A Small Good Thing with Samin Nosrat

Samin Nosrat, cook, teacher, and author, joins Prentis to kick off the new season. This is a tender conversation, and Samin shares her journey of family, healing, and how she wants to make a simple and profound offering to the world. 

Check out Samin’s new book Good Things Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love: A Cookbook and follow her on Instagram @ciaosamin

This season, I’m amping up my Patreon page -- come be part of these conversations and help resource the podcast @Prentishemphill

The Becoming the People Podcast Team:

• Producers: Prentis Hemphill & devon de Leña
• Sound Engineer and Editing: Michael Maine
• Special Production Support: Jasmine Stine
• Original Music: Mayyadda

Transcript

Prentis
00:06 - 00:25
Hey everyone, this is Prentis and welcome to Becoming the People. I was actually very nervous to talk to Samin Nosrat for this episode. I was nervous in part because I am just way out of my depth when it comes to talking about food. I'm a very basic food person, disappointingly.

Prentis
00:25 - 00:53
I don't know anything about it. And Samin has been one of these people that Through just her kind of like joy around food, the story she tells through food, it's actually made me a little bit more curious about how to make food, how to cook, food preparation, sharing, community, all of these themes that feel very core to who she is. So I was really, really excited that she said yes and excited to talk to her.

Prentis
00:53 - 01:34
In this conversation, honestly, we are discussing her newest book, Good Things, which, if you haven't picked it up yet, is not only a gorgeous book, but it's a book that to me really respects real life. It gives little things, a small good thing you can do or prepare that adds love into your meals. It doesn't require you to create this five course meal, but it's just like, how can I put something beautiful or put something that makes my family excited or that I can share with my friends? How can I create something small, yet beautiful, yet good?

Prentis
01:34 - 02:21
And I really love that approach because it made me feel like Okay, this is a much more manageable way of approaching food and food preparation, but it's also just more embodied, grounded, loving. I love this conversation just exploring the kind of simplicity, the beauty, the actual reality of people's lives. But it's also a really tender conversation and Samin shares a lot about her life and where she's at and where she's been over these last several years and the journey to making a kind of simple and profound offering. I think there's something here in this episode for all of us, all of us who are navigating community, grief, tragedy, loss, injustice, violence even.

Prentis
02:21 - 02:51
There's a lesson in here for how we withstand what it is that the world is kind of meeting out in this moment and choose to create something small and beautiful for those around us. This was a really sweet, beautiful, deep conversation that I hope you all enjoy. Samin, I'm really genuinely excited to be talking to you today. I feel the bubbling up of excitement to be in this conversation.

Prentis
02:51 - 02:53
So thank you, thank you, thank you for saying that.

Samin
02:53 - 02:58
Oh, my pleasure. It's a treat for me to be here talking with you. Thank you.

Prentis
02:59 - 03:37
So I really wanted to talk to you because I shifted the name of my podcast to Becoming the People, partly because I'm really interested in this question of how do we become kin to each other? How do we actually not, you know, separate from this, you know, state nation project, like how do we actually become each other's kin? And when I think about you, I feel like you have, I'm going to, I didn't really mean a pun here, but you have like some kind of special ingredients, some kind of, you know, secret sauce, I think will, will help us unlock this question of how we become related to each other.

Prentis
03:37 - 03:45
So I just want to say to you off the bat, it's like, I'm not a foodie. So I was, when I was thinking about talking to you, I was like, What the hell? I'm so underqualified.

Samin
03:45 - 03:49
Well, that's a treat for me. It means we don't have to talk about food, so that's great.

Prentis
03:49 - 04:23
Well, I want to talk about it a little bit because what I want to say to you is actually what I was first struck by was your embodiment, really. Like when I watched you years ago on Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, I was like the way that you move in the kitchen with food, with people, the proximity, the closeness, that's what really I think that's one of the things that really struck me. And so I'm just, you know, it feels like when I read your new book too, that so much of this is actually about connection for you. I wonder if that's true or how you feel about that.

Prentis
04:23 - 04:26
But yeah, I feel so struck by how you move in relationship to food.

Samin
04:27 - 04:47
Oh, thank you. I think I've spent most of my life dissociated. You know, I'm so comfortable in the space of a kitchen. And especially like when you come up in a professional kitchen, they never have, they're very crowded, like you have to sort of know how to move and get out of people's way.

Samin
04:47 - 05:19
And you have to kind of develop an awareness of where you are in space, and where someone else is, even when you're not looking. So you're not going to turn around and accidentally burn somebody or cut somebody. So there's so much that kind of like heightened sensitivity. And also it's, I've always felt like, between sort of like aspects of my childhood and my family, and then and then like, as a teenager entering kitchens, in some ways, those environments are incredibly, like really forced me out of my body.

Samin
05:19 - 05:42
Being a cook or working in a restaurant in any capacity, so much of it is like everything has to happen now, the people need their whatever now. You can't possibly stop cooking because then everything's going to fall 5, 10, 15 minutes behind. So you have to just keep going. So even if you really have to go to the bathroom, or if you have to change your tampon, or if you just cut yourself or burned yourself, you don't stop.

Samin
05:42 - 06:06
You actually ignore what your body is asking or telling you. you override it to keep going, which like I was very uniquely trained to be very good at that. So it's been a very long process of unlearning that, and realizing like, oh, when my body tells me I have to go to the bathroom, like, I should go to the bathroom. It's funny, because in some ways, it's like both the poison and the cure.

Prentis
06:06 - 06:20
Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah. That makes so much sense. It's like once you get into that kind of like hyper productivity space around food, you're there's going to be all these requirements to override your own needs for the sake of producing this thing.

Prentis
06:20 - 06:39
But, you know, there's also something that I'm like, OK, that experience is so shaping for you around food. And yet it seems like you have a very visceral, emotional experience to eating like I can. It's almost like something else has to spill over when you eat, you know. It doesn't feel so rigid.

Prentis
06:39 - 06:41
It's not like, oh, yeah, that was that part.

Samin
06:41 - 06:46
Yeah, no, no. Yeah. It's like when I like something, I really like it. You know, like I.

Samin
06:46 - 06:55
Yeah. And or or when I don't like I really don't like it. Like it's funny. I've heard from multiple people.

Samin
06:55 - 07:13
Who either had or have disordered eating. that watching the show, watching me, has been very healing for them, which is not something I would have ever imagined. You never know how people are going to receive something. You just don't, right?

Samin
07:14 - 07:34
So you have all of your worries and anxieties and ideas about it while you're making the thing. And you just truly never know. So I could have never imagined that, and that's so beautiful. I actually remember thinking a lot, like, I just remember anticipating comments about my body and comments about the way I like to eat.

Samin
07:35 - 07:48
And I kind of try to insulate myself from that kind of stuff. So I don't, I'm sure it has been said, I have not seen a lot of it. But that was what I assumed people would remark on not the joy, like critiques. Yeah, like, ew, gross.

Samin
07:48 - 07:55
That's like way too big of a bite. Or like, why do you eat so much? Or you're fat? Or I don't know what but like, yeah.

Prentis
07:56 - 08:12
That's so interesting because I was so struck by your physicality. That's what I remember, like the way that you would engage people. I mean, that's what felt so honest to me and so human to me. I was like, oh, yeah, this is a human being having a really visceral, beautiful experience with food.

Prentis
08:13 - 08:17
And I want that. I want that kind of relationship. I want that kind of pleasure.

Samin
08:18 - 08:45
I do think it was a like, it was a special opportunity that we had in like a moment into like a tiny trapdoor opened in the entertainment industry. And I like what managed to sneak in. And we got to make this thing that I don't think is possible now. That was very much like there was a group of people who knew the whole time the magic was showing the real me.

Samin
08:45 - 09:04
And I didn't understand that. And because there were also many other forces in place, there was a lot of the opposite of that happening too. At one point I was even told, we didn't buy this in spite of your clumsiness and your wackiness and you're like, wear these silly overalls or whatever and you're insane. We bought it because of that.

Samin
09:05 - 09:08
We want this for this reason. Don't change any of that.

Prentis
09:09 - 09:13
Do you feel like, do you get that now? Like, have you internalized that?

Samin
09:13 - 09:15
Uh, that part of it, I understand. Yeah.

Prentis
09:15 - 09:25
Yeah. Yeah. I find that to be so hard as someone who, on a really minor scale, I'm like, you know, I want to put the me forward that I think you like. Exactly.

Prentis
09:25 - 09:32
And I don't actually know what that is. I can't even actually conceptualize it. Like, this is what I got. This is all there is.

Prentis
09:32 - 09:51
Yeah. You know, I haven't, and I'm sure you have, but I haven't heard you talk a lot about why food. It seems to me as, I don't know, as honest as your writing, it always strikes me. It hits me and maybe because I also write, but there's something really bear, and again, human in how you write.

Prentis
09:51 - 09:59
And so I think about you as a writer too. But I'm curious, like, are you writer first? Are you a chef first? And and why?

Samin
09:59 - 10:09
Why food? Yeah, I'm definitely I think of myself as a writer first. And even in the last few years, I think like many, not all writers, I hate writing. And it's my miserable the whole time.

Samin
10:10 - 10:25
And also, I have to do it. And so lately, I've been thinking, I'm like, maybe there's a different word for the thing I should think of myself. Because part of it is I fought for so long to feel like I could call myself a writer. And to feel like that didn't feel like a lie.

Samin
10:25 - 10:51
And, and, and so that now I like cling really hard to it, because I'm like, Oh, I earned this. But then I hate it so much. And so I was like, oh, what if there's a different way to think about the thing that I want to be or am in the world? But yeah, because it was such a struggle to get to a place where I felt like I earned the title writer.

Samin
10:51 - 11:05
It didn't occur to me until recently. I was like, maybe there's a different word. Like, maybe writing is part of what I do in the world. But actually, there's a different way to think about this thing that I want to identify myself as in the world.

Samin
11:05 - 11:35
I don't know if this is the new word, but I think a larger lens for what it is that I'm trying to do sort of on an everyday basis is maybe artist, which seems even more like imposter syndrome me for me to try to claim. But like, but also nice, because it's not only writing centric. However, I have since I was in 10th grade, basically, one, I've always wanted to be a writer. And I like came to school knowing I wanted to be an English major in creative writing.

Samin
11:35 - 11:51
do creative writing. And so that was the path that I was on. And then food was an accident. So I just sort of like happened to start busing tables at Chez Panisse, which is an American institution.

Samin
11:51 - 12:04
I went there once. Oh, yeah. And I was a senior at that point in school. And I was thinking I was going to graduate and go become a poet is really what I thought I would do.

Samin
12:04 - 12:20
Also, it's that time, I don't think, you know, this was the 90s. So like, things are different now. I don't know if they have job fairs anymore. But like, you know, you're all of my friends around me, we're going to graduate and go be doctors or lawyers or consultants, which I still don't even really know what that is.

Samin
12:20 - 12:40
But like, you know, I mean, everyone had a path, like they had a thing they were going to go do. And mine felt so nebulous. And there was not like a clear path to it. I would go to job fairs and I could never imagine like, I didn't know what many of what jobs can an English major get like marketing, I still didn't, I didn't know what that was.

Samin
12:41 - 13:00
It felt very confusing. And I was like, The idea that I would have to go buy a suit from Ann Taylor Loft to go sit in a cubicle all day, that just felt so... I was like, I guess I can just do that. I forced myself to do everything else a person is supposed to do in the world, but it felt oppressive.

Samin
13:01 - 13:22
I didn't know anyone who did those things. I think I was very like ready for something else to appear, another opportunity or idea to appear. So the restaurant is an amazing organism. And you know, I started working there, it had already been there 28 years.

Samin
13:23 - 14:01
And so there was very much like a sense of history built in, and respect and admiration for the people who came before and for the people who, you know, were our elders and our seniors in this environment. And so It's a place where as like a 19 year old kid, I didn't understand anything about the restaurant industry or food celebrity or any of that. It was just, I was in this place that was so beautiful, where people were so committed to making something really great every day, like the best all perfectionists and hardware. I was amongst my people, like the type A people.

Samin
14:02 - 14:17
And, but also it's, I've always felt like Chez Panisse is like a sensory temple. It's a temple to the senses. You walk in and there's incredibly beautiful flower arrangements. It was the first and maybe is still the only restaurant that has an on-staff florist.

Samin
14:18 - 14:28
Flowers are that important. There are displays of produce everywhere. There's art. There are these handmade custom lights on every table.

Samin
14:28 - 14:53
And the light in the room is really an important part of the experience. And so it was where I feel like I learned to look at the world and to sort of take the world in through all of my senses. And part of that is like every day you're walking through this kitchen and these people are just making the most beautiful food you've ever had. And every day it's something new.

Samin
14:52 - 15:10
And I was just in awe of these people with these skills. And so I kind of wanted to learn about that. And so I started volunteering, and I begged them to take me on as an as an intern. And so I kind of had to like audition for an internship for many months, because I didn't know anything, right.

Samin
15:10 - 15:22
And then and then eventually I got an internship. And I eventually stopped bussing bussing tables and moved into the kitchen. but part of it was because I didn't know what else to do. Like I was like, how does one become a poet?

Samin
15:22 - 15:23
I guess I'll just try this in the meantime.

Prentis
15:24 - 15:43
Yeah. I mean, do they feel like the, you know, I had a teacher tell me years ago when I was learning about teaching semantics and embodiment work and I dance, I'm not like a dancer, like a trained dancer, but I love to dance and I get really, I mean, it's a very spiritual experience for me. And she told me once, cause I'm, I can be a shy person, pretty shy.

Prentis
15:44 - 16:12
And she said, teach the way you dance. or dance when you teach, I think actually was what she told me. And I realized that there's a way that I can dance with my words, I can dance with how I teach, how I engage people, and it totally changed what teaching was for me. And I wonder if there's like a similar connection for you between poetry and the food, like if they feel, do they tickle different parts or similar parts of your brain or being to do those?

Samin
16:13 - 16:29
It's both it's they're both different. And there's something similar in them. So like, to me very much the writing. And the cooking are complimentary and very different in that writing is so cerebral.

Samin
16:29 - 16:54
And it really sort of I, you know, I don't, yeah, I'm sort of stuck in my head. And I'm thinking things over. And there's and agonizing over it and often only in my head doing it, not even doing it on paper or typing it out. And whereas cooking sort of forces me into my body, into the present moment, writing can take so much time, like literally a book can take years.

Samin
16:54 - 17:20
Whereas cooking, you make something in a day, you know, and you make it and you or somebody else consumes it, literally. And then also, there's not really time to get attached to the result. in a way that you can really get in your head with a creative project that you're working on for a very long time. But there's just a lot less opportunity for that in cooking.

Samin
17:20 - 17:56
And of course, there's not to say perfectionism or ideas about it or whatever, but there's just sort of the nature of the job is you have to make the thing and send it out, and someone's going to eat it. And so it's a very I think important for me to have both because otherwise I would destroy myself in my head only. Even just now in my, this is a funny time of like getting ready to go promote this book. So it's just a very busy time of a lot of interviews or like emails or whatever things I have to write that are, you know, just whatever.

Samin
17:56 - 18:40
There's just a lot of like busyness and chaos, and sort of just like annoyance. And so, and so the often like in a day or a week, the only time that I am not like on my phone or on a screen or just have, or not even being like, I listened to so many podcasts and audiobooks, there's just a lot of like sensory input in my life. And so the one of the few times where that doesn't happen is when I just cook something and not even necessarily something extravagant, or complicated or time consuming, but it's just like the act of putting the things away and going to make something the gardening and cooking are

Samin
18:40 - 19:15
like the two ways I can reliably like get out of my body out of my head and into my body in any given day. So that they that for that reason, it feels very important, but I think the way that they are the same and this took me, you know, I did not like sort of figure this out for myself until I was deeper into my writing career and also had really started to do therapy. And my main therapy that I do is like, it's not like a capital S somatic, but I would say one of the main like, parts of it is somatic work.

Samin
19:15 - 19:57
And so that's where I've learned how to identify feelings, how to identify things in my body, how to, you know, and then you are just sitting there and a memory comes up. And there's sort of like, there's a, that has become a roadmap for me in my writing too, because so much of writing about food, I don't know another way to do it. There are other ways to do it, I know. The only way I know how to do things is to connect what I'm going to say to an experience of my own and try to convey with the most clear language something very sensory about this experience I had, whether it was as a kid when I had this

Samin
19:57 - 20:34
food and I'm having a nostalgia, you know, I'm experience, I'm describing an experience of nostalgia, or whether it's the first time I tried your burrito at your taqueria in Los Angeles. And so because food writing can be so bad, if it's not like it has to be very specific, right, you have to be very specific and evocative for it to be good. I mean, all writing has to be very specific and evocative. But for me, in order to like, get at that truth, and be able to convey that in words, I have to get really clear and remember what was happening in my body.

Samin
20:34 - 20:58
When I ate something or tried something or made something or went somewhere. And the only way that I, like the, the weird way that I figured out how to do that for myself is I have to get really quiet. And I have to, I basically lay down on the floor in my office. And I, for many years, I had an office building that I shared with a bunch of other writers and we each had these little like shoebox offices.

Samin
20:58 - 21:17
And so like, they'd walk, you know, you, and you could walk by and they'd be like, why is she on the floor again? But truly, it was just like I had to get so quiet and try to remember what was the experience that I was trying to describe and remember what it was. What did this thing taste like? What were the flavors?

Samin
21:17 - 21:32
What were the colors and textures? What was it doing to me and my body? It's truly, it's the most similar to what happens to me on the therapist's couch of trying to locate the thing in my body. In that way, they are similar, I think.

Prentis
21:33 - 22:00
And I think that's, you know, that strikes me as you describe that, because I really relate to that in writing, like how do you get back into the thing and use language enough for me that's alive so that someone can feel it. But I really feel when I read your writing, I'm like, oh, OK, I can I can feel Samin here. I can feel Samin's heart often in the writing. And I'm like, oh, this feels like it's still the blood still pumping in these words, which is really nice to feel.

Samin
22:00 - 22:01
Oh, thank you.

Prentis
22:01 - 22:17
Yeah. You know, I have to say as somebody who I said at the top, I'm not a I'm not a foodie. And by that, I mean, you know, I eat every day, I cook every day, but I'm not someone who my my wife has. I think this is the thing she likes about me.

Prentis
22:17 - 22:38
This is like she's if she could change something, it would be this about me. But I'm not that discriminating. And, you know, I sort of eat It's really a utilitarian sort of get the food in, get the nourishment, get the energy. And I don't always spend the time to enjoy, kind of like luxuriate in a meal.

Samin
22:38 - 22:39
I don't notice.

Prentis
22:40 - 22:42
I wouldn't know.

Samin
22:42 - 22:49
But to me, those are two different. The discrimination and the enjoyment are not necessarily the same, right?

Prentis
22:49 - 22:50
Okay, okay, okay.

Samin
22:50 - 23:01
You know what I mean? Some people just, for them, food is just like, whatever, I'll just eat whatever you put in front of me. But that's not the same as being able to, I don't know, I'm like... You know what I think it is?

Prentis
23:01 - 23:20
I grew up in Texas and I grew up eating the food that a lot of Texans eat. And sometimes it's actually overwhelming. Like when I go back home sometimes and I eat, I'm just like, I feel like I'm just being pressed upon by this food. Like the flavor is so heavy.

Prentis
23:20 - 23:32
The salting is so heavy. I know that I'm going to need a nap immediately. And I think I've pendulum swung where I'm like, okay, I eat now for energy. to feel good.

Prentis
23:32 - 23:53
And I'm, I'm sort of a creature of habit. I think that's also my thing is that I'm like, protein, grain, vegetable, protein, grain, vegetable, and that's how I eat. But I will say it's like, you are actually the only person who does food that I've ever paid attention to. Maybe outside of like the Cajun chef, you know, I don't know if y'all have that in California.

Prentis
23:53 - 23:55
No, but did you have that guy?

Samin
23:55 - 23:57
Oh, Emeril? Is that Emeril?

Prentis
23:57 - 24:08
No, no, he was a Cajun chef. I'm from Texas and my family's from Louisiana, but he would say like, I guarantee he was like a real Cajun dude that would cook.

Samin
24:08 - 24:13
And I loved that show growing up. Do you know who that is? I am seeing now. I probably did see this.

Samin
24:13 - 24:14
This is amazing.

Prentis
24:14 - 24:15
You probably seen him, yeah.

Samin
24:15 - 24:17
That's incredible. I'd pay attention to that guy too.

Prentis
24:19 - 24:35
I felt like sort of related to that guy. It's like, I know that guy. But you are the only other person I've ever paid attention to really that does food. And I think in a way when I first saw you and in this book, especially this new book, I thought, Samin's writing to me.

Prentis
24:36 - 25:02
You're writing to me because you're breaking down what it is, like the science, the magic, you're making it, it's inclusive. I think that's the way I think about it. I feel like I'm included in this food thing and not like, oh, if I don't figure out how to create this multi-course beautiful thing, I can't enter into this world of enjoying food. With you, I was like, oh, I can understand this.

Prentis
25:03 - 25:05
You want me to understand this is actually how I felt.

Samin
25:05 - 25:28
Oh, that's nice. I do think a lot about how to write about things inclusively. The thing about this that's so interesting is like, I have, let's say, professional expertise in a field where every single person has their own very profound relationship and ideas about food and what they like, what they don't like, what's good, what's not good. My mom made it this way.

Samin
25:28 - 25:57
I would never have that. My religion dictates this. So it's, it's, it's, it's been an interesting thing for me to understand and recognize that because it's, it's like, if you go to have knee surgery, you don't talk to your surgeon with, you know what I mean? You're not like, Oh, well, obviously, like this thing about tendons and whatever, you know, I mean, like, you're like, this person has studied this thing, and is a professional in this thing, and I will defer to them.

Samin
25:57 - 26:10
But that never happens to me. You know, because and it's fine, like, as a young, like, person, I was always annoyed and offended that people were not like, acknowledging my whatever. It's fine. I've grown up.

Samin
26:10 - 26:24
And I think it's a beautiful and important thing for me to recognize, right? Like, and to then take into account in the wit. And yeah, consider as I figure out how to talk to people. or teach them about stuff.

Samin
26:24 - 26:43
And it's hard because it's very much in my personality to want to make everyone happy. And you're never going to make everyone happy. But I can do my best to figure out a way that doesn't like explicitly exclude. And also part of that too, is just realizing, I've had to prioritize who, who is the most important for me to reach.

Samin
26:43 - 26:55
And that at some point became like, oh, I don't need, I'm not in this to impress my peers and my colleagues. Like, it's not about impressing them. It's about reaching the maximum number of people. And that was a big brain shift.

Prentis
26:56 - 27:14
Wow. I didn't even, I mean, I feel that in my own genre sometimes, like, who am I talking to? And for me, it's so important to be like, I want to talk to people who are entering this conversation for the first time, or don't know how, or feel a little bit afraid, or like, what is my body? I'm scared to feel my body.

Prentis
27:14 - 27:29
That's who I actually want to talk to, not a bunch of other somatic practitioners, which there's something great about that. that, yeah, that doesn't really motivate me. And I really feel that in how you write, because I always thought like, cooking is chemistry. It's science to me.

Prentis
27:30 - 27:56
And when you break it down, I'm like, yeah, that's what I needed to know. I needed to know what comprises the whole thing, like how you're thinking about what reacts to what. Even in this new book, which we're going to talk about in a second, you are like, it may be totally different how it turns out because of how what kind of pot or pan you have, how your stove works, where you are geographically. My wife does a lot of fermentation.

Prentis
27:56 - 28:19
And so when she's talking about microbes, like how it tastes totally, we had a whole, our staff had a sauerkraut competition and everybody's sauerkraut tasted differently. Yeah. Because of their microbiome. So I need to know that sort of thing that like, that makes it come down to a level that I can both appreciate the magic of what you're doing and find a place to enter into it myself.

Prentis
28:19 - 28:29
Yeah. So thank you for that. It's very cool to me. Before we get into the book, I've been watching you on social media and I know it's been a rough couple years as you were writing the book.

Prentis
28:30 - 28:37
You're like understatement of the century. And I mean that on a personal level, but also on a global level. Both, yeah. Absolutely.

Prentis
28:38 - 28:42
But I want to just ask you, like your father's passing.

Samin
28:44 - 28:46
Like how wild wild time. Yeah.

Prentis
28:46 - 28:48
How's it? How's it changed? You feel?

Samin
28:48 - 29:14
Um, well, my father was not a great person. And I was estranged from him pretty much like my entire adult life, like on and off. And then on top of that, he had a real melodramatic, chaotic demise, let's say. He had a traumatic brain injury that we still are not sure exactly what happened, but probably bumped his head or somewhere.

Samin
29:15 - 29:36
Then that led to a major brain bleed that he didn't know about for a couple of weeks. Eventually, he was taken to the hospital and they realized they had to do a craniotomy to release the pressure on his brain, so they did. He had major hemorrhages and strokes during that craniotomy, and they put him on a ventilator to save his life. But he didn't want that.

Samin
29:36 - 29:50
He never wanted that. And also, it was so extreme that it was likely by the time we were called, my brothers and I, that there's so much damage, he'll never wake up. And so he's now on this ventilator. So that was the point at which I was called.

Samin
29:50 - 30:11
And I one thing I know about both of my parents, because they have made it abundantly clear our whole lives is that they never wanted any sort of this, like life extending intervention. And so we get called that this has happened. And I'm like, Whoa, this is wild. And I think to myself, well, he never wanted that.

Samin
30:11 - 30:24
Like I could probably go advocate to get him off. And also like, if my dad's unconscious, he can't hurt me. So I can go sort of like get some closure and say goodbye. And like, I can go advocate to get him off.

Samin
30:25 - 30:53
I have friends in the medical system, they like coached me in the sort of the language that you use the bio, the bioethical language of like how you talk about someone's desires. And so I like get on a plane, go go to San Diego, my brother means to there. And we're like talking to them. And they're like, Oh, The last time he was here six weeks ago, he's very specifically said that his children want him dead for their inheritance, which I didn't know there was an inheritance, so we can't trust you.

Samin
30:53 - 31:20
That's recorded in his file. We're thrown into this bioethical conundrum that they said, oh, they'll have to have the lawyer's meeting and everybody. While we're waiting for that, we then found out he had a wife that he had just filed for divorce from, who lives in Israel. and is a Zionist and was calling the hospital threatening to sue them if they let his horrible, abusive, murderous children take him off the ventilator.

Samin
31:20 - 31:52
So we were then thrown into this many months purgatory where he was kept alive basically against his will, and also because his wife was technically the legal guardian, she didn't want to give him any painkillers. It was a time of incredible suffering, and observing that. Nobody, even a person who's been so horrible and abusive to me, I do not I don't want anyone to suffer like that was just so unnecessary and so messed up. So it brought my whole life to a halt.

Samin
31:52 - 32:13
It was also so melodramatic and crazy. And every day we were discovering new things. And like my dad was a true chaos agent. And so there was just all of this we were desperately looking for like any, you know, an advanced directive that he would have said in legal sort of that would be legally acceptable to the hospital to let him be taken off.

Samin
32:14 - 32:33
So we were going through all these paperwork and all his emails and things, and this is all to explain, like, it was awful. was awful for us. It was awful to watch that him have to go through that. And also there it was like very cathartic because at some point he he was on the ventilator long enough that the swelling in his brain went down and he did regain some consciousness.

Samin
32:33 - 32:58
He was not fully there, but he did have some consciousness. And so that allowed like that was the point at which I was like, well, now I'm gonna get everything that I need to get off my chest off my chest. So I did have an opportunity to like really say everything I needed to say, and also try to care for him. As someone is dying and as their brain is shutting down, there's the order of the senses that you lose.

Samin
32:58 - 33:12
I was like, well, this man has always loved sweets, he's always loved to eat. I was like, I'm going to get him ice cream. It's just like give people any sensory joy. Um, but it was a real experience.

Samin
33:12 - 33:30
And so I what I was left with at the end was watching him die in sort of such a sea of chaos and pain that he had created and brought unto himself. And it was just such a sort of pathetic. I don't know another word for it was really a pathetic way to die. It was so just like, this is like the culmination of a life.

Samin
33:31 - 33:43
Like this is what you did for yourself. And this is what way you're going. And I just kept thinking to myself, what is it that I want? for myself, like, what is it that I want to be able to look back on when I'm dying?

Samin
33:43 - 34:23
And, and, and so that became a very clear and helpful lens for me, in sort of making choices about my life and how I live from that experience. And so there's a lot less to me, I mean, still, like, this will be a lifetime of being hard on myself and trying to be less hard on myself. I've always had this sense my whole life that there's like, almost like a savings account, of good deeds and goodness that I am like depositing into by being, right? And that if I get to some number that I don't know what it is, then I will be rewarded with happiness, with a sense of freedom.

Samin
34:23 - 34:47
with a sense of like, I belong here, or whatever, like, I deserve to be happy and comfortable. You know, it's like, I'll just shut down and be uncomfortable until I reach some invisible number and point and then it'll be good, right? And I think there was just I had this real clarity of like, Oh, no, there's no like number you reach in the bank account, right? There's no like, I did enough.

Samin
34:47 - 35:01
And now I can be happy. Like I have to actually just decide to take that for myself every day, a little bit. And so I think in a lot of ways, like that has become the guiding sort of. Idea for me.

Samin
35:02 - 35:07
As a result of that really gnarly experience.

Prentis
35:07 - 35:16
That is a really gnarly experience, to say the least, and I first. I don't even know. It's like I'm sorry, it's not it.

Samin
35:16 - 35:22
It's like it was like we joked. I had my I was like, if you want to say something, you can say congratulations. I'm sorry.

Prentis
35:24 - 35:32
That's so it. Some of those moments need a common, like, can I have a combination phrase? Yeah, that's absolutely what I was feeling. Congratulations.

Prentis
35:32 - 35:47
I'm so very sorry. But also, you know, your gosh, that life is just like that. It'll hit you like a ton of bricks and you're up against like, oh, this is what it is. This is such a part of it.

Prentis
35:47 - 36:04
And like you said, the culmination of like, those final moments, if you have that kind of span of time to, to, you know, die over time, it's gonna be everything that your life was condensed into. Totally. Totally. And I don't think we realize that.

Prentis
36:04 - 36:33
And it's, I don't know, I think it's really powerful to have that reorganizing you. And I'm also just, you know, you've talked really openly in the past around depression, which is something that I have absolutely that has been a journey mate for me too, but it sounds like there's some sort of, I'm not going to say it's all, you know, whatever, but there's some sort of corner that's being turned where you're like, I choose some, there's some element that I choose every day. Maybe not all of it, maybe it revisits me, but I feel the choice a little bit.

Prentis
36:33 - 36:35
differently than I did. Is that right?

Samin
36:35 - 36:56
Yeah, I think also like maybe another way to say it is maybe I needed my dad to not be there. And also like my mom to some extent has sort of separated herself. So maybe in some ways, like I needed my parents to not be the main characters in my life so that I could be the main character in my life. Yeah.

Prentis
36:57 - 37:13
That is, I totally relate to that. You have to go, Oh, I have to dethrone you. I have to remove, you may have to become, you have to go into another form for me to like actually feel myself. And I mean, for that deep congratulations.

Prentis
37:13 - 37:27
And I know the complication of all that's so complicated, so complicated. Gosh, I'm feeling so much actually around that. I just relate to that so deeply.

Samin
37:28 - 37:28
Aww.

Prentis
37:30 - 37:42
Yeah, parents and dads. I'm not, we don't have to get into it, but there's something there. Gosh.

Samin
37:43 - 37:44
Oh, apprentice.

Prentis
37:45 - 37:57
I just really feel for you because also you created this really beautiful thing in this moment. Like, I imagine the time frames are similar. Like, where's your dad's passing to you writing?

Samin
37:58 - 38:04
It was during while I while I was writing this book. Yeah. Yeah. How do you do that?

Samin
38:04 - 38:42
I mean, I mean, I couldn't work there was probably a year I couldn't work. But I think part of what happened for me too, was I mean, and this is not unrelated to my parents being the main character in my life, but I think here's the very condensed version of it, which is when my mom was pregnant with me, I had an older sister who was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, and she died when I was one and a half. The very early part of my life and the pre-part of my life, there was just this incredible trauma happening and chaos and loss.

Samin
38:42 - 39:26
I came into that, and that was already people who had left under really complicated circumstances their country and come to a place where were not exactly welcome. So there was just kind of a lot of layers of stuff happening in my childhood home. And I think the sort of the lesson that I internalized from what happened was that the loss of my sister was not mine to grieve, because I was like barely human, I was barely alive. And also that, like my responsibility, my place in this system was to like, basically be two kids worth of everything, right to do the thing for my parents and my family that like, to make up for this massive loss.

Samin
39:27 - 39:36
And again, no one specifically told me that, but I think that's just what I picked up and sort of have spent my whole life trying to do totally unconsciously.

Prentis
39:36 - 39:40
So there's just... Yeah, but you have the grief, but then you also have to make everybody happy.

Samin
39:40 - 39:43
Yeah, and this like sense of like perfection and achievement.

Prentis
39:43 - 39:44
Yeah.

Samin
39:44 - 39:53
And so via achievement, it sort of became the only way that I understood how to do that for them. And so, um, I did. And take on the grief.

Prentis
39:54 - 39:56
It sounds like and take internalize their grief.

Samin
39:56 - 40:19
Yeah. And so then I I did like and I became a very well oiled achievement machine. And I think, as even though I have been going to therapy for a long time, and like, consciously, I did not think, oh, if I achieve this, if I achieve some great success, then they will love me and I will have made them happy. That was not at all happening on a conscious level.

Samin
40:19 - 40:47
I think it was happening very deeply on a deeply unconscious level still. So here I am like propelling myself to achieve with Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, with this book, with this show, with all this stuff, and it all happens. And inside all of that, there's just like this deep sense of loneliness inside of me, of like some sort of a loss and sadness. And also, I'm this like avatar for joy in the world, you know, and so which is, I'm not an actor.

Samin
40:47 - 40:58
So like, that's not fake. It's not fake. But I think I was this like, sense of grief and loss was so deep inside of me. I didn't even know it at some point.

Samin
40:59 - 41:18
Somebody said something to me maybe 10 years ago, where she was like, Oh, yeah, like, there's something so sad about you. It's like, there's just this sadness deep inside of you. And I went to therapy, I was like, I was like, this lady told me there was sadness inside me, but like, I don't, I'm like, I'm a happy person. And my therapist was like, no, like, I've always felt that too.

Samin
41:18 - 41:48
There's like a really core deep, sort of, and I was like, what? So I started eventually, like, unpacking that. And especially once I did achieve all of this stuff, and still felt lonely and sad inside, I had to be like, well, that didn't work, which was really crushing, because I'd spent the last 20 years on something that didn't solve my problem. So that actually sent me into like a really depressive spiral of, wait a minute, like, I did all of this stuff.

Samin
41:48 - 42:06
I sacrificed everything to do this. And now I'm still just sitting here. And with this longing and loneliness inside, like what? And around that time, it started to dawn on me that I had lost something to when my sister died.

Samin
42:07 - 42:27
And that, like, what, what was that? And like, how could I connect with that and process that 40 years later? And really, the main thing that happened that sort of unlocked it for me was I live in this sort of, it's not a commune, but like, multiple homes on a property around a shared courtyard. And so it's like multi generational.

Samin
42:27 - 43:15
And like, and this was, yeah, it's very sweet. And so my friend who lives like in the house, just 40 feet away, the time her younger son was a year and a half and so he'd come over every morning and knock on my door to say hello and say hi to fava and like he was just so cute like this little butterball you know and um he was just so full of life and himself and he was not like extremely verbal by any means but there was just a lot of personality there it was clear who he was and i just was like oh my god like he's one and a half like he's a whole person in there And, and if his older sister who he loves so much disappeared tomorrow, and nobody ever talked about it again, like he would be devastated and have this like, uncontrollable, like, sense of loss inside.

Samin
43:16 - 43:32
You know, of course he would, right. So there was a way by seeing it in somebody else, I was able to like, extend that compassion to my own one and a half year old self. I think we had all just believed I had believed I was just like some dumb blob of flesh, right? You're like barely there.

Samin
43:32 - 43:48
Yeah. And I was like, Oh my god, right. And so then basically, and because there's so many secrets in my family, people don't really talk about stuff like there wasn't a way for me to interrogate this inside of my family history. So I had to interrogate it like a journalist almost.

Samin
43:48 - 44:08
And so I started reading studies about what happens inside of a family when a sibling dies. And I, you know, anyone's memoir with death and sibling death and families. And I started I went to, I found like a children's grief therapist. And I did sand tray therapy, you know, like I was trying to go back in time and take care of that little kid.

Samin
44:09 - 44:27
I also tapered off my antidepressants. So I could try psychedelic therapy, which for me was kind of a bust. But like, tapering off the antidepressants taught me to never taper off the antidepressants again. So I did learn something, but I.

Samin
44:27 - 44:39
I kind of went sort of to, you know what I mean? Like I was thrown into the like, depths of my own depression. And like, I met it, like I went there. And I clawed my way back out.

Samin
44:39 - 45:01
And it was just when I was sort of just sort of like stabilizing again, that then my my dad went in the hospital. And that through the whole next year, sort of off kilter. So there was a seer, but honestly, because I had done this other work first, I was able to meet my like the experience with my dad. And then inside of all of that, I had this like book I was supposed to be writing.

Samin
45:02 - 45:16
And it felt so meaningless. I was like, how can I possibly be this avatar for your joy through cooking soup? When like, this is all I want to eat is Barbara's cheese puffs and frozen pizza and like barely survive. Do you know what I mean?

Samin
45:16 - 45:29
Like none of it felt absolutely meaningful in any way. None of it felt important. It felt so like empty and that why, why? In a way, I don't think of myself as a foodie.

Samin
45:29 - 45:44
I think as a young cook, I was so interested in... I'm just a deeply curious person. As a young cook, I really immersed myself in this whole world and I wanted to learn everything and read every book. cook everything and go to all these restaurants.

Samin
45:45 - 46:08
As a young cook, I was so obsessive about all that stuff. Then within a few years, I remember probably after five, six, seven years, I just realized that was very joyless. It was a very joyless way to obsess over like I would go to restaurants with a friend and we would sort of dissect everything they had done and every ingredient and oh, they probably did this and this and this and this. And like nobody ever wanted to eat with us.

Samin
46:10 - 46:29
And then I didn't want to eat with us. Like it was just not very, that was not what I cared about, you know, and it's not that I didn't want to like hone my craft or hone my skill. It was just that was not what was interesting to me anymore. And it hasn't been interesting to me for a very long time.

Samin
46:29 - 46:45
And it's complicated, too, because then you become, you know, that's the other thing was for, I don't know, 16, 17, 18 years, I was doing this work. And I was invisible, right? Like I was just some brown girl. I was never the chef of a restaurant or anything like I was just maybe locally, I had some bylines.

Samin
46:46 - 47:03
And then kind of overnight, you I become this very recognizable person, and considered an expert in my field. And so much attention is poured my way. And also like every time you go to a restaurant, now everyone brings out everything. They want to send you everything, give you everything.

Samin
47:03 - 47:12
And I'm like, Oh my stomach, I'm 45. Like I can't eat this way anymore. Like I just want to go home and put on pajamas. Please let me leave.

Samin
47:12 - 47:28
So it's just an interesting thing to like, I had to sort of go through all of this life basically. And look at the work that I was doing, ask why. Because there were a lot of times where I was like, this is pointless. Like, I don't need to be doing this.

Samin
47:28 - 47:51
I already wrote the book I was going to write, I could just sort of disappear into obscurity. I don't need to do this anymore. But I had to come back to the truth that cooking and eating does bring me a lot of joy, and it is a very grounding force in my own life. And I think the main thing that I took away from watching my dad die was the preciousness of time.

Samin
47:51 - 48:23
I just was like, oh, you only get what you get, and you don't get any more. So if that can be this main way that I approach my life and understand that Most valuable thing i can share with anyone is my time or that the most precious thing that i can ask for from anyone is their time. then one way to do that is by cooking for or with them or eating together. But it doesn't actually matter what we're cooking or eating.

Samin
48:23 - 48:32
And so much of my arc has been de-centering what's on the table and then centering who's at the table.

Prentis
48:33 - 48:54
Who's at the table? I want to get into the book and the timepiece, but first I just sort of want to reflect back to you something, which is that I can imagine when you first came out and everybody's like, oh my gosh, she's so joyful and she laughs so much and we love to watch her. the pressure that could be and then to have gone through these last few years.

Prentis
48:55 - 49:07
And it seems like they're so transformative. And also like you had this whole achievement thing and you did achieve. It's like you achieved on the highest level. So you sort of have to go through that experience too, to be like, Oh, what is actually there?

Prentis
49:07 - 49:18
Like I did that. What, what did that mean? And who am I left with or who have I become? But I also, I think what I want to say to you is like, all of that is, has a truth to it.

Prentis
49:19 - 49:53
And when I read, good things. I'm like, what is also true is that the depth, the intention, the humanity of you, and all the complexity, you know, the rough spots, the grief, all of that, we could also sense aspects of that before. And you're bringing, you know, this is a food term, I think it's like, there's a flavor forward sort of thing. And I feel like you came out in the it's like, Oh, you know, sweetness.

Samin
49:53 - 49:54
Now you can see the sour and the bitter.

Prentis
49:54 - 50:09
Yeah, yeah. But that's actually part of why I think there's been so much love towards you, is even though you weren't forwarding those aspects of yourself, they were felt. And I think we relate to that. I relate to that.

Prentis
50:09 - 50:16
I'm like, me too. Me too. You know, I do this work and I also get sad. I do this work and I also get angry.

Prentis
50:16 - 50:32
I do this work and I have complicated relationships with my parents. And I don't know, I think you letting out that humanity more, it might be weird to you, but it's probably going to endear a lot of people to you even more.

Samin
50:32 - 51:16
It's not weird, though, because I don't actually know another way to be like, I don't know. And I also feel like one of the most sort of maybe the most precious or special part of like, what it is that I get to do, I think, is knowing that I get to be for other people what I never got to have for myself. There are so many parts of it. On the most basic level, and there's so many parts of me sort of learning and realizing and like revealing to my own self things about myself.

Samin
51:16 - 52:05
So one is, I think if I had sat down and thought about, and this is extra funny, and like points to self blinders, because I did make myself such a student of the cooking world, and certainly the cookbook industry. I knew the entire landscape for the last 50 years when I wrote the book proposal for Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. Part of it was I was so hungry for the thing I needed that I had looked everywhere for it and I knew it wasn't there. Even though I was very familiar with all the things, it wasn't until probably two years after my book came out that I realized that it was it's shelved in a part of the cookbook section in the bookstore.

Samin
52:05 - 52:34
That's called general cooking, right? Because it's a very general it's a cookbook just meant to teach you how to cook generally, right. And if you go look at that shelf, there are no all of the books are written by white people. Like, except for I think at this point, there's one other there's Kenji Lopez, who wrote a book and but also so to say, which is to say, like, there's no brown, no, not white women who have written a book that like, lives on that, on that shelf.

Samin
52:35 - 52:46
because when you are not white, then you are sort of like expected to write about the food of your ancestors or whatever. That's the only thing you could possibly have anything to say about.

Prentis
52:46 - 52:49
And it's so you can't be a general expert.

Samin
52:49 - 53:02
Yeah. So the like it never even occurred to me that that was a thing that I had. I was I don't know, breaking or something, you know, like a ceiling I was breaking or something. And and if it had, I probably would have been like, oh, I can't do this.

Samin
53:02 - 53:19
That's not I'm not the one to do that. But then now I get to do that. And now there's this person with this name that you can't spell or can't pronounce or whatever, like right there on that shelf, like with the book that I sold a million copies. And so that feels to me like, wow, I get to do that for somebody.

Samin
53:19 - 53:20
Like I get to be that.

Prentis
53:21 - 53:33
And I mean, you did it for me. I think you probably did it to a lot of for a lot of other people that maybe identify more closely with you. But you did it for me, too. Like when I look at you and I see you curly hair, brown skin, I feel excited.

Prentis
53:33 - 53:38
I'm like, Yeah.

Samin
53:38 - 53:46
Yeah. And yeah, it's so it's just been I've like, there have just been many things revealed to me over time. Yeah.

Prentis
53:46 - 54:03
You open the book with this quote from Raymond Carver that says eating is a small good thing in a time like this. And it could almost feel like having this book that's like good things. This moment where you're like, there's almost nothing good. I know, totally.

Prentis
54:03 - 54:21
How dare we? It's true. Something like good things. But yet it feels like it speaks exactly in a way to this moment to say that there are these small gestures, these small moments, these small efforts that together create something larger and larger and larger.

Prentis
54:21 - 54:30
And that's what I really got from the book. You may feel overwhelmed. I feel overwhelmed often. by everything that's happening in the world, but there's still always a small thing to do.

Prentis
54:30 - 54:48
And that felt like such a really important takeaway from this book. It's like, look there too. And you have power in that way. You have the power to create a beautiful experience, to connect with people, that always still exists.

Prentis
54:48 - 54:54
And it feels like your book is a reminder of that in a time when when I think we all really need that reminder.

Samin
54:54 - 55:14
Yeah, it's funny too, because it was, I mean, not that it has been great times in the last several years, but like, but it was not, things feel so oppressive and so dire right now. And I couldn't, I couldn't have like, foreseen that. And I definitely didn't want that. But that quote comes from a story called A Small Good Thing.

Samin
55:14 - 55:31
And it's about this little boy dying and his parents being in this state of like shock immediately after his death. And this sort of interaction happens between the parents and this baker. And the baker sort of is tripping over himself once he realizes the gravity of the situation. He's trying to comfort them.

Samin
55:32 - 55:41
And he's like, I'm just a baker. I don't have a lot of interpersonal skills. But he's like, oh my god, oh my god, you guys need to eat something. You haven't eaten anything all day.

Samin
55:42 - 55:54
Sit down, sit down. And he starts pulling cinnamon rolls out of the oven. He's like, you need to eat something eating is a small good thing in a time like this. And I just, I just remember feeling like, oh, it's always a time like this.

Samin
55:55 - 56:22
You know, whether or not this is your particular, like thing, there's always a way in which like we or somebody else, like needs a little bit of comfort. And it's not that I think food solves everything. But, but, but certainly, I mean, also just like to acknowledge, like, we're talking about food in a moment when like people are being actively starved in Palestine. So like, I that's very, like, heavy and very present for me.

Samin
56:22 - 56:35
But so food can be more even food can solve a lot of life. Yeah. And also, like, it's not necessarily like having, you know, here eat a popsicle. That'll make everything better.

Samin
56:35 - 57:13
So I think that sentiment of like, so much feels out of our control, so much feels so big and so heavy. And this is this basic need that we all sort of must meet every day, and love and have the fortune and privilege most of us to meet every day. And so it can be an opportunity for connection. And if we just sort of like, maybe shift away from thinking of it as a chore, or as a as I mean, it is a chore like and but or as a burden and sort of look and look at it when we can as an opportunity.

Samin
57:13 - 57:20
I think that can be a way to do the thing that I'm trying to do, which is like take advantage of the time that I have, you know.

Prentis
57:21 - 57:32
And that time piece is so major for me. And I want to talk about the piece around time because I'm a parent of a four year old. And one, I just love the way that you talk about children.

Samin
57:32 - 57:34
I just want to say that. I love children.

Prentis
57:34 - 57:43
I just there's so much respect for them in this book. And they're like. requests, their relationship with them. I just really appreciate that.

Prentis
57:43 - 57:49
You know, as a parent, it really moves me. I was like, Oh, you children, you have some friends who are children.

Samin
57:49 - 58:03
Totally. 100%. Like, I am like, they come over to visit me, you know, like, feel that I was like, Oh, my gosh, I wish my we just recorded a little video. I wasn't here, thankfully, but like they did like a interviewing the children.

Samin
58:03 - 58:13
about me, you know, and I'm, I cannot wait to see because the other thing about kids is like, they don't lie. Like they're going to tell you they don't lie. They're just, they're not going to like sweeten anything. They're just going to be like, Oh yeah.

Prentis
58:14 - 58:19
My daughter was like, I love mom more than I love you. And I was like, cool. Great. Great.

Prentis
58:19 - 58:20
Yeah. Makes sense.

Samin
58:25 - 58:28
You're like, I'll be in therapy for the rest of my life. I'm going to have to go deal with that.

Prentis
58:29 - 58:42
But you know, still working through this stuff around like, am I lovable? But sure. Yeah. You're entitled to everything you feel.

Prentis
58:42 - 58:55
Um, but these around time as a parent, it's so like, there's no time. There's no time. There's no time to do this thing. And at first you, you like, you, you spoke to that.

Prentis
58:55 - 59:25
Cause I'm always, every day I'm thinking I should be able to, have my child, have 14 jobs, you know, make a meal, and it's just all impossible. And I think what's really cool about your book in a way for me, really, really for me, is that it's like, you give me all these little things I can do just to make the meal or the day just a little bit more special. It's like, if I have this on hand, I can make whatever tastes better. or be an enjoyable experience.

Prentis
59:25 - 59:27
And that is actually very accessible.

Samin
59:27 - 59:27
Yeah.

Prentis
59:28 - 59:30
As someone where I really feel like time is a scarce resource.

Samin
59:30 - 1:00:01
Yeah, totally. Now I'm thinking there's, um, I don't have it in front of me, but there's a, actually I do have it in front of me. Rebecca Solnit has a quote about jam that I love. and but something you just said sort of made me let me see what she said oh making preserves is an art of stalling time of making the fruit that is so evanescent last indefinitely each container is a capsule in which time stands still so like a jar of

Samin
1:00:02 - 1:00:04
jam is like very much a time capsule is like

Prentis
1:00:04 - 1:00:10
We made that last night because our figs are going off and I want to enjoy these figs all year.

Samin
1:00:11 - 1:00:28
But now you're actually making me think like, oh, there are a lot of different time capsules. All of these little things in their own ways can be time capsules. And it's not about preserving or whatever, but if you do the work to have this thing in your fridge, then it's like you get to open it and use it. You know what I mean?

Samin
1:00:28 - 1:00:33
You're like, it's like, yeah, it's, it's like a, it's a bank account of time.

Prentis
1:00:34 - 1:00:42
Your fridge is a bank account of time. You're like, here's a little extra beauty. And here's a little, here's a little love I tucked away for this moment.

Samin
1:00:42 - 1:00:42
You know?

Prentis
1:00:43 - 1:00:48
Yeah. That's totally how I think about it. I'm like, Oh, I could, I could actually do this. And it's just a little like, Here's this.

Samin
1:00:48 - 1:01:06
It doesn't have to be a lot. Yeah, because honestly, what you described your grain vegetable protein, I mean, like, I would say that's very much my very simple. I mean, sometimes I don't even get all three. But like, but like, but that is like, you know, I mean, the rice cooker is going at all times in this house like I.

Samin
1:01:08 - 1:01:42
there's sort of just like, that's, I often just need to get myself fed with something that is going to like, not me, give me a stomach ache, like, you know, I'm not going to make me sick, going to nourish me. But then I always because I'm like, Oh, I really want the one little extra thing. So is it this yogurt sauce or whatever? So it's very, in some ways rudimentary like feels like i'm not saying anything i know i'm not saying anything new it's just i'm just revealing like this is all i've got for you i had a lot of insecurity over over this while i was making this book for

Samin
1:01:42 - 1:02:03
many reasons and one was you know i get sent all the cookbooks i don't i don't want i don't spend that much time on social media, but just to save my brain, but when I do look at it, there's somebody making inevitably some beautiful, gorgeous food thing. And that is not what I make at home. That's not the work that I do. That's not the things that I write about.

Samin
1:02:03 - 1:02:21
Like, that's just not and a lot of times it feels really redundant and boring for me to be like, Here's how to make another roasted carrot or whatever. I'm just like, I already told you how to do it. I can't tell you again. But I had to figure out what was it that was underneath that that I was trying to communicate, which was a part of it.

Samin
1:02:21 - 1:02:37
I was getting pretty vulnerable and being like, No, I'm not out here telling you how to make your own like three course restaurant meal with beautiful photos. It's just like, this is how I get through my day or how I get through my week. And like, maybe it can help you a little bit too.

Prentis
1:02:38 - 1:02:51
I really appreciate it. I mean, I really want to say thank you because I will look at a recipe often and I can do it. I'll do a recipe, but it'll be a whole event and it's not something I can do day to day. But I want to show my love for my family.

Prentis
1:02:51 - 1:03:07
I want to be in there with my family. So just thank you for for thinking about it that way. Like what's a small good thing that we can do that shows our love, that creates connection, where we can gather around and enjoy being together? Because I think that's so much of what food is about.

Prentis
1:03:07 - 1:03:24
And I want to just... move us towards close here. But I think about this time where, you know, food has always been political, the production of food, the distribution of food, who gets food, who doesn't get food. And it's especially fraught now.

Prentis
1:03:24 - 1:04:08
I mean, we can see what's happening to people, children, everyone in Gaza, People also in Sudan, there's just mass starvation in really preventable ways. And we know it's not only that it's preventable, it's like people are using food as a weapon, in a really weaponized way. And first, I just want to thank you and acknowledge you as someone who's seen that, who's known that, who's spoken to that. And in this moment where it feels so critical, you've been someone that's been vocal about what food means beyond our kind of individual enjoyment, what it means collectively what it means to how it can be weaponized and how people can be intentionally kept from this experience of food.

Prentis
1:04:09 - 1:04:17
And it's so important to culture. It's like, it's nourishment. It's also culture. It's also, you know, allowing people's culture to persist through food.

Prentis
1:04:18 - 1:04:30
But I want to sort of end with this question of like, in this moment, this time, what are your highest hopes for food and us? You know, how we come to relate to food in this time, in this moment?

Samin
1:04:30 - 1:04:48
Well, it's interesting. Someone recently like played back something I had said when the last book came out, and it was a whole thing of like, maybe if we watch people, we become familiar with their food customs, like we'll become a little bit more open to them. And I'm like, and they're like, Do you still believe that? I was like, absolutely not.

Samin
1:04:48 - 1:05:02
Like, like, like, I know a lot of racist people who eat tacos, you know what I mean? Like and want the border wall. Like, it's just like, there's not, I don't think Sorry, I don't think that anymore. Like, and I'm not even sure I truly believed it ever.

Samin
1:05:02 - 1:05:17
I mean, maybe I did. I don't, I don't know. But, um, I mean, my first hope is that everybody who needs food gets it, which just like is like such, it's just, it's such a crime. It's an embarrassment to humanity.

Samin
1:05:17 - 1:05:45
It's, and you know, as much as it's very forefront for good reason, what's happening in Gaza right now, And thankfully, also, that's like brought, I think, to many people's attention what's happening in Sudan. But it's also happening at all times, in our own, like right here, you know, it happens everywhere. And it's definitely happens in this country. And even in just the most unsus like places, I'm, I sometimes I'm like shocked to realize the like level of food insecurity.

Samin
1:05:46 - 1:06:07
One of my friend's mom's is like a, you know, on some sort of like, lady elders fundraising group for students at UC Berkeley. She's an amazing cook and so she'll always be like, oh, I made 400 bags of biscotti and we sold them and we made $5,000 or whatever. At some point I was like, what were you doing that for? Who are you selling your cookies for?

Samin
1:06:07 - 1:06:25
And she's like, it's for students at UC Berkeley, she said, like an un you know, you think of this like an elite university. And she said, there's a crazy proportion of students like higher than ever before at the university who are food insecure. Oh, my gosh. So it's, it's, it's just it's everywhere, right?

Samin
1:06:25 - 1:06:47
It's, it's, it's, it's everywhere. And I think it's, it's so messed up that the systems that we are like trapped inside of that we have created and like are trapped inside of sort of do this. It's there's just so much food waste. It's just an extraordinary shame that people don't have enough to eat.

Samin
1:06:47 - 1:07:09
So I don't, I think that's my main hope. I don't know how my work, if at all connects to that. But I think my much on a much smaller, like more modest level, my hope is that I think if I can just sort of like, I don't even know what my hope is, like, to just give people a little sense of there's just, you know what, here's the thing.

Samin
1:07:11 - 1:07:34
My friend, one of my friends, during the pandemic, she's she started using this term Pleasure Island. And she's like, everything is so dire and so horrible, like, and I just need to basically give myself something to look forward to. Because it's like, I'm just jumping from Pleasure Island to Pleasure Island. And like the whole rest of life is like, you're just Everything is to get you to the next pleasure island.

Samin
1:07:34 - 1:07:46
You know, whether it's like, I get to look forward to this vacation. I get to look forward to eating chicken tenders for dinner. I get to look for whatever it is, right? So I think in some ways, like good things is about like very tiny pleasure islands.

Samin
1:07:47 - 1:07:59
And so being able to recognize them and share them, like with each other in our daily lives, because there is just so much else to survive. Yeah.

Prentis
1:07:59 - 1:08:06
So much. Well, that's an awesome hope. I hope that for all of us, too. Let's find those pleasure islands.

Prentis
1:08:06 - 1:08:08
And Samin, thank you again for taking the time.

Samin
1:08:08 - 1:08:09
Oh, thank you, Prentis. It's a gift.

Prentis
1:08:09 - 1:08:10
You're the coolest.

Samin
1:08:10 - 1:08:14
Oh, you're the coolest. Oh, my God. I'm so grateful to you for your work. I love listening to you.

Samin
1:08:14 - 1:08:15
Oh, my goodness.

Prentis
1:08:16 - 1:08:28
Thank you. Thank you. Becoming the People is produced devon de Leña with special production support this season by Jasmine Stine. It's sound engineered and edited by Michael Maine.

Prentis
1:08:28 - 1:08:49
Our theme song was created by Mayyadda. If you're enjoying these conversations, please subscribe, rate, and especially, especially leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever it is you listen. And if you haven't already, please join us over at the Patreon. Prentis Hemphill, we're having a great time over there building community, learning together.

Prentis
1:08:50 - 1:09:50
Come join us. And as always, thank you for listening to Becoming the People. A world that is finally For you and for me We're becoming the people We're becoming the people dum dum dum