Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast - Sohla El-Waylly

Episode Date: June 12, 2024

Chef, restaurateur and online food person Sohla El-Waylly shares some of her impressive food wisdom with us, taking us back to where it all began – her mother’s kitchen in the diverse suburbs of Van Nuys, California. We hear about how she was shaped by her mother’s knack for fusion and experimentation and her aunt’s love for classic, American dishes. Plus, she walks us through how to make her mother’s deliciously flaky parathas.Sohla El-Waylly is a chef and online food personality known for her appearances on shows like Netflix’s The Big Brunch, the New York Times’ Youtube channel and the Binging with Babish Youtube channel. Her book, Start Here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook, is a New York Times BestSeller and a James Beard Foundation Book Award Nominee. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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60% of listeners have a higher trust in brands they've met on podcasts compared to social. Get closer to your audience. Make podcast ads with Acast. Head to go.acast.com slash closer to get started. She opened her home to anybody. People she just like met randomly. Sometimes it feels scary to let someone in your house, but it was really amazing to see how a stranger at the table,

when you're sitting and having a meal together, you can instantly connect and you can instantly become friends. And how food is just this common thing that all people have. So that's the biggest thing that she taught me. 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 Michele Norris. Today, we spent some time with someone who's made a career in the kitchen,

Sola L. Whaley. She's a chef, restaurateur, author, and small screen sensation. She's worked at Michelin-starred restaurants restaurants and she opened up her own diner in Brooklyn called Hail Mary with her husband. You may have seen her as a judge on Netflix, The Big Brunch or on the New York Times YouTube channel where she'll show you things like how to salvage overcooked rice and turn it into a porridge in a way that's both entertaining and educational.

She even teaches us about food as a subject matter expert on the History Channel. Well, today we're lucky enough to get an education on Sola herself. As you'll hear, this soft spoken woman who is a chef, mother, and daughter carries a quiet

confidence. She's sure of the things she likes, the things she cooks, and she's sure of who she is. And that quiet confidence is earned. In this conversation, we learn about Sola's love for her parents, even when that love is reciprocated in ways that are a bit hard to decipher. How her mother's cooking taught her to be both resourceful and resilient, and how that resilience came in handy when she needed it most.

But before she became that hard-charging hyper-creative multi-hyphenate, Sola was a kid in a Bangladeshi family watching her mom make parathas in Van Nuys, California. And even though cooking was not yet on the radar, she was studying and learning. And since that simple, flaky home-cooked dish, those parathas are one of her favorite things, that's the recipe she serves up in this episode. Oh, that's coming up. I'm so glad you're with us. Thanks for being with us.

I wish we were together in the same space, in a kitchen maybe, but let's make this work even though we're in two separate locations. And I want you to take me to a kitchen if you could. You spend a lot of time in a kitchen, but I want you to take me back to the kitchen of your youth. Cool. Your mother's name was Salma, right? What was the kitchen like that she created that you remember from your childhood? There was always a lot of food. Everything felt bountiful.

You know what I mean? She had a big bowl with fruit all the time. There was always some cut fruit ready to go for you to have a quick snack. There's always like just like a basket of bread. There's just always a lot to eat. The fridge was always full and we were always ready for guests and we always had guests. My mom had people over any day of the week, spontaneously or just like I would have a piano lesson and then my teacher

would just stay over for dinner. So there was always food and everyone was always welcome. I think those are the main things I remember. So she didn't just entertain on the weekends. Anyone coming to the house was an excuse for her to create a buffet. Absolutely. Yes. And every meal, we mostly had traditional Bangladeshi food where if you have less than four things on the table, it's an offense. There's like a huge spread.

Wait, explain that to me. If you have less than four things on the table, so does that include like all the dishes and the condiments and the spreads or anything or four separate like main dishes? Well, it's not like a, there isn't like a main dish. The main dish is rice. The center of the plate is rice and then it's a whole bunch of really flavorful things to go with the rice. So every meal would be, we'd always have rice and dal and then to go with that, there would be different vegetable sautés, stews. There'd be some fish stew, some beef or lamb stew, raita, some raw vegetable kind of crunchy things, always a little plate of chilies, always some kind of yogurt situation.

So there was always a big variety. And the best part about eating that kind of food is every single bite is different. The way I would eat it as a kid is I would try everything with rice, just on its own, like a little bit of the, you know, okra paji with rice and a little bit of the tomato chutney with rice. And then once I got a feeling of everything that was on the table, I'd start mixing and matching. So, it's like kind of like you're making your own amuse bouche one bite at a time. I love that. I love that. Now for people listening who maybe have not had South Asian food or

food from Bangladesh, you said a few things that I want you to explain. First, the yogurt situation and Paji. Bhaji is just a broad term for sauteed stuff. And it's often vegetables. They're not sauteed in the Western way where you think of something being crisp, tender. Bhaji, things are cooked for a bit longer, so it's a little bit softer. The flavors meld and it's quite simple. One of our go-to bhajis was my mom would heat up a little bit of mustard seed and key and then add a bag of frozen French cut green beans. We had a lot of, she was a working mom, so we had a lot of frozen veggies. And then you cook that down for like, it cooks for a bit. You're going to lose that bright green color. It's going to kind of dull a bit, but the flavor really changes.

It gets really complex and you lose that whole vibe of it being a frozen vegetable. It totally transforms. But a big reason why a lot of the food from Bangladesh is more on the softer side instead of crisp tenders, because you're mixing it with rice and you want to be able to make these nice little, they're called lokma, where you mix the rice with rice and you want to be able to make these nice little, they're called lokma where you mix the rice with the, with the paji or the stew or whatever, almost like the way you eat with fufu. And then you get a nice little delicious mouthful.

You mentioned okra and I had read something about you that you actually love okra. Oh yeah. When I was a kid, it was my favorite vegetable. What? What? Because so many people come to okra later in life because it has a, shall we say, interesting texture. I don't understand that.

I just think they haven't given it enough of an opportunity. I think it's amazing. What do you love about okra? Well, because of the texture. I love that you get the little seeds and they pop almost like vegetable caviar. I love the outside and how it's got like kind of like a Christmas to it. My favorite way that she would cook it was just like, it was often frozen sliced okra, working mom vibes here, you know, and she would just heat up a little bit of key with

a little turmeric mustard seed and really high heat. Go for almost like a little char situation. You have to cook okra with, I feel like you need it if you're afraid of the slime. I don't mind the slime, but if you're afraid of the slime, you got to go hot because that intense heat kind of neutralizes it. So I love okra on the grill or in a broiler, but that okra paji was like a favorite always as a kid. Your mom is amazing that she was able to throw down like that in the kitchen because she was a working mom. How did she have time to do this? She must have been incredibly organized and did you inherit some of that? She is a very organized person. Whenever we would

prepare for like a big party on the weekend, like she would just have like a hundred people over. No big deal. Just a hundred people? But I would sit with her while she was making the grocery list and she would organize the grocery list, not only by grocery store, because she had to go to multiple stores in order to cook Bangladesh food. You can't just pop into Albertsons. But she would even organize her list by like the aisles to move as efficiently as possible. I didn't fully appreciate it until having a kid now.

I have a six month old daughter and I can't do anything. I don't know how she pulled it off. I can barely feed myself. I'm wearing my husband's clothes today because I couldn't find anything clean. It says one night only. What is that sweatshirt that you have on? I don't know. It's his. So I really appreciate it all a lot more now. It's crazy how she was able to have two kids, work full time, and then come home and put all this food on the table every day.

So in your New York Times show that people who are listening to this can find on YouTube, you do interesting things with food, with pickles, with Oreos, with, you know, all kinds of ingredients that you don't think you would use to make, you know, an entire meal. Did that come from your mom in part? Were there days where she had to look in the larder and, okay, I got to work with what I have because she didn't have time to go to the grocery store. She just had to work with, you know, was your mom doing sort of Iron Chef, you know, food network style cooking where you're, you know, dealing with this basket of unusual things long before that became a reality show programming strategy?

Well, you know, I think the biggest thing I got from my mom is she knows a lot about traditional foods, Bangladeshi and Pakistani, but she's not really super tied to it. She has the knowledge, she knows how to make perfect like, taka style biryani, but she also is really open-minded and would love to experiment with what she could find. One of her favorite things was she would just go to a Korean grocery store and find an ingredient that she's never seen before and just ask the people who she saw were picking it up like what they do with it and just like learn about stuff and I

Guess I guess the word for it is fusion But that's not like a great that word doesn't have a great connotation But she would take these ingredients From other cultures and figure out how to blend it into the food that she knows how to make so instinctively. And that's how a lot of our traditional foods that I grew up with came to be. One of the things that was a go-to in our home was she would make korma with fish balls. Fish balls from the Korean store that you might put in a stew or something, or the fish

cakes that you might see in a stew, she would put in a traditional korma. And it's one of our go-to comfort foods for the family. So she was really creative and open-minded and never afraid of just throwing something different in the mix. So I feel like I got a lot of that from her, like to be able to look at an ingredient and not, and think about it outside of the way you've always seen it before. I can see how that lives on in the work that you do now. When you look over your shoulder

and think about your mom and the observations that you made, cooking alongside her, making spices with her, her teaching you how to use spice and how to layer spice. She was teaching you about cooking, but was she also teaching you about life? I mean, I think cooking is life, right? Just getting her perspective on how to do these things, how to be creative, I feel like it really goes out into everything you do. Just being resilient in the kitchen, getting over messing up in the kitchen has helped me be resilient in other aspects of my life.

Or being creative in the kitchen and seeing, looking at a squash and seeing a lot of different potential dishes for it. I think I see the world in that way and she's like that too. and seeing like looking at a squash and seeing a lot of different potential dishes for it. I think I see the world in that way and she's like that too. She's like kind of like a go with the flow kind of person, but sometimes if you don't have skill to back that up, the flow takes you nowhere. So it's about balance seeing those two things, you know? Well, I see that in your cookbook also, which people, it is a wonderful cookbook in that it works for someone who has been cooking for a long time to teach them, you know, be

forgiving, take risks, don't sweat it when it doesn't work out perfectly because the more you're cooking, the higher expectations you have for yourself, right? Like you, I've got to create something that is, you know, the culinary equivalent of a Sistine Chapel. But it's also great. I don't have that vibe at all. But that's what I love about the cookbook. Because I think a lot of people do, you know, especially with the shows that we watch, you know, cooking, it's about perfection and timing and everything. But it's also a great cookbook for people who are just getting started. It's

a perfect cookbook for someone who's just entering the space. And it does both of those things. Yeah. I mean, that was the goal. I wanted the book to meet people where they are. So if you are a beginner, you can take what you need from it. And it is a little dense. So I think that maybe if you're a beginner, some of the details are going to be overwhelming. So just don't worry about it. And then if you have been cooking for a while and you just want to deep dive and know more about molasses, you can nerd out that way overwhelming. So just don't worry about it. And then if you have been cooking for a while and you just want to deep dive and know more about molasses, you can nerd out that way too. So I'm hoping that it works for a lot of different people. Your parents worked around food. Your mother was a knock-em-out home chef.

As I understand, they didn't see cooking as a path for you. No, they really wanted. My family is very traditional. So I'm sure you've heard this. The jobs that our immigrant parents want is a doctor, engineer, or lawyer. Those are the approved professions. Or all three in one. Or all three.

That would be the dream. While simultaneously getting married and having children. Yes. Doctor. That's like the perfect child. Doctor, JD, PhD, all the alphabets after your name. That's what they wanted for you? Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. And I never wanted that for myself, but I never pictured being able to be in food. It just felt like such a pipe dream. So I just, I really, I fantasized about cooking. I grew up pretending to play restaurant and I'd make like little pretend menus, but I never thought it would be real. I never did. And I kind of get now, now that I have a daughter, I understand why they didn't want me to work

in a restaurant because I really don't want her to. Wait, what? Why? You've had such a successful career. You're a lighthouse for so many, both for your cooking and for the way that you've stood up for yourself on behalf of other people. Why wouldn't you want your daughter to follow your path? It's such a hard life. Like wouldn't it be great if she just clocked in somewhere and had a health insurance and

you know, 40 hours a week, health insurance. But like it, you know, we'll see what she does. Who knows? But there is some kind of, you know, comfort in thinking that your kid's going to, it feels safe. Because working in a restaurant, it's very hard. For the majority of my life, I was working like 80 hours a week. I didn't have health insurance. I didn't have any friends.

I missed everyone's wedding and funeral. And it's very isolating. And you just care about the restaurant. And it almost is like culty in a way. You only focus on your service. You only think about your station. I would have nightmares about whether or not I forgot to order some protein for the next day. And it's fully takes over your life and there's no room for really anything else. And sometimes that's nice, but other times it's like, wouldn't it be great to just have a hobby?

Do you have more balance in your life now that you're cooking in a different way? You're not on the clock in the way that you were when you were working in restaurants or when you owned your own restaurant? Yeah. Do you feel like you have a little bit more balance now? So much more. It's like night and day. I have time for myself to like, you know, do things that I have time to go to the dentist.

Wow. Wild. We're throwing a little party for our daughter on Saturday that's with some friends coming over. I would have never been able to do something like that before. So I really, I do think I appreciate these moments so much more because I, for most of my adult life, I didn't have it. But I loved working in restaurants and I'm glad I did it, but I don't think I could do it again. You don't want to own a restaurant again.

No, it's, I don't think I could do it again. You don't want to own a restaurant again. No, it's, I really have so much respect. You paused for a minute before you answered that. You paused for a minute before you answered. Okay, full disclosure, I fantasize about it all the time still. I really do. I like, I love that world, but I also really love that I can just watch my baby lie on the floor and babble.

You know, like having time for that. So wonderful. And I feel, I think a lot about my parents now and how much they worked. My mom went back to work two weeks after having me, which is too soon. It's crazy to miss all those like early bonding moments with your daughter. I'm really glad, I feel really lucky and privileged that I can do that. When you got into cooking, at what point did your parents or did that actually happen? Say, you know, we might not have been down with this at the beginning, but man, we're

so proud of what you're doing. That only happened recently. Really? What happened? How did that conversation play out? I have Asian parents, so it wasn't really that they didn't sit me down and say they're proud of me, but I feel it now. I think the first time it seemed they were excited.

And okay, so the main reason I know they're proud is they stopped asking me if I'm going to go back to school and get my master's degree. Oh, they used to ask you that all the time? All the time. They're like, so when are you going to be done with this hobby and get a real job? So in the last two years, they stopped asking that. And I think it was because I was on TV. Have you seen my daughter on TV? Tell their friends?

Yeah. But did they, so you feel it, but it wasn't said out loud. No, but I mean, I just don't think that that's the thing that Asian parents do. I think Asian parents aren't alone in that. I think that there are some things that are hard for some people to articulate. I'm proud of you. I love you. You know, some things, it comes out in different ways and we have to figure out when they're saying it, even when they're not saying those words.

Yeah. Like I know my mom loves me because the last time she visited, she filled up her suitcase with 20 pounds of guavas. And that's love. She showed up with a her suitcase with 20 pounds of guavas. And that's love. She showed up with a suitcase full of 20 pounds of guavas. Yeah. I don't know how she got it passed. I didn't think you could bring fruit across state lines, but I guess you can.

So every one of those guavas, when you opened it, when you peeled it, when you cut it, it was a reminder of just how much your mom cares about you. 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. So there's a perfect match for every business. Use our ad platform to cast your net, then narrow down using targeting such as demographic, show categories, audience segments, and more. Find your match and reel them in. Advertise on more than 100,000 podcasts with ACAST. Head to go.acast.com slash closer to get started. So, when you think about a taste of home, we try to leave our listeners with something that they can try in their own kitchens, a recipe that carries strong memories. And I know that people listening to this episode because of who you are and what you represent,

they are definitely going to want a recipe from you. So, what is a taste of home for you and why is the particular thing that you're going to tell me about so special to you? So for me, it's my mom's parathas. It's a flaky layered flatbread that we would make together every Sunday. So instead of pancakes, we would have parathas and they take a long time to make. So my mom and I would always make parathas together on Sunday morning. It was our special breakfast situation. A lot of people do pancakes, we did parathas. And it's something that takes a lot of time and a lot of skill. So it's a great thing to do on a Sunday morning

when you've got that time. You start with flour and you rub a little bit of oil So it's a great thing to do on a Sunday morning when you've got that time. You start with flour and you rub a little bit of oil into it, a little oil or ghee. This was my first job as a kid. So I would just sit there with my tiny fingers and rub the little bits of fat into the flour. By coating the flour with this initial layer of fat, it helps prevent too much gluten development. You do want some gluten development because that's the key to making anything flaky, but you don't want this to be too tough of a bread. My mom always said that this part was really important because it made the paratha as casta, which meant flaky.

So after that initial rubbing in, you add a little bit of warm water, stir it up with your fingers until it comes together into a shaggy dough. And then you're going to knead that until it's pretty smooth. But we're not going for like a taut, very well developed, like when you're making a bread, you want lots and lots of gluten development. That's what we're going for here. Just like you just want it to be smooth. It's similar to a lot of flatbreads. It's kind of the same. You don't want too much gluten development because then it's too hard to roll it out. And then you let it rest for like 15 minutes after that. Portion the dough into balls about the size of, I don't know, a baby's fist. I have a baby, so that's why I keep thinking about little fingers and tiny fists.

And then you're going to roll it out super thin. So this first roll, you don't care about it being a circle or square or anything. You just want it to be very, very thin, like filo thin. And then you dab on a little bit of key. You actually surprisingly don't need that much, just little dabs here and there, little sprinkle of flour, and then you roll that up, similar to when you're doing cinnamon rolls. So top to bottom, roll it into one long snake. And then you take each end and then you roll those inwards into like a little snail coil and then fold it on top of each other and press.

And then you get this like coiled up little dough ball. Now you can find this kind of laminated dough in various cultures, like in North Africa and East Asia, and everyone has a different way to do this folding process. This is just how I always did it with my mom growing up. So you have a bunch of layers in this little dough now that now you roll out again, you just take that like coiled ball, press it flat, roll it out, And now you're going for like a neat circle. You want it to be about an eighth of an inch thick. And once you roll it out, you're going to have so many flaky layers in there because of that like coiling process that we went through and then you cook it. So a lot's already happened. And now we're going to do even more

because it's a double cook. Some people cook it just one time, but this is how my mom does it. She does a twice cook method. First cook, dry pan, medium low heat, and we're just cooking it totally through and setting the starches. And you can cook all of your parathas this way in advance, and you can even do it like the day before. And then second cook right before serving. We're going to go a little bit higher heat and we're going to fry it in key. It's going to get crispy. It's going to puff a little bit and all those flakes are going to become present. You're going to see all those layers. And then you

got your hot parathas, scrunch it up with your hands to kind of break up the layers so that it doesn't steam too much. It's kind of similar to how bussup shut in the Caribbean. It's like this flaky layered dough that's torn up a bit. So we kind of do the same thing, break it up a little bit and then dig in. Now, is there something that people should know so if they're making this for the first time that they're careful in one, you know, the particular steps? And if they do make any kind of misstep, how can they correct that? Well, I think the first way you can mess up is when it comes to adding the water and figuring

out the hydration. In my book, I have a recipe with an amount for the water and the flour, but the truth is every brand of flour has a different level of protein. So it's going to require a slightly different hydration. So it's never going to be totally right with any recipe when it comes to bread. So you got to really go by look and feel. And if your dough is too wet, then you don't really get the defined layers. Because when you go for that second roll, all of those layers from the coiling will just end up getting smooshed together. And then if your dough is a little bit too dry, you're going to end up with this kind of brittle dry bread at the end of it. So that's one of those things that you just kind of figure out with trial and error. And when it's been a while and

I haven't made parathas, I make those mistakes as well. And it's just one of those things like you just got to roll with the punches. If it is a little too dry, too wet, sometimes you don't even know until it's over. And that's kind of what's challenging with any kind of baking. But you know, it's an adventure every time. Since you did this every week, is there a particular session of making the prathas or eating the prathas that really stands out to you? I remember making this with my mom many times throughout my life. And it's kind of cool because now when I make it, I think back to like a lot of these different times, different times in my life, different

places where we were living. I remember making it when we were in an apartment in Van Nuys and that was really, really small and I was very young. So she just kind of gave me a piece of dough to pretend like I was helping, but I probably wasn't doing anything. And then I remember making it when I was older. The first time I made it totally on my own, it was like a surprise for her on Mother's Day. I woke up really early and she came downstairs and I had already made all the parathas. And she was so proud because it was the first time I did it myself, top to bottom.

When you look back on that kitchen and the constant entertaining and the big meals and the organization, what are the most important life lessons that you carry forward now that come out of that small kitchen in California where you grew up? I think the biggest thing is that everyone's welcome at the table. She opened her home to anybody. People she just like met randomly. I know that sometimes it feels scary to let someone in your house, but it was really amazing to see how a stranger at the table, when you're sitting and having a meal together, you can instantly

connect and you can instantly become friends. And how food is just this common thing that all people have. So that's the biggest thing that she taught me. And also to just have an open mind, try different foods. I think you can learn a lot about people through just what they eat. Just talk to a stranger at the grocery store and make a friend, maybe have them come over. Yeah. Longer tables, longer tables, more seats. You will forever also be known as someone who spoke up for yourself at a key moment and led a lot of other people to look, hmm, maybe I need to square my shoulders and stand up a little bit more for myself as well.

Is that something that also reaches back to your house, to the kitchen, maybe to your mom, to your parents and their influence? I mean, I know that everybody knows me from this one public moment of standing up for myself, but I have been my whole life and my whole career in all the different kitchens I worked in. When I started out, I was very often the only girl and almost always the only brown girl, especially in fine dining. So I've been standing up for myself for a long time and I had to stand up for myself

with my parents as well because they because when it came to deciding that I was going to move forward and do this career, be in food, it was really difficult for my family. And I really had to stand my ground and tell them that I'm going to do this regardless of what anybody thinks. So I guess this is just how I've been really. and tell them that I'm going to do this regardless of what anybody thinks. So I guess it's just, this is just how I've been really. I feel like I've had to always fight to get to what I want to do.

And I think it's like a, it's all about like, it like builds, you know, maybe when I was little it was little fights over trying to go on a ski trip or being allowed to go to a school dance because my family was very conservative. It became easier to, to stand up for myself for bigger things like to go into the career I want to hold my own against like male chefs who really didn't want me there. and then for what everybody knows me for, standing up for my equal pay. So, you know, just you got to start somewhere. It gets easier. Are you okay with being known a bit as a warrior for standing up for yourself? Or it sounds

like you're saying this is just who I am and this is just what I do. I don't know how people perceive me, you know? I don't always feel like I'm strong or like I'm a warrior. I'm just like doing one thing at a time. You know what I mean? So I don't really see like this. I don't see what people see. I guess it's the main thing. It's okay that they see that you're just someone who sometimes shows up wearing our husband's

shirt. Because I think we're looking for our warriors, our icons, the people who serve as a beacon or a lighthouse to have some sort of cape and superpowers. And it's not always a superpower. Sometimes it's just finding that voice inside yourself, listening to that voice, and then giving birth to that voice so that you can stand your ground and speak up for yourself. And in doing so, sometimes open a door for someone else. Does that feel a little better? Yeah. I hope so.

I hope so. I have loved talking to you. It's really a treat. Yeah. I have loved talking to you. It's really, really a treat. Yeah, it's great talking to you. I'd love to get in the kitchen with you one day. Even if I'm just looking over your shoulder to watch you do the magic that you do. Thanks for being with us.

Thanks for having me. Next time you're in town, open the door. Be careful now because I, you know, I do get to New York, so just be careful. All the best to you. Thank you. Some of life's most powerful lessons are served up in the kitchen. And in Sola's case, it created a framework for the life that she lives today. A life built around creativity, resiliency, open doors, longer tables, a potent combination

of hospitality and curiosity. I often take away an image after these conversations, and the picture that sticks in my mind is Sola's mom showing up with a 20-pound suitcase packed full of guavas. Now that is a special kind of love. Mama love. There's nothing like it. It's worth adding Sola's culinary offerings into your own life. Her work on YouTube, her various media ventures, and her cookbook that features those delicious

parathas. The cookbook is called Start Here, Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook. You can also find that recipe on my Instagram page at michelle underscore underscore norris. That's two underscores and you can find it at our website, yourmommaskitchen.com. At the website, you can also find all the recipes from previous podcasts. It's good stuff. And one last thing, so glad that you've taken the time to listen to us, but here's a note from one of our listeners. When I was very young, four years old, my dad was diagnosed with cancer, which they thought at the time was terminal.

It wasn't, thankfully, and he's doing well in his 80s today. But I think that diagnosis inspired my mom to provide the most nutritious, healing, life-giving foods that she possibly could. She would put dinner on the table and proudly declare how nutritious the vibrant orange winter squash was and the whole grains and the spinach, and my dad would say, wow, honey, and it tastes great too.

But during this time, when she thought she was going to lose her husband to cancer and be left to raise three kids on her own, she somehow found strength. She found strength in her faith, but also in providing beautiful food for her family. I think it's one of the reasons I bonded with food as a vehicle of love and hope.

I can share a meal with you as a gesture of love, and this gesture can offer you comfort and positivity, and it can happen every single day, especially when days are hard. But it's not just a gesture of love between people. There's another piece to it. It's a gift from the earth for us. I feel such gratitude when I'm able to cook with foods

that are nourishing and restorative for our bodies. I feel like nature has given us a gift that I can then share with the people I care about. We're opening up our inbox for you to record yourself and share some of your mama's recipes, some memories from your kitchen growing up or thoughts on some of the stories you've heard on this podcast. Make sure to send us a voice memo at ymk at highergroundproductions.com for a chance for your voice to be featured in a

future episode. Thanks so much for joining us. See you next week and make sure you do come back next week because we are always serving up something special. And until then, be bountiful. This has been a Higher Ground, an Audible original produced by Higher Ground Studios. Senior producer Natalie Rinn, producer Sonia Tan, and associate producer Angel Carreras. Sound design and engineering from Andrew Eepen and Roy Baum.

Higher Ground Audios editorial assistants are Jenna Levin and Camila Thurtacus. Executive producers for Higher Ground are Nick White, Mukta Mohan, Dan Fearman, 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 Bear and Say What Media, our talent booker is Angela Peluso. Special thanks this week to Threshold Studios in New York City, And thanks to the good people at Clean Cut Studio in Washington, D.C. Chief Content Officer for Audible is Rachel Giazza. And that's it. Goodbye, everybody.

Make sure and come back to see what we're serving up next week. Copyright 2024 by Higher Ground Audio LLC. Sound recording copyright 2024 by Higher Ground Audio LLC. Higher Ground. Hey marketers, want a matchmaker to set you up with your perfect audience? Well, look no further. Get intimate right away with HostRed Sponsorships with Acast. Use Acast's self-serve ad platform to search and partner up with a podcast or two from

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