Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast - Judy Blume

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

Bestselling children’s book author and literary legend Judy Blume takes us back to her childhood New Jersey kitchen in the ‘40s, where she ate lamb chops and baked potato scrapings as a baby. She also shares a precious memento: her mother’s little yellow recipe box, filled with complicated, mid-century dishes her mother never made. We’ll hear about Judy’s major sweet tooth, which is perfectly captured by the recipe she chose to share with us: her mother’s sweet noodle pudding. Judy Blume is a bestselling American author of children’s, young adult, and adult fiction novels. She’s written over 25 books which have sold over 80 million copies. She’s best known for her classic—and at the time controversial—children’s books, including Tales of A Fourth Grade Nothing and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, it's me, Sam B, and it's No Secret, I'm ProChoice. Yes, that one, but also others. Because I'm not just pro-choice, I'm pro-choice-es. Those crazy, life-altering decisions that shift our life path and bring us to where we are today. My next choice? Starting this new podcast with Lemonade Media called Choice Words, where I interview people I admire about the biggest decisions they've made in their lives. Choice Words is out now wherever you get your podcasts.

If you love all things food, check out the Sporkful podcast hosted by Dan Pashman. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters, and Dan obsesses about food to learn more about people a couple of years ago Dan even invented a new pasta shape and he's also just released his first cookbook Anything's possible the sporkful is doing a special series on the making of that cookbook after listening You'll never look at a cookbook the same way again Check out the sporkful wherever you get your podcast and get the book wherever you buy books. When I started to write, I don't know what she thought. She was proud of me, but

she didn't like the mothers in my books. And she said, just leave mothers out of your books. And I was like, I'm really sorry, but I can't do that because my characters have mothers. They aren't you. When she said, but all my friends will think they are. She was very concerned about what her friends would think. are. She was very concerned about what her friends would think. 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.

On this episode, we get to spend time with a living literary legend, Judy Bloom. She's written more than 25 books, and if you grew up in America, you've probably read or at least have seen some of her classic kids' books, including Super Fudge or Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. You may have dipped into some of her novels for adults, including Wifey or Summer Sisters, and her defining work, Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. Change the course of Kiddlet with its frank discussions about puberty and belonging, and it was adapted into a feature film last year. Judy Blum's signature as a writer is her ability to tackle sensitive themes in a compassionate, open and very amusing way.

Even though her writing is breezy and felicitous, she doesn't shy away from weighty topics, religion, menstrual cycles, teenagers exploring their sexuality and puberty. She was writing about masturbation with both courage and humor at a time when people didn't even like to say that word in public, and she's been an avid and effective warrior against bookbands over many years. She handles emotions with so much confidence in her writing. But as we will hear in this episode, the emotional terrain in her childhood home was much more

guarded. Today, we learn how she grew to be such a reflective writer who has managed to connect with young readers over several generations and has sold more than 80 million books. We will hear how she dealt with grief as a child, why she felt like she had to be the perfect daughter, why cooking never really captured her interest, and how she has had a lifelong sweet tooth. And because of that, we learn about her mother Essie's decadent sweet noodle pudding. All that's coming up. Stay with us. sweet noodle pudding. Oh, that's coming up. Stay with us.

Judy Bloom, thank you so much for being with us. This is such a treat to me. You have been such a part of my life over many, many, many, many years. And I'm very excited about this conversation. You know, I've read about you, I've seen interviews with you, I've seen the documentary, but now I'm actually talking to you.

And that's quite exciting. I'm so glad you're with us. Well, thank you so much. I've heard you many, many times. So it's wonderful to be talking to you. I'm going to ask you about your mama's kitchen. And I'm excited about the answer, because I want to learn about your life.

But also as an author, I have a feeling that you were gonna use all of your descriptive powers to take me back to that kitchen. I assume we're talking about the kitchen in New Jersey, but I guess it could be in Florida too. Which kitchen does your mind go to? Well, there were many kitchens, but the kitchen where I spent the most time

was in Elizabeth, New Jersey. We moved into that house when I was two, and I lived there until I was 18 or 19. So there was a lot of time spent in that kitchen, and of course it changed over the years, which I'd love to tell you about. But my first kitchen, it was old. I mean, it was 1940 when we moved into this house.

So the kitchen was white. Now I know that it was 1940 when we moved into this house. So the kitchen was white. Now I know that it was very old. Stove sink with sides where you could work. And there was a canary cage with a canary. We always had a canary and we had a long wooden table. And that's where we ate. That's where my mother was anxious and she fretted that my brother and I didn't eat.

We didn't eat enough to stay alive. It was war time. And so everybody I know who grew up when I did heard the same thing. The children are starving in Europe and you won't eat your egg or something like that to make us feel very guilty. And I remember, my mother was not a cook.

My grandmother was the cook. My grandmother had three children, and she didn't teach any of them to cook. So yes, my mother put dinner on the table, and there was a pressure cooker. A pressure cooker? My mother was so afraid of that pressure cooker. And because she was, I was.

And so I won't do anything like any of these, I don't know, are Instapots like pressure cookers? They are. They're a safer version of pressure cooker. I mean, I understand why your mother was afraid of a pressure cooker. Pressure cookers? They are, they're a safer version of pressure cooker. I mean, I understand why your mother was afraid of a pressure cooker. Pressure cookers are scary. They make a lot of noise, they hiss,

you're afraid that they might explode at any minute. It's like having sort of a nuclear armament in your kitchen on the counter. But she did have it, and she did occasionally use it. So that's interesting, but not me. And my father was a dentist, and he came home from the office early. We used to eat dinner at 5.30.

But I can't remember so much about eating the family dinner because I think my mother fed me and maybe my brother, who was four years older, before, because once there was a TV, a little tiny black and white TV, and I think I was nine or ten when people were able to have TVs in their house. We had this little black and white TV in the kitchen, and we ate and watched Howdy Doody at the same time. And my mother, I think, fed me the same thing

every single night, which was a lamb chop and a baked potato. And she didn't cut the lamb chop for me, she actually scraped it. And I remember her putting it in my mouth. Oh. And you know, when I had a child, my first child, I fed her a lamp chop every day at noon because I guess that's what I thought you had to do.

Feed your baby a lamp chop. And a baked potato. And a baked potato. And a wedge of iceberg lettuce. I like that. When you say your mom was anxious, if I may ask, how did that present itself? Did you know that even as a child or as you look back now with the wisdom of years and the wisdom of being a novelist, you now understand that she was anxious? Oh yeah. I mean, she was worried. We called it then worried. But of course, she was very anxious. And life was hard for her when you're an anxious person like that. You know, today there would be therapy, there would be drugs, but there was nothing like that for her. She once told me that before she went to sleep at night, this is, you know, many, many, many

years later. Before she went to sleep at night, she had to go over everything in her mind that could happen to those she loved, bad things that could happen to those she loved, and then remind herself that those she loved were okay. And then she could go to sleep. So there was a lot going on there. My father was just the opposite.

I mean, my father was the one who everyone went to with their problems. He was the baby of the family, but he was the one that you came to when you had a problem, if you were in the family, or even his patients made appointments to see him after hours. He was that kind of person. So he was a dentist and almost like a therapist also. They just came to see him

to talk? They did, yeah. It was before there was a lot of therapy, I guess. And then my grandmother, Nanny, we called her Nanny Mama. Nanny, she was a great cook, but I can't tell you anything about being in her kitchen, because although she lived with us for two years when we were in Miami Beach, my mother and my brother and me, because my brother had been sick, it's a long story I've written about it.

And Nanny did all the cooking. It is possible. It's occurred to me in written about it. And Nanny did all the cooking. It is possible. It's occurred to me in thinking about it. Maybe that was her job, and she didn't want anybody else to be able to do it. And maybe that's why she didn't teach her daughters to cook. Surely if her daughters wanted to cook, they would have learned.

My aunt took it up quite, she was very enthusiastic about it. After my grandmother died, she died when I was 15. And my aunt was then making all kinds of things and having friends over, entertaining things that Nanny would have done before. I remember Nanny's rice pudding. I love her rice pudding.

I have a sweet tooth, you see. And I have to tell you about the kitchen. When my parents redid the kitchen, because nobody else had a kitchen that was dark green and flamingo pink, the Formica, which was something new then, and it had squiggles in it. I don't know if you remember that. Oh, I remember that, yes.

There was no solid Formica. In those days, it must have been the 50s, of course. And this was flamingo pink Formica with squiggles and deep green floor. And my parents just thought it was very modern and wonderful. And I mostly remember the colors. So what was going on in their life

that they chose a pink and green kitchen? Had they been to Miami and were bringing that back home? Was it an expression of we're doing well in life, we've lived the depression. We want to surround ourselves with joyful colors in the kitchen. What was happening? I just don't know. I mean, we did live in Miami Beach for two years, you know, when I was in third grade and fourth grade. And my grandmother was there. So Nanny did all the cooking, of course. my mother didn't have to.

In reading about your life, it sounds like your parents were Rudolph and Esther. And it sounds like you had a very special relationship with your father in particular. I did. I mean, he was the adored parent and my brother always said I was the adored child. So he died young. He was 54 when he died and I was on the eve of my first wedding and yeah, it was a hard time for everybody but my mother never talked about it. She never sat down with you all and sort of coached you through your grief? No, she never really showed us her grief, and there was grief.

I mean, they had been together since high school, and it was depression, so they didn't really marry until they were 26. My mother was not one to show anything. And she did not want us to show anything. At the funeral, she said, no weeping or wailing or loud anything. I mean, that's very hard.

My father was not like that. Judy, it sounds like, you know, in reading your books, grief is often one of the themes. People are dealing with loss or trying to figure out how to make their way forward when things haven't gone their way. But in reading about you and your own personal life story, it seems like grief has been a through line also. Your father was one of seven children and they all died fairly young. It sounds like your house was sort of a center of activity in that way that people were often sitting Shiva. I grew up sitting Shiva and I don't know what I knew when I was little because my father was the baby of the family.

And all of these siblings were dying while I was small. And I remember the fruit baskets that were delivered. And I remember people pinching my cheek and saying, oh, look how you've grown. That was kind of since the last funeral. Yeah. that was kind of since the last funeral. Yeah, I did grow up sitting Shiva, but I don't think it ever really hit me until my father. Yeah, yeah. You are so emotive in your writing

and you handle emotions so well in your writing that it's surprising in some ways to learn that you grew up in a household where you were asked to suppress your emotions. Is there a connection there in some way? Was the writing then an outlet for you to deal had the idea that I was play-acting at being the perfect child that I thought I was supposed to be because my brother was not. And so I didn't confess things that were really going on in my life or inside me. And my mother was certainly that way. You know, she didn't express anything. When you say your brother led a more internal life, you two had very different personalities. Different planets. Different planets, okay.

But much later in life, I would say when we were in our 60s, we came together and we talked and I mean, I think we became friends. And that's good. And he lived to be 87. And that was just a few years ago. He died during COVID. So of course, I was in Key West. He was on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. I wasn't allowed to see him. They wouldn't let anybody in. But I talked to him on the phone until he couldn't do that anymore. Sibling relationships are very special

and they change over time. And sometimes you can develop a closeness with someone later in life that wasn't present when you were living under the same roof. And sometimes when siblings are under the same roof, if there is a child who is perceived to be, I'm not gonna say difficult, I'm just gonna say more challenging.

There are other children in the mix who sometimes feel like they have to make up for that. Yes. Like, okay, all the energy is going in that direction. So let me be the perfect happy child. That was me that brings sunshine into the room. It sounds like that was your role.

That was my role. But you know, that may also be who I was because I still kind of sing and dance my way through life. Maybe I learned to be that. Maybe it's interesting because I was a very, very shy child getting back to food for a second. My mother never liked to cook and she was a nervous cook and I also became that kind of cook when I grew up. I didn't really know anything about cooking. I really didn't like it. I had an anxiety dream every time I was having a dinner party

that I would take the main course out of the fridge, which I had prepared the day before, to heat it up and it would drop on the floor and splatter everywhere. And that was an anxiety dream that I had for a long time. And you would have this only when you were entertaining people or was this like a revisiting anxiety dream? Yes. So did you keep like a pocket meal somewhere in the house? Like if I dropped the platter, at least I can throw a frozen pizza in or something like that.

I didn't know about frozen pizza. I didn't even eat pizza till I was 36 years old. I never ate a pizza. Now I love it. You know, I have pizza every week. But yeah, that was my anxiety dream. You know, what do you do? Do you try to pick it up and put it back in the pot?

Or do you call out for pizza? I vote for calling out for pizza. I think you make an SOS call and figure something else out. Anxiety dreams are interesting though, aren't they? How they sort of figure out what our deepest fears are. Yeah. It's that time of the year where daylight savings time is starting to creep up on us.

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A couple of years ago, Dan even invented a new pasta shape, and he's also just released his first cookbook, Anything's Pastaable. The Sporkful is doing a special series on the making of that cookbook. After listening, he'll never look at a cookbook the same way again. Check out the Sporkful wherever you get your podcast, and get the book wherever you buy books. Hey friends, this is Jen Hatmaker, your happy host of the For the Love podcast. You may wonder how I got into this podcasting thing. Well, I'm a speaker and an author who has happened to write a few New York Times bestselling books that really resonated with a pretty large

community of women. And I thought, how great would it be to drop into the ears of this growing community every week via the magic of podcasting? So that's what we did. And I'm delighted to say we've been able to spark a bit of delight and uncover some hope and talk with great people about the big and small things that we care about and that affect our lives on the daily. So I'm thrilled to invite you to join me every Wednesday for new episodes of the For The Love podcast, where you'll hear the most incredible conversations with some of the best people on this planet. We're gonna bring you moments of connection,

and laughter, and hot takes on the things we care about going on in the world. So listen to and follow For The Love with Jen Hatmaker, a 4I's media production presented by Odyssey. You can get it on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. We've learned some things about you, Judy, in this conversation. We've learned that you have a sweet tooth.

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And we've learned that throughout your entire life, people have been worried that you're not getting enough to eat. That's funny. I didn't think about that. Yeah, I got plenty to eat. During the pandemic, I was on the phone with my daughter all the time cooking because there was time and she was always taking me through recipes. And I thought, well, now I'm going to cook more.

Then, you know, my daughter, I think, started cooking and baking when she was still in high school. Because, and she's wonderful, she's coming tomorrow to visit. We both have February birthdays, and I know she will be baking me a wonderful birthday cake. She even fills our freezer. She's worried about us. It's like she thinks we won't eat well.

And she fills our freezer with soups and lasagna and bakes me cupcakes. I'm still such a cupcake fanatic. And she leaves me 36 cupcakes. So she's very generous and sweet and loving. And food is her way of saying, I love you. Food is a good way to say I love you. Yeah, but I remember the night she and her friends,

they made this noodle pudding that I would never make today, but this was from my mother's. I still have sitting right here on my desk. Well, it doesn't pay to show it to you, but I'm gonna show it to you anyway. My mother's recipe box. Oh, oh my goodness. So anyone listening to this, I'm gonna try to describe it,

or maybe I should let you describe it. Judy, why don't you describe it? It's gorgeous. It's yellow metal and it has big red flowers on it and when you open it up, of course, it's got all the little filing cards inside. But I went through, when I knew that you wanted a recipe, I went through this box and it is just full of 1950s Jell-O molds and party cookies, things that I never remember her making. She would take a recipe from someone, but did she ever make it? I just am thrilled that you found your mother's recipe box.

Oh, I've always had it. I've never been without it. Is it tin or wooden? It's tin. Oh, it's held up so well. It's the colors are so vibrant. It's perfect. With its yellow and it has roses and vines. It almost looks like the kind of Russian little painting that you see on some of the cutting boards and things that

you see in Russia or in Eastern Europe. And it's full of recipes that she cut out, but you say she didn't cook. So... Oh, no, they're in her handwriting. They're in her handwriting. So she was writing down things that she intended to cook. Yes. Some is in her handwriting, most of it. Here's Balinse's Soufflé for six and I mean that's held up very well. All the recipes in here, it looks like she wrote it yesterday. Wow. But these are a lot of things that she never cooked so in some ways it's like a box of dreams. It is she never cooked it. I don't think she ever made this but she collected it you know she, she wanted sweet cherry bavarian tort. I'm

sure my mother never made sweet cherry bavarian coconut coffee cake. A lot of it is cake, apricot kept that. So the recipe that we always ask our guests to leave a recipe that we can share with our listeners and in your case it's Essie's Noodle Pudding. Essie's Noodle Pudding, yes. Is this sort of like a kugel? Yes, I guess so we never called it that but it's a sweet Google. And actually, I would say to your listeners, this has a full cup of sugar in it. I would never make anything like that anymore. But I've asked Randy, I said, Randy, can't it be cut down to half? And she said, mother, I made it with half a cup of sugar and it was totally disgusting.

Okay. So you need the full cup of sugar. Note to anyone who wants to do this, you need the full cup of sugar. She said at least three quarters. So I have this and when I look at that recipe, I just cringe because I'm lactose intolerant and it's full of sour cream and cottage cheese. I can take a lactate pill and eat a small portion. I wouldn't eat a lot of it. Can we just go through that, because it's interesting.

You mentioned a cup of sugar. It's a pound of cottage cheese and not reduced fat. That's a container, right? And also a full container, a pint of sour cream. And they both say, don't try to cut corners. Don't use the reduced fat, use the full fat, cottage cheese and the full fat sour cream and six eggs. And that they need to be at room temperature.

Leave them out a little bit before you use them. And they need to be separated and. Okay, separated also. And a quarter cup of melted butter, salted or unsalted? Do you know maybe Randy can let us know if it should be unsalted. Unsalted, okay. And then a pound of broad egg noodles.

This is not something that I would make today. This is something from my past. But if I go to a friend's house on a Jewish holiday and it's served, I will eat it. And I especially like the sweet ones, not the savory ones. So what's the story behind Essie's noodle pudding and why is it so important to your family? I mean, I guess, you know, that we had it at holiday dinners. I loved celebrating holidays,

not in a religious way, but in a way that brought the families together and everything was pretty and my father was doing clatters and it was just very lovely. And I continued that tradition when I was married and had children and my daughter continues it today. But the noodle pudding, she and her girlfriends made one night when they were in high school. And I came out the next morning

because I had already been asleep when they were in the kitchen having fun. And the noodle pudding was sitting on the counter and things were a little messy. And I was not happy. So they had forgotten, they had made the mess, they had made the noodle pudding, and then forgot to put it in the refrigerator. And it's a dish, of course, that has to be refrigerated. And so I had to throw it out and clean up the kitchen. I was not a happy mom, but I am now.

And it is wonderful. You know, you talked about sibling relationships changing and mother-child relationships change too. Parent-child as your children grow older. And I am incredibly lucky because between us, we have three adult children. And our relationship with them has just gotten better and better and better, loving and satisfying. And just I couldn't be happier that I've lived to see this. Oh, that's a blessing. That's such a blessing.

And it sounds like food is at the center of that. Yeah. So do you still have that anxiety dream? Well, if I were having a dinner party and I were cooking, I might. But now you can pass that off to the kids. Well, they're not here. I mean, they don't live near me, so I can't do it just like that. But Randy did say to me, Mother, I'm going to cook for your birthday and bake you a cake. So if you want

to have a few friends over, this is the time to do it. And she would not be nervous or embarrassed even if what she made turned out to be less than perfect. And I really admire that. She's a therapist, by the way, so. You know, if I can reach back to your mom a minute, I'm listening to you talk about Randy and how she is a therapist and doesn't worry about being perfect. Coming out of the depression and World War II,

there was a lot of pressure on women to be perfect. As troops were returning home, as they were sort of building the idea of a family unit, there was a lot of pressure on women to look a certain way and make sure their home looked a certain way. And I wonder if that box of dreams that you have there, your mother's aspirational recipes, if the fear of not being perfect

may have kept women like her from trying some of these things, because some of the things that are in that, the ice cream apricot tort, that sounds like it has a lot of steps and it has to look a certain way and it's the kind of thing you put it on the table, ta-da! Look what I've done.

And if it's floppy or if it kind of isn't straight, that might be less than perfect. And so it might be easy just, I'm not going to try that because if I can't do it exactly right and get a full 10 on that, then I'm not even going to attempt it. I think that's absolutely true. Everything that you just said, again, I do believe that life was harder for my mother than it had to be, than it is for me. And I think that quest for perfection did keep her from doing things. I asked her when she was much, much older, 80 plus,

do you have any regrets? And she said, yes, I wish I had gone to college, like my brother and sister, and I wish I had become a teacher, which is so interesting because my mother was an incredibly organized person. When my father died, my aunt, her sister, they were very close, kind of pushed her out of the house and said, you're young, you're 54 years old, you need to have a job, need

to have something to do every day. And my mother went back to secretarial school for a fresher. When she was out of high school, she had been a legal secretary. And so now she went back and she got a job for a big law firm. And she was so proud of the work that she did there. She said, when I go on vacation, they have to hire two people to replace me because she was a crackerjack typist and she could, she was just organized. I mean, she could have, there's so much she could have done in her life. But this was when she was born. This was when she was married. These were the times that

we read about now. I of course lived through the fifties. I was born in 38, so I lived through the 40s and the 50s with my mother, you know. And when I started to write, I don't know what she thought. She was proud of me, but she didn't like the mothers in my books. And she said, just leave mothers out of your books. And I was like, I'm really sorry, but I can't do that because my characters have mothers. They aren't you. When she said, but all my friends will think they are. She was very concerned about what her friends would think. And at some point she was the typist for you. She actually typed all your manuscripts. You know, when you actually record something like that and transcribe it, you absorb it in a different way

than you do even if you're reading. Was that difficult for her? And I'm wondering if also, as I asked this question, were you able to communicate with her in a certain way by letting her be the first reader as a person who transcribed your work? You would think so, wouldn't you? I mean, but the answer is no.

I mean, she never said anything about my books or characters other than what she said about mothers. I think she probably said that after starring Sally J. Friedman as herself, which was my most autobiographical book, and the mother, well, all the characters in the family were most like my family. And she did not like that.

Did she also transcribe in the unlikely event? Oh, no, no, no. She died in 87. Okay, all right. An unlikely event is my last book. Yeah, it's a great book, highly, highly recommended. Thank you. I think it's my best and it's my last. It's the book I'm going out on. Oh, that's what you say. No, it's true. Really? No, no, no, no, it's true. I mean, 50 years of writing, I think was enough for me being locked up. you know I have a bookstore now and I love going to the bookstore. I love putting your book up on the shelf.

I am coming to Key West. I'm so glad that we could go down memory lane together. Oh. I'm so glad that you brought into the room that beautiful yellow tin recipe box with the red roses on top and all the aspirational recipes that your mother wrote down by hand inside that box. It was really a treat to get to see that. Thank you. Thank you, Michelle.

It's been lovely. Thank you so much. Much love. Don't you just love that Judy Bloom has held on to her mother's yellow recipe box? Even though it was filled with jello molds and complicated souffles that never made their way to the table, that little tin box is like a time capsule that provides a little window into family life and expectations about motherhood and womanhood in the 1950s. Judy's story reminds me of how many of us get to witness

how we, our families, and our relationships can evolve from generation to generation. She and her brother came from, as she said, different planets, but they grew to become close in their 60s. She was raised in a household where she was taught by her mother to suppress her emotions. Now she and her kids are extremely close and have a loving relationship where emotions are expressed more freely and the quest for perfection is not so important. Perfection is overrated. Being present, that's the

good stuff. If you'd like to learn more about Essie's noodle pudding, you can find that recipe on my Instagram page at Michelle underscore underscore Norris, that's two underscores, and you can also find it at our website, YourMama'sKitchen.com. You will also find all the recipes

from all the previous episodes there. And before we sign off, we wanna hear from you. We wanna hear about your mama's kitchens. Thoughts on some of the stories you've heard on this podcast. Maybe you wanna tell us about your mama's recipe box. I don't know about you, but I still have my mother's recipe box and I cherish those little three by five notes

that are written out in her precise handwriting. We'd love to hear from you. Make sure to send us a voice memo at ymkathiregroundproductions.com. We send a voice message there, and if you do, you might be featured in a future episode. Thanks for joining us. Make sure you come back next week, because we're always serving up something good. Until then, be bactiful. Hmm! This has been a Higher Ground and Audible Original produced by Higher Ground Studios. Senior Producer Natalie Rinn, Producer Sonia Tan. Additional Production Support by Misha Jones. Sound Design and Engineering from Andrew Epen and Ryan Koslowski.

Hireground Audio's editorial assistant is Camilla Thurdukuz. Executive producers for Hireground are Nick White, Mukta Mohan, Dan Firman and me, Misha Norris. Executive producers for Audible are Nick DiAngelo and Anne Heberman. The show's closing song is 504 by the Soul Rebels. Editorial and web support from Melissa Bear and Say What Media,

talent booker Angela Paluso. Special thanks this week to Clean Cuts in Washington, DC, and thanks also to George Cooper, that's Judy Bloom's husband, for helping out with audio on the home front. Chief content officer Rachel Guillotsa, and that's it. Goodbye, everybody. Copyright 2023 by Higher Ground Audio, LLC. I'm Professor Rachel Guiazza and that's it. Goodbye everybody. Higher ground.

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