Meet the Moment Jubilee Panel Transcript

Kerry Diamond:

Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. 

We're counting down the days to Jubilee L.A., our big conference happening Sunday, September 28th. In the spirit of what's to come, we're bringing you one of my favorite panel conversations from this year's Jubilee New York conference, and it's called “Meet the Moment, the Power of Food and Storytelling in Creating Change,” moderated by writer and cookbook author Klancy Miller of “For the Culture.” The conversation brings together an incredible group of change makers: Bakers Against Racism founder Paola Velez, the queen of the charity bake sale, Natasha Pickowicz, “Third Culture Cooking” author and recipe developer Zaynab Issa, and producer Deb Freeman, who won an Emmy this year for her documentary “Finding Edna Lewis.” Way to go, Deb. They're introduced by “Top Chef” semi-finalist, Lana Lagomarsini, who some of you know from her annual Juneteenth Cookout celebrations here in New York City. I'm really excited to share this conversation with you. I have known these six women for a long time now, and they've influenced me and Cherry Bombe enormously, and I know they've influenced lots of you, too. Given the world we're living in today, this panel conversation is exactly what we need right now. Stay tuned for “Meet the Moment.”

Today's episode of Radio Cherry Bombe is presented by Square. If you've ever dreamed of opening a restaurant, you know it's not easy. There's the food, of course, but also the logistics, the staff, customers, community, and finding ways to keep it all going. Take Yo Tambien Cantina in San Francisco, founded by Kenzie Benesh and Isabella Bertorelli. Kenzie and Isabella didn't go to culinary school. Instead, they had amazing family recipes and a whole lot of heart. What started as a pop-up selling arepas turned into a full-fledged cafe. Then came online pre-orders, a wine club, bottled hot sauce, merch, even socks. Today, they have nine different revenue streams and every step of the way, Square has helped them bring their ideas to life. From their website and point-of-sale system to staff management and subscriptions, Square keeps it all running smoothly and in one place. Kenzie says it best: Square helped her get some life back. If you've got a vision like hers and Isabella's, Square is here for your next big idea, too. Go to square.com/big to see how Square can help you.

Today's show is also presented by Ketel One Vodka. I didn't know this, but the family behind Kettle One, the Nolet family of Holland, has been crafting spirits since, are you ready for this, 1691. After 11 generations of distillation expertise, the family is still making sure that every single bottle exceeds their standards. Ketel One Vodka is made with the finest non-GMO ingredients and distilled in hand-fired copper pot stills. In fact, the very first still they ever used is where the name Ketel One comes from. Ketel One Vodka has a smooth, crisp finish and citrus notes and is made to cocktail. Maybe your cocktail of choice is a Ketel One martini, shaken and stirred, whatever you prefer, or maybe you're more of a cosmo gal and love that sweet, tart taste, not to mention the iconic color we all love. Then, there's the espresso martini, bold and rich, and a festive choice for a night out or in. For all you mixologists out there, pro or otherwise, Ketel One is the perfect vodka for any of your creations. Visit ketelone.com to explore the Ketel One universe, from the world-famous classic vodka that started it all to Ketel One Botanical, which comes in crisp, gorgeous combinations, such as grapefruit and rose, cucumber and mint, and peach and orange blossom. Need a recipe or two? The Ketel One website has classic cocktails, modern takes, and more. Don't forget, you must be 21 to drink, and make sure to always drink responsibly.

Speaking of Jubilee, team Cherry Bombe and I are headed to L.A. in just a few weeks. Tickets are sold out, but you can sign up for the waitlist. If you have a ticket, be sure to check your inbox because there are a few things we need you to do. We have the pregame celebration coming up on Zoom. You do need to register for that. Get your questions ready. It's great. If you are a Jubilee first timer, we will go over everything you need to know. You also need to select your breakout session and you need to fill out your attendee form. Lots of chores, but it is worth it, I promise. If you've got any questions, email us at jubilee@cherrybombe.com. 

Now, let's hear from our panel. Please welcome Lana Lagomarsini to the stage.

Lana Lagomarsini:

Hey, everyone. How's everyone doing? Well, welcome back from snack break. Did everyone get fed and did everyone get some bevies? Yes. Okay. Everyone try Anna's cookies from The Good Batch? They were really good. Okay, just checking in. Let's get right to it because there are a lot of beautiful and inspiring women that you guys need to hear from. My name is Lana Lagomarsini. I am currently a contestant on “Top Chef's Destination Canada.” As you guys probably could assume, I can't tell you if I won, but I can tell you that you better be watching every Thursday night to see how it's going to play out.

I've had the good fortune to be in this industry for about 15 years, and for sure I've seen a lot of change. I love being a chef and I've had the honor of working with icons like Francis Smallman and Daniel Baloud, but what excites me the most is exploring the meaning behind what we cook and why we eat. I host the Dinner Club series called The Supper Club From Nowhere, inspired by Georgia Gilmore and her civil rights organization of the same name. With my guests, we explore black food culture and lessons from that civil rights movement. For the past three summers as well, I've had the privilege of hosting a Juneteenth celebration with some very good friends of mine, some of whom are in this room right now, and we plan to continue doing one this year. I hope that you guys stay in touch to see where that's going to happen and let me feed you.

All right, so throughout my career, I've always tried to respond to the times we're in living with purpose and presence, which is why I'm so honored to introduce this amazing panel, “Meet the Moment, the Power of Food and Storytelling in Creating Change.” I will tell you guys the honest truth. These are some incredible, incredible women. Please hold your applause. I know it's going to be hard, but let me just get through them all. This is pastry chef Paola Velez, who is the founder of Beakers Against Racism; pastry chef Natasha Pickowicz, who has organized multiple bake sales to support women's reproductive rights; author and recipe developer Zaynab Issa, whose debut book, “Third Culture Cooking,” was just published this week. Snaps on that. Deb Freeman, the producer and creator of “Finding Edna Lewis,” the incredible documentary that's through PBS. I highly encourage you guys to watch that as well.

This is such an incredible panel. It is my honor to introduce them all and please note that Paola and Zaynab will be signing books during happy hour, so feel free to swing by and support their work. Finally, the moderator, the incredibly brilliant, beautiful, Klancy Miller, the writer, cookbook author, and founder of “For the Culture,” not a misnomer. All right, enjoy that.

Klancy Miller:

Thank you so much. Thank you all for being here. Thank you all for being here. It's really powerful to be in a room with so many people, and I just want to thank you for being here, congratulate you for being here and hope you recognize the power that we have and especially in this moment. Okay, so I think a lot of us are asking how we can respond to this moment. I am talking about-

Paola Velez:

The moment.

Klancy Miller:

Yeah, the moment. I'm talking about the moment.

Paola Velez:

The moment, the big moment.

Klancy Miller:

We're seeing DEI being canceled. We're seeing crackdown on immigrants and people exercising their First Amendment rights. We're seeing a racing of LGBTQ presence and funding and book bans. The beautiful thing about books in media and films and all of your work is that your work serves as receptacles for culture, for storytelling, and for nurturing community, which is more important than ever. And I want to thank you for what you do, first of all. And I want to start off by asking, I'm going to ask you all to talk about what you do and of course how your work meets the moment, but first I want to ask Zaynab, first of all, congratulations on your book being out.

Zaynab Issa:

Thank you so much.

Klancy Miller:

Everybody go buy it, “Third Culture Cooking, Classic Recipes for a New Generation.” It's a beautiful book.

Zaynab Issa:

Thank you.

Klancy Miller:

Thank you. I want to ask you, what is third culture? How do you describe third culture?

Zaynab Issa:

Third culture is actually a term that was coined in the 1950s to describe the children of immigrants and the culture that results from combining the culture of your parents with the culture of your place of living. That notion really helped me find comfort in who I was in my late teenage years. Then, as I started aging and figuring out my own personal cooking style, I was like, wait, it's their culture of cooking. The way that I cook isn't the way my mom cooks. It's not the way my grandma cooks. It's also not the way that I see everyone else cooking either, because I still want those flavors to show up on my plate. I don't want them gone. The best way to describe it is just this mishmash of things. It's fusion cooking, but there's so much context behind it. It's not random. “Third Culture Cooking” is the way I cook, and I think the way a lot of people cook when they're trying to represent themselves on the plate.

Kerry Diamond:

Let's take a quick break, and we'll be right back. Today's episode of Radio Cherry Bombe is presented by The Sports Bra in Portland, Oregon, one of my favorite places. Imagine if every screen at your local sports bar played women's sports. That was the dream of chef Jenny Nguyen, who longed for a place where she and her friends could hang out and watch their favorite teams and athletes in action. In 2022, Jenny made that dream a reality with The Sports Bra, the country's first sports bar that exclusively showcases women's sports. Today, women athletes are the main event at The Sports Bra, and most importantly, non-binary, queer, and trans individuals are warmly welcomed there. I've been lucky enough to visit a few times, and when there's a great game or competition happening on the screens, the energy is unmatched. We should also talk about the food and drink because chef Jenny created a made-from-scratch menu that's thoughtful and inclusive. She knows traditional sports bar fare doesn't work for everyone. Whether you're vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free, there's something delicious for everybody. The drinks menu features cocktails made with spirits from women-owned companies and beers, ciders, and kombuchas crafted by women. If you're in Portland, go show The Sports Bra and your favorite athletes some love. They're open Wednesdays through Sundays, and I am not exaggerating when I say the place is a feminist landmark ,and you should all make a pilgrimage. Not in Portland? Sit tight because The Sports Bra is expanding. Jenny recently announced new locations coming soon to Boston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, and St. Louis. Follow along at Sports Bra PDX on Instagram and visit their website thesportsbraofficial.com for hours, menus, merch, and more.

The Italy issue of our print magazine is finally here, and it is so beautiful. Our guest editor, Fiorella Valdesolo, did an amazing job on all the stories. There is so much to read. The personal essays are probably my fav. There are great recipes, lots of pasta, of course, travel advice, chef interviews, all the things that make Cherry Bombe magazine so special. Pick up a copy on cherrybombe.com or at your favorite shop. 

What else? Cherry Bombe has a Substack. If you are a Substack lover, I know I am. Substack is one of my favorite media platforms these days. Be sure to check it out and subscribe. You can subscribe for free or become a monthly or annual paid subscriber. Check out my interview with the Slutty Cheff, recaps of our baking pod, She's My Cherry Pie, recipes, and lots more.

Klancy Miller:

For those of you all in the audience who haven't written book proposals, congratulations, there's a portion of the book proposal after you've summarized your project, what your vision is. You also address why this book and why now. What was your approach for those questions?

Zaynab Issa:

I mean, I think there's a lot of us that are struggling with finding comfort in our identity, our true identity, not who we think we should be, but who we really are. That combined with cooking for a modern lifestyle, which means I have 30 minutes or an hour tops, I can't spend so much time in the kitchen the way my grandmother used to be able to made me feel like I was meeting people where they were at, looking for these flavors, representing themselves in the kitchen, but also a busy lifestyle is the way of the world now. Making sure the recipes were practical but still reflected that ethos of intention in the kitchen, I think was super important. Then, also, just being fearlessly yourself right now is more important than ever. You can't pretend to be someone you're not, otherwise you will get erased. I feel like that ended up being something that I didn't expect, but I'm so glad that the book reflects who I really am, especially right now.

Klancy Miller:

I'm so grateful. 1000%. Okay, so switching gears, I'm so excited. So many fun stories. Natasha, I first became a fan of yours when you were organizing the bake sales to support Planned Parenthood, and this was in the first round of the administration. I wanted to know what stirred you to action.

Natasha Pickowicz:

Yeah, hi everybody, so happy to be here. Yeah, I mean, it really was that election in November, and I think that I was coming at it from a few angles. Part of it was, that was when I was working full-time in fine dining restaurants. That was the context that I had for organizing. Also, I had this perspective of I didn't feel like I had a lot of resources available to me, a lot of energy of people around me who would help me do something. I felt disconnected from who I felt like my peers were in the industry, like other pastry chefs and bakers. It felt like we were all in our own little worlds, but there weren't a lot of chances to celebrate the work that we were doing and celebrate each other and come together.

I think I was really interested in, how can I create a community event that has a fundraising aspect for something that I believed in that wasn't the big, fancy galas that I was used to having to cook at as part of my job, where if you wanted to attend, the ticket to be at the table was $10,000 or whatever. Those were not events anybody I knew could go to. I was like, I want to do something where you can come. There's no ticket to enter. You can come, walk around, bring your family. I wanted it to feel like you didn't have to spend money if you didn't want to, but it could feel like a way for people to come together.

I didn't really have a model or an example of what to base that on. I wasn't aware of anybody at the time that was producing events like that. I think that was back in 2017, which is wild. Over the years, I've just been able to build on that knowledge. Part of building on that knowledge is also now being able to share that knowledge and be like, actually, what feels more profound to me now is not even necessarily producing a bake sale myself, but being able to see how many people in other places and other communities feel motivated to do that themselves. Paola and I talk about this all the time, and I think that is a really big takeaway of, it's not just about me throwing this event too, it's also just about, maybe it's setting that example and hearing from other folks how they want to make it their own.

Klancy Miller:

Paola, I'm addressing you because I feel like you dovetail each other really nicely in terms of Bakers Against Racism. Does everybody know Bakers Against Racism? I hope. For me, when you first coined and established Bakers Against Racism, it made me think of, and Lana, I'm so glad she mentioned Georgia Gilmore's Club From Nowhere, which helped to fund, you could call it a bake sale, it helped to fund one of the most powerful bake sales of all time, which helped to fund the Montgomery Bus boycott, which lasted for a year in Montgomery, Alabama, so that people could boycott successfully and not have to take buses and people could pay for cars and et cetera. I'm saying this because who knows if we need to keep these moments of history alive? I loved that you created Bakers Against Racism, and I wanted to know if you can talk about how did you approach that, how do you keep it going, and how does it affect your activism now?

Paola Velez:

Now, I would say that for me, activism is not this big to-do, right? I don't view activism as, I'm an activist, and then you put it on your bio. You should be doing this because you should love other people and view them as human beings and want them to live, period.

Klancy Miller:

Amen.

Paola Velez:

For me, when I was a young adult, maybe like 19, 20, I would be at Lorimer on the L, baking with a little folding table, trying to sell enough baked goods for young women and this food program that I was a part of in Bushwick for these young ladies who were transitioning into being women that needed feminine hygiene products. For me, bake sales were never like, a bake sale. It was just like, I know how to bake and I'm broke, and this is how I can contribute to society, not because I want to be known for doing good, but because we must do good.

I'm a child of growing up in the Bronx, of the inner city school system here in New York City when the school programs, after school programs were defunded, we had nowhere to go. When I became an adult and it was my turn to look at these young ladies and say, "You actually have purpose. You don't have to succumb to being beholden to what society is telling you you're going to be bound to." We are, yes, children of the inner city. You are in Brooklyn. I was from the Bronx, but we can surpass any expectations and limitations and boundaries that society wants to place on us.

When I look at what I do now with Bakers Against Racism, it's still a lot of silent work. I don't need to publicize it. I want you guys to know what I'm doing, but sometimes, it's better for us to work in silence. We are one body and many of us have to do things in silence in order for us to be able to gather in this room, for us to have rights, now more than ever. We might not be able to vote soon without a husband, you know what I mean, without having all of our documentation. Some of us can't afford $185 for a passport.

What we do with Bakers Against Racism, it was giving you guys the tools to be able to use your own bodies, making that choice and going out there and meeting the needs of the people. The supply and demand chain starts with you and ends with you. You can do this, I'm still doing it. I fundraise. I just did a fundraiser for children with autism. I continuously do fundraisers. I fundraise for the restaurant industry, a lot of work with Southern Smoke, but those are the things that we do in silence. A lot of us, we're so confused by what we see on social media. Let us entertain you on social media and then do the work behind the scenes.

Klancy Miller:

Absolutely. Yay. In terms of storytelling, first of all, everybody watch “Finding Edna Lewis.” I am so excited for this work. Yeah, thank you for making it. I want to know, so I think Edna Lewis is, we live in an era of multi-hyphenates, and I think Edna Lewis is one of the original multi-hyphenates in terms of her career. I want to know how you came to decide to do this amazing, important work and also, why now?

Deb Freeman:

Yeah, I mean, why not now? It's been long overdue.

Klancy Miller:

For sure.

Deb Freeman:

There are so many documentaries about really wonderful chefs, but there are so many documentaries that still need to be made and so many stories that still need to be told, particularly in the African-American community. Really, this documentary came about for me talking about this for years, saying, "Where's the Edna Lewis prestige series? Where's the Edna Lewis documentary?" Someone finally was like, "You know what? That might be a good idea." I'm like, "Say less."

Really, it was off to the races to really try to pay the most beautiful and gracious and respectful tribute to a woman who does not get her due. A woman who is a pioneer in the farm-to-table movement, a woman who really changes how Americans see southern food and really, in my opinion, speaks to how Black food is not monolithic. It is not fried chicken and collard greens and mac and cheese. That's a part of it, but there's so much more, and it's not all fried. I mean, I know I'm from the South, but not everything we do is fried. Ms. Lewis really, she embodied that and through her cookbooks and through her work, she was able to show that. For me, it was just so vital to share that and try to show that to viewers.

Klancy Miller:

Can you share some things that you learned that you didn't know about Edna Lewis in the process of making this documentary?

Deb Freeman:

Absolutely. One of the most emotional things as well. For a time, she cooked on a plantation in South Carolina and Charleston Milton Place, I knew that. I did not realize that she lived on the property as well. The building that she lived in, the lower floor was where women and children basically milled rice. She actually lived upstairs. I had no idea about that. Then, when we actually went to film there, to go there and think about her, who she was a grandchild of enslaved people. She's working on a plantation. She is cooking plantation food and then has to walk back to where people were forced to work. That was a really emotional thing to uncover in the process of filming that. In that scene in the documentary, I think that emotionalism comes across because it was so full and so overflowing. Yeah, that was something I did not know.

Klancy Miller:

Okay. Also, just because I feel conceptually, this is an of-the-moment collaboration, but can you talk about Cafe Nicholson? I feel like Edna Lewis was an it girl. She was a woman. She was, first of all, ahead of her time, which I think is why maybe it's taken so long, one of the reasons why it's taken so long, because it's like, oh, she was doing all this way back when. As an example, can you tell us about Cafe Nicholson?

Deb Freeman:

Yeah, so Cafe Nicholson, she was a chef there in the late-nineteen-forties, but what a lot of people don't know is she was also a partner. Think about being a Black woman, chef partner, 1949 in New York. That's almost unheard of, right? That is something that's absolutely extraordinary. What's interesting, and we also touch on this in the film, but it's so interesting that the face of the restaurant was white, but the food was so southern and Black. It's so interesting how she was not really heralded as a chef, even though Black woman chef in 1949. At the same time, they're using her food ways and her knowledge and her expertise. It's a really interesting dichotomy that she's doing something that had not been done before in that way, but yet, at the same time, minimized.

Klancy Miller:

Okay. I want to ask you all to share some advice. Would you advise the audience to summon what's in them, to seize the moment, to speak to this moment? How did you do it for yourself, Zaynab, and what would your advice be for other aspiring?

Zaynab Issa:

To make compelling anything, you should be telling a story that hasn't been told before. I think that way, there will always be an interested audience. I think trends and repetition make people fatigued, but if you are exploring something that you feel like has not been explored adequately, it will be interesting and you'll feel motivated by the fact that you believe that this needs to heard. I think that ended up being a real root for me writing the cookbook was making sure that I was telling stories, that I knew people would be interested because they hadn't heard them before. That would be my one piece of advice. In anything you want to explore, try and find the piece that deserves to be given a pedestal.

Klancy Miller:

I love that. Paola?

Paola Velez:

Don't be afraid to be unapologetically yourself. There's a lot of us that want to emulate what we see. We aspire to be other people. We follow them. We have Pinterest boards, et cetera. You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable being yourself. You must, must. I'm a neurodivergent, ADHD prone kid from the Bronx, first-generation American. I started off in savory. Now, I'm baking. A lot to unpack, but I'm not afraid to be myself.

I encourage every single person here to find peace with who you are first, and then start tackling the story you want to tell. Because once you're rooted in your core values in yourself, there's nothing that you can say that will shake you to your core. Nobody that can challenge you, nobody that can Tweet you, sub-Tweet you. It doesn't matter because you know who you are and you know what your purpose is in this world and your life. I hope that you can really take courage to be yourself after, like Zaynab said, especially now and for the next four years, baby, we need to be ourselves. We need to be unapologetically us no matter who's looking, who's watching. If people like it, follow it. It doesn't matter. Be yourself and love yourself.

Klancy Miller:

Agreed. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yes. We're just going to go around the circle.

Deb Freeman:

Yeah, I think honesty, and that's piggybacking on what both of you guys said. If you are being honest to the work, if you are being honest to the subject matter, then it's going to resonate because you're not hiding from something that might be uncomfortable. You're not making yourself lesser in order to make something a little more palpable. The truth is the truth. You have to just be comfortable with being honest and stand in that. I think that's so important.

Klancy Miller:

Okay. Natasha?

Natasha Pickowicz:

I think finding meaning in failure and in mistakes has been such a driving force in my career and in my work, in my personal relationships. I reflect a lot about, when COVID began, I lost my job and it felt like this irrevocable moment that I didn't know how to push through. The thing that came out of that was I actually wrote a stronger book proposal than the one that I wrote when I was still in restaurants. I wrote a book that felt more unapologetically me and more honest to the stories that I wanted to share. I think it's so hard when you're in that moment of failure, I think you don't have the space or distance to get perspective from that. Everything can just feel like really tough and even on a more granular sense of just cooking or baking or being in the kitchen, those moments of failure, if you're present and paying attention, are actually those moments that allow you to pay attention and grow and improve and change. I think that has just been so applicable to my career and how I found meaning and everything. Yeah.

Klancy Miller:

Totally. Your book was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award, and in your book tour was epic. So epic. I feel like-

Natasha Pickowicz:

We were just, well, I was asking Zaynab what she's got planned because it's such an overwhelming time. You're just blackout for two months because it's so much work. Yeah, you only get to publish your first book once, so I really wanted to go all out.

Klancy Miller:

Hell yeah, and I co-sign on the embracing failure bit. It actually strengthens you, I think. I got rejected by 20 different publishers for my first book and it didn't get published, but other things did. You grow. I wanted to ask you, who inspires you in terms of your storytelling, in terms of your community building and in terms of your work? Zaynab?

Zaynab Issa:

Okay, interestingly enough, I feel incredibly inspired by older women and I find food to be the best tool to communicate with them. I find cross-generational relationships, I think maybe it's because of the internet, to be very difficult for me to be able to navigate, but the one thing that I think can connect me and all of the women in my family and all of the generations is food. I'm constantly looking to them to be able to learn and also to unpack my own interests. They have a world, a whole lifetime of information that they want to share. If you pay attention, you can learn so much from them and it's very unfiltered. You know what I mean? There's so many gems in everything that they're saying.

Even if you are paying attention passively, those relationships inspire me the most and they ground me the most because I feel like these women have seen life. The amount of privilege that I have growing up here and the way that they've migrated. My grandma's lived in three different continents, seven different cities, found a way to make home in all of that and I am struggling. You know what I mean? It's impossible. When I reflect on their life, their path, it brings me so much comfort, but also inspires me to keep moving. That's why I constantly am reflecting on all of the things they've done throughout their life. That brings a lot of meaning to my work, for sure.

Klancy Miller:

Totally. Paola?

Paola Velez:

I would say that the women in my family, obviously that has to be number one. They were the first women that I ever met. Then, my friends, actually, the women that surround me that provide friendship. My friend Carla is here today. Hi, Carla. They inspire me to do better and be better and keep me accountable. I think that that's the most important part. Then, most recently, as I've navigated through this new life that I'm living, I'm no longer behind the scenes in kitchens working. I have to be more front-facing, forward-facing and I have to meet all of you. You guys inspire me. I can't do anything without your support and help. Without you guys, I can't move forward.

Sometimes, I think people think that I am just talking to be like a gabberella. You know what I mean, like a yapperella, but I really talk with y'all. I'll become friends with y'all. I'll DM with y'all because literally you guys are like, "Yo, what you posted," and I was like, "Whoa, you didn't even know, but I was struggling with my depression." I was like, "That Bupropion, I think I need to up my dose," and you guys literally helped me and uplift me. I would have to say that you guys are the most important people in my life right now, aside from my mom and husband. You know what I'm saying? Y'all really have a seat at this table because without y'all, none of us up here have anything.

Klancy Miller:

It's the truth. Yeah. Okay, I'm going to switch up the order.

Natasha Pickowicz:

I would say I have so much respect right now for independent business owners, and I'm thinking specifically of, she's not here, she’s at work, but my dear friend Paige Lipari owns the bookstore Archestratus in Greenpoint.

Klancy Miller:

Oh, yeah. Yay.

Natasha Pickowicz:

If anybody is in there. Oh my God. Yeah. I just think she really embodies to me what it means to have a really, really strong value system, a really strong taste level, and so much integrity. She has to deal with so much. The way that she has made her bookstore not a place of commerce first, but a place of community gathering as the most important kind of structuring principle behind her business. They do classes there that have nothing to do with cookbooks. There's a screenwriting class there. There's a poetry writing class there. She has a cookbook club that is the best one I've ever seen.

I think that the way that she opens her doors reminds me more of the kind of community centers I remember growing up with before social media and before everything had to look picture perfect and have the right products and the right look. It really actually has this lived in feel. I go there and I'm just so happy to give her all my money and support the things that she's doing because I feel like it's increasingly more rare to find those spaces that genuinely offer ways for people to participate beyond spending money. If you haven't been and you want to make that trip to Greenpoint, you must. Yeah, it's the best.

Klancy Miller:

10 out of 10 recommend. Deb?

Deb Freeman:

Yeah, I would have to say it's my grandmother, and not just because she's my grandmother, although that's part of it, I'm sure, but largely because she had such a joy about food. I was really fortunate to be raised by her. When I would come home every day, there was a meal and I would never know what it was and she could cook. It was incredibly delicious, but she was so joyful about finding a new recipe or cooking. Her joy and curiosity about food really trickled down to me. Whenever I think about, not necessarily giving up, but there are tough moments, everyone has tough moments, but I just really try to remember that joy, that spirit of joy.

Klancy Miller:

I love that. We're at the end. I'm going to add onto Kerry's direction in the beginning, which was to speak to somebody you don't know next to you. I'm going to say, exchange emails with somebody you don't know next to you. One of the things that I find, I interview a lot of people in different fields. A stranger can be inspiring. Somebody you don't know who could be sitting next to you, behind you, diagonal, could be someone you want to work with or get to know. In this moment in time, I think it's really important for us to be speaking with each other. I have really enjoyed listening to you all and hearing about your work in different ways. I just want to encourage you all to connect with each other and maybe build, inspire each other. I think we're-

Paola Velez:

Also, make sure that you guys do exchange information in case we do need to make a network.

Klancy Miller:

Listen, we might need a bailout fund.

Paola Velez:

Hello. Hello. This might be the last time that we are on the stage-

Klancy Miller:

For real.

Paola Velez:

-like this. I wish I was joking and this was a little hee hee, ha ha.

Klancy Miller:

We're not playing.

Paola Velez:

Through comedy, let us rejoice and be glad, but also exchange them numbers, girls, because we might to call you.

Klancy Miller:

For real.

Paola Velez:

Keep fundraising for us. Thank you.

Zaynab Issa:

Yes.

Paola Velez:

Thank you.

Klancy Miller:

Thank you all.

Kerry Diamond:

That's it for today's show. Thank you to Deb Freeman, Zaynab Issa, Lana Lagomarsini, Klancy Miller, Natasha Pickowicz, and Paola Velez for joining us on the Jubilee stage. Zaynab, Paola, Klancy, and Natasha all have wonderful books. You can find them at your favorite local bookstores and check out Deb's documentary, “Finding Edna Lewis” on PBS. We've got links to their books and projects and Instagrams in our show notes, so support them however you can. I'll also link to past interviews with all six. They've all been on the radio Cherry Bombe over the years, and I have loved talking to each of them. If you're new to Radio Cherry Bombe, be sure to give us a follow. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Our producers are Catherine Baker and Jenna Sadhu. Our talent guru is Londyn Crenshaw, and our head of partnerships is Rachel Close. Thanks for listening, everybody. You are the Bombe.