Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
I always say this, people need to think Aretha. And by Aretha, I mean they need to R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
Kerry Diamond:
Hey, Bombesquad. Welcome to a bonus episode of Radio Cherry Bombe. I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Brooklyn, New York. Today we are celebrating a brilliant and beautiful new Netflix series High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America. I'll be talking with three women who are instrumental to this project. First, one of my favorite people in the food world, Dr. Jessica B. Harris, historian, prolific author and retired professor. Dr. Harris is a lover of life culture, food knowledge, you name it.
Kerry Diamond:
The Netflix series is based on Dr. Harris's book of the same name. When High on the Hog came out a decade ago, she never imagined her book would one day become a documentary series, broadcast to people in more than, get ready for this, 190 countries and in dozens of languages. After Dr. Harris, I'll be talking to Karis Jagger and Fabienne Toback, friends, moms, and the founders of Hey Sistah. They optioned Dr. Harris's book and helped take it from printed page to a show called, profoundly significant by the New York Times. Let's jump right into things. Please enjoy my talk with Dr. Harris, I certainly did. It is always an honor to interview her.
Kerry Diamond:
Your beautiful book High on the Hog comes out in 2011. That book was a bit of a departure from what you had done past. You'd said you'd done primarily cookbooks. How did this book come to be?
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
Well, I ended up with a publishing house that was extraordinary, and that believed I was able to write nonfiction. Frankly, I am not someone who cooks by recipe. Writing recipe is always hard, because it's not something that I'm attuned to. That we started, and I wrote a proposal, they bought it from extended proposal, but the thing that was good was, I write two proposals, so I already had an outline, and I knew I was going to do 10 chapters, and I pretty much knew what was going to be in each chapter, broadly, very broadly.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
Then it was called go to work. What I always remind everyone is up until 2018, writing and basically, all things culinary, were my hobby. I had a full-time job at the time. I was working at Queens College in the Sikh program, and that's part of the City University of New York. I was teaching my full course load. I was a full professor, so my full course load wasn't the same kind of thing some poor people are struggling with, but it was a course load, and this was my side hustle.
Kerry Diamond:
Now, people might be surprised to know you had a full-time teaching career because you are so prolific, you've written so many books. When did it become your full-time job?
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
When I retired. My agent is referring to this as my retirement renaissance. But this is actually the first time I've been able to spend full time on doing that thing that obviously is the thing of my heart that just grew and grew and grew.
Kerry Diamond:
We'll be talking about High on the Hog and the whole Netflix project for this episode. But I highly encourage folks to go back, and if they want to know more about your life, you've got so many cookbooks that can check out but also your beautiful memoir, My Soul Looks Back, which I hope after this experience, maybe someone will make that into a movie-
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
Actually, it's been optioned for several years, there are people who are working on the project, I hope they keep it up because if not, I hope somebody else will pick it up.
Kerry Diamond:
I just got goosebumps. That would make such a good movie.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
It's under wraps and hopefully on the way.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, fingers crossed.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about this Netflix show. Fabienne and Karis get your book and decide it would make an amazing series of some kind. Do you remember when you first started to hear that these two women had optioned your book and were looking to make it to a series?
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
I heard that someone was interested in optioning my book, which I guess was the first thing. Then gradually heard that it was two women out in California. They optioned, then they at some point brought in Roger Ross Williams, and they were actually tenacious, pitbull tenacious, to be sure about it. Worked on that, took the baby all the way to Netflix, and got it sold there. I honestly didn't even meet them until way after that.
Kerry Diamond:
What were they like when you finally met them?
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
I have a house on the vineyard, as you know, Martha's Vineyard. I go up there, and usually, I get there just after Independence Day, just after the Fourth of July. I certainly like to entertain and do entertain up there. I took to giving a Bastille Day party. But what happened in more recent years is I've certainly settled on a menu, when it is leg of lamb. For the lamb I usually have string beans, roasted potatoes, because I'm lazy and they can roast while the lamb is roasting.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
I do a down and dirty mint sauce, which is basically we chop mint from the garden, I take a jar of mint jelly, that toxic green mint jelly, melt it down, put the fresh mint in it, and add a couple of good solid glugs of rum, and then let it do its thing again. Then that allows me to have a sauce to it. That's pretty much the meal.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
But after I met Roger, he actually... I met him the day before the party and I put an extra chair to the table, and he came to the party and what I didn't realize initially, but realized eventually was he was texting Fabienne and Karis from the party, from the table.
Kerry Diamond:
They optioned the book, they want to make it into a TV show. What's going through your mind? I guess you've been through this a few times. You said how your memoir had been optioned as well. No guarantee that something will get made.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
Yeah, the memoir was optioned actually, after High on the Hog. High on the Hog was the one that set the bar, if you will. But the thing was that I didn't know, I had no idea what to expect, I had no idea what would happen. I have had the same literary agent for a long time. She knows me well, and I am somewhat of a meddler. I guess I could say, I have my own very, very real ideas about things. She kept saying, "Jessica, you sold it. You gave it up, you have no say, let it go. Let it go. Let it go."
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
I know and love her well enough that I had to listen to her. So, I listened to her, and I let it go. I just said, when it comes out the other end, I hope I will love it. But one way or the other, it will be in the world, and I'll see what effect it had on other people. Luckily, I not only like it, I love it, and we're very good.
Kerry Diamond:
In your words, what is the show about?
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
I think the show follows, in many ways, the trajectory of my book. But I think it's also about a handing over of things. I think this is a book about legacy, which is interesting, because it is, as Steven states in the beginning, he's looking on a journey to discover the young people who are keeping up these traditions. It's about those young people who are keeping up these traditions. People like Gabrielle, Etienne, and Omar Tate and P.J. Dennis, and so on and so forth. Many of them are certainly friends, we're young friends of mine, whom I have known on their journey. It's a very interesting way of looking at things.
Kerry Diamond:
How does it feel for you to have one of your books... There's no higher honor today than getting a Netflix show. You talk to anybody in media, that's what everybody wants these days from their idea or their book or their project, how does it feel to have something like this? You've done over a dozen books.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
Well, High on the Hog was the 12th book about food. But I've done guidebooks to France and the memoir and third world women's beauty book. I've done some translations and a French textbook. There are all kinds of books, I think they're about 18 in all. But of those 12, it's crazy. It's almost unfathomable. When they said 190 countries in 32 languages, it was like, what? I don't know if I can name 190 countries, and I've traveled a fair amount. It's all quite extraordinary.
Kerry Diamond:
All four episodes are so beautiful. There is an incredible scene between you and Steven, and I would just... Without giving away too much, what was it like traveling to Africa with Steven?
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
Well, I think it was extraordinary. Well, Benin is a magical place. Benin has just its own special ethos, it is a place where Christianity, Islam, and Voodoo all coexist relatively peacefully. Where there are new religions called celestial churches of one sort or another, that exist that take a little bit from all of the traditions, so that there are extraordinary things that happen.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
I've been going to Benin since 1972. I went to the first time with my mother, actually, on my first trip to West Africa, I somehow rather ended all the way down in this place called Benin, and that's before roots before African Americans were going. Now, I speak fluent French, and so it was interesting because in going to Benin, I was probably one of not that many African American tourists who had been there. It was and is a pretty extraordinary space and has a special spot in my heart.
Kerry Diamond:
You opened High on the Hog with Benin.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
I did.
Kerry Diamond:
I thought it was very powerful to show in the book, both open.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
Well, I think that we tend to talk about African American food without the connection. I think that the connection is part of the importance of it. The seeing that some of those foods and foodways are pretty much the ancestors, either figuratively or literally, in some cases of much African American food.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you have a favorite moment in the show?
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
Oh, goodness.
Kerry Diamond:
Sorry, I have to ask.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
I honestly, I've never thought of it in that sense, because have asked, what's your favorite book? I don't have a favorite book, because that would be asking who's your favorite child? Different moments for different things. I think that certainly, the end of the first episode is moving and important. I love just some of the cinematography. There is a shot at the opening of, I think it's the third episode where somebody flaps out a tablecloth and you just see the transparency of the tablecloth, and I think that's an extraordinary image because it so speaks to Sunday dinners for me, and setting the table for dinner with my mom and all kinds of things like that. I think that that is the kind of moment that would resonate with folks.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
I love some of watching B.J. Dennis with his whole hog barbecue, and some of just those night scenes with the sparks flying and things like that.
Kerry Diamond:
You have dedicated so much of your life to educating us about the foodways of the diaspora. There has been such a conversation about food, culture, authenticity. Do you think the contributions of African Americans to our food culture is finally being respected?
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
We'll see. I think what we're seeing certainly is the tip of an iceberg, and it's a tip that we're seeing in a very different way. A lot of things are coming along and are happening. I'm actually working with the Culinary Institute of America, which is working on doing a concentration in Africa in diaspora food. That's certainly a first.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
There are a lot of things that seem to be coming together of the cafeteria, the Smithsonian. My fine Machiavellian hand is in that too. But it's interesting. One of the things that come with all of this gray hair is the ability to say, let's wait and see before I make a pronouncement about it. Five years from now, I'll be able to make a pronouncement. But right now, I think we're in the moment, and I'm thrilled for the moment.
Kerry Diamond:
One of the things I love so much about the show is I feel like you are finally getting the recognition you deserve for having put in the hard work for decades, and maybe not have gotten all the credit you deserved.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
Thank you. I wake up every morning, and I'm me. It's not something that's even really in my mind. I'm trying to finish the next book and get on to the next one, and I've got an idea for the book after that, and I'm trying to stay healthy enough, so I'm around to get everything done I want and need to do. That's where I am.
Kerry Diamond:
What do you feel that you need to do?
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
There are several more stories. I have some stories about journeys with Afro Brazilian religion that I think are pretty astounding and extraordinary. There are some food stories I want to tell. I'm working on a book called Braided Heritage, the premise of which is that the foundational cuisines of the United States are a braid, Native American, African American and European American, and to look at how that braid forms the bedrock of American food.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
The book after that is about my family, and my family as a mirror, really, of African American foodways. All the way from my then slave, great, great grandfather, my enslaved great grandfather, who my mother knew, whose mother was so South, who all sorts of horrific things. But to tell the story of food in this country through my family.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
Another kind of way, I've had uncles who were chefs and who were... Well, probably not called chefs, but cooks, cabaret performers. No one has really talked about the whole black nightclub scene, and what that is. There's a lot of stuff.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you a cook, Jessica?
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
If I don't cook, I don't have dinner.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, you could say the same for a lot of us. But do you enjoy it? Is it something-
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
I enjoy cooking, I enjoy entertaining, but I am an intuitive cook. I'm not a, I'm going to get five recipes, and do an Indonesian feast today, with my 10... I don't do that. I might decide I want to do something that's Indonesian-ish, with the accent on the ish and play around with some tastes that I've tasted at various restaurants and things like that. But no, I'm not. I don't really follow recipe well, because I suspect I'm not good with taking direction.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm amazed that you said that, given how many cookbooks you've done. Did that make it hard to do those cookbooks?
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
Recipe is the hardest thing. I can follow them, but it's the urge to fiddle with them. I've been known to say, I can't even follow my own recipes.
Kerry Diamond:
But you kept at it, you've done a lot of cookbooks.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
What I mean, I think recipe is memory. Recipe as a repository, if you will, is very important. It's for me, always been and probably always will be the hardest part of things. I'm not somebody... In fact, I don't know that I like recipes. I think recipes force us rather into... It's got to have... Once you get down to a quarter of a teaspoon, it's like really, really, I've got to do what? No, but that's what recipe does, that's what recipe does.
Kerry Diamond:
Where does that obsession with recipe come from, do you think?
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
I think it's European. I think it goes to Fannie Farmer. I think it goes to home economics. It became very much a science, and it became an exact thing science, if not an exact science.
Kerry Diamond:
What's your favorite thing to cook for yourself?
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
It depends on the day. I am having something that people will go, "Oh my Lord," for dinner tonight. I'm actually having liver and onions and bacon. I love liver and onions.
Kerry Diamond:
I love liver and onions.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
I'm having liver and onions, and I have some lovely streaky, thick-cut bacon. I'm going to have that with some rice, and I think some maybe snow peas or something because I'm my mother's child, I have to have something green, and more than one color and a starch, and a salad with every meal.
Kerry Diamond:
You mentioned a few times becoming an elder. Is that something that you think about?
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
I think, yeah. In fact, I think I may think about it too much, I do. I think about it a lot. Part of it is, because a lot of the people that I spent my younger years with are gone. I think there's that. I think the fact that I have gotten to a point where I'm living in a house that is being held up probably by books more than it's being held up by bricks and mortar, and I have to begin to think about, okay, where are these books going? At some point, it's not necessarily that you want to downsize, it's that, if you don't have children, and I don't, you need to think about these things. Not necessarily good conversations or thoughts, but things that I do think about.
Kerry Diamond:
The other part of being an elder is, I guess, working within some capacity, the next generation. You and I spoke, I think before we started recording about The Food and Finance High School, which's New York City's only culinary-focused public high school. A remarkable group of young people there that not everyone has made themselves available to, but you have.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
I'm basically a teacher. When somebody asks a question if it's a real question, most questions are, but, I spent 50 years teaching. I am somebody who's going to listen to students and who's going to talk to students. Students are not necessarily people sitting in classrooms. I've had deep conversations with Chef Omar Tatum, with Gabrielle Etienne and with Nicole Taylor, and with Elle Simone Scott, who was actually just over here yesterday, this may be the way I'm teaching now.
Kerry Diamond:
You just made me realize, you're going to have potentially millions of students, once this series airs on Wednesday.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
Right. I hope. I hope people will be interested and be fascinated and hope that they will find things that they want to question and things that they want to research because don't come to ask me because I may not know.
Kerry Diamond:
What do you hope the ultimate takeaway is from the show?
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
Oh, goodness, I think I would like people to... Maybe it'll open minds, and open hearts. I think I've even said somewhere else, and open mouths. I think that it would be nice if people could really think about the food of African Americans in a different way, and that includes African Americans, too. We sometimes demonize our own food.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
If we understand it a little bit more, if we are kinder to ourselves, in some ways. If we are able to share our food with others, who are willing to share in an appropriate manner, which is to say appropriate, without appropriation, and that's a word I don't use a lot, because I think that can be a slippery slope, that, that would be a great takeaway for people to understand and develop an interest too, what is this? Oh, I didn't know that. Really? Gosh. Well, let me think if I can find some more. I think all of those would be wonderful and appropriate reactions.
Kerry Diamond:
I have to ask, why do you consider the word appropriation a slippery slope?
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
Because we all appropriate, there would be no French food if there hadn't been Italian food. We are all doing that. I think the point becomes, and I always say this, people need to think Aretha, and by Aretha, I mean, they need to R-E-S-P-E-C-T. They need to respect it. It's like, it's not that you're interested in it. It's not that you are wanting to use it in some way. It's pay people appropriately, acknowledge people, make sure that they have what they need.
Kerry Diamond:
Fabienne and Karis did have a question for you, they would like to know what you'll be drinking on Wednesday night.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
Probably champagne. If not, it'll be either... Because it'll depend on the temperature. I am a very wine by temperature, not the wine's temperature, but the outdoor temperature. If it's chilly like it is today, it might be Pinot Noir, a really nice... Whatever it is, it'll be a really nice one. It'll either be champagne, I don't know if I'm springing for vintage, vintage, but it would be vintage champagne. For me, champagne is something that comes from Champagne (France) or a really nice burgundy or an American Pinot Noir, or a lovely bone dry, Rose. But it'll be one of those three, and there'll be a lot of it going down me.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you have anything planned for Wednesday?
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
Actually, no, I'm waiting to find out what the crew here will do. I hope they do something, because if not, I will be drinking by myself, and that can be good.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. Well, we have a little speed round. What is a treasured book in your collection?
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
I would say my mother's Fannie Farmer. She actually rebounded, herself. It's got her handwork on it. Because a lot of my childhood recipes have annotations and pencil and stuff like that, because it's the one she had as a student.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow. What is the oldest thing in your fridge?
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
Actually, nothing in my fridge is older than October of last year, because I bought a new fridge. Saved on that one, otherwise, they would be... Oh no, and there is one thing that's way older than that, and it's okay, back to my mom again, 21-year-old mac and cheese. When I cleaned out her refrigerator after she died, there was some mac and cheese that she had left in there, and every year I risk it and take a forkful near Thanksgiving.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
That's a ritual. That's what I'm eating. It's not recommended, trust me. But that's just me, and my stomach so far has said yeah, we understand why you're doing this.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you listen to music in the kitchen?
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
I am an aficionado of WQXR. I wake up with it, I go to bed with it, and I am a contributor to it. I do classical music because it keeps me focused. I find that talk radio makes me listen. While I love to listen, it just means I'm sitting there with my ear on the radio, and I'm not getting anything done.
Kerry Diamond:
When it's safe to travel again, where would you love to go?
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
Places that I have been, that I have family, that I am bound to go because there are people that I have to see, first and foremost, well, Paris. We've got people who are as close to me as family there. Brazil, ditto, Benin, ditto, and London. That would be the first thing. Places that I have not been, I want to go to Southeast Asia for some reason. I think that much of my life has been influenced by Vietnam, because of the Vietnam War. I'm certainly a person who grew up in that Maelstrom. I'd like to go to Southeast Asia. I'd like to go back to South Asia, I'd like to go back to India. I'm going to keep traveling till I can't do it no more.
Kerry Diamond:
Amazing. Well, Jessica, Dr. Harris, I can't say enough good things about this TV show. It's so brilliant, and I hope you feel the R-E-S-P-E-Ct, like you said, coming through the TV screen.
Dr. Jessica B. Harris:
Well, thank you. You take care. Thank you for talking to me.
Kerry Diamond:
Thank you so much to Dr. Harris for her time and for sharing her story. Be sure to pick up Dr. Harris's book, High on the Hog, for a deeper look at the influence of African American cuisine on many of the foods and food traditions we enjoy today. As we mentioned, Dr. Harris has a wonderful memoir, My Soul Looks Back. If you haven't read it, please add it to your summer reading list.
Kerry Diamond:
Now, here's part two, my chat with Karis Jagger and Fabienne Toback. Not only are they the executive producers of High on the Hog, but they're friends, moms and the founders of the Hey Sistah blog. I'm thrilled to welcome them to Radio Cherry Bombe for the very first time. Learn how a chance meeting at a prenatal yoga class gave birth to one of the most important food programs around. How did you to become friends?
Karis Jagger:
We met in pregnancy yoga 20 years ago and our yoga instructor would say to us, towards the end of the pregnancy, "You need to find a partner to walk with." Everyone needs to say where they live in the room. Fabienne and I happen to live very close to each other. In our seventh and eighth month of pregnancy, we started walking together.
Karis Jagger:
Our kids became very close friends and our kids were at school together, we did school stuff together. Then we both were having career change moments, and we started working on some lifestyle content together and then kept at it.
Kerry Diamond:
What was it about High on the Hog? Dr. Harris has so many books, as you know, what made you fall in love with that book and think that it could be something much bigger?
Fabienne Toback:
We have both extensive food backgrounds. Whether it's eating or cooking, or all of the above, and we're both black. Figured, like, if we don't know about these people who are foundational in the food of America, how many other people don't know about this?
Karis Jagger:
I think also, Jessica describes the book as a personal history. Compared to a lot of her other books, excluding, of course, her memoir, which came out later, it's an intersection of the history of food, but also, her personal journey. I think that really spoke to us as well as women, and as, I studied history at Yale, it was a perfect intersection of all these things for Fabienne and I, and we couldn't believe that no one else had told the story before.
Karis Jagger:
We panicked when we read it, like someone was going to option it the next day, even though no one had optioned it for however long it had been out. But we were like, oh, my God, this is so incredible. You've got to jump on this tomorrow, today.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you remember your first meeting with Dr. Harris? Because she is extraordinary, and she's brilliant. She could be a little bit intimidating.
Karis Jagger:
She's such a force and so brilliant. It was so thrilling, and we were embarking on this journey with her. I think we felt so compelled to tell her beautiful book in the right way, that it is intimidating. You really do want to... You keep thinking like, oh my God, we can't mess this up, it's got to be perfect, it's got to be beautiful.
Karis Jagger:
After she saw the series for the first time, and she texted us and said how blown away she was, I think it was the first time that Fabienne and I were like... Because I wasn't so worried about meeting her, was more the end result.
Kerry Diamond:
The pressure, absolutely, and pressure for so many reasons that we will get into. I'm curious how long this whole journey took? Because it's not easy getting a TV show made. A lot of people think if you have the right connections, et cetera, you can automatically get a green light.
Fabienne Toback:
It was long. One, we spent almost a year just really going through the book and developing the pitch, and what the show was going to be. I think we both are very aligned, in terms of, we wanted to not just be straight history, we didn't want it to be a cooking show, we wanted it to have a food element. But we wanted to really make it as broad as possible, in terms of demographics.
Karis Jagger:
I don't think we knew for sure that we were going to be able to find the right place for it, even though Fabienne and I had always felt that Netflix was the right place, and that's where we ultimately wanted it to go. Then we were very fortunate that that aligned. But tenacity, I think being a little older, you start to dig your heels in. There's a beauty in age that you start to say, I'm not going to take no for an answer.
Kerry Diamond:
I could not tell when you did this, because obviously, we're still in the middle of a pandemic, and I was watching this and I'm like, when did they film all of this? When did you start the show?
Fabienne Toback:
We started filming the June of 2019.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm sure people who are listening are like that the timing is unbelievable, in that you were able to get all this done before the pandemic really started in the United States. Then secondly, everything that happened after the murder of George Floyd. How did that change the mission, the editing, so many things?
Fabienne Toback:
There's a lot of other murders that happened before George Floyd. I think people will say, well, it's perfect timing. But we started with this after the murder of Michael Brown. There's a lot of, unfortunately, black people still get murdered by policemen.
Kerry Diamond:
You two are executive producers of High on the Hog. What does that mean to be... You've told us about your role leading up to the beginning of it. But what other role do you play in this?
Fabienne Toback:
Every production is different, and as executive producers on this project, we took a very active creative role in regard to it. There's a showrunner, Shoshana Guy, and she's in charge of bringing it all together and writing and doing... For us, we had... She likes to laugh, we had a spreadsheet upon spreadsheet of people that were interesting, that we wanted to add to the conversation, people who had a very activist role as well, in regard to food and race. Those were the elements that we brought to the table.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm sure you've had more than enough people to fill multiple seasons of a show.
Fabienne Toback:
Absolutely. The book starts in Africa, and the four episodes, we drop off. That's only like a third of Jessica's book, there's more. We hope that people really respond. We're really excited for them to see this, and then who knows what happens next?
Kerry Diamond:
One thing I want to ask, the New York Times coverage last week was extraordinary. I would have to imagine when the New York Times calls your project profoundly significant, that is not an insignificant moment in your lives.
Fabienne Toback:
I'm going to cry. It was really profound. I'm from New York City. I spent every Sunday of my childhood, either buying the paper or reading through the paper. For a hometown girl to be in her home paper was it just blew my mind. It was a really, really special, profound moment.
Karis Jagger:
I think part of our part of our mission was really to educate a new generation and show the role that African Americans played in agriculture, in cuisine, and as tastemakers and to be able to have something in the New York Times and hopefully reach a much larger audience is hopefully a game-changer.
Kerry Diamond:
It's so interesting that you two met when you were pregnant. When you tell us how long the show's been finished and how long you've had to wait, I guess for this thing to gestate, it is like having a baby, and your scheduled delivery is Wednesday. How are you feeling-
Karis Jagger:
I'm okay if it's not a C-section.
Kerry Diamond:
How are you feeling now that the world is going to get to see this beautiful baby?
Fabienne Toback:
We're so excited.
Karis Jagger:
We could not be more delighted. We've walked through a million times during the editing process, you're going through it over and over and over again. I think for us, it makes you a little nervous, and it's also thrilling. I think we've been very patient waiting, and this week probably feels like it's so fast but also so slow. We're tickled pink.
Kerry Diamond:
You've created something so beautiful that I really think is going to be kind of a cultural and watershed moment in food. People will watch your show and be like, why didn't this exist before? Why did this take so long-
Karis Jagger:
You're going to make her cry again, Kerry.
Kerry Diamond:
It just seems this is so beautiful and how quickly can we get more episodes?
Fabienne Toback:
Let's move forward. Let's not ask why anymore. Why did it take so long? Why, why, why, but let's enact change from today. Next time you have your mac and cheese, anyone has their Mac and choose they think about James Hemings or an oyster they think about Thomas Downing, of these people who were enslaved or forgotten. This is their moment.
Fabienne Toback:
I just feel incredibly blessed to have had the opportunity to find this book and tell the story. There was a moment in Africa, where Dr. Harris, it never rained so much and was so hot simultaneously in Africa, but everyone just worked so, so, so, so hard, and every morning, we would have a production meeting. It would go floor by floor and because it was that certain time. One day, we all ended up in this tiny little elevator altogether.
Fabienne Toback:
I took a selfie of us in the elevator, and it just was so profound, because Karis and I started as just moms in pregnancy yoga, and then got this book and had a vision. She's one of my closest, dearest friends, and to be all together, that we helped make this happen, was just such a profound moment in Africa. It's like, what?
Karis Jagger:
I feel, to bookend that, was the final day of shooting in New York. We were with Omar Tate, and it was snowing and the snow was drifting down in New York City, and we were tasting his oyster stew and he was reading his beautiful poetry. We walked out of this loft apartment into snow and Fabi and I were holding hands and just running. We were 12 again.
Fabienne Toback:
From the hot Africa, to the snow.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh, amazing. Fabienne, you're going to make me cry now. The scene where Dr. Jessica comforts Steven, you can't watch that and not be profoundly moved. It's beautiful filmmaking, it's beautiful television. I just can't say enough good things about this project.
Karis Jagger:
Thank you so much.
Kerry Diamond:
Super honored to talk with you-
Fabienne Toback:
That's Roger. Much kudos to One Story Up, and Roger, because he said yes to partnering with us on this. It takes a village. No one can make anything or do anything without the support and love of other people.
Karis Jagger:
Also Steven. I've said this before, but Steven is amazing and Roger gave beautiful space to the filming, and Steven gave beautiful space to talking to people and allowing people to be heard. The scene with Jerrelle Guy kills me because she's so raw. It's like, we go from seeing Steven be so vulnerable with Jessica to him allowing Jerrelle to be very vulnerable in that space with him. It's so poignant and beautiful and reminds us to listen. I think there's a lot of talk and there's sometimes we don't give each other space to be.
Kerry Diamond:
He is such a beautiful presence on screen. But he is also such an empathetic listener. You don't see that a lot on food television.
Karis Jagger:
Yeah, it's true. He's brilliant. He really knows... He's such a huge fan of Jessica's and he is so knowledgeable in this space and connected to so many people in the show. It really gave depth to their conversations in a way that I think it wouldn't have with a lot of other people that we've looked at.
Kerry Diamond:
What's the future for Hey Sistah?
Karis Jagger:
More cocktails.
Fabienne Toback:
More cocktails.
Karis Jagger:
More cocktails. It's been so nice being able to connect with so many... We love so many different people, we're going to just keep on going and see where it takes us.
Kerry Diamond:
I want to talk a little bit more about food, especially since, Fabienne, you said Karis is one of the best home cooks you've ever met. Karis, you have to tell us what does that mean? What do you love to cook?
Karis Jagger:
Oh gosh, I have a plethora of... Fabienne and I have a gourmet club or we still have it for years. We cook out of different cookbooks or different chefs or different regions.
Fabienne Toback:
Rules are very specific.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, yeah? Tell me the rules.
Karis Jagger:
Yeah, the rules are very specific. Fabi loves rules.
Fabienne Toback:
We love spreadsheets and rules. One, the host gets to make the main protein, whatever it is. You can't have cooked it before. It levels the playing field in terms of food. Each person brings one thing. There's usually two sides, two greens, a starch, depending on who's coming, a cocktail and two appetizers. It's low-pressure cooking, you're just making one thing.
Karis Jagger:
You're not supposed to fry stuff at other people's houses.
Fabienne Toback:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Fabienne, you went to culinary school. How about you? What do you love cooking?
Karis Jagger:
Fabienne's a much better baker than I am. We had a moment after the kids were a certain age and we were meeting together and having lunch together a lot. We realized we're eating chickpea pancakes and how many calories were in those. Then I'd go over to Fabi she'd make pizza in the day and then we're like, this is going to be a disaster.
Fabienne Toback:
When we would have people over, I would make a roast or steak or pork loin or something meat because I wasn't eating it really during the week. I still kind of do that. I don't really eat much meat except when I have people over.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay.
Fabienne Toback:
I like roasting big things and baking things and things like that.
Karis Jagger:
We would go camping with the kids and we love making lists. We would make elaborate lists of things that we would make, and then all the things in the large casserole like biscuits and potatoes buried in the coal.
Kerry Diamond:
Little shrimp packets.
Karis Jagger:
You know what we are? Nuts.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you remember that book that came out a few years ago, Jennifer Egan, Visit From the Goon Squad, something like that. A chapter of the book we're told in PowerPoint. I feel like YouTube could be like a cookbook that's spreadsheets, lists, the rules.
Fabienne Toback:
That's a great idea. Totally. That is a great idea. We keep them. I've kept all our camping, like what are we going to eat? Who's bringing what? These spreadsheets? That's a different idea.
Kerry Diamond:
Very different kind of cookbook. I would buy it.
Fabienne Toback:
Totally.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, we're going to do a little speed round with two of you. Tell me a treasured cookbook in your collection. Fabienne?
Fabienne Toback:
I would say I love Julie Sahni's Indian Cooking.
Kerry Diamond:
Karis, treasured cookbook.
Karis Jagger:
I have this crazy old '70s one, Great Dishes of the World. It's just like a fabulous old-timey version of recipes from all over the world.
Kerry Diamond:
Fabienne, a song that makes you smile.
Fabienne Toback:
Bill Withers, Sunshiny Day.
Kerry Diamond:
Karis, how about you?
Karis Jagger:
Stevie Wonder, As.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you to music in the kitchen, when you cook or, no?
Karis Jagger:
I am.
Fabienne Toback:
I do either podcasts or music.
Kerry Diamond:
Most used kitchen implement.
Fabienne Toback:
Tongs.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, tongs, I don't think anyone's ever said that on the show. Karis, how about you?
Karis Jagger:
It would be tongs. I guess I have these tiny little mini whisks that I love to make my salad dressing with.
Kerry Diamond:
I love how you pantomime the tiny whisks for us.
Karis Jagger:
Miniature whisks.
Kerry Diamond:
Which people can't see, but... Once we can travel safely again, where would you love to go?
Fabienne Toback:
I'd like to go to Morocco.
Karis Jagger:
I'd like to go to Thailand. I've never been before, either. Every year for one of my new year's resolutions, I put a place where I want to go. The one this year was Thailand.
Kerry Diamond:
Thank you so much to Karis and Fabienne and congratulations to them and Dr. Harris. All right. If you've got Netflix, you know what's next, time to watch High on the Hog, if you haven't already. Radio Cherry Bombe is produced by Cherry Bombe Media. Today's show is edited and engineered by Jenna Sadhu. Want to stay on top of episodes like this one and other Cherry Bombe news? Be sure to sign up for the Cherry Bombe newsletter over at cherrybombe.com Thanks for listening everybody, you're the bombe.
Harry from When Harry Met Sally:
I'll have what she's having.