay on a yellow sheet on legal pet? And so Deborah was really responsible. I mean, she was really at the important role till I would get home, because I'd get home. It ends at noon, I get home about 12, 20.

You know, we'd have people coming over about two, three o'clock. So, and we'd also have people bring stuff. And in about 10 years ago, Deborah and I were having lunch at Bar Ballot on the west side, near ABC. And Danielle Ballot came in. Famous chef, we should just say for people to know.

Famous chef. Very famous chef. Just not New York, but around the world at this point. Anyway, he came into the restaurant and he said, what are you doing for Thanksgiving? And I said, well, Danielle, I'm making, I did this whole thing. Why don't you come to the restaurant and come you doing for Thanksgiving? And I said, well, Daniel, I may not make it. I did this whole thing. Why don't you come to the restaurant and come to Daniel for Thanksgiving? I said, oh, that's nice.

Thank you. I had no intentions of doing it. And Deborah said, why don't we just try it? And I went and they had the traditional Thanksgiving meal and then some. And it was like this revelation. It was like the sky's parted. The sun came down, shone on this table.

And I said, oh my God, why haven't we done this before? This is spectacular. Oh my God. At to the point where in and they give you leftovers to take home. So I haven't made a Thanksgiving meal in probably 10 years. Our Thanksgiving tradition is parade, get home, shower, change, and then dinner at 10.

Is there anything though that you miss as good a cook as he is, as amazing a chef as he is? Is there anything that you miss that nothing, nothing, nothing, not sweet potatoes with the marshmallows if that was your thing? No, because you know what I, what we'll do is then that we can, we're blessed we have a house upstate. We go up either depending on how early we eat, we may drive up on Thanksgiving day, certainly on Friday morning.

And then I'll make kind of a mini Thanksgiving meal where I'll do a small thing of the sweet potato poon. I'll do it. Sweet potato poon, wait a minute, what's that? Oh my gosh, well my mother, I guess this is Southern, she told us this other, I don do it. See, but you can't have a clue. Wait a minute. What's that? Oh my gosh. Well, my mother, I guess this is Southern, she told us this is Southern. I don't know. Anyway, it's basically a crossless sweet potato pie.

And so you cook sweet potatoes, mash them down, throw in some baking powder, some flour, salt, pepper, brown sugar, crushed pineapple, vanilla, and you put in a buttered casserole dish, and then you bake it at about 350. And this is a holiday tradition, Thanksgiving tradition when my mother was making dinner. And when she'd come to my house, she'd make it. It has a marshmallow topping that you brown under the broiler.

Those little mini marshmallows? No, no, no, the jet puffs, big ones, big ones. So that it gets a nice brown crust on them. But as you know, with marshmallows, if you're not careful, they will burn quickly. Yeah, you can't take a phone call, I can't turn your back, gotta stay right there. So what has become as we were adult children, it would be whose job is it this year to distract mom so that the marshmallows catch five? Oh no. So she'd have the broiler open and she's watching it. And it was like, don't bother me. Don't bother me. And so one of us would come and mom, we need

that big serving dish. Whereas, and because she couldn't delegate, she said, let me go get it really quick. And then of course, within a minute or two, the smoke alarm is going off. And we're all like high fiveing each other. Oh, I'm so I, I'm sorry, I'm on team mom on this one. This is just, Well, that's why we always bought two bags of jet puff marshmallows. Because, No, what are you doing that just because you were bad

or were you doing that because some of you actually like the burnt marshmallow taste? No, no, nobody liked the burnt. We just liked it because it was just, You were just misjudicated. It happened a couple of times. And we realized, this is great, we have to keep doing this. This is fantastic.

And then she gets so angry, full angry with us, you know, it's like. It's a holiday, so she probably let you slide a little bit more than. Exactly, exactly. So, over the weekend, thanksgiving weekend, I will make a dish of the sweet potato pun in her honor.

Poon, P-O-N. P-O-N. Okay, sweet potato pun. I might have to introduce that in our holiday tradition. That sounds delicious. Including the burning marshmallows. And I think you can become a cook or a chef

or whatever you want to call it. But as much as what your parents didn't do, as they did. Okay. And again, there were six kids. So breakfast was not a leisurely pursuit in our house. So my mother was not great at breakfast. And even before there were ego waffles, there was something called downy flake waffles. They were square and they had frozen waffles, you

put them in the toaster. And I remember I was watching some show and when I was a kid, there's some sitcom or whatever. And the mother was making waffles with a waffle maker. And I was like transfixed by this. And so I remember thinking when I'm an adult, I'm never having another frozen waffle as long as I live. And I still have a magic chef waffle maker that's about 30 years old. It's beat to hell, but it makes fantastic waffles,

not those Belgian waffles. Not the big fat ones. Not those. No. No. Then and the waffle is better than the pancake. The reason why the waffle is better than pancake is that the pancake is a flat surface. So the syrup rolls off. The butter rolls off. The waffle has little indentations that can hold those little pools, those golden pools butter. And when the butter and the syrup kind of mix together, they're mixed together and you cut it in a juice. I love a good bottle. That's why it gets a 19-watt. I'm too much. It's just a crisp on the outside, a little fluffy. Here's the other trick, the other thing that I've discovered to add to the waffle mix. A couple of scoops of melted milk mix.

Oh yeah, yeah, I can see that. I can have a multiple. You know what else you can add to a waffle? A little bit of egg whites that have been cooked. So it's almost like just before they get meringue and you put a little bit of vague white in there and it gives a waffle, a little bit of fluffiness to it. That house in St. Almond's, I actually have, I've seen it because you went back there on an episode.

I remember when you went back on a today's show segment. So I have it in my mind as you talk about it. And I read that your parents paid $100. Yeah, for the down payment in the early 1960s. And it was 1963. Yep. House was 14 times. Yeah. And you still own the house. You have nephew that lives in that house today. That is a story that is almost impossible right now. You know, Housing is so expensive. And so at this time of the year, when we're thinking about the bounty of the holidays, when we're thinking about preparing Thanksgiving meals,

we should also be mindful of those for whom the kitchen is not a place of plenty. Yeah. And I'm wondering if you have a a message of hope or insight for Families who struggle to make ran or put food on the table or make the Thanksgiving holiday special when there's just not enough to go around. Yeah It is the idea that one in four children in this country or food insecure just Seems a travesty their number of us that are really blessed and blessed. Our church for a long time does a lot of food drives, not just the holidays, but all

during the year. It seems inconceivable, but that there are so many people now trying to organize not just food drives, but they listen. Food banks this day and age have become a necessity. And so it's very important that we remember those folks and do what we can. And one of the things that I have a new appreciation late last year during Thanksgiving and Christmas, so that's what no secret I had, a severe medical issue. And to be completely almost dead,

I didn't know it at the time. Debra and Lila, my middle girl, were really instrumental in keeping that away from me so I could concentrate. But yeah, I miss Thanksgiving, almost miss Christmas. And I forgot how important those touchstone moments are. And in fact, for Debra, the first point that she got that maybe I was going to be okay, was that I had another procedure. And coming out anesthesia,

she was there and she said, how are you feeling? I said, I saw this recipe in the New York Times cooking segment for a spatchcock mayonnaise-based turkey. I'm going to make that for Christmas. And she thought, okay, I think he's going to make a... He's back. He's back with us. Because that's how important those moments are. I realize that we need to take care of other people who are doing okay, but there, but for

the grace of God, go us. Was the memory of a holiday in retrospect? Do you think that deep in your psyche that that was one of the things that pulled you through? I want another Christmas with my family. I want us all together. Yeah, it was. And I felt in a sense badly

because I ruined Thanksgiving for the family and I was not going to let that happen for Christmas. That's being a little hard on yourself though, isn't that, El? I mean, you didn't. Yeah, you know, but listen, when you're under pain meds, you go in different places, you might not. But, you know, it was important to me

and it gave me something to push for and I made Christmas dinner. and it gave me something to push for and I made Christmas dinner. You said that your all time favorite meal that your mom would make is ox tail stew. Yes. I think I heard it's not just any ox tail stew, it's ox tail stew with dumplings.

Yes, it's got everything you need in one pot. You got the vegetables, you got the beef, and you've got the starch in these fluffy Dense and that was what was always amazed me that you could have something that was dense yet fluffy at the same time When I think about her the perfect meal from her you would be the ox tail stew collard greens and the perfect meal from her. You would be the ox tail stew, collard greens, and a pineapple upside down cake. Okay, now that is good eating. That sounds good.

No, that was her super bowl of food. And it was great because you could make a lot for not a lot of money on a cold day. My dad got in when we were like, I was like 12, he got into baking. And so he started making like yeast rolls and bread and cinnamon rolls. And so the perfect day to walk into that house

and smell yeast bread baking, my mother's ox tail stew and the overtones of that caramelized pineapple was just about as good as it gets. Mm, well, we're gonna share the recipe with our listeners. So is there anything that they have to absolutely get right or pay attention to to make sure that they get the right flavor?

You gotta saute the ox tails first, preferably in a little oil and their own fat, and don't crowd the pot so that they brown well. You really want them browned because that lends the depth of flavor and try to get the media's ox tails you can. And don't rush it. Just take your time. This needs to be low and slow for a while. All right. I love talking to you. Thanks so much. It's so great to see you, Michelle.

That was fun. I liked that conversation and it was a reminder that we often share the best of ourselves through food. Even when Elrugra's family didn't have much money, they still would make a batch of brownies or a dish of something for their neighbors, if they came upon tragedy or if someone was sick. And now as a fully grown adult with his own money, Elracher continues to give to and to recognize families

less fortunate than his by participating in food drives and food banks. As we step into this holiday season, as food and family come to the center stage in our lives, it's important to remember to extend generosity to others who may need it this season, maybe consider donating to your local food bank or volunteering at a food drive this holiday. Remember those for whom this is not a season of plenty. Even a little can go a long way. Now you can find Mama Roker's recipe for ox-tales stew and dumplings on my Instagram page.

If you try it in your own kitchen and I hope you do, make sure to use the hashtag your Mama's kitchen so we can see all of those delicious creations. Thanks for listening. Come back soon. Hmm. This has been a higher ground and audible original produced by Higher Ground Studios. Senior producer Natalie Ritten, producer Sonia Tun, and associate producer Angel Carreras. Sound design and engineering from Andrew Epen and Roy Baum. Higher-ground audio's editorial assistance

are Jenna Levin and Camilla Thurdecoose. Executive producers for Higher Ground are Nick White, Mukta Mohan, Dan Fierman, and me, Michele Norris. Executive producers for Audible, Arzola Mashariki, Nick DiAngelo, and Ann Hepperman. The show's closing song is 504 by The Soul Rebels. At Artorial and Web Support from Melissa Bear

and Say What Media, our talent booker is Angela Paluso at Audible Studios, Zola Masheriki, Chief Content Officer Rachel Giazza, and that's it. Goodbye, everybody. See what we're serving up next week. Copyright 2023 by Higher Ground Audio, LLC. Sound recording copyright 2023 by Higher Ground Audio LLC. Sound recording copyright 2023 by Higher Ground Audio LLC. Higher Ground

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