Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast - Jennifer Hudson

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

Dreamgirl, American Idol finalist and EGOT winner Jennifer Hudson joins us for the last episode of the season. She takes us back to her early years in the Southside of Chicago where she and her siblings grew up in a kitchen filled with song and where she spent precious late nights with her grandma in front of the TV. Plus, we hear about the poundcake recipe of her childhood.Jennifer Hudson is a renowned singer and actress. She’s won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and a Tony, earning her an EGOT status. She currently hosts her own self-titled show where she invites celebrities, community heroes and viral sensations to bring empowering conversations to light. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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["Sweet Home"] ["Sweet Home"] Imagine all your nurturers, your aunts and your grandmothers in one kitchen. And all the kids is there. This is how we grew up. So everybody like everything feels like family with you. That's all I know. You know what I mean? That's how we were raised.

And so my grandmother would take us and rehearse us in that house. We'd be in that kitchen and teach us songs. And she had us all singing. And she was like, okay, Jason and Julia, you go sit down. You come here. You keep singing. Welcome to Your Mama's Kitchen, the podcast that explores how we're shaped as adults by the kitchens we grew up

in as kids. I'm Michelle Norris. Today we are blessed to welcome a dream girl, an American Idol, and an EGOT winner to the show. We're talking about Ms. Jennifer Hudson. And by the way, EGOT means that she has won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony over the course of her career. You can easily recognize the unmistakable range of her mezzo-soprano, whether belting out tunes to become a finalist for American Idol

or making us all do a double take when she portrayed Aretha Franklin in the movie Respect. She won our respect with that role. And after racking up movie roles, an Academy Award, and ascending the Billboard charts, she's taken on a more reflective role these days, hosting her own daytime program, The Jennifer Hudson Show.

In today's conversation, she allows me to reflect with her, reaching back to her early years in the Windy City. Jennifer tells me about the transformative year she spent in her childhood kitchen on Chicago's South Side. It's a place where she was surrounded by love and generosity. You'll hear how her siblings created a culture based on sharing instead of rivalry. That kitchen was also a place where she was surrounded by song. She spent her early years with her grandmother who ruled the kitchen while all the time singing

and shouting gospel songs. And I really do mean singing and shouting all the time. And Jennifer's grandmother was a soloist in the choir. She spotted and shaped little Jenny's singing talents early on. The kitchen was clearly a special place where a young and very shy Jennifer Hudson loved to feast on her mom's pound cake and peanut butter cookies or climb into her grandma's lap to watch the late night TV shows and share a bag of ginger snaps. She had me at that one because I just love ginger snaps and I love the way Jennifer tells us that she is trying hard to create the same kind of kitchen sanctuary for her son, David. This is the kind of episode that makes you feel all warm inside. And speaking of feeling warm,

you might want to warm up your oven too, because Jennifer shares her family's special pound cake recipe. All that is coming up. Stay tuned. Jennifer Hudson, thank you for being with us. Thank you for having me. I'm so glad that you're here. We've been chasing you for a while, so I'm glad we got you in the studio. I'm here. I'm here.

Are you a kitchen person? I think we all are kitchen people, don't you think? Everything even in my home now mostly takes place in the kitchen. I always fuss. I mean, like guys, all these rooms around here and we still end up in the kitchen. Isn't that funny how that happens? You can trick out the rest of your house and everybody always winds up in the kitchen. So tell me about you're from Chicago, south or west side?

South side. Because you know there's a division. Oh, I know. If you're from Chicago, you know that. So south side of Chicago, I'm tempted to tell you which Harold's Chicken you live close to, but we'll talk about that later. You're from the South Side of Chicago and kitchens in the South Side of Chicago are interesting because they're kind of where city folk and country folk come together.

Because so many people from Chicago came from some of those towns. And they bought those traditions with them. So they were living in an urban city, but there was a lot of like country cooking, country talk. You know, people didn't leave the country even though they went to the city. I don't know if that was true in your family. Tell me a little bit about the kitchens that you grew up in and is there one kitchen in particular that stands out as like the kitchen of your youth? Wow. Any kitchen my grandmother was in, that's for sure.

Even the church kitchen, like going to church for Sunday school, stuff like that, with all of them in there from my grandmother, my mother, my great aunts to my cousins and aunts and stuff like that, that comes to mind. They all cooked in the church kitchen? In the church kitchen. Was it in the basement? Yes ma'am, in the church basement where we would get the Sunday dinners in between services and they'll have their scarves on their heads because they took off of their good church

clothes to cook the food and put the aprons on. And put their deer foam slippers on. Exactly. Exactly. And then I remember my grandmother being in the kitchen on 60th and Union. And it was a small kitchen, but it was grandmama's kitchen. She used to be in there singing her hymns every Sunday, every day. Forget every Sunday, every day. We was in church every day, let me say that. But she brought the church home to her kitchen.

Paint a picture for me. What it looked like. It was like, I remember like, I felt like she had wooden floors and it was all the heat vents and throughout the house in the kitchen. And then there's a round table. It had like the wooden cabinetry around the kitchen sink, I want to say, where the stove would be. But then she had another little old school stove where she toasted everything. It was separate and it was at the top. I remember having like butter on the bread and her toasting it. And I will always burn my fingers because I was a cut with everything. So I wasn't too allowed in the kitchen.

And then I just remember her being in there. My mom cooked, but only like a lot when it was time, when they needed more than one cook in the kitchen. So she would help out and grandma would be making those greens. The only thing I got to do was the chitlins, clean the chitlins. Wait, wait. Whoa, whoa. Now, oh, okay.

Come on now. I had this conversation. We talked to Lena Waithe also, who was also from Chicago and the South side of Chicago. And we had a conversation about chitlins. And you know, and I told her, and I guess I'll tell you too, that you could snatch my soul sister license because I don't think I can clean chitlins. Well, I did. So I got your license for you.

Okay. Oh my goodness. We didn't know what we were doing though. At least not now. I'm older. I'm like, oh my God, what was that? But that used to be good by the time grandma got done with him and all. That's when you could be her little assistant cook and that would teach us. And I used to just fix the table for the most part while

grandma did the cooking and the singing in the kitchen. It was like a service almost. Really? She sang that much? Yeah. Was she singing with the radio or? No, no. Oh my God. No, it was always church songs. She led over 100 songs. She was a church soloist in the church choir. And that's what they say, I got my voice from. And so that's what it was.

In that kitchen, she would be cooking and singing, singing and cooking. Was she kind of humming under her breath or was this full throttle like she was in church singing? Until it got to her spirit and she got to shouting in that kitchen. It started out as a, but it ended up and we'd be like, oh, grandma done got happy. And I would hope she didn't burn the food. That's the kind of kitchen I grew up in, at least starting out when I was really little because we used to live in

my grandparents' house and we would live on the second floor. And then my grandmother and my grandfather was on the first floor. That's the home I was born into. Did the kitchen seem like a magical space to you? Was a young Jennifer kind of peeking around the corner trying to figure out how did all that delicious stuff come out of that little teeny room. Definitely. It's just the place you want it to be. It felt like it's so warm. And of course, that's where all the nurturing came from. And I think for kids, it's like just to hear the pots and the pans coming from the kitchen. It's like the soundtrack of the kitchen. And you knew something special was going to come out of it. You knew you were being taken care of, or you was going

to be nurtured and fed. And everything was okay because that's like the rhythm of the home, the beat of it when you are a kid. And to this day, I love to smell food cooking, but I ain't a good cook. So I like to get candles that smell like cooking. Okay? And when it is, that makes me feel at home when you smell the food cooking, when you know mama's in the kitchen or grandma's in the kitchen. So that's what it was to me growing up. And you're the youngest of three kids, right? Yep. So is that where you worked out your sibling rivalries also?

Oh, that's what we shared everything. My mama used to say, I don't know where y'all get this sharing from. Y'all share everything down to the last crumb. My brother would get in the kitchen and he would issue out everything to us. And Julia, this yours. Jennifer, you get this. Your brother Jason. Your brother Jason. My brother Jason, I love that you know his name. And he would issue out everything and

we would share it down to the last crumb. If it was one piece of bread left, Julia, this your portion. Jennifer, this is your portion and this is my portion. And he became the biggest cook out of all three of us. And then he started taking up the cooking. I mean, we were always really, really close. We did everything together. Not only did we play around the house, but yes, we sat around the table, we ate together, and we shared every single piece of it together. What a beautiful soul that there was one piece of bread. I'm thinking of Aretha, because of course you played Aretha, the film that I love.

And I'm thinking of that song, if there was just one glass to drink, I would drink less than you think. Some people are just like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was Jason. And even, like my grandmother used to make sure everyone was fed to out of her kitchen.

Like she was a giver. Like, talk about a heart. And my brother had that same heart because he became the cook of the neighborhood and he would barbecue all the time and he made sure the whole block ate. Okay? So we learned a lot from out of our mother and grandmother's kitchen and sharing, you know. My mother and my uncle were, it was just the two of them, so they didn't have to share as much. So when she had us, she's like, I don't know where y'all get that sharing from. And she used to have pumpkin seeds. She used to love pumpkin seeds.

And we'd be like, mama, can we have some of your pumpkin seeds? And she'd say, mm-hmm. And she'll count it out. She'll spell it out. S-O-M-E. Song. You got four pieces. That's all we got. That's all we got.

So she will see us in that very kitchen or in the backseat of the car going to church on Sunday sharing everything. She's like, I don't know where y'all get that sharing stuff from because it ain't for me. That's how we grew up, the three of us sharing everything. So you grew up listening to your grandmother sing her songs while she was standing at the stove, standing at the sink. At what point did you develop your own voice as a singer? Because from what I understand, you were a very shy kid.

Yeah, I was. I mean, I come from a family of singers, but it was watching my grandmama in the house. If she was in that kitchen cooking, singing, or in her closet looking for them clothes that I know, I still don't know if she ever found like what was grandma looking for? But one thing that was consistent was she was going to serve her God and grandma was going to get to shouting. And it was in that very house where she called me, Jason and Julia, come on, line us up. And she would rehearse us and teach us the songs. And we spent, when I say every day of the week in church, which is why that kitchen

comes to mind too, which is very special and specific to my upbringing. Because like I said, my grandmother laid over a hundred solos in the church choir. My mother was the secretary of the church. So we would be there Saturdays doing the church bulletin. And then you got to be there Sunday morning for Sunday school. And we couldn't wait to get to that breakfast. Oh my God. Because I'm Vita.

She was over the food in the kitchen. And my grandma- Your aunt was? Aunt who? I'm Vita. Vita Mae. Vita Mae. And when nothing like her eggs and them grits.

And they used to have it like all across the table in the church. And imagine all your nurturers, your aunts and your grandmothers in one kitchen. And all the kids is there. This is how we grew up. So everybody like everything feels like family with you. That's all I know. You know what I mean? That's how we were raised. And so my grandmother would take us and rehearse us in that house, probably in that kitchen and teach us songs. And she had us all singing, and she was like, okay, Jason and Julia, you go sit down. You come here, you keep singing. She spotted your talent early on.

Yes, ma'am. Yes, she did. And she would rehearse me and teach me songs to sing in church. Did you have that big voice when you were a little girl? I did. People would be like, she sound like a grown woman. How old is she? Seven or 11. Because I had my first solo when I was seven in church and I always wanted to sing a song, but when it was time to, oh my God, I would get too nervous.

My first solo was, Must Jesus Better Cross Alone, which my grandmother taught me at home, in that kitchen. And I got up there and forgot the words and the congregation had to help me out. You know how they say, that's all right. That's all right. That's all right, baby. That's all right, baby. Take your time.

Take your time. One of those. And they all started singing it with me. And that helped me out. That was the very first time. And I was seven years old. And then I got it. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Before we move on, go back to seven-year-old Jenny. When they started singing along and the words started to come back to you, is that a feeling that still lives inside you? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It is. It is. I didn't start singing with my eyes open until I was 19 because my grandmother would say, at our church, you don't praise God with a hand clap. So we wasn't allowed to perform or, as they say, jug, no type of jugging, which would be dancing. So it comes from an internal place.

So when I think of myself at seven, singing my solo and being afraid, that's what caused me not to sing with my eyes open until I was 19. because it's like I had a stage fright of it. I was like, okay, I will beg for that solo at church. And then when it was time to do it, oh Lord, I can't do this, which was the fearful part when I did the same, but to know that they were there to support me and lift me up in that, you know, that gave me encouragement, but I'm still in a shell, I want to say, because you know, you sing when in church, you sing from a different place and for a different purpose. It's not to perform. It's, you know, to glorify

God, at which I watched my grandmother do in the choir stand, at home. I don't think it was one day she didn't shout through the house. I see that little house gown that she would have on, honey, them house shoes. And she'd get in, whether it was breakfast, lunch, or dinner, baby, she was singing them songs. Even though your eyes were closed for 12 years while you were singing, were you growing though as a performer? Were you performing differently, voice louder, more confident, sending your voice to the back of the room over all the pews so it hit that stained glass in the back wall?

Were you able to feel that confidence growing in you even with your eyes closed, even though you were still inside a shell? Yeah, I think it helped me tap in internally and to know they supported me and didn't give up earning on that. And I want to say the second time opportunity because my great grandmother, which is my father's mother, Mama Lee, I got to sing for her 90th birthday celebration. And at that point I was 11. And this was in Mississippi. And that meant all the family was coming from the ones that was already in Mississippi and then the ones from Chicago and everywhere else. That's when we all came together, so Mama Lee. And I got

to sing for that. And at that point, I still had those eyes closed and I got up to sing the song. And I remember somebody said, Oh, Jenny can't sing. And I closed my eyes and I sang the song. And by the time I opened my eyes, everyone was standing up clapping. That helped give me the confidence too. And I was like, wow, wow. So it still kind of shocks me when I open my eyes to this day. After I'm done singing, I always have like this little jump, but it's like, oh, because of those experiences. You know?

You know, it's interesting hearing you tell this story because a lot of people first got to know you watching you sing in competition on television. And I remember you would sing with your eyes closed. And I'm wondering if, because you get coached a lot to do something like that, and you are singing in competition, the goal was to win, right? So were they coaching you at that point to do something different than what felt natural to you, to connect with the audience, to dance a little bit? Because you were told not to dance, you have to perform a song, you have to make people feel your emotions,

and you're singing secular music. Yes. You know what's funny about that? All my family said, you know, we ain't never seen you sing secular-live music. And I was like, oh my God, they're right. And then when I got to the show, they were like, perform. And I'm like, what's perform? What they mean perform? Cause my grandma must say, stand flat foot and sing.

That's what you do. I'm 19 years old. No, at this one on America, I know I'm 22 actually. And I'm like, perform, what is that? That was so foreign to me because I grew up in that church every day of the week singing from a spirit under my grandmother's wing in the choir stand or at home in that kitchen. So you were singing, I mean, wait, let me get this straight. So you weren't even doing

a like the choir sway, you know, which is sometimes even in a church just allowed a little bit of that two step? Not at our church. Okay, not at all. That would be joking. Okay. And you don't praise God with no hand clap. That's what they would tell us. No, ma'am. And even in our home, we weren't allowed to play Monopoly because it had dice or cards. People would be like, you want to play cards?

I'm like, to this day, I don't know how to do that. You just didn't do that because my grandmother and they weren't having any of that. So how did you get to the point where you were, because you did perform on American Idol. You conveyed emotion. Well, one, my grandfather was a different person. He's the one with all the personality. He danced, granddaddy danced.

We used to be like, how grandmama and granddaddy came together because they are so different. And also my neighbors, as we grew older and lived in my mom's house, she had tenants and they listen to everything. And so I would get to hear other music through them and stuff like that and be introduced to that. And then I'm a music lover as well. Did you have to sneak off to go listen to records at somebody else's house or cassettes? But based on your age at that point, they were probably, you know, you're listening to the radio and listening to... I said records, you're too young for records, so excuse me

for aging you. Were you sneaking off to listen to music that you weren't allowed to hear at home? Yeah, we get to the neighbor's house, you know, the tenants that live downstairs, and they will play all types of music. You know, if you get outside, you know, what are the tenants that live downstairs and they will play all type of music. You know, if you get outside, you can hear different things. That's part of what introduced me to it. And then in high school, I got into hearing other styles of music, been in a choir and things like that and being around other kids. Like we can listen to the radio, like other, you know, styles of music, but we didn't sing any of that.

And again, every day, every day was spent in church. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. If we had a day off, it may have been a Friday, May. So did you have to negotiate your way into singing secular music? Did you have to drive a hard bargain with the folks at home so that they would eventually accept and even applaud what you were doing? That is a good question. Yes, and yeah. I mean, just to be able to venture out, because again, everything is very sheltered. And it's just the upbringing, the way we were

taught and what you do and how it goes. And it's like, well, it's like that, mama, I want to sing. But luckily the beautifulness is my mother was, whatever makes y'all happy. Mama supported, so she was always extremely supportive in that way. Although, when it was time to venture out, like, I don't know about this. And it's like, I think I'll be okay. And then people will call for me to come and perform for different things, even in high school. And they saw how others took a special interest

in my talent. My family has always been supportive in that way. So they supported it, although it may have been something very different, but it's something we all looked at together. You know, like the family is there. You made the family proud. Thank you. Yeah. So they've always been a part of it. Although it's new, you know, and

different like, oh, Jenny. But what I love most about it is it always will bring everybody together. Coming up more of my conversation with Jennifer Hudson. Stay tuned. another podcast I was a guest on recently. On Dinner SOS, Chris Morocco and a guest from the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen solve your toughest cooking questions. Chris and I had a wonderful discussion about food memories and we answered some listener questions together. It was so much fun.

I even confessed to one of my biggest kitchen fails from the first time I cooked from my husband's mother. Some people consider cooking to be torture, but with Dinner SOS, cooking becomes the ultimate labor of love, making it the perfect podcast for chefs of all skill levels looking for inspiration. Get your weekly dose of Bon Appetit's Dinner SOS available now wherever you get your podcast. You mentioned something and I saw it in doing a little bit of research about you to prepare for this interview that your father had a big personality and you went in with your siblings and went and found him at some point and found that you had a lot more siblings.

Yeah, there's a lot of us. Apparently, he had 27 children. That's a lot of children. That's a lot of children. I've never met all of them, but that's the thing. I'm a family person. And so when I turned 16, I'm like, I want to go find Sam, is what we call him. And I want to meet all my siblings because it was my dream to have all of us at this grand Thanksgiving or Christmas table and we all sit and eat together. That was my goal at 16. Did you know we had 27 children or you knew you had some siblings?

That's what we were always told. We found quite a few of us. Eleven girls and I think 17 boys, I think, something like that. And so obviously me, Jason, and Julia, that's us three. And then we met about maybe six others, six, seven others. But yeah, and I'm the youngest of all of them. Of all of them? Yes.

Wow, baby of the family. Of the family. And it was my father who told, when my grandmother on his side passed, my siblings over there, like, y'all got a sister that can really sing. You should meet her. And eventually we all came together. Now Sam wasn't no cook that I recall, but Jason was. And the man in the family did all the barbecuing.

That's a mess. I was just fussing the other day, like, I want a grill. I want a cookout. And then I get there and they just brought the food and I'm like, this is not a cookout. I need to smell the food cooking. That's how important it is. The smell of the food cooking in the house gives a feeling like no other. And I'm like, if you just bring the food, I can't smell the food cooking.

The smell of the cooking is a huge part of it. That's the part to me that just marinates in your soul. So it sounds simple, but that's a key piece right there. So if someone brings some food to your house, they better have something in a spray can that can spray something around that smells like pound cake or fried fish or peach cobbler or something. Exactly. Exactly. And speaking of that pound cake, that was my mama's tradition. Oh, when she used to make up peanut butter cookies for us, just that smell. Oh my God. It takes you, like a scent can take you back to a place, right? So the smell that pound cake cooking

or the peanut butter cookies, and that's about all I can do. I do like, even for my son and all the boys, I'll cut the package of cookies open and put it in the oven, but it's just for the smell to make it feel like home. To me, sometimes places feel hollow. Where's the sound of the kitchen or the smell coming from the kitchen that we're so used to, but it's underrated sometimes to me. That's what make a home feel like a home. Well, you take it for granted when you miss it. When it's suddenly snatched from you, when you're really hankering for something and you really miss the smell, the sound of oil on a skillet,

the smell of something cooking in the stove. I totally get that. You take it for granted then you really yearn for it and it's not there for you. What are you doing to give David your son and your family now the kind of memories that you so cherish from your own childhood? That's all I know is that childhood. And so I love to try to make sure he has the closest thing to it. That's a broad answer. Let me see, Where do I start? One, just making sure he has his cousin circle and that base foundation. That's part of why I had moved back to Chicago because

I wanted him to have the surroundings of his family around him growing up. And he was born in Florida, but you can't tell that baby he is not from Chicago. He gets real upset. No, I'm from Chicago. People from Chicago are like that. You're from Chicago, you're always from Chicago. A lot of pride in being from Chicago. It really is. But like, okay, so like now we're here in LA.

And so we make a point to have our Sunday dinners. That's one thing that's very important. And luckily, my best friend Walter, who I grew up with, he's a mighty cook, honey, baby. He smacked two little pies together. He got a whole 10 course meal. I'd be like, friend, how you do it that quick? What's happening? You just hit two pies, just smack it, and it's done.

And he'd get in the kitchen. What was the last holiday? No, was it the week after? The Sunday at the it's done. And he get in the kitchen like, last, what was the last holiday? No, was it the week after, the Sunday after Mother's Day. And we go to Walter's house and he is literally, because Walt is a whole grandmama, I promise you, he is sitting at the stove with his gumbo pot. I videoed this to it. He just stirring and he playing his church music and he's singing along and to break it up like, okay, let's go to Walter's house to this Sunday. He going to cook, little David's on the couch doing his homework or playing with his iPad

or watching the game or something. That's how we grew up, you know? And you hear that church music in the background. That's what grandmas did. That's what Walter's grandmother did. That's what my grandmother did. So it doesn't leave you. It's still within you. And he loves it. And you're able to find that for him, even though you don't cook as much.

Right. Right. And then I get in there, I'd be like, now I done cooked all of this food. They'd be like, it's not one point I don't get it. Every time they cook, I come in now, now I done made all this food for everybody and did that you wanted. Then they like, no, she didn't cook nothing. But Little David is an amazing cook himself. And so I tell him he was just down here cooking the other day and I was like, I love the smell of your cooking. So it's in him too, but the men in our family cook the lot too. And he gets it from my brother and I'd be like, he's showing and get it from me. But it shows you just how deep your family genes are in you. And I tell them all the time like, oh my God, that is so my mother, what you just did. Or that is so your uncle Jason, what you just did, or how you did that, or where you get

that from. You know what I mean? Like I can identify those things. I love that you've stayed so close to your family, even though you're on the other side of the country. That's a beautiful thing. And then he has cousins that come in and out. One of them is here right now. And so to keep that family bond, and I tell them all the time, I'm like, when we were kids, we did everything together. All of us, all of the kids in the family, we go to the movies together.

My mom used to say, if you go to anybody's house, it's going to be your family's and they're going to come to your house. To this day, my kid does not believe in going to nobody else's house. He's like, they won't see me. They're going to have to come to my house. That's how we grew up. Or if you do something, it is with your family. So he has that same upbringing or going to see the loved

ones. Talk to Auntie Hattie on the phone, call Uncle Buster, want to speak to Uncle Charles right here. Uncle Charles to this day still sends out Easter baskets to all the kids. Look, David, your Easter basket is on the way. And we have a huge family. People like, the fact that y'all are this close and y'all family is this big. All of us are still very connected. Now, listen, on this podcast, we always leave our listeners with a recipe. And I understand that you are willing to share your family's recipe for pound cake? Yes, my mama's traditional pound cake is my favorite.

So that is the one that is going through all the traditions. So I'm going to go with my mother's pound cake. Can you tell me a little bit about it? Does she use lemon? Does she put any kind of glaze on it? What's so special about this pound cake? Lemon extract, I think it is. Definitely lemon in it.

Of course you got to have your butter because it's a pound cake, a pound of butter. She used to say, put my butter out and let it sit. Oh yeah, you got to let it get soft for a little bit. You got to let it get soft and you better not open that oven while that pound cake is in there because it's gonna, what is it? It's gonna turn over? No, it's gonna fall. It falls.

You don't want the cake to fall. And you can't play in the house the day that they're making a cake. You bet not go running around that house when that pound cake is in that oven. Oh my God. And now my son makes that same pound cake. So it's going through the family. Like it's his thing to make now. Okay, now I have to ask him for the recipe.

I'm sitting here because I'm not the cook. But it definitely had that pound of butter in it. It had, I remember her, I need the vanilla abstract. Get the vanilla abstract. And then she need to need her eggs for it. You don't want to taste my pound cake. But Danielle's pound cake, and she used to make it for the church. She used to make it for all the special occasions.

That's the one that touches my heart the most. Okay. Does she make it in a tube pan or a bundt pan? You know what, ma'am? I don't even know the names of the pan. It's that round one where it has the little indentations in it. Mm-hmm, front pan. That's what it's called. The hole in the center.

Okay, yes, with the thing in the center. That's it. If it don't come that way, I don't want no parts of it. But yes, and it's just the traditional pound cake. She didn't add any like extra glazing of flavors to it. It that traditional pound cake. Now, my son makes it different flavors now. So he's taken that tradition and modernized it. So he makes all different types of flavors with taking my mother's traditional pound cake and making it his own now. So we road test all the recipes and we let our listeners enjoy the recipes on our website. So you have to get your son David to give up the recipe so we can share it with our

listeners and if he wants, he can add tips on how to customize it so we can add different flavors to it. We can start with the basic pound cake and then if we want to like lift it up a little bit and change the flavor, maybe he can give us his tips on that too. He would definitely love to do that. And it is like the greatest gift ever. So he makes it for me. What better gift is that to have?

There's no better gift than a pound cake. A pound cake that your mother used to make and now your son makes it for you for all your special occasions. That is good living. It's so beautiful. That is good living. Jennifer Hudson so beautiful. That is good living. Jennifer Hudson, I have loved talking to you. I raise a little ginger snap to you.

Aw, thank you. I may have to sing your song now. Thank you so much for having me. I enjoyed this. I have loved this conversation. All the best to you. You too. Y'all be blessed.

Told you. You too. Yeah, be blessed. MUSIC Told you. This episode makes you feel all warm inside, just like the butter that goes soft on the kitchen counter before getting whipped up into that pound cake. It's beautiful that throughout so many stages of life, from the shy child to the international star of stage and screen, to the working mom trying to find balance in life, the kitchen and all the lessons she learned there have played a central role in Jennifer Hudson's life.

It literally all started in the kitchen. The singing, the work ethic, the confidence to use her voice and chase her dreams. When we started the show 40 episodes ago, that was the theory of the case. Kitchens are not just places where we prepare our food and eat with our loved ones. It's where we get the preparation for the rest of our lives and the things that we see and hear and absorb, the debates and the arguments, the laughter and the way our families chew on the news events

that surface in our conversations. All those lessons about generosity and justice, compassion and courage, all of that lives inside us forever. And the conversations that we compiled in the course of this season, those will all live inside me too. Now, about that pound cake, it's made with butter and cream cheese. Whoa, Lord, that sounds rich and delicious.

Jennifer Hudson's family recipe for pound cake will be on my Instagram page at michelle underscore underscore norris. That's two underscores. It will also be at our website, your mamaskitchen.com. At the website, you can find all the recipes from all the previous episodes and it is worth checking them out. If you've not heard all the episodes, we hope you will take the time to scroll through and take a listen. They'll always be available. Let us know what you think. Let us know what

you'd like to hear from us, and we will keep that in mind. After 40 episodes, we're closing out season one and going on a little hiatus. So thanks to all of you loyal listeners. Thanks for taking the time to join us week by week from everyone here at Your Mama's Kitchen. We hope to see you back to serve up something special for Season 2. Until then, stay bountiful and make sure to stay in touch. -♪ Hmm! -♪ Hmm!

-♪ Hmm! -♪ Hmm! This has been a Higher Ground and Audible Original produced by Higher Ground Studios. Senior producer Natalie Wren, producer Sonia Tan, This has been a Higher Ground and Audible original produced by Higher Ground Studios. Senior producer Natalie Rin, producer Sonia Tan, and associate producer Angel Carreras. Sound design and engineering from Andrew Eapen and Roy Baum. Higher Ground Audio's editorial assistants are Jenna Levin and Camila Thurtacus.

Executive producers for Higher Ground are Nick White, Mukta Mohan, Dan Fehrman, and me, Michelle Norris. Executive producers for Audible are Nick D'Angelo and Anne Hepperman. The show's closing song is 504 by the Soul Rebels. Editorial and web support from Melissa Baer and Say What Media, our talent booker is Angela Peluso. Thanks to Jennifer Hudson for setting up a recording studio in her home for this interview, and thanks always to the good folks at Clean Cuts in Washington, D.C. Chief Content Officer for Audible is Rachel Giazza.

Head of Creative Development at Audible, Kate Navin. And that's it. Goodbye, everybody. Copyright 2024 by Higher Ground Audio LLC. Sound Recording Copyright 2024 by Higher Ground Audio LLC. Hey marketers, advertisers, and business owners. Find yourself chatting up the same audience in the same places using the same old lines. Maybe it's time to podcast the net further to catch your next customer. With Acast, there's plenty of fish in the sea with more than 100,000 podcasts and millions of listeners.

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