Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast - Tamron Hall

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

Journalist and Emmy award-winning TV host Tamron Hall talks about how her upbringing in the small, rural town of Luling, Texas paved the way for her to follow her dreams of being on TV. She praises the many mother figures she had in her life growing up and opens up about what Mother’s Day really means to her. Plus, we learn how to make her twist on a Southern classic – a Sock-it-to-Them cake. Tamron Hall is a two-time Emmy award-winning TV host of her self-titled show, which was recently renewed for its sixth season. Before this, she was the first black woman to host the Today Show in 2014. She’s the author of her own cookbook A Confident Cook, set to publish this year. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mother's Day has always been important and a big, big day for me. But this journey, 53 years on this planet and meeting so many wonderful people and so many wonderful women who shepherd, who guide, who love, who comfort, and who never walked into a hospital and walked out with a baby of their own, but they mother. Welcome to Your Mama's Kitchen, the podcast that explores how the kitchens we grew up in as kids shape who we become as adults. I'm Michelle Norris. Today we're joined by the wonderful journalist and television host, Tamron Hall.

Her self-titled talk show has been on the air for five seasons, winning her two Emmys, and just recently getting renewed for its sixth season. If you've ever watched her show, it's no surprise why audiences love her. She has a bright energy that draws people in, including her big name guests. But she also has a knack for tackling hard news subjects like incarceration and

women's rights abroad in an informative and yet very approachable way. This most definitely came from her extensive background in journalism, from reporting at MSNBC to hosting News Nation with Tamron Hall, Deadline, and The Today Show. In our chat, we learned something about her family's core strength and the way they tend to stand up for their beliefs, from her grandfather staring down the Ku Klux Klan from the front porch to her decision to start her own show when management decided to pull her off the air in her dream job at the Today Show. Tamron is one tough cookie.

And in recent years, she's also proven herself to be a pretty capable home cook. She's launching her own cookbook this year. It's called A Confident Cook. Confidence is good in the kitchen. ["A Confident Cook"] But before she became the glamorous, Cook. Confidence is good in the kitchen. But before she became the glamorous, fashionable TV personality we see today, Tamron was a country girl from a small town in rural Texas raised in a shotgun house by her mother, her grandfather, and a community of women she considered to be mother figures.

In this episode, how a TV star found her voice in part by watching the people she loved make their way over and over and over again when no path forward was clear. Plus, we learn how to make her version of the classic Southern Socketumi Cake. She calls it Socket-to-Them Cake. Oh, that's coming up. Tamron Hall, I'm so glad you've joined us. I've been wanting to talk to you for a while. I am excited to be here and any opportunity to speak with you is an honor. Oh, talk that talk. It's true talk.

It's true, true, true. We haven't talked in a while. It's been too long. I'm glad you're here. And I'm glad we get to talk about this because I feel like I know you, but there's a lot that we're going to get to know because we're going to take you back to that little town in Texas where your life began. And we believe at the show that we become who we are in part by what we hear and see

and absorb in the kitchens of our youth. And if you would do me a favor and take us inside your mama's kitchen and tell us what it looked like and what it smelled like and what you remember. Your mom was fairly young when she had you. Tell us about her and tell us about her kitchen. Maybe one of the surprising things about me that I have not shared, or at least I haven't shared a lot publicly, my mother doesn't cook. My mother never cooked.

My mother's mother passed away when she was 10 years old. So my mother's kitchen was my grandpa's kitchen. He did all the cooking and his kitchen was a very, very small kitchen, maybe 300 square feet, maybe. I vividly right now can picture the tin can on the side of his stove where all the good grease is kept, grease that was captured after frying bacon. And where I'm from, good bacon has a really hard crunchy rind on the end, almost a snap of your teeth if you're not careful. And so my grandfather would often fry up the good bacon with the really thick, crunchy rind that I didn't fully appreciate until much later in my life.

And in his kitchen, he had what he referred to as his frigidaire. We didn't have a refrigerator. It wasn't an ice box. It was a frigidaire. And I think that was something he got later in life, probably a big purchase from Sears and Roebuck. That's what it was called back then. And that's what I always say, oh, here,

I'm gonna get this Sears and Roebuck credit card. He had a little table off to the side that was pressed against the wall with these rivets around the table. And for those who know, they know what I'm talking about, that old school diner style table with these green vinyl style diner seats. They were chairs, but they kept this easy white to them. And they had a little padding in the seat.

Little padding in the seat. The floor was linoleum, some of it cracked and unrepaired, but always very clean and tidy. My grandfather raised my mother and her younger sister without their mother. My mother's siblings outside of my aunt Annie were all old enough to be out of the house. So when my grandmom, who was affectionately called Kuka, passed away in that home. It was just my mom and her next oldest sister, Anizel, we call her Aunt Annie now. She's evolved to Annie back in the country. She was Anizel, now she's Annie. She'll get a kick out of me saying that. This was a shotgun house, as they call it in the South.

So you could look through one end and see the whole straight through. Although his house never, I mean, they called it a shotgun house, but it never really applied. And I used to wonder about that with him because right next to the kitchen was a sitting room. It had his lazy boy, a sofa and a table that we never really used. My grandfather, what we called dip snuff, he used to dip snuff. For perspective, my grandfather was born in 1901. So he would keep it under his like, on the side of his legs. Yeah, lower part of his mouth and he's got a snuff little pot next to it. You know, when you talk about shotgun houses, I immediately know what you're talking about.

They're common in the South because you can see straight through and it creates a wind tunnel. And I don't know about that in Texas because it was meant to try to help keep the house cool. But you know, when it's as hot as it is in Texas, that might not work. 110 degrees in Luling, Texas. Those are my vivid summers there. But yeah, this little kitchen led to the outdoor backyard, which was from my point of view as a kid, paradise. It was just this open, green backyard, no fence, huge tree, I think.

It was just heaven. It was backyard heaven for a kid. So in Luling and that little house, was the kitchen the place where everything happened? It was the place where once my mom decided that she needed to pursue a bigger life for us. My mom was a 19-year-old single mom and once she decided that it was time for her to leave the small town and that opportunities would be more available, the kitchen became that first place we looked for my grandfather. My grandfather was a pit master, so he worked at a grocery store in the back and he did all of the barbecue and became very, very popular for this Luling smoked sausage and

his ribs. So he did big cooking outside of the home. And so when I would come back around seven or eight years old, once we'd moved away, we'd go visit my grandfather and we'd always come through the kitchen to go look for him. And so it was the meeting place, it was the reunion place, it was the reconnection of family. So that's where we'd find him in the kitchen. And my mother would always share with me early on in my life, my grandfather would sit me

on his lap in the kitchen and he had a little song that I've, I mean, he passed away when I was 19, but I can still hear it now. He had this little song and he'd sit me on his lap and he'd say, dinga, dinga, dinga, dinga, dinga, dinga, dinga, dinga, dinga, dinga, and he would like bounce me up and down. And that was his little charm song to soothe me or to make me laugh. It's a beautiful memory. What was your grandpa's name? Louis Mitchell Senior.

A pit master. You know, you paint such a vivid image. I can imagine him holding it down in the kitchen and keeping the family together. You eventually moved to Fort Worth, right? Yeah, yeah, I moved to Fort Worth. My mother went to my grandfather, who was very, very protective of me. In fact, he picked me up from Edgar B. Davis Hospital, September 17th. I was one of the 16th, and they let me out, I think, the next day. I

went straight to his home. You're a fellow Virgo. I am a true Virgo. That's why my memories are so vivid, I think. I see you. Yeah, yeah, you understand. And so at some point, my mother decided, as I shared, that it was time to really expand and bet on herself. And I'm not old enough to remember the conversation, but I heard it so much, it became like folklore. You just hear this story of her meeting my grandfather one day at his job and him gassing

up our gremlin, if those who remember, you know, you know. And I have a gremlin, my mom had a gremlin, and those who remember, you know, you know. And I have a gremlin, my mom had a gremlin, and saying to my grandfather that it was time for her to leave. And even when I think about it now, it brings tears to my eyes because I can only imagine this 19, now 20 year old whose father's pleading with her to stay and that they can figure it out here. And I'm sure now looking at it from his perspective as well, this is an empty nest for him and he's lost his wife and all these things. But my mother left and took me to Fort Worth. And our first place that I remember was an apartment called Lee Highland. It's no longer around. It was in Fort Worth.

And the complex was filled with a lot of women very similar to her, a lot of families similar to her. I remember I moved a lot as a child, which actually funny enough, don't talk a lot about. I moved quite a bit as a child. And I remember that kitchen because it had this window or an opening where you could hand things over. But I don't remember any cooking because my mom didn't cook. She did not cook. So how did you all eat if she didn't cook? We had an incredible group of women, aka my aunts, who all would cook dinner. Sundays we went to a church called

Beth Eden Baptist Church, my whole family, once my mom moved to Fort Worth, all went to that church. So every Sunday, my aunt's sister, who was married into our family, she'd married my uncle Rogers, we'd go over to my uncle Rogers and my aunt's sister's house and she would cook anything that, she's the kind of mom that if five kids wanted five different things, she'd prepare five different things. If there was fried chicken,

if there was meatloaf, if someone wanted it, it didn't matter, she was going to make it all. And then for the weekday, I was probably the very first generation of true fast food kid. And not in the way you know fast

food now. Like I remember going to Taco Bell before it was a chain. We'd go to Pizza Hut and then on the weekends I'd have huge family style meals. But no, my mom never, she would say enjoyed cooking, never really got into cooking. And then my dad that God meant for me to have entered our lives, Clarence Newton Sr. They married and there became a wholesale change in what I view as a kitchen. My dad cooked every meal, every single meal, every breakfast, every lunch, every dinner. My dad was retired from the army 30 years and he was 27 years older than my mom.

So he was much more settled. My mom went on to pursue her career in education. While my dad really was the primary owner and king of the kitchen. So it was my dad's kitchen that I remember most. So your stepdad, Clarence, sounds like a lovely man. Amazing. And the fact that he cooked so much must have been part of the appeal among many things for your mom. You know, it was an appeal for me.

I was like, Mom, marry this man. I was like eight years old. And so it took a minute for my heart to open to him. And I do think to your point, a big part of his strategy was cooking in the kitchen. He could also grill, which is a rare thing. So now he comes in able to grill, winning over my grandfather, and he's also able to cook and cook he did and have a great kitchen of just joy and fun. And it was just awesome.

You know, there are lessons that we learn in the kitchen that sometimes don't have much to do with the food that's cooked there. Are there things that you learned about your mom, about your stepdad, your dad, about your grandpa, just in watching how they navigated life at the kitchen table? Absolutely. Even though my mom never cooked, when I went away to Temple University, this was obviously before you could email or text someone.

And this was predating even before cell phones, even though I got a cell phone, I think the senior year in college. My mother would write me letters and mail me letters. And I get emotional telling this because I wish I'd kept them. She would write them on the paper towel from the kitchen, the bounty roll of paper towel, because she was in the kitchen. And she would sit in the kitchen and she'd take a piece of paper towel, clearly Bounty does hold up to the commercial.

And she'd write a note, whatever was on her mind and I would receive a check from my parents and a letter and it was folded in a bounty paper towel. And so that tells me everything about what we're discussing this central part of our lives being the kitchen, while her talent wasn't expressing it in the form of a meal, her affection and her care and it being a comforting space. That's where she wrote these letters. You have to understand when I went away to college, we were friends. My mother and I, she's a very strong woman, very much a mom and I'm not your friend. But she was this first generation who kind of teetered the line between friend mom.

And I say that and that I had great rules and trust me, I lived under a house where there were rules. But because she was so young, and I was an only child at that time, I remember playing volleyball in our yard because I didn't have a sibling. So she became this fill in, in many ways and I became a fill in for her. I became this fill in, in many ways, and I became a fill in for her. I became her inspiration. I tell people once I had my son, five years later, I haven't lost a single negotiation because you fight different when you're fighting for someone.

And so she fought different because of me. And so I laugh now she's 74 and she goes, I knew you were a baby. And I said, I knew you when you were a baby. But going back to that central point of the kitchen, I in my mind imagine that had to be a refuge for her. It had to be a place of calm and I'm sure a place where she shed tears that I never will know about writing these letters to encourage me to keep going. Do you think that she used that paper towel, that piece of bounty because she also wanted

to conjure up the kitchen in your mind? Why didn't she use that paper towel, that piece of bounty because she also wanted to conjure up the kitchen in your mind? I think if anything, it was a use what you have because love can come in so many ways. Right? She could have gone, gotten letterhead paper from somewhere, drugstore. But my family, going back to what you asked me, what did I learn? It is very use what you have, whether it's the meal, the repurpose grease that some would have thrown out

in my grandfather's kitchen. I'll use what you have in my father's kitchen. My father passed away in 2008, and I've recently announced that I have a cookbook. It's a love letter to him because I learned to cook after he passed away. But looking back at that, I'm making something good from what we have. And so my mother's letters to be on the paper

towel more than it being a deliberate decision. What makes it so beautiful? It wasn't intentional, right? It was, I'm going to write with what I have. And that is enough because it wasn't the paper. Yeah. It's the words. It didn't need to be on Fancy Stationery. Didn't need to be on anything. It didn't need to be on Stationery. Didn't need to be on anything other than what it was, which was what was in front of her, which is what she had. You do something that's very visible.

A lot of people have jobs that their parents can't really see what they do because they're working in an office behind a closed door, they're doing something, they're in a hospital. There's somewhere where their work is not visible. Your work was very visible, especially when you went back to Texas. And then later when you went on to the Today Show, you know, have your own show. So your mom can see what you do. Yes. Is she still sending you notes or critiques?

The great thing is technology changes from bounty towels to real-time text message. Oh, absolutely. My mother and I, we talk all day, every day. More than the bounty towels, she has a camera in my son's room that she talks to him through the camera. At least I installed it. My husband is aware, so I don't want to make it seem like my mom secretly put a camera in, but we have a Nanit camera, it's called, and she is on the camera watching all day.

Does she watch him? Oh, yeah. Or did she just happen to catch a ginger? Her favorite thing to do now is to review the tapes like a referee. So she's retired and as I've shared, my father has since passed away and she will sit in her home in Texas and review the tapes and find little nuggets of things. The other day he was saying something very funny and she shared it to me. He's a very sensitive kid. He's a tough cookie, but he's also, he's a Taurus. And so he's very in his feelings. And a little child knocked over blocks that

he was putting together. And his teacher wrote me a note saying, you know, we're really trying to teach him to advocate for himself because he got very quiet and he didn't want to tell the kid that his feelings were hurt. And we were really trying to teach him to advocate for himself because he got very quiet and he didn't want to tell the kid that his feelings were hurt. And we were really trying to teach him to advocate for himself. And so I got him home that day and I said, listen, you know, if someone does this, I said, you can point and say, stop. So he starts practicing saying stop. My mother overhears all of this on the Nanit because she's spying.

And she called me the next day or the same day, I should say, I heard you guys, I couldn't stop laughing. But yeah, we talk all day. She writes me notes all day. She texts all day, every single day. That's really a blessing. Has she helped you figure out how to, you know, you're giving your son lessons on how to deal with someone else who's stepping into his space. Did you get those kinds of lessons from your mom, particularly working in network television, in entertainment, which is a sharp elbowed environment where you have to learn how to stand your ground a little bit?

Oh, the lessons I got were well before network TV, but paired me greatly for network TV. Again, I come from a world of folks who, if you don't stand up for yourself, you have nothing. My mother and her siblings always shared with me, again, going back to the folklore of the family, how, like so many families, sadly, but it happened to the folklore of the family, how like so many families sadly, but it happened to hours where the Klan came to my grandfather's door. And just to be clear, the Klan that shows up with white robes and yes. Oh yes. Yes. And showed up to their home after some incident in town, like people have seen in the movies

or maybe even heard of in real life, because I sadly have other people who've shared this very similar story. And you're in the South and my grandfather has to stand there with his children and make that determination and that decision to say, none of these are going, you'll have to kill us all. And that's the world I come from. My grandfather was referred to as Mr. Mitchell by every person I ever saw talk to him, and he could not read. I make my living with words, he can't read, but I never, ever heard a person not call him Mr. Mitchell, whether he was dressed for church in his Stacey Adams shoes or whether he was in his butcher's apron with his hands soiled from the day.

I never heard anyone call him anything but Mr. Mitchell. At best somebody might occasionally said Mitchell, but it was never Lewis. It was never casual. And so that's my fiber. That's my background. My mother, as a single mother, I never watched her do anything other than work hard. And she did not complain. She had a purpose and she wanted me to very much understand that work is hard, no matter the job you do. If you own the store or you work in the store, it takes work. And I grew up in an environment of not suppressing one's feelings.

My mother is a crier, we make fun of her, but she's the first to cry about anything. We can't even watch a movie with her, she cries. But it was also one of great fortitude, stiffen your spine, but don't let people break you. And for me, I remember, oh boy, I think it was third grade. I was the only, only child in our neighborhood. And I was a latchkey kid. It's funny on TikTok, latchkey kid is a very popular TikTok because this generation has never heard of a latchkey kid.

It's illegal. It's illegal. Some of us that were kind of feral, you know, didn't have a lot of supervision. I came home from school. I was assigned to walk in with the key that was attached to my bag or whatever, go in and lock myself in and wait for my mother to come home. And one day I was running home and going back to the kitchen funny enough, I was running home from school because I was being chased by kids, bullies.

Don't know why probably something I said, surprise, surprise, but it got me in hot water. And the door swings open, my mom's home. I'm like, wait a minute, you're not supposed to be here. You're supposed to be at work. Get out of the way, they're going to kill us. They're going to kill us all. Get out of the way. You know, my mom said, wait, what is going on here?

And she sees the kids and now they see my mom. They're like, everyone puts the brakes on. And these are, you know, times were very different. Bullying is not fun at any age and at any era, but it's a little different. I certainly believe now with social media and some of the other pressures. So this was just not to turn it into a just, but it was a lot less scary certainly than things you see today. But nevertheless, terrifying to me at the time.

My mother said, what's going on? They're chasing me and they're mad at me. And my mother said, you will never run from someone. You're going to turn around and you're going to tell them, I'm not running anymore, period. And she looked me in my eye and she said, you'll face them or face me, but in life you don't run. You don't. And she loves to say, I was scared of nothing after that. And so I just, it changed my point of view. Even at a young age, you have to face things, even the difficult things. And moving into the network world all these years later,

I can't say that I faced it down every time, being a black woman, being a woman, being the one black woman, being the first black woman after 60 years of the Today Show to actually be called in and hired to anchor that show on the weekday. Years prior to that,

there's a lot of self deprecation laughing at things that weren't funny or approaching conversations without looking square in the eye because you know that it was not going to be received in a positive way, not because the message was aggressive, but just because the message was from you. But at some point, when the time was right, finding a way to make it known that you, like your grandfather, like your mother who was 19, and like all of the aunt sisters and aunties, I was going to bet on myself and I was going to stand my ground.

Because when it's time for you to show your fibers, you can't hide them. They'll burst from your skin. I tell the kids that I mint her now. And also it does something to your insides. It calcifies you. It just eats away at your soul. And I didn't want that. I was raised in a joyful environment my whole life.

Oh gosh, talking about kitchen, it was raucous. It was laughter. It was dominoes. It was fun. And so as tough as the folks are who raised me, they had joy and fun. And so when people ask me, even after I announced that I, well, I didn't announce it, someone else announced that I was leaving my prior job before starting the talk show. They said, my gosh, how are you not upset? How are you not this?

I said, listen, my grandfather was a sharecropper. That's hard stuff. I'll figure it out. I'll figure it out. My mom left with a tank of gas and her child is on national TV. You know, you hear that old adage, doors close and windows open. And when things don't go your way, it's basically paving the way for your next blessing. I believe that. I do too. And I also believe in never letting anybody steal your joy. Because if you feel

that, if you feel your joy slipping away, you no longer can access joy. You need to take that off and get on out of there. I love that. I love that. I never want anyone to take that from you. But the step you take after that, it's not like the blessing comes up and knocks on the door and says, knock, knock. Your blessing's here.

Yeah. You usually have to get up and dust yourself off and go find it. And in reading a little bit about you, you know, I knew that you very quickly developed an idea for your own show. Oh, it doesn't happen here. I'm just going to plant my own garden over here. What I didn't know is that your mom played a role in that. And then she told you that you had people who were watching you.

As I understand, she said to you, people are watching how you will order your steps right now. Yes. People are watching how you will react to this. So you better figure it out, not just for yourself, but for the people who are watching you. Absolutely. She did.

And I thought to myself in that moment, and you know this having had great success in this business that we are in, how often young people come. It took me a long time to process like, you're a legend. I'm like, I am? But you see me, I'm still seven year old Tamron running from Sheila Fyerson. Exactly. You don't see yourself as others do.

And I think that's a blessing when you are able to not catch the vapors of your own success. And so I so when people would say that to me or young women would come, my gosh, at that time, it was an awakening of who I am, what I mean to them. And I said to myself, if they see me, and my mother said this, if you don't get up, what chance do they think they have? And that moment of recognizing that someone through my being

moved out might feel, this industry is not going to let me in, there's no chance. Look at Tamron Hall, look what, remember her? She kept her head down, she did great, she got great ratings, she did this.

And look what they did to her. And I never wanted that to be the story. I never wanted you to run into me at a store and say, remember her? That was her. And I said to myself and with my mom, I don't know what this return is going to look like, right? But I know there's a return. So I immediately that day focused on the return versus the revenge. You had a vision. I had a vision. I first gave AG1 a try because members of my family were using it. My husband uses it, my nephew uses it, and I saw the difference that it made in their life.

Since drinking AG1 daily, I felt that kind of energy myself, and I know that I'm getting the nutrients I need. I travel a lot. I have a busy, hectic, chalk-full schedule, and it's nice to know that that one step will help me make sure that my nutrition goals are met on a daily basis. That's because AG1 is a foundational nutritional supplement that supports your body's universal needs like gut optimization, stress management, and immune support.

Since 2010, AG1 has led the future of foundational nutrition, continuously refining their formula to create a smarter, better way to elevate your baseline health. Not only did I add AG1 to my regimen of multivitamins, in fact, AG1 is so great, you could probably replace your vitamin with AG1, but I love that every scoop also includes prebiotics, probiotics, digestive enzymes for gut support, vitamin C and zinc. All the stuff that supports your immune system, all the stuff that keeps you healthy,

all the stuff that allows you to run through the day and know that you're going to have the energy that you need. I recommend AG1 to all of my family and friends because it's easy. You can get the packet that you keep on the kitchen counter. If you travel as much as I do, you can get the little packs that you can just throw inside your bag. You can keep it in your gym bag if you need to. It's formulated based on the latest science,

and it maintains high quality standards. Even my friends and family have started drinking AG1, and they always tell me how energetic they feel when they take this step. You should think about it too. If there's one product I had to recommend to elevate your health, it's AG1 and that's why I'm excited to welcome them as a new partner. If you want to take ownership of your health, it starts with AG1.

Try AG1 and get a free one-year supply of vitamin D3K2 and five free AG1 travel packs with your first purchase at www.drinkag1.com. That's www.drinkag1.com. Check it out. Before we continue, a reminder. We want to hear your stories about your mama's kitchens, the kitchens that you grew up in, the things that still live in you today that you witnessed in a kitchen way back when. Send us your voice memo at ymk at highergroundproductions.com.

Again, that's ymk at highergroundproductions.com. Let's get back to programming. We're talking to you in the spring, which is the season of lilacs and cherry blossoms. And the season also when we honor our mothers in a very special way. And that holiday on the second Sunday in May, Mother's Day. And I understand the elves have told me that Mother's Day is something that you go all out on. Like Mother's Day is almost like Christmas for you. It is.

Is that true? It is. It is. And it is twofold, because I have truly the mother that God knew I needed and gave her the child that she needed. And it's this relationship of mother and child that is so incredible in our bond and our journey together, this young, young, young woman. And now my dear, dear, dear mother who is 74 and my friend and my rock, but I was a non-mom for 48 years. And over the course of my life, mother figures have become so important. And my motherhood is not defined my womanhood. And I tell people that all the time. I have a dear friend who, when I got pregnant with Moses, she doesn't have a child and she's likely going to go through this journey without

being a quote mother. And she said, I guess I'm gonna lose you to all your mom friends now. And I said that will never happen. Because my womanhood and my womanhood are different things. And I have aunts and when I went to Philadelphia, you know, to college and I'd never been away, Patty Bean and Clochette took me in, two friends, moms, right? And became my mother figures. I love these names. Patty Bean and Clochette. Oh, yes. So for me, Mother's Day is this expanded conversation honoring those people in our lives who are the comforters, they're the huggers. It is

more than the person who enters your life as the mother on your birth certificate. I had a mom many years ago, I wrote this piece because I was really struggling with feeling, in a new town it happened. And so many people, my colleagues, they would go on air and they'd say, a parent's worst nightmare. And I know what they mean by that now. You mean the shooting. Yeah, it's like a parent's worst nightmare. And I felt that there was a belief that well, because you're not a mom or a parent, you don't understand.

And yes, there's a unique line. I wasn't a parent at that point in time. And by the way, if I'd stayed at the Today Show, I would have been the only non-mom because Hoda had become a mom. And I've been in newsrooms and meetings where people would say, oh, well, you're not a mom, you don't get it. Or you're not a parent, you don't get it. So this shrinking down of your adulthood because you don't have a child, or somehow this carelessness or, you know, I watch Newtown, I report it and now I go home and I don't

care because I don't get it because a kid doesn't live with me. And so I wrote about this understanding of caring as a single woman. And I said, one of the phrases I never cared for was the having a child made me a better person line. And everyone says that for whatever reason, but my response was always, so you're just gonna be shitty the rest of your life unless you have a kid. Because if a child makes you a better person, if you don't have the kid, what does that make you? I'd like to believe I'm gonna be a good person no matter if I'm a parent or not. And so I wrote that, you're not a bad person because you don't have a child and you're

not automatically a good person because you do have a child. So Mother's Day has always been important and a big day for me. But this journey, 53 years on this planet and meeting so many wonderful people and so many wonderful women who shepherd,

who guide, who guide, who love, who comfort, and who never walked into a hospital and walked out with a baby of their own, but they mother. I love it. I love the opportunity with my platform to do something that had never been done in the years of morning TV. When I remember they said, what's your mom's favorite recipe? I was like, my mom don't cook.

And now I can have a show where that entire hour I say, yes, this is Mother's Day, but I'm expanding that definition because it doesn't have a box. I love that. I just love that. I love that. And even for the mothers who did have children, but still mother of the people.

Other people. My mother. Dispense wisdom. 100%. Dispense love. Put a hand on the shoulder when you need it. Yes. I just love that.

Yes. And that's why I love the holiday. I mean, don't get me wrong, dad, you're great too. But the mother part of it, I'm smiling right now because even though I had my grandfather and my father who raised me and wonderful men around me who poured such love and fortitude in me, there is nothing like having those mother figures tell me it's going to be okay. Show me it's going to be okay. And teach me what to do to make it okay. Now listen, we like to gift our listeners with a recipe or something that tastes like

home for the people that we talk to. What do you want to share with folks? I have a socket to them recipe in my new cookbook called the confident cook. In the South, we call it socket to them, but because we had a little cheeky fun with it, socket to them, when my mom tasted it, I cried. She had her coffee with it. It was great and wonderful. So we have a socket to them cake in my upcoming cookbook.

It's available for pre-order. It's officially released September 3rd. It's called A Confident Cook. It is a love letter to my father who I don't have a little, I don't regret a lot of things in life, but he always loved cooking more than teaching me to cook. He loves just me watching me eat and I did not learn to cook. The only recipe he probably walked me through was right before he was ill. I was a low person on the totem pole and I had to work Thanksgiving. He walked me through a sweet potato pie. So I didn't have the heart to put it in the book, but I do have a sacatouille cake in

my cookbook that is home, that's sweet, but not too sweet because home is sweet, but sometimes it's not so sweet, but it's always comforting and soft and inviting. And you can have it day or night because there's no place like home. It's funny, I remember Socketuumi cake, not Socketuum cake. Yeah, we changed the name. Yeah, Socketuumi cake is ours. So does this have a little 7up in it? Yes, it is a whole traditional Socketuumi cake.

We say Socketuumi cake, but it has the coffee cake, softness, some little scant sprinkle sugar on it. I will make sure you get the full recipe. I can't give away too much, but it is a delicious way to, I'll eat it for breakfast. I have a sweet tooth, but any time of day. And it just reminds me so much of the cakes that going back to my grandfather's kitchen that would just sit on. This reminds me so much of the cakes that going back to my grandfather's kitchen that would just sit on.

I'm lucky enough to have this beautiful glass thing that now sits in my home and we always have sweets in, but my grandfather had the little plastic one that was stained and you'd have to turn it to lift it up. Tupperware that you turn the top. Yeah, I don't even know if his was Tupperware brand, but it was a little plastic cake container and the edges were all worn and you'd have to turn it and it becomes so cloudy that you couldn't quite see what was in it, but you could trust that it was good. It's that kind of cake that it kept the cake moist.

Did it have a little handle on it? Of course, yes. It had a handle on it. Yes, yes, you wanted to give it and we used to do cake sales at our school and at our church. So that plastic one and now I have a beautiful glass one, but it's what is inside that matters, not the cake pan. I'm like your mom. I like a piece of cake like that is really good. I don't drink coffee

anymore but with a nice cup of tea and warm it up a little bit. Oh, I love you. Your goal is now for me. I'm trying to wean myself off of coffee, but we thought it was a great little head nod to that cake tradition that is very rich in my family. I road test all the recipes, so I'm going to let you know how this goes when I try this one out. I love you so much. And please, thank you. Know that it's an honor.

I've been listening and wanting to be a part. So I feel very blessed and grateful for this moment. Much love to you. Bye. Now wasn't that a lovely conversation? It felt like a love letter to all the different types of mothers out there in the world. The ones with their own children and the ones who've not physically given birth and yet are mothering others in important ways. The women who guide, who love, who shepherd and who hold us up in life storms. And as Tamron's story showed us, this gift can come from anyone in the community.

Grandparents, aunts, neighbors, teachers and friends. Through them, we find strength and wisdom. And in Tamron's case, it was part of how she learned to become her own best advocate. I love the through line in her story, from her mother telling her to stop running from the bullies, to Tamron teaching her own son how to stand up for himself on the playground. As we celebrate all the mothers in our lives this spring, let's make sure to show them and remind them of the lessons

that they have taught us. In fact, let's do that all year long because their contributions are just too big to be celebrated in a single day. Now, if that socket to them cake sounded good to you, it's not good to me, you can socket to the people in your circle. You will find the recipe for that delicious confection on my Instagram page at michelle underscore underscore norris. Remember that's two underscores. And you can also find it at our website, your mamaskitchen.com. Before we go, we want to hear from you. Our listeners have been sharing stories about their mama's kitchens. My grandma kitchens, her kitchen was different. I remember her kitchen being about self-sufficiency, canning food, old Texas recipes, cooking from the garden. Sometimes we would play a competitive game of

marbles or dominoes, but it was more strict kitchen. Not as much laughter, but lots of intellectual and deep, deep conversations. Regardless of whose house I was in, the kitchen was the place of comfort, the heart of the home, the place where I felt safe listening and opening up to others and learning from others as well. Yep, we're opening up our inbox

for you to record yourself and tell us about 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. Again, that's ymk at highergroundproductions.com and you will have a chance for your story and your voice to be featured in a future episode. Thanks for joining us.

Hope you'll be back next week because well, you know us. We are always, always, always serving up something special. Have a great week. See you next time. And until then, be bountiful. ["Higher Ground Studio"] 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 Eepen and Roy Baum. Higher Ground Audio's editorial assistants are Jenna Levin and Camila Thurtacus. Executive producers for Higher Ground are Nick White, Muktam 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.

Special thanks this week to our friends at Threshold Studios in New York City and Undertone Studios in my hometown of Minneapolis. 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.