“Our Bodies, our baked goods” Transcript
Kerry Diamond: Hi Bombesquad. You're listening to Radio Cherry Bombe and I'm your host Kerry Diamond. Each week we talk to the most inspiring women in and around the world of food. We have a special episode for you today. It's a conversation between star Pastry Chef Natasha Pickowicz and Laura McQuade, the CEO and president of Planned Parenthood of New York City. Natasha and her team at Ultra Paradiso in Manhattan had been hosting a bake sale to benefit Planned Parenthood NYC for the last two years and this year sale will take place Sunday, May 19th. Lots of folks in the Bombesquad will be baking for the cause, including Pastry Chef Caroline Schiff and the folks from King, Heavenly, Lalito and Poppy's.
Kerry Diamond: Women's reproductive rights and affordable health care are under attack in America. So we felt it was important to bring you this conversation between two women who cared deeply about those causes. Under Laura's watch, Planned Parenthood of New York City cares for tens of thousands of people every year. Providing such services as breast exams to pap smears to HIV tests. They also provide wellness exams for all genders. And as for Natasha, well she's following in big footsteps. Size 12 to be exact. Some of you might not know this, but Julia Child was a big supporter of Planned Parenthood and even hosted fundraisers for the organization starting back in the 80s. If you would like to attend the bake sale, you can get tickets at altrobakesale.com. If you can't attend, you can also donate via the website and support the cause that way. Here's Natasha Pickowicz and Laura McQuade talking about activism, the services that Planned Parenthood provides and more.
Natasha Pickowicz: Hi everyone. My name is Natasha Pickowicz. I am the Executive Pastry Chef for Matter House, which is a restaurant group that represents Café Altro Paradiso, which hosts an annual bake sale that is a benefit for Planned Parenthood NYC. I am here with Laura McQuade, who's the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood NYC. Hi Laura.
Laura McQuade: Hi Natasha.
Natasha Pickowicz: So honored to have this chance to speak with you and talk a little bit about your work and your background.
Laura McQuade: Great. Well, I'm thrilled to be here and I can't thank you enough for launching this bake sale for PPM YC. Everybody participates in the ways that they can. And I love your quote, I read in an article you're like, "I'm about food, I'm about baking, I'm about pastry." How do I bring that to the conversation about activism and what really matters to me? And so that's why I'm so excited to sit across the table with you today and talk.
Natasha Pickowicz: I really appreciate that. I think for me activism is something that is so personal. So it was all about relating something that I felt like I knew and was maybe a little bit good at and that relating that to something that I wanted to help or contribute with. But before we get too far into the bake sale, I was hoping maybe you could share a little bit about your story and sort of how you came into this role and also kind of the role activism has played for you in your life and in your journey up until this moment.
Laura McQuade: I like to say I was born a disruptor. My mom is not here anymore to tell you that. But she would tell you I was disruptive from way back. You know, my earliest memories are... I just always remember being told, well this is the way it is. This is the way you have to do it. And I'm like, what? Why? That's ridiculous. And so whether that's changing things in school or... I have this desire every time I'm in a Starbucks to completely reorganize the way they serve customers drives me crazy, all the way to social and political activism. And so I've had a really, really interesting and fortunate career.
Laura McQuade: I spent a long time doing international development around the world. I wanted to be outside the United States really outside of my comfort zone, outside of you take your privilege everywhere you go with you. But really being outside of those parameters and figuring out how I could bring what was important to me to communities that needed that. And so I did a ton of work in capacity building for nonprofits around the world. Enfranchisement for people who had no voice.
Laura McQuade: I guess that capacity building, and that enfranchisement giving people a voice who don't have it in different ways has been the theme throughout my career and 11 years ago I got a call to interview for a job at the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is again a global legal human rights organization and I never looked back. I got recruited for that job predominantly from my international experience, but my real passion for sexual and reproductive health and rights for bodily autonomy, for enfranchisement empowerment really brought me here. And then I was recruited to become the CEO of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and mid Missouri.
Laura McQuade: Yes, everyone thought I had lost my mind. We are living a comfortable life here in New York City and I was working in Bogota and Nairobi, and Geneva and doing this amazing work and they're like, "Okay, so you're going to go into the belly of the beast of reproductive rights."
Laura McQuade: My entire time there, what I learned is that this fight in the United States is happening locally and in the states. It is being, the rights that we have and the rights that are being taken away are determined by our zip code. And that was really the main reason that I decided to take the job at Kansas in mid Missouri because I said, wow, making a difference and figuring out a way to provide abortion care and birth control and gender affirming services and vasectomies where it's so shamed and stigmatized, felt like something that was worth my time and my energy and they embraced me and it was an amazing experience. I took the organization through two mergers because why just have Kansas and Missouri when you can have Oklahoma and Arkansas too, and just really come together, build a stronger Planned Parenthood and be able to expand services even in the face of the toughest, toughest legislation being passed in those four states.
Laura McQuade: Unfriendly courts, unfriendly legislators, unfriendly governors. And then here we are, my longtime predecessor here, Joan Malin, announced her retirement and I said, "Oh, I really have to throw my hat in the ring." I mean, she built an amazing affiliate and left an amazing legacy and I really want it to be part of taking that to the next level for our patients and for the communities that we partner with and support. So that's what's really brought me here today.
Natasha Pickowicz: Amazing. So inspiring. What does the next level mean to you? In terms of, what does that mean to carry on someones legacy?
Laura McQuade: I would always say more and better. I'm definitely a person who thinks, a lot of people say less is more. They would call it more. If less, we're more. How do we meet our patients? How do we know our patients? How do we have a dialogue with them about what they need? What's missing? How do we do it better? How do we really come to our work every day respecting their dignity in the services that we provide. But then how do we offer more? How do we reach more communities? How do we take down barriers? There's so many barriers to care in the city. A lot of people think what? You know, there's so many opportunities here. Well you know what, depending on the color of your skin, how much money you earn, the neighborhood you live in what your immigration status is, what your access to transportation is. It's really a different experience and I think what I'd love to see carry on from that past legacy is building on that and doing more, really understanding the intersectionality of our patient's lives.
Laura McQuade: Our goal is kind of three pronged. We want a large anchor center in each one of the boroughs. I think ultimately we would like some satellite centers closer to the neighborhoods and we're currently building a fleet of mobile health centers, so it's kind of a three pronged approach. We have one mobile health center out in the community and we just placed an order for two more.
Natasha Pickowicz: What is a mobile health center?
Laura McQuade: It looks literally like a bus, a small bus. We usually wrap it. Our current one is on the road in partnership with the Keith Hearing Foundation. So it's wrapped in amazing Keith Hearing graphics. Inside it looks like a health center. You open the door, come in, there'll be two exam rooms, there's a person who checks you in, asks, do you have insurance? Checks to see whether or not we can enroll you in insurance.
Laura McQuade: There are two medical assistants that ride on the unit and the goal for the two new units is to do everything in the centers except for our more complicated procedures. So we would do annual exams, we would do all forms of birth control. We would do STI testing and we would do medication abortion. So if you needed to be referred for surgical services or for a vasectomy or something like that, we would refer you to a health center. But the goal with the vehicles is to find community partners, not only as a place to locate the vehicles, but also to really have a trusted partner in the community to refer patients.
Natasha Pickowicz: Part of the impetus of doing this bake sale that I've been organizing now we're in year three was that I specifically wanted to emphasize that the money that we were going to be raising was going to be going towards Planned Parenthood, New York City because I think there's something really meaningful about relating as you were saying like the community to your healthcare and having it feel as sort of in your neighborhood as possible.
Natasha Pickowicz: But I was wondering if maybe you could talk a little bit about some kind of timely issues that we're facing in this moment in 2019. I think that a lot of people who come to the bake sale, they're like, okay, I'm making a very pointed donation to PPM NYC. What can people expect that their donation is going to go towards?
Laura McQuade: I guess I'd like to talk about two areas, so we'll start with the area of attack. I don't know how many people listening know what title 10 is, but it is a longstanding decades long government grant program for reproductive health care, particularly for lower income communities are uninsured communities. Our administration in Washington, one of the first things they did was to target the title 10 program and that's their way of getting at Planned Parenthood. It's a very specific attack so that they say, "Oh, we don't want to fund the title 10 program. We don't want Planned Parenthood to get those critical dollars because they provide abortion care."
Laura McQuade: Our abortion services are separate from all of the other wellness visits that we provide. And what they just did is they introduced something called a domestic gag rule. And so they couldn't quite get at us in the past. So they basically said that anyone who receives those federal title 10 dollars, they can no longer counsel for abortion or refer for abortion. Even though a major tenet of the title 10 program is helping a patient to understand all of the options that they have when they come in for care. So say you came in for a visit and we did a pregnancy test and you found out, you're pregnant. So what normally happens in that situation? Some patients are like, fine, great, they're done. But mostly you can do a pregnancy test somewhere else.
Laura McQuade: You don't have to come to us. So usually they're looking for options. You're looking for prenatal counseling. You are looking for counseling around abortion care, but sort of what are your options open to you now. And so what this domestic gag rule would do was say that Planned Parenthood couldn't tell you all your options. We couldn't tell you that obtaining an abortion is an option for you. We specifically would have to tell you how to carry the pregnancy to term even if that's not what you want. And it's not good medical care. There is no other area of medicine where the government tells a doctor, "Oh, you can only provide 50% of the information about care and options to a patient." It is unheard of. It is unprecedented. And so right now there're many court cases being litigated to say that this is unconstitutional.
Laura McQuade: What the Trump administration has tried to do with this care, but we still don't know yet whether we're going to be able to keep the funding and we won't know until early next month. And so what does that mean? Those dollars help us to treat anyone who walks through our door regardless of their ability to pay. We call it our sliding scale program. So we asked some questions around your income to determine your ability to pay for the visit and anyone below a 100% of the federal poverty level automatically receive services for free. And those title 10 dollars help us to be able to do that. And without those dollars, we're still going to provide that care. But we're going to have to look for other ways to fund that care because we will never close our doors to people who really need that. And to use economics as a barrier for people seeking healthcare.
Laura McQuade: It's so American right? Everywhere else around the world, healthcare is a fundamental human right. Here, it comes with privilege. And so right now we are fighting it with everything that we have. We're fighting it in the media, we're fighting it in the courts. And we're there for our patients and we're trying to educate people all along the way. And that's why events like your bake sale are so incredibly important. Not only do they raise awareness around the importance of the issue, but they also help people to actually financially contribute to PPM YC's ability to provide care for all the people that walk through our doors. And that's why we're so thankful.
Natasha Pickowicz: I feel like the way that the bake sale also educates and shows people what you guys are all about and what you're doing is to me almost as valuable as the amount of money that we raised. Although that is of course the why we're doing it. Because I think that the kind of conversations that are started, the interest that gets generated, like the way that people are learning and becoming so involved in all of these really important things that you're up against right now is one of the most heartening sort of aspects of what the bake sale is. It feels like the stakes are so high. As a leader, what does it mean for you to be a leader in this kind of place? Like how do you deal with all of these kind of emotional or like kind of sensitive issues? What is that like?
Laura McQuade: For me, it's incredibly empowering. I'm going to be honest, I'm a go big or go home kind of person and to work at planned Parenthood, I get to live my values every day. It doesn't matter whether I'm looking at a spreadsheet or I'm doing an interview with you or I'm working with a donor. I know that every one of those activities that I'm doing is working toward the mission that I believe in, that every person who works for PP believes in to their core. There is no position in this organization that we could do without. It really does take all the positions in the organization and I feel really proud to be able to been entrusted with this leadership role.
Laura McQuade: Yeah. There are days where you sometimes want to rip your hair out. You can't imagine that the federal government is about what I was talking about before, right? Harming women, harming communities of color, harming low income communities, going after vulnerable immigrant communities, but it's happening. It's real, and I'm thankful for an organization like Planned Parenthood. I'm thankful for our staff. I'm thankful for all of the partner organizations that we work with. This is a moment in time and we need to stay dedicated and we need to work through it. It's a constant battle.
Natasha Pickowicz: I just love this word of a disruptor, especially at your level, I think that CEO president, but also there's this aspect of resistance and I wonder what that means for you personally, expressing resistance or fostering it with your team. What would you say to somebody who is looking to express that inner voice that they have?
Laura McQuade: Seeing injustice, seeing inequity, racism, gender bias, transphobia, whatever it is. We see it every day in our lives and no, you don't have to burn a house down to be a disruptor. Noticing it, being aware that it exists is the really the first step to being a disruptor because once you wrap your head around that it exists. We all have different and varying levels of privilege. You know, as a white woman, as a CEO, I carry a lot privilege into every room in which I enter, but I always try to check that privilege and try to put myself in the shoes of the people that I'm with or the issues that we're talking about. And I think that's how people become disruptors. When you close your eyes, when you turn your head away, when you don't recognize your own privilege and acknowledge that, that privilege comes at a cost to someone else, I think that's when change doesn't occur.
Laura McQuade: What is really exciting to us at PPM YC after the election and frankly for Planned Parenthood across the country, is there's been a new awakening of a realization that how did we get here to having elected an administration that fundamentally doesn't like Americans fundamentally just doesn't like Americans.
Natasha Pickowicz: So real.
Laura McQuade: And fundamentally doesn't like the people who seek refuge and support on our shores, certainly is an administration that doesn't like women, but how did we get here? Maybe we should've done a little bit more, just a little bit step by step in the smallest of environments and communities, and again, I go back to what you're doing. There is nothing too small. There's no conversation that's too small. There's no effort that's too small when you're looking for systemic change and to break down all those barriers that we've been talking about.
Natasha Pickowicz: It seems like the concept of activism has evolved and changed so much. I wonder if you had any thoughts about what that looks like to you now in terms of things like the Me Too movement and the way that young people are participating. Has that been a huge shift, or are we kind of going back to something that you've seen before or?
Laura McQuade: I think I'm getting old, 'cause I'm going to start to say something that like my mother would say, it's a cycle, right? Nothing is one directional. Even advances circle back on themselves, right? So the Me Too movement happens. There's this moment of release and a moment of realization and storytelling and then right, then the backlash comes.
Natasha Pickowicz: Right.
Laura McQuade: Right, and so you've got to do it again and you've got to find different pathways. The same thing with reproductive rights and reproductive health, right? The number of supporters in their 70s and 80s that say to me all the time, I did this already. Why am I still doing this? Why am I still having to do this? Because I don't know. The fight for rights, the fight for autonomy, it's constant. And so what I would say to people is, yes, be really energized when something like Me Too happens, but then don't be completely discouraged when that backlash happens. You've got to dig in and you've got to figure out a way to do it again and do it again and do it again.
Laura McQuade: And for women and community of color, it's a never ending exercise. And some days are really high and other days, but that doesn't mean you stop the journey. And so activism is a lifelong thing, right? And what activism is for people looks very different. For some people it's in the digital space. For some people it's putting on the pink tee shirt and standing in front of something yelling at someone. For some people it's voting. I hope for everyone it's voting pat. There's my plug for vote. Voting matters. You get the legislatures of the people who vote, not of what people really believe. So please vote. And so just because you're not doing what someone else is doing, like I used to have people in Kansas City, who say, well, you know, I'm just not a rally person.
Laura McQuade: I'm like, okay, don't rally do something else. I don't know. Host a gathering in your home and talk to people. If that's a way that you're more comfortable, write a letter to the editor if that's something, right? If you're more of an introvert and you're more of a writer, there's no one way to do it. There's so many opportunities for activism. Just talk about something, right? Open your eyes and see the world and then talk to somebody about it. Even if you feel a little weird.
Natasha Pickowicz: When I was putting on the bake sale year one, I had never really produced an event like that before. I had never really fund raised at that scale ever. I remember feeling like I didn't even know where to start. I felt like kind of overwhelmed. Obviously in the three years since we've done it, there's been so much like learning from my mistakes and continuing to refine the process while also encouraging it to grow.
Natasha Pickowicz: But it was really just, you know, I googled Planned Parenthood NYC and I tried to figure out who the right people were to get in touch with. And from there it was... the connection was so positive and it was so mutually loving that I think for a lot of people there's this sense of I can't start something. I don't even know where to begin. I can join something that's already going on. But I think it was really, it was really empowering for me to be like, I don't know what I'm doing, but we're going to figure out a DIY version of this thing that speaks to us personally for what we can offer as a restaurant. And even in that first year, I think we raised $8,000 and it felt like so much money. I couldn't believe it.
Natasha Pickowicz: It blew my mind. And then the next year we tripled that, you know? And now we're in our third year. We have twice as many chefs participating. We have our first business sponsor. But you know, reaching out to friends of ours who are entrepreneurs and having them affiliate their business with what Planned Parenthood is doing. They're just been so much like refining of it and it has been probably the most fulfilling thing I've done in my career as a chef in New York has been figuring out how to bring the community together and in this way that is sort of makes it all about what you guys are doing, but also celebrates the baking industry and my peers and also this city and soho and being downtown and being outside on a May afternoon. I think it's really this like beautiful, joyful expression of an institution. That for me is a joyful thing because of everything that you guys do.
Laura McQuade: Well and also your access point, the price point, to participate and you're like, look, I want this to be for as many people as possible. I want this to be for children to be able to come, I want that original, that $5 price point, and that's also a look into the rarefied world of restaurants and really getting a chance to actually participate in something like that, that may not always be available. We're deeply thankful that you're talking about our issues, but I think the whole way that you went about it is exactly what we're talking about because it sheds light in your own industry. That is notorious, as you've already described, it educates people in your community. It allows access to people to an experience that they might not have and learning about PP and that work that we do and it's just great.
Natasha Pickowicz: So eloquently put. Thank you.
Laura McQuade: That's exactly right. You know, as a restaurant group, we obviously participate in a lot of beautiful benefit that are at this completely inaccessible point where if you want to attend, you're spending thousands of dollars, which is great. I'm so glad things like that exist. But for me it was about, I wanted to make sure that my friends who are cooks and make $15 an hour would be able to come and feel like they participated in that moment. Literally it's for everybody. So you know, we're really, really excited and so honored to have built this relationship with you guys over the years. It's also two-way street too, you know, and being able to know that Altro is a 10 minute walk down this way and you guys are right here and this is where your headquarters are on Bleecker downtown is something that everybody knows where that is and it's a marker of this neighborhood and it's really important that we are very publicly allying ourselves with what it is that you do.
Laura McQuade: And it's so interesting because we'll get pushback from guests. Rarely, it's been really rare. We're lucky that the people who come to our restaurants are so wonderful, but we'll get pushback from people who are like, you're a restaurant. We don't want to know what you think. We don't care about what your values are, you just make us food like that. And you're like, well we're not a restaurant, we're people-
Natasha Pickowicz: A look of horror on Laura McQuade face.
Laura McQuade: I think that it's also important that we establish the humanity in our restaurants too as being about people with values that Stanford things and not being afraid to sort of put ourselves out there I mean at all, in fact the opposite, that it actually feels so essential that people know exactly what our values are and what we think is important.
Laura McQuade: It's been really incredible to also have this random idea about a bake sale and be so thoroughly supported by my community at work too. It makes me feel that we're all on the same page in terms of identifying our priorities and what we think.
Natasha Pickowicz: Absolutely. It's such an illusion and a false narrative. When I think about the person who said, "I'm just here to eat dinner, you're here to cook this food for me, I don't need this other experience." Well, that's how you end up where we are. There is no escape from, again, from injustice, from inequity. Just because you're eating in the restaurant that I don't know the meals, $250 a person doesn't mean that all those other things aren't happening. You shouldn't be shamed for doing so. But this idea that you can escape it, that you can escape the reality of the world and that the people are there solely for that purpose.
Natasha Pickowicz: I think that that's what intersectionality is all about. And our sisters in the Reproductive Justice Movement really taught us that a long time ago about intersectionality in healthcare or in life. You are not just a person who makes amazing dessert. There's so much more to you that you bring into your work every day that you bring into the restaurant and people should be thrilled to have the whole Natasha, not just this edited one small piece. And I think the more people can get comfortable with the whole person that everybody is, I think we would be in a really different place. And it's funny. I mean it's interesting to me how that does seem to make some people uncomfortable that they expect self censorship on some level. They feel uncomfortable if people make at a certain level, leaders are making themselves vulnerable.
Natasha Pickowicz: But I think for me it's a really good practice in empathy and understanding. But this was really beautiful. Thank you so much. I want to as is the Radio Cherry Bombe tradition, get into what they call the fast round of questions.
Laura McQuade: I'm a little nervous, but I'm ready.
Natasha Pickowicz: Okay. Favorite baked good.
Laura McQuade: A Brownie with icing. I was like, I don't know whether that's a thing, but like the dense chocolatey of a Brownie, but oh my God-
Natasha Pickowicz: But the looks okay.
Laura McQuade: I would eat icing out of the cannon. I would something Brownie with icing.
Natasha Pickowicz: Well, okay, so big sales chefs this year. I hope you're listening. If there's not a Brownie at this bake sale we're going to have problems. Okay. Brownie with icing check. Okay, so I love this one. If you are a form of birth control, which one would you be?
Laura McQuade: Oddly enough, I'm going to go with my own current form of birth control and I'm going to go with a tubal. For those of you who don't know that, I'm like, you know, I'm all in all the time. I am committed. So after I had my second child I was committed to having no more children. So if I couldn't be, I was just... I was in my favorite... I'm like, okay I know what I want, I know what I believe in and I'm willing to commit to it.
Natasha Pickowicz: I love that. Really? That's really syncs up their. Favorite go to snack.
Laura McQuade: Oh my God, I eat Lara bars because like peanut butter. Yes, it's a good one. It is a go to snack for me.
Natasha Pickowicz: I work in a restaurant so the snacking is kind of unceasing and it's just, it's so hard not to just be like all day long.
Laura McQuade: Yeah. I'm also addicted to nuts on the salty side.
Natasha Pickowicz: That would have been mine. Favorite ingredient to cook with. Do you Cook.
Laura McQuade: I do cook and I thought so we always play this game in my house. Like, what would you take to a deserted island? I think the things that you can do the most with are either eggs or potatoes. And if you could bring potatoes and eggs-
Natasha Pickowicz: All you need.
Laura McQuade: You can cook. There's so many things that you can do. What they do, what they can do are amazing. I was going with those staples of potato and egg.
Natasha Pickowicz: If you could only have potato prepared one way for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Laura McQuade: Oh, fries.
Natasha Pickowicz: Fries right?
Laura McQuade: Oh, I love fries.
Natasha Pickowicz: I feel like people who don't say fries are kind of like psychopath, right?
Laura McQuade: Don't trust anyone who doesn't say fries.
Natasha Pickowicz: Maybe chips, but you know. Okay. Every year at the bake sale, the Planned Parenthood spread of goodies it's like really amazing and they're always so many fun things.
Laura McQuade: Oh our swag.
Natasha Pickowicz: Is there a certain kind of swag that you think is like extra special? I love the chapstick, but-
Laura McQuade: I love the chapstick and I have it in our pink one, which is for our pack. And I have it in blue, which is our C3. But I love some of our cool T-shirts and some other partnerships. So I'm wearing one of my favorite T-shirts today. Laurie Simmons, amazing artists. Laurie Simmons did this for Planned Parenthood for our 100th anniversary in partnership with Millie. And then my other one is my don't fuck with us. Don't fuck without a shirt. Anything that we have that says it on our buttons, they just go like hotcakes.
Natasha Pickowicz: That was the first thing to go with the big sale last year I think.
Laura McQuade: It's a little sassy, but true. Grounded in fact. So anything that has that on that I just love.
Natasha Pickowicz: Okay. And then finally, very important. If you are trapped on a deserted island with any food celebrity, who would it be and why?
Laura McQuade: Does a food celebrity have to be alive?
Natasha Pickowicz: This is a fantasy deserted island. So no living dead.
Laura McQuade: Okay. I'm going to go old school on this one and I'm going to say Julia Child, right. I'm going to go with classic and also feminist. She is one seriously powerful woman, and so capable too. I mean she... I feel like if you were on a deserted island with her, she would be really pragmatic and would be like, okay, this is how we're going to process everything on the beach. And all of a sudden-
Natasha Pickowicz: Exactly. And then she will make the most amazing food out of nothing.
Laura McQuade: Do we ever cook in a souffle out of sand and bark? We don't know how, but we would have it.
Natasha Pickowicz: I'm like, take me to the deserted island if she's going to be there. I like to be stuck there with her.
Laura McQuade: For sure. And like she invented so much. The whole concept, like the food show and access for home cooking, like she used just a trailblazer.
Natasha Pickowicz: Completely agree.
Laura McQuade: I'm going there. I'm not a pearls woman, but man, she wore those pearls. Well, so it's okay.
Natasha Pickowicz: Great style. Thank you so much Laura. Okay. So to recap, the bake sale for Planned Parenthood in its third year at Café Altro Paradiso will be held on Sunday, May 19th from 11 to 3:00 PM. You can also buy tickets in advance, but you have to go visit the Caféaltroparadiso.com website. Also, encourage people to donate if they can't come to the bake sale like my parents very interested in also contributing even though they can't be in attendance. But you know, we look forward to seeing everybody there and reprising what feels like one of the most exciting kind of pastry days in the city. So thank you Laura.
Laura McQuade: Thank you Natasha. I can't think of a better way to spend a day than with Planned Parenthood and the best dessert in New York City.
Natasha Pickowicz: Thank you.
Laura McQuade: So making this experience for your customers, our patients, for people to really get to know, frankly, both of us and a lot of what's going on in the city. We are so thankful and we can't wait to see you on the 19th.
Natasha Pickowicz: Great. Thanks so much.
Kerry Diamond: Thank you to Natasha Pickowicz and Laura McQuade for today's interview and for the important work they do. Radio Cherry Bombe is a production of Cherry Bombe Media. Our show is edited, engineered, and produced by Jess Zeidman. Our theme song is All Fired Up by the band Tralala. Thanks for listening everyone. You’re the Bombe!