Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast - Hari Kondabolu

Episode Date: November 15, 2023

In this episode of Your Mama’s Kitchen, comedian, writer and TV host Hari Kondabolu talks about growing up in Queens, New York City, where his mother brought her native South India to the dinner table with an unforgettable peanut chutney. Hari also discusses his parents’ quiet activism – and how, from his mother, Hari learned to use humor to confront the world’s injustices.  Hari Kondabolu is a comedian, writer, TV host, and podcaster based in Brooklyn, New York. His comedy covers subjects including race, inequity, and Indian stereotypes. The latter was the basis of Kondabolu’s 2017 documentary, “The Problem with Apu,” a cultural critique of The Simpsons’ character, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon. His 2018 Netflix special “Warn Your Relatives” was named in several Best Of Year lists including Time, Paste, and Cosmopolitan. He is a former writer and correspondent on the FX show “Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell” and regularly appears on NPR’s “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me” and WNYC’s “Midday on WNYC.” Kondabolu attended both Bowdoin College and Wesleyan University and earned a Masters in Human Rights from the London School of Economics.Kondabolu's newest comedy special and album, “Vacation Baby”, is available worldwide free on YouTube. He previously released two chart-topping comedy albums, Waiting for 2042 and Mainstream American Comic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In hindsight, realize how loaded a space it was? She didn't know how to cook. She had no interest in cooking. So, you're seeing somebody who now cooks every day, multiple times a day, and is both trapped by it, but is also trying to make the best of it. And I don't think I realized, like, when you grow up and you see your mom in the kitchen, you don't, you know, just mom's in the kitchen making food. When you get the full context and you get older, you realize, like, that is a loaded thing.

Welcome to Your Mama's Kitchen, the podcast where we explore how the food and culinary traditions of our youth shape who we become as adults. I'm Michele Norris and I'm so glad you're back here this week. Our guest today is the stand-up comedian Harry Condobolo. He's known for his brand of edgy political humor. He makes people laugh, but he also makes them think and maybe even squirm a little bit because he's not afraid to talk about the prickly stuff in life, like race or immigration, or the tensions that exist in even the most loving households.

His parents came to America from South India more than four decades ago and they settled in Queens. He grew up surrounded by immigrant families, households where parents from all over the world were trying to figure out this place called America. In this episode, we hear about how Harri grew up in a household that held on to the traditions of his parents' telegoo culture in the decor, in the music, and especially in the food. We hear about how his family balanced the excitement of being in a brand new place with the loss of the things and the status that they had to leave behind.

And we hear about how Hari finally got past his picky taste to fully embrace the spicy and aromatic foods of India, especially his mother, Uma's unbelievably delicious peanut chutney and how he tries to put a spin on that in his kitchen today. All that's coming up, stay with us. So I want to actually go inside your mother's kitchen. Miss Uma, I want to know what kind of kitchen she created.

So can you close your eyes? Okay. And just in a few sentences, my mom's kitchen was, just cry it for me. What did it look like? What did it smell like? What do you remember? My mama's kitchen was chaos. Just flowers and powders everywhere.

And most of them were either in old Maxwell House glass jars that like she reused or like these steel bins that she would get from India, all filled with different flowers and lentils and things. And it just felt like it was always everywhere. Everything was always everywhere. It just always felt really chaotic. And somehow the food would come out and it would be perfect.

But I was always like, wow, this feels like a lab. It always felt like a science lab. Yeah. And my dad always, and this is I think another thing about, you know, patriarchy and being spoiled. We never wanted leftovers. And the fact my mom put up with that is remarkable. I'm like, what kingdom do you think you're the ruler of exactly?

Like, you can't make new dishes every day. We still have enough for tomorrow. So it was just she was constantly having to do more work than she should have. My mom was cooking different curries every night and my dad was so boring. So she always had to make the exact same things, handful of things that he liked.

Like a conveyor belt of the same things over and over again. And it always felt like- What was the same thing? It was like some kind of like doll, like a lentil dish of some sort. And then there was something usually with chicken. And then like a, one of it, like a handful of different vegetable dishes that my dad liked.

But it wasn't like as broad a range as she would have liked to just not be bored, you know, just to do something different. Now back then, especially having two American kids in the house who grew up, you know, around other American children, you know, I wanted to eat with the kids at school we're eating, and I wanted spaghetti, and I wanted macaroni and cheese, and my mom, she was all about that. You know, it's funny that she was all about

well, you're American, so I guess you eat American food. And I never really developed a taste for that part of my mom's cooking, which is very embarrassing now. But at the time, I'm like, it was embarrassing to eat Indian food. It felt like well, the other kids that's who aren't eating this, you know, and which was kind of absurd.

Like, they were probably eating their family's cuisine. The thing I loved, however, with South Indian cuisine was breakfast food. I still love South Indian breakfast food. And that's the thing that the stuff that my mom would make that I would be most excited about on Saturday and Sunday. We would have Dosa, like doses are like crepes. There's different types of lentils that you would use to make different types of doses. And you could fill it with like a potato curry like with masala Dosa or you could have it with like a ginger pickle. we would have, have Italy or we would have upma. But the thing my mom made, which was the best with the Italy, they were great conduits

for my mom's peanut chutney, which was the thing I still obsess over. It's one of my, like top three, if not my favorite meal of all time, is my mom's Italy, the rice cakes, the steamed rice cakes with her peanut chutney, which nobody else makes. Wait, no one else makes it as good as your mother or just no one else makes. I've never had it from, like, it is a thing that exists, but like, usually it's just coconut chutney. Like, that's the standard. My mom's peanut chutney derives from a recipe, actually, I think from my father's

part of India. They're from the same state of Andhra Pradesh. I guess the state split. So it's not telling on an Andhra Pradesh, but the dish that she makes is actually something she she learned from his family. But then she added her own spins on it and she made it her own. You know, I had uncles who would talk about how like, oh, your mom's peanut chutney is like an incredible thing and I always loved it, but it was cool to know that other people also like would request that just the most delicious thing in the world.

So I have a hundred questions. First of all, I want to know how she developed the recipe and we'll get to that in a minute, but I want a little bit more about what it is. So tell me about the rice cake and how it served. Then you have the rice cake with the dosa or is that separate and then where does the peanut chutney come in? They're like separate dishes, but like often you can get them both together.

Like, we would have just Italy or dosa. Sometimes she'd make both, but I always love the Italy days. They're steamed. It's a very specific kind of flower that is used, that's actually quite pricey. But you can mix it, I think, with cream of wheat or something else, and you get more for your buck, even though it's not as pure.

When it feels more like fluffy, that means it's been mixed with other things to kind of save cost. It's still delicious. But you grind up the lentils, you use the flower, like been mixed with other things to kind of save cost. It's still delicious, but you know, you grind up the lentils, you use the flour, you turn it into a kind of like a, almost like a doughy paste kind of thing. And there are idly steamers where you like

will pack in on the little idly molds. And then you'll put it in the steamer and you let it steam. And then when it's ready, like there are little cakes, rice cakes and it's like bread. It's very soft. I like the taste, but it's subtle. It's really what you mix with it. Initially, this is another very embarrassing thing when I was a child. I would not want to eat the chutney. Something I just, because it looked different. You were a picky child.

Very, and it's about, my brother was so adventurous even as a kid with food, and I had to have my dose of, with ketchup and sugar. Oh, oh, oh. I know it is, it's sacrilegious, and I did. I was like, With ketchup and sugar, I come from a from a wheat grits in my culture. Sure.

And there's like a special name for people who put like sugar and ketchup on a grill. And it's not nice. The grits parallel is actually pretty good. It's, I think a similar kind of thing, even though they're like different textures, but the same kind of like, yeah. You put, you put ketchup. Oh, oh, oh Oh, terrible, terrible. It was not something I ever, and you just admitted it in front of a microphone. Yeah. That's how much I trust you. And I believe in what you are doing that I publicly admitted something that would get myself Indian card revoked.

Yeah. Just absolutely terrible. But that was, I mean, that was always a struggle like the comfort with quote, unquote, American food and wanting to eat where other kids are eating and then growing accustomed to those tastes, you know, the overly sweet. I almost needed something that was familiar to, to be able to eat something that maybe, you know, wasn't as popular in the American mainstream. And it's a shame. It's a kind of, it's a sad thing to think about.

And I wonder why my brother never had the same thing I had. How come my brother was less picky? How come my brother was more curious? And how come I was such a stick in the mud about it? What's the answer to that? I don't know. I mean, our personalities are like that. My brother is much more adventurous and has explored more than I have in life in general, not just with food.

So the food is the least of it. So I think, but his personality type is that. He needs to see for himself. He needs to try it himself. And the weird thing with me, my brother, in some ways, I'm definitely the older brother who leads by example and tries to do it's right. But in terms of, like my brother has always listened

to more interesting music than I have, has read more interesting books, it reads much more voraciously. Like I would borrow my brother's clothes. Like who has hand me ups? Do you know what I mean? Like that's not a thing. But my brother was always the one who would take a different path than whatever conservative

way I was going. So oftentimes he was the one that was making me open up my mind and try something different. I want to get back to the peanut chutney. Sure. So when she made these delicious rice cakes, it was often accompanied by this peanut chutney. Always, always, always. And eventually you stopped putting sugar and ketchup. Yes, that's correct. When you did that, yeah. Did she just roll with that or she rolled with everything?

Because I'm trying to imagine, you know, my mom, don't you put ketchup on my grid? Don't, don't, don't think about it. Don't, don't do that. Did your, did your mom just allow you to do this? Was she mumbling under her breath at the stove or, or did she just let you explore and know that you would eventually come back to her, Pina chutney? I don't know if she knew I would ever come back to her Pina chutney, but she definitely let me explore.

And she knew her kids were both very different, but there was this like assimilationist streak in my mom while also trying to preserve culture. It was always very fascinating how she adapted, right? Like we always had Indian breakfast food every weekend, right? But at the same time she would take us to Burger King because she said, well, that's what Americans eat. They eat burgers. So I want you to be able to, and we're Hindus,

so we're not even supposed to be eating beef, but mom was never a big fan of restricting our diet because she's like, she said she knew a lot of people who didn't eat beef that were terrible. And she'd rather me eat beef and be a good human being. So that was kind of her philosophy on that. [♪ music playing in background, she started reading cookbooks and food magazines. She entered a phase of culinary experimentation. I remember at one point she started making meatballs,

and that was a breakthrough. She actually was like, what else can I do? I remember all of a sudden, meatballs started showing up, and then fresh basil started showing up. And then fresh parmesan, she started showing up. And I'm like, what is, it became very different than right out of the can. What was going on with her?

Because sometimes when that happens, something else is behind that. What do you think was driving that period of experimentation? Was it just about pleasing Harry who wants spaghetti or do you think she was going through a period of renewal or exploration on her own? I've thought about that. I think part of it was, and this is me, like, making lots of assumptions,

but I think at a certain point it's accepting this is what life is. Like, I'm not going to be a doctor. I, this is what life is. This is my family. This is my situation. What can I do to make the best of it? What can I do to enjoy the things that I have to do? And so she really started to enjoy cooking, which is funny to think about, but she got into the idea of how can I make the thing that I'm making more interesting? What can I do that hasn't been done? And there's been some hits and there's been some misses, but she's always tinkering. And I think that's part of what makes the day-to-day

more interesting to her. My brother would say, like, mom's cooking's gotten real good. Really good. And I'd be embarrassed because I never really ate it, right? So I couldn't even say, but he's like, yeah, the stuff that she's doing right now, really, really interesting stuff. And so he was the one that really caught it first.

Like, oh, she's really playing around with styles and ingredients. And yeah, she always found ways to adapt. so she could make it work here. So like I was still having idly, but I had ketchup on it. Or you know, there were periods where I didn't have, you know, my grandparents around in the US. So my mom had to figure out a way, how do I teach this kid, how to respect and take care of and be taken care of by older people. So she would get us people in our in our building with babysit us and they would

be like older Jewish women, older Irish women, like people, like there was a group of sisters that used to watch us. They were all in their like 60s and 70s. And I would ask my mom, like, why would you do that? Like, I don't understand. And she's like, it's because you didn't have your grandparents around. And I wanted you to learn this. And they were there. And they were such sweet people.

And they were so good to you. So, you know, that way you were still getting what I think you needed in your childhood. And I'm like, it didn't bother you that they were white, that their cultures were different. They're like, no, because the love that you have between like kids and older people, that kind of grandmother grandfather love, like that is something that has nothing to do with culture.

That's like beyond culture. That's like this thing that's just universal and important for you to have. So she was always like that with everything. How do I get this to them in a way they can, you know, it might not be the way I got it, but as long as the end product is the same, he's eating Italy, he knows I'd respect older people,

he knows how to, you know, balance the two. I've always admired her for that. I thought that was, that takes effort to figure out. You know, because my parents, I've always supported our Indian community and stuff, but the thing I've admired the most is that, you know, my dad ran an echocardiogram lab at Flushing Hospital. My mom worked at LAJ in a cath lab. She managed that lab.

And they trained and hired so many people of color of a variety of backgrounds. And it was intentional. It was always very deliberate to the point where my mom would tell me like she would get, you know, take Flax for some of, you know, the white nurses and people that worked in the hospital, like, oh, I almost having her affirmative action campaign

again. And she's hiring another person of color. And my mom was like, Hey, all the nurses are white. And I don't, you don't see me complaining, you know, I understand that you're hiring your own. Well, this is how I do it. Like there's something about my mom and dad always having that eye, which I admired. They saw the bigger picture and they're not activists.

They would never see themselves as that, and they're not overtly political, perhaps, in the way I am, but those are very political choices. Those are very deliberate choices. I take issue. Tell me. I take issue with what you just said. Which part?

My parents aren't activists. Oh, yes, they were. They were stealth. They were aren't activists. Oh, yes, they were. They were they were stealth. They were doing their thing. Yeah. They were and sometimes activism whispers. You know, it doesn't always march through the streets with a poster and a fist in the air. Right. It sounds like they very much were activists in their own space using the space that they occupied. That's right. To push the world forward. I don't think they would see themselves as that, but definitely the choices they were making were

those are changing people's lives. On a one-on-one level, does it change institutions a little bit because they're working within institutions, but it's definitely changing the lives of individuals. It's definitely giving people chances. Again, it's stuff that you look at in hindsight, and you're like, they were doing a lot of things. I think you're right. It was stealth activism. 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.

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You have said Harry that you are funny because of your mother. Yes explain that she has a very dark sense of humor, and she very much uses humor to cope. Her parents have some of that. My grandmother was an incredibly sharp and funny. To the point of like she was mean without realizing how mean she was, but she was quick.

You know, like something comes out and you don't think she understood like, wow, like it's on point, but unnecessary, you know, like just sharp, but she was quick. And my mom has always been quick, and the more painful and the darker something is finding some way to laugh was a way to get out of it. And I think that has to do a lot with how much she lost. I think you know, she lost a career that to be a female doctor in Southern India in the 70s with your own practice,

that didn't happen. You know, like that just didn't happen. The other women, the young women in the village looked up to her partly also because she was like, she was a tall woman. So she already stood out. She was as tall as a taller than some men. So it was already kind of like she was unique in that regard.

And she also was a classical Barthnothian dancer, South Indian dancers. She just did everything. But in addition to that, she was this incredible student and skipped a bunch of grades and was young and had her own practice as a woman in Southern India. And it was this remarkable thing and then to lose that, to have that trajectory and then all of a sudden you're in a new country and you're not working and you have kids and you know you keep trying to get back into being a doctor but how do you do it with two kids? I mean how do you deal with that? How did she deal with that? She laughed, she made jokes, she tried to find ways to release pain. And me and my brother are the same way.

We find our way out of a lot of pain with being able to say something funny and to make others laugh. It's not that we're ignoring what's there. It's just like clearly to me, like a sense of humor is an evolutionary benefit. Like there's no reason for us to have it if it didn't help us in some way, right? And so that's something my mom has a tremendous amount of, the ability to cope with a painful

situation through laughter and then to kind of shake it off and try to move on with it. Like, this is what the reality is, how do we adjust? When did you realize that your mom was funny? Do you remember a moment where she said or did something that you just, you realized she is hilarious? I think it was college, you know, it's funny. You, I just never noticed it. It's just like that was life and we always laughed a lot. And it was always like kind of me, my brother and my mom and my dad, Lesso.

I think part of it was language. Like my mom's English and our native language Telugu, like she's just very well spoken. But all that being said is probably at some point in college having perspective and being away from my really family for the first time and coming back or bringing friends from college back and you realizing, wow, she's cracking everybody up.

Like, wow, this is my mom. There's a reason all my friends like her and it hit me after the fact. And then also, I think being asked in interviews as I was pursuing this comedy career, like, why are you funny? What made you funny? And then to really think about it, who is the person that was able to make fun of us? And it was hard for us to have a quick reply. It was mom. She was so cutting and quick and just very equipped, you know. Is there something that you recall that your mom did or said that just knocks everybody out?

I'm sure that let me, there's one that she told me about. She was on an airplane and she had an aisle seat and on the other aisle seat on the other side of the aisle was an older Indian man, and to her right in the middle seat was an older Indian woman. And I guess they were husband and wife, and they weren't sitting together, but she had noticed that he was being very, very rude to her, rude to his wife throughout the line,

and in the airport, it was snappy and stuff. And he asked if they could switch seats. So he could be next to his wife? Yeah. And my mom didn't want to give up her seat. I think part of it was, he was in the window. He wasn't in an aisle. So she wanted the aisle also because her knees are bad,

but also she didn't particularly like how he was treating his wife. So there was also no incentive to even put up with it. And so what she said to him is, we come into this world alone, we die alone. You can handle this flight. And she texted it to me and I swast it. Like what is it?

And absurd thing to say over us very simple request. We come into this world alone we die alone that you can handle. That's an example. If I overheard someone saying that on a plane. It's like, oh my God, she's the matrix. It's literally like that is my mom, the darkness of it. Like even to just insert death, even to the center of death, into the conversation is very much her. Me, my brother, and her very dark sense of humor,

especially about death and things like that. And it's her, It comes from her. And when you decided to become a comedian, what was her reaction? Was that was that funny or not? I remember the first time I was on TV. I was on Jimmy Kim alive and it was 2007. And I was on TV and I didn't expect to be on TV. I took a day off from work, flew to Los Angeles, was on TV, flew back the next day and went

for right from the airport back to work and pretended nothing happened. Like I, it was kind of disbelief. This was happening. So for everyone I knew, like whether it was the other comics in Seattle, none of whom had been on TV before or all my friends, it was like, this is the greatest thing that ever happened. And you were so great.

And I can't believe you were so great in the euphoria of like, my friends on TV, and I asked my mom what she thought. And she's like, you're better than that. You could do better. Oh, oh, it was the only. Oh, I'm sorry, I need a bandaid. It was, and she was right, you know, but the thing is I didn't want it. I mean, I wanted to feel good about being on TV.

Like, this is a thing that happened. Same thing after my second appearance on TV and same thing after the third one. The first time she said something was perfect because I had a half hour special for Comedy Central and we taped it in New York, and I got a standing ovation for that TV taping in my hometown, and I saw her afterward, and that was the only question I asked her was, how was it? What are your notes? And she's like, no notes.

Like she just said, you did exactly what you were supposed to do. Okay, about that peanut chutney. Yes, let's talk about that peanut chutney. So what was so delicious about it? Because every time you talk about the peanut chutney, your eyes dance. I mean, it's like you can see, even without you telling me how delicious it is, I can see in your face what it means to you. What is so special about this peanut chutney? I mean, think like roasted peanuts, a little gooey, sweet and peanutty and a little spicy.

Mom sometimes will make it too spicy and I would start hiccuping within seconds so she would always lower it for me. And like the way it would absorb into the idly just that oh my god, it was something about the taste of the two together also that just divine. And honestly, I felt like it aged well. Like the next day, if you like waited a day or two, it was almost better. It almost felt like it's set in a way that made it even. Yeah, incredible. Oh my God, thinking about it now. I texted my mom before our interview to get the recipe, both in case we wanted to talk

about what was in it, but also just so I knew it, because I feel like I should know it. Because you know you have to give us that recipe. Oh yeah, yeah. But I mean, the funny thing about Indian cooking oftentimes is it's inexact. It's like, it's almost like a feel. Like whenever she talks, but she's like, yeah, you put like a hand full of this and you put like a little swing, and it's like, it's not really, you know, and to be fair, it never tasted exactly the same. It always tasted, the core was the same, but it always was like a little more spicy than usual, a little sweeter or one time she mixed sugar and salt, which was awful. But like generally it was, you know, it

was, you got the sense of it, but it always had a slightly different taste. Yeah. You know, when someone has perfected a recipe, there's a little bit of strut when they serve, you know, you know, I'm talking about, you know, like they put it on the table and then they just kind of walk to the side and kind of want to see. I know this is good. Let me just see how everybody can be asked, does your mom do that? I think she knows. I don't see her strutting, but I think she knows. I mean, you know, people are requesting it. It's a pretty good sign. And especially when it's like my uncles and my dads, brother-in-laws

or, you know, family, it's like, they've had enough types of chutney and things where like, there's a just-surning palette. So if people are requesting yours, it's not just, oh, I've never had anything like this before. It's like, I've had a lot of things. This is one is the best, you know, just great. And she knows it. She's proud of it. She knows it. The most important thing to her is that I love it. And so she makes it at least specifically because I request it. And you know, we don't live together anymore, obviously, you know, I have my partner and kid, but she will bring it just because I request it, just because like I miss it partner and kid, but she will bring it just because I request

it, just because like I miss it. And yeah, every, every time it's this funny thing where it's like I remember like being a kid while eating it while in the moment still enjoying it. It's like that thing that's always been there, not the chutney initially sadly. The fact it took me years to finally try that chutney and then realize that I was missing something incredible is very embarrassing. How old were you when you finally tried it? Probably high school. That's probably when I tried the peanut chutney. The fact it took that long, but when I had it, it was like, oh my god. And when I went to college, I remember

that was the thing I missed the most. It's amazing how that little space in our home, that central space, that kitchen, that is often like the beating heart in our homes, shapes who we become as adults. How did that space shape and influence you? Well, one of the places where I'd have a loan time with my mom because my father obviously wasn't going to go anywhere near there. So I actually had time alone with her. So I think having that time alone to talk to her and ask her questions and hear her perspective definitely informs my sense of the world. I think also looking back on it,

and it's funny because you don't even think about it when it's happening. I hindsight realized how loaded a space it was. Like I said earlier, she didn't know how to cook. She had no interest in cooking. So you're seeing somebody who now cooks every day, multiple times a day, and is both, like, both trapped by it, but is also trying to make the best of it.

And I don't think I realized, like, you grow up and you see your mom in the kitchen, you don't, you know, just moms in the kitchen making food. When you get the full context and you get older, you realize like, that is a loaded thing. She's been in this kitchen a really long time and she never had the intention of being in it. It was never a thought in her mind that she was gonna be cooking this much for anybody. How do you take that forward in the kitchen that you're now

with your partner creating? I'm trying to be better. My partner still cooks the majority of the meals. So I think how can I help one? I've finally learned some basic things. I can make breakfast. I can make pancakes. I can make eggs. I can handle breakfast. I can feed my child, I can pack my child's lunch. You're a parent now. So what kind of kitchen are you trying to create that will have the right kind of influence on your own child? One where he sees both his parents feeding him.

One where he sees both his parents preparing food for him. I mean, I like when he eats, it feels good when he's eating. So about that peanut chutney. Yes. Is that going to be on your kitchen table at some point? Yes, that is something I want to be the one that makes the Italy and the peanut chutney. I want that to be my dish. That's the thing I can do every Sunday.

I'm going to make that. And because who else is going to, like, I don't want it to go when my mom goes. I want that to be something that is ours. Me and my partner talk a lot about how do we preserve culture, especially like my South Indian telegoo culture, which if you don't see it, if you're not around it all the time, then it dies.

And I mean, language is going to be hard enough to preserve. Like, I don't even speak it very fluently, but Telugu. So at least with food, there's something. There's something about that. And I don't want to lose that. So I will be learning it and I will be making it. And if I can get anywhere near, just anywhere near how good my mom says, it doesn't need to be exact, it doesn't need to be perfect.

But just the essence of it, I'd be happy. I have love talking to you, Harry. Thanks so much. I did it, Michelle. Absolutely, I'd be happy. I have love talking to you, Harry. Thanks so much. Oh, I did it, Michelle. Absolutely, Michelle. Thank you. Now, you know we had to get that recipe for the peanut chutney and Harry's mom kindly agreed to give it up.

She also shared her recipe for Italy, those little round cakes that Harry loved to have for breakfast on weekend mornings. You can find those recipes as well as a few other tips from Uma Kanda Bolo on my Instagram page at Michelle underscore underscore Norris. That's two underscores. Feel free to share your own chutney recipes or your own interpretations of Italy. And if you happen to make the Kanda Bolo Pina chutney, we want to hear about it, send us your pictures, your secret ingredients we want to see all of it. As for me, I hope I get to meet Uma Condobolo one day. She sounds like an amazing woman. I love how she used her sense of humor as a coping mechanism. Her humor helped her get through

when life didn't turn out how she hoped it would, and that is also a recipe that's worth holding on to. Thanks so much for listening to your Mama's Kitchen. I'm Michele Norris. Come back to see what we're serving up next week, and until then, here's a roll call of the folks who make this show possible. They are the Dream Team. 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 assistants are Jenna Levin and Camilla Thertacouse. Executive producers for higher Ground or Nick White, Mukta Mohan, Dan Fierman, and me, Michele Norris. Executive producers for Audible are Zola Masha Riki, Nick DiAngelo, and Ann Hepperman. The show's closing song is 504 by the Soul Rebels, an editorial and web support from Melissa Bear and say what media. Our talent booker is Angela Paluso and special thanks this week to clean cuts in Washington DC. Head of 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.