Introducing "Your Mama's Kitchen"

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Introducing 'Your Mama's Kitchen' with Michelle Obama"

Podcast Information:

• Title: IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson
• Host/Author: Higher Ground
• Episode: Introducing "Your Mama's Kitchen"
• Release Date: August 30, 2023

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1. Introduction to "Your Mama's Kitchen"

In the premiere episode of “Your Mama’s Kitchen,” host Michelle Norris introduces the concept of the podcast as a heartfelt exploration of how culinary traditions and family kitchens shape our identities and life philosophies. Michelle Obama joins Norris as the inaugural guest, offering an intimate glimpse into her upbringing and the profound impact of her family’s kitchen on her personal development.

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2. The Significance of 'Mama's Kitchen'

Michelle Norris sets the stage by emphasizing the kitchen as the "heartbeat of the household," a place where physical and spiritual nourishment intertwine. She shares her admiration for Michelle Norris’s friend, highlighting how gatherings around the kitchen table fostered meaningful conversations and lasting memories.

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3. Michelle Obama's Childhood Kitchen on Euclid Avenue

Michelle Obama reminisces about her childhood kitchen located at 7436 South Euclid Avenue. She describes the home as a two-family house, where her family lived upstairs while their great aunt and uncle resided downstairs. The kitchen was a compact, makeshift space originally intended as a bedroom, featuring a small sink and minimal storage:

Michelle Obama [06:24]: "7436 South Euclid. Spent all of my life in that kitchen... It was a tiny little room where we did everything."

She paints a vivid picture of the modest setup, including a narrow staircase leading to a cramped hallway and a converted kitchen space that doubled as a bedroom.

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4. Family Dynamics and Food Traditions

The kitchen table, adorned with a yellow checkered picnic tablecloth, served as the central hub for the family's daily activities. Michelle Obama recounts how this table witnessed everything from homework and bills to playful games and heartfelt conversations:

Michelle Obama [09:25]: "If that tablecloth could talk... the map of our lives."

She shares anecdotes about meal preparations, the significance of shared plates, and the unspoken rules that fostered respect and unity within the family.

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5. Cultural and Gender Roles

The conversation delves into the gender dynamics within Michelle Obama’s household. Her mother, though primarily a housewife, was adept at cooking while other female relatives took on additional responsibilities. Michelle Norris connects these dynamics to broader societal changes, questioning how evolving expectations for women influenced family interactions:

Michelle Obama [31:13]: "Every woman I knew in my family worked... There wasn't a conversation of more. The conversation was, how do we make sure our men can get something right?"

Michelle Obama reflects on the balance between tradition and the emerging women's movement, illustrating how her aunt's progressive attitudes introduced new perspectives into the family discourse.

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6. Memorable Recipes and Their Impact

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to cherished family recipes that hold deep emotional resonance for Michelle Obama. She elaborates on her mother's ability to create "high efficiency" meals, maximizing limited space and resources:

Michelle Obama [11:35]: "The table My mother created was a table of high efficiency... So much happened at that little table."

Two standout recipes are highlighted:

• Homemade Cakes: Symbolizing love and imperfection, these cakes represent the warmth and comfort of home.
• Red Rice: A vibrant dish passed down through generations, combining tomato-soaked rice with bacon, spicy sausage, and shrimp. This recipe embodies the rich cultural heritage and communal spirit of Michelle Obama's family:

Michelle Obama [40:24]: "Red rice is a rice that is steeped in tomato sauce... It’s so flavorful and it tastes great hot or it’s a great picnic kind of rice."

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7. Influence of Kitchen Upbringing on Adult Life

Michelle Obama articulates how her early experiences in the kitchen instilled values of resilience, integrity, and compassion. These lessons became the foundation for her academic and professional achievements, as well as her approach to motherhood and public service. She underscores the importance of love and quality interactions over material wealth:

Michelle Obama [42:21]: "The tools that I have for getting through... were imparted around that little table... It was the quality of the love in the space."

Her narrative emphasizes that the essence of a nurturing environment lies not in its physical attributes but in the emotional bonds and values cultivated within it.

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8. Conclusion and Future Episodes

As the episode wraps up, Michelle Norris invites listeners to engage with the podcast by sharing their own "Mama’s Kitchen" stories and recipes. She hints at exciting future guests, including prominent figures like Gayle King and Kerry Washington, promising a diverse range of culinary and life narratives.

Michelle Norris [45:37]: "Kitchens really do bring us so much more than just meals... We all know a little bit more about how Michelle Obama turned out to be such a special person now that we've learned about life inside her mama's kitchen."

The episode concludes with a heartfelt dedication to Tafari Campbell and acknowledgments to the production team, reinforcing the podcast's commitment to celebrating familial love and culinary heritage.

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Key Quotes:

• Michelle Obama [06:24]: "That's what kitchens do, you know, they can be small and big at the same time."

• Michelle Obama [09:25]: "If that tablecloth could talk... the map of our lives."

• Michelle Obama [31:13]: "Every woman I knew in my family worked... There wasn't a conversation of more."

• Michelle Obama [42:21]: "The tools that I have for getting through... were imparted around that little table... It was the quality of the love in the space."

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Final Thoughts:

"Introducing 'Your Mama's Kitchen'” serves as a poignant exploration of Michelle Obama’s roots, highlighting how the humble beginnings in her family kitchen shaped her into the influential figure she is today. The episode beautifully intertwines personal anecdotes with universal themes of love, resilience, and the enduring power of family traditions.

Listeners are encouraged to reflect on their own kitchen memories and recognize the profound impact these early experiences have on their lives. With Michelle Obama's heartfelt contributions, this episode sets a compelling tone for future conversations that promise to be both inspiring and deeply relatable.

Transcript

[Michelle Obama]

Hey there. I'm Michelle Obama, and I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for being a part of the Light podcast. It wouldn't be the same without you. And if you enjoyed my show, I have a feeling you're gonna love this brand new Audible original podcast from higher ground. It's called you'd Mama's Kitchen, and it's hosted by my dear, dear friend, Michelle Norris. For as long as I've known Michelle, she's been an absolute master in the kitchen. I have so many wonderful memories of her gathering our group of girlfriends around the table for unforgettable conversations that always leave us feeling nourished and inspired and warm. And don't even get me started on Michelle's chili. It's out of this world. And in this podcast, she's going to be sharing another one of her specialties, a good conversation. Each week, Michelle is going to talk to authors, actors, musicians, the most interesting people on the planet. And she's going to start each conversation with one simple request. Tell me about your Mama's Kitchen. And I just love this question because so much of American life starts in. In the kitchen. It's where we are nourished physically and spiritually. Some of my own best childhood memories involve food, friends, and family gathering in the kitchen, making our favorite dishes, talking, laughing, sharing stories along the way, making and sharing big meals was how we showed we cared, how we made sure we could make time to sit down and actually talk and laugh and sometimes even shed a tear or two. For so many of us, food is love, meals are home, and your Mama's Kitchen is at the core of it all. So I couldn't be more thrilled about this podcast. And to kick it off, the first episode features me. I had so much fun reminiscing with Michelle about my own Mama's kitchen back on Euclid Avenue. I just can't wait for you to hear this conversation. So stay tuned and if you like what you hear, subscribe to youo Mama's Kitchen. You can find it right now anywhere you get podcasts. This teeny, tiny little room was where we did everything. We grew up there. We became teenagers, adults in that small space. But it felt big to us because that's what kitchens do, you know, they can be small and big at the same time because we packed a lot into that house, into that kitchen.

[Michelle Norris]

Welcome to your Mama's Kitchen, the podcast where we explore how the food and culinary traditions of our youth shape who we become as adults. I'm Michelle Norris and I Am so glad you're here. It's great to be back in front of a microphone. That simple question, tell me about your mama's kitchen opens up all kinds of delicious memories, of course, because of the food, but also because the kitchen is usually the heartbeat of the household. So many important things happen there. The debates, the experiments, the arguments, the homework, the card games, the unpaid bills that sometimes stacked up on the kitchen table. It's the place where we spent time with the people we love the most. And all those meals and all those memories simmer inside us forever. All of it shapes who we become in interesting and sometimes surprising ways. Hey there.

[Michelle Obama]

Hey.

[Michelle Norris]

Thanks for coming into the studio.

[Michelle Obama]

From one Michel, we have Michelle squared here. Thanks for having me, babe.

[Michelle Norris]

I bet you recognize that voice. My very first guest on your mama's Kitchen hardly needs an introduction, but let's go ahead and do it anyway. Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama will forever be our forever first lady. As the first black woman to live in the White House, as the spouse of America's first black president. She's also a mother, a lawyer, an author, a sister, and a daughter. A fashion icon, in fact, an an outright icon, in part because she's a woman who knows how to speak her mind with that simple opening prompt. Tell me about your mama's kitchen. She was on board. She understood the power of that question because she's talked about the importance of building a supportive kitchen table of trusted family and friends all throughout her life. I'm so glad that she's with us on the show because it gives our listeners a chance to learn more about Michelle Obama's origin story and all the lessons she learned in her mama's kitchen. And as you'll hear, boy, was that a special place. It was a place filled with love and lifelong values of integrity, honesty, hard work. And when Michelle Obama wants a taste of home, we'll learn about the recipe that she craves. It's a southern dish, and it's delicious. And I'm guessing that you're gonna wanna try it in your own kitchen. So stay with us for the recipes for the kitchen wisdom and for a whole lot of laughter. I am so glad that we get to do this.

[Michelle Obama]

I know.

[Michelle Norris]

So when I had the idea for this podcast, your dear friend, I shared the idea with you because I trust you so much.

[Michelle Obama]

It was validating because it's a great idea.

[Michelle Norris]

Everything starts at the kitchen table.

[Michelle Obama]

Right there. Right there. It's the heart of every home, the center of everyone's life. That kitchen table I wrote about it in the light we carry, developing that kitchen table. So I was right there with you.

[Michelle Norris]

And I'm glad you're right there with me right now, right here with me in this moment. So tell me about your mama's kitchen on Euclid Avenue. What did that kitchen look like? Close your eyes and take me back there.

[Michelle Obama]

Oh. 7436 South Euclid. Spent all of my life in that kitchen. And just to describe the house, because it was a two family house, we lived upstairs, the Robinsons, and our landlords were my great aunt Robbie and Uncle Terry.

[Michelle Norris]

So they were right downstairs.

[Michelle Obama]

They were right downstairs. And I don't think initially the house was built to be a two family home because it was so small. I think the upstairs was supposed to be the upstairs. So the kitchen is not really a kitchen. It's sort of a makeshift kitchen. That's how small the apartment was. So to get up to our apartment, there was a side door and a very narrow staircase that led directly up to a small hallway. And right to the left was the kitchen, which was probably a bedroom at the time.

[Michelle Norris]

Ah. And it had been converted.

[Michelle Obama]

That had been converted. So it was tiny. Just a small sink for Micah's sink. That hard weight, you know, resin, Right, exactly. Little ridges on the side. Just a small little section where you could put the dish rack.

[Michelle Norris]

Yes.

[Michelle Obama]

To let the water.

[Michelle Norris]

No. Dishwasher.

[Michelle Obama]

Oh, no, no, no. Dishwasher.

[Michelle Norris]

Dishwasher. You and Craig were the dishwashers?

[Michelle Obama]

We were the dishwashers. There wasn't a lot of cabinet space because this was a bedroom. So there was the sink. I think there was a shelf over the sink where mom would put odds and ends, like Mercurior comb. You remember that medicine that you put.

[Michelle Norris]

On scars, the red medicine that they put on everything?

[Michelle Obama]

Exactly. You know, sort of like it had a little dropper. It was like the dropper I love.

[Michelle Norris]

Sort of like version of tussin.

[Michelle Obama]

Right. You put it on every injury. So that was sort of like a little medicine shelf. So there was that shelf and just a sink. Then there was a little doorway which probably was the closet of the bedroom that was turned into, like, a pantry. The refrigerator was in the closet because there was literally no room for it in the kitchen, which is how small this room was. So it was a jack leg kitchen, you know, but it made it.

[Michelle Norris]

They made it work.

[Michelle Obama]

It made it work. Right.

[Michelle Norris]

Did you eat in the kitchen or eat in the dining room?

[Michelle Obama]

There was no dining room. Oh, a dining room. What was that? We had no Dining room. You had the kitchen. There was one table, and it was probably a borrowed or used dining room table with four or five chairs around it. My mother put that plastic picnic tablecloth that you just wipe off, that you just wipe off. And it was yellow. Yellow, checkered. But that was there my entire life. So that tablecloth had a life of its own. Like, you knew where the cigarette that left the hole in one place. You could map out our childhood. The time you spilled Easter egg dye on that one spot. And that blue ink wouldn't come out of it. That tablecloth.

[Michelle Norris]

If that tablecloth could talk.

[Michelle Obama]

Right, the map of our lives. And what would sit on the tablecloth was a napkin holder with paper napkins, a salt and pepper shaker, and it was on, like, a mat. There was a clock on the wall. And the framing of the entry door told a story because we'd measure ourselves along that.

[Michelle Norris]

You had the little marks on the.

[Michelle Obama]

Wall, little markers of how tall we got the ledge. My father used it as Craig started to become better at basketball, to get him to jump higher. He would place coins or pennies on the ledge and. And he could get the coin if he could jump high. Oh, there was a phone, one of those princess phones you hung on the.

[Michelle Norris]

Wall with a long.

[Michelle Obama]

With the long curly Q cord, curly cue cord. And the bathroom was right off of the kitchen. And the only way you could get privacy in my house was to take the phone. If you were on the phone as a teenager, take the phone and stretch that cord into the bathroom and close the door. So, I mean, this teeny, tiny little room was where we did everything. I mean, the thing I marvel at is how small our home was and how much we packed into the teeny, tiny spaces that housed four people. We grew up there. We became teenagers, adults. My brother became 6 3, then 64 and 65 in that small space. But it felt big to us because that's what kitchens do, you know, they can be small and big at the same time. We were poor. When I described it, I was like, dag, we were poor.

[Michelle Norris]

But it wasn't a word that you would have applied to yourself. Never.

[Michelle Obama]

We were always very fortunate. We believed fortunate. Blessed is what we were. And we were. Because we packed a lot into that house, into that kitchen.

[Michelle Norris]

So tell me about the kind of table that your mother deliberately created. You know, partially with the food, but also with the other things that happened at that table. Cause a whole lot of business happens at the kitchen table.

[Michelle Obama]

Ooh, that's a good question. The table My mother created was a table of, I would say, high efficiency because so much happened at that little table that was like the, the central operating system's place in the house. You baked bread, made pie crust, you did bills, you did your homework at that table. You filled out the trading stamps. You remember when you had.

[Michelle Norris]

Oh yes, S and H, S and H. Trading stamps.

[Michelle Obama]

Right. When you had collected them all, that became the central place where you would lick the stamps, put them in the books and figure out what you could buy.

[Michelle Norris]

I have not thought about that in so long. Those books with those little grids.

[Michelle Obama]

Yeah, you know, we dyed Easter eggs there. It was a place of efficiency because my mom didn't have a lot of space to do her mom work, to pay bills. All of that had to happen at that one table. And when I think about the fact that she got so much done homework, overseeing things. Laughter. Visits happened at the kitchen table.

[Michelle Norris]

So when people came to visit, that's where they would get.

[Michelle Obama]

Because she's cook and if you had an uncle and cousins, everybody wanted to be there with her while she was frying chicken or getting something ready. So I don't care how many people were there, we were all sitting around that kitchen table so we could be a part of the conversation. I played jacks on that floor. Our friend, my girlfriend's from grammar school, who walked home and had lunch at my house. We would have anywhere from seven to eight little girls there during lunch hour to eat our little bag lunches and then to play jacks on the floor. The entire day it felt like was spent in that room in the kitchen.

[Michelle Norris]

So if we could go back in time and someone marched into your family refrigerator and threw open the doors, what story would that refrigerator tell?

[Michelle Obama]

Oh, it would probably tell the story of a working class family. And our stuff lasted a long time. You could open the refrigerator, but you couldn't just get what you wanted. You couldn't afford to just eat all of anything. You know, you'd have a bag of Oreo cookies for like a month.

[Michelle Norris]

Yeah, because you know, two or three at a time.

[Michelle Obama]

Two or three. I remember the time, this is when I thought my mother was magical. I was asking for a pre dinner snack, which was rare. And I was begging her. I was like, I'm starving. Dinner's gonna take forever. Can I just get an Oreo? And she said, okay, you can get one Oreo. She was in the living room unusually. So I went back into the kitchen. I was like, she's not looking. I'm gonna get two Oreos. So I ate one and then I came up with a one. And I sat there and I ate my one. And she said, I thought I told you to only get one. I was like, how did you know? She said, because you have two Oreo breath. I was like, whoa.

[Michelle Norris]

She had eyes in the back of her head.

[Michelle Obama]

She's a witch.

[Michelle Norris]

She probably heard you in the package.

[Michelle Obama]

She probably, you know, I probably took longer than I thought I would. You know kids.

[Michelle Norris]

She just knew also, no child is going to take. What child takes just one Oreo?

[Michelle Obama]

No one does that. I did from then on.

[Michelle Norris]

There's another thing that often happened in kitchens like ours when we were little, and that's hair. Saturday night for so many little black girls was the night we got our hair done. Our mothers would sit us down at the kitchen sink to wash our hair, condition it and comb it out. And because black girls have a head full of curly, kinky, fuzzy, coily, reach for the sky hair, that meant the whole ordeal could take hours. When our hair was braided and plaited and straightened or curled, there was a whole lot of fidgeting. Ooh, A whole lot of fidgeting. And often a few tears. Now we sure look cute when it was all done, but woo. What we had to go through at the kitchen sink, it was a ritual that frankly brings up all kinds of complex memories for a whole lot of brown women of a certain age. Was your mother a kitchen beautician?

[Michelle Obama]

Oh, she was. She was. And it was so painful. We just. There was sort of the battle with hair.

[Michelle Norris]

Were you tender headed?

[Michelle Obama]

I had so much hair. It was just a lot of it and it took hours to comb through it. And, you know, and then it just was. It was not a comfortable place for Micah sink. So I would lay on one edge of it and your head would be hitting the back of it and you'd.

[Michelle Norris]

Have a. I'm just talking about it. I can feel that thing on the.

[Michelle Obama]

Back of my neck just hurt. And you couldn't squirm. And you were just, you know, it took forever because it was just sink water, right? It wasn't some gushing hair.

[Michelle Norris]

High pressure.

[Michelle Obama]

It wasn't high pressure. So it would take forever to get the hair wet enough to get the soap in there. And it was a well of balsam that stung your eyes. Oh, man. Hair doing day with just. My father would leave the room. Craig. Nobody wanted to be back there with the two of us while I was fighting and crying and mad and she was mad. And then they had the hot comb on the stove.

[Michelle Norris]

You know, people may be listening to this and wondering, what is a hot comb? So a hot comb was a wooden.

[Michelle Obama]

Handled, metal comb that you would heat up, usually by fire, and it would straighten. You'd put it on with a little grease. And the combination of the hair grease and the warmth would be like. You would literally be ironing your hair out straight. Which is the pain of trying to follow somebody else's notion of beauty, because our hair is beautifully curly and magical in that way. But, you know, if you raised in America, you were trying to tame it. You were trying to tame it and turn it into something that it wasn't, which required huge amounts of heat and grease to make it happen. And you would be pulling on every strand of hair to get it as straight as possible so that it would blow in the wind and fluff about. And that took hours. My mother quickly sent me to the neighbor lady who had the beautician shop in her basement. She was a. Was across the alley from us. And the minute my mother found out that, oh, Ms. Phillips, that Ms. Phillips did hair, I think if I was 5 years old, she sent me across the alley with a little wad of money and said, Let Ms. Phillips do it. So I started going to the hairdresser when I was five, six years old, just to stop that battle between me and my mother. But yes, the kitchen was my first beauty salon.

[Michelle Norris]

We also had in our neighborhood a basement beautician that we used to go to. And she could do in maybe hour, 45 minutes, but would take like days, three hours, you know, for my mom.

[Michelle Obama]

We were all grateful for Ms. Phillips.

[Michelle Norris]

Tell me what dinner was like. Like an average Tuesday night dinner in the Robinson household.

[Michelle Obama]

Dinner was. Dinner was an expectation. I wanna say that because when I hear about people who don't eat dinner together, I can't envision that. I can't envision when people are too.

[Michelle Norris]

Busy to all sit down together, right?

[Michelle Obama]

Where everybody, one person eats at one time. Some people stand up eating. Oh, you would never be allowed to stand up and eat. You had to sit at the table and our little poor table. But there was a process, There was a ritual of dinner time, same time every night, about same time. The only time we changed stuff up. Cause my father worked shifts, right? So if he was in a shift where we might have to eat a little earlier to eat with him. Otherwise we didn't eat with him. But we had dinner at the same time. And we all four of us sat together, we'd say our Prayer. God is great, God is good. Or, you know, sometimes the prayer would change, but we would always bow our heads and say a prayer. My mom never considered herself a good cook because she grew up in a big family with lots of sisters, and everybody had a set of chores. She was always the cleaner. She had other sisters who cooked, but she could cook. But she was a Betty Crocker cookbook cook, you know?

[Michelle Norris]

Okay, tell me what that means. That big Betty Crocker red and white Betty Crocker cookbook cook.

[Michelle Obama]

She cooked recipes, and she was less. Throw a little bit of here, dash of there. She operated off of recipes, and I think her ideas of meals came from there.

[Michelle Norris]

So meatloaf and mashed potatoes, roast beef.

[Michelle Obama]

With rice and gravy, spaghetti and meatballs. When she felt fun and free and Italian, you know, that was. That was our notion of traveling the world when we had spaghetti and meatballs. Right.

[Michelle Norris]

With that Parmesan.

[Michelle Obama]

Oh, yeah, the shaken Parmesan. Was that Parmesan. I don't know.

[Michelle Norris]

We're not gonna denigrate. We don't want a particular corporate entity. But it did have an interesting consistency. Now that we had. It's real Parmesan.

[Michelle Obama]

You know, that. That's not what Parmesan is like at all. Oh, you also had some kind of Tabasco sauce, because my dad liked hot sauce.

[Michelle Norris]

Did your dad cook? Did Frasier Robinson cook?

[Michelle Obama]

Occasionally. He cooked like a lot of men, because my husband's the same way. He can cook, but. How many times does he cook? Not much. But, yes, my father Obama cooks. Oh, yeah. Yes, he. Yeah. Shoot. Anybody who can read and has sense and taste buds can cook. Okay. Follow a recipe. You can cook. So for all the men out there who swear they can't cook, if you can read, you can cook.

[Michelle Norris]

And they usually cook when fire is involved, like some barbecue or something.

[Michelle Obama]

But Barack had recipes, and my father did, too. He made this wonderful peppered steak because he also. Because he went to the Army, I think for a period of time, he learned how to cook some things in the Army. He made a really beautiful apple pie, homemade apple pie. And I don't know why that was.

[Michelle Norris]

You're a pie person.

[Michelle Obama]

To this day, I am a pie person. And my dad made this wonderful deep dish. He would make his own crust, but he didn't cook often because he was the primary breadwinner and he was a shift worker. But when he cooked, it was special. And we all gathered round to watch dad peel the apples and make his little, you know, concoction to make the apples sweet. It was a very special thing when dad cooked.

[Michelle Norris]

When I would visit Chicago, there was. I noticed, among my aunts and uncles that lived in Chicago, that there was almost like an underground culinary economy. They wouldn't call it a culinary. That's a word that they would not use. But there was a sort of kitchen economy where people were doing things out of their kitchen as currency almost. Cause maybe they couldn't pay someone, but they could send over a pie or send over a cake. You would say thank you with something from the kitchen. Did you ever see that in your own neighborhood, you know?

[Michelle Obama]

Yes. But what I remember, with every meal, it seemed like there was this big leftover tradition, takeaway tradition, because you had to cook enough, but then everybody had to get a plate right afterwards. And getting the plate just seemed like it was such a big deal, right?

[Michelle Norris]

No, no, not that plate.

[Michelle Obama]

Get your plate. And did you get a plate?

[Michelle Norris]

Yeah.

[Michelle Obama]

And if you get in trouble, if you didn't get a plate, because, well, how am I going to. We have too many ribs. Did everybody get a plate? And then the aluminum foil would come out, right?

[Michelle Norris]

Yes.

[Michelle Obama]

And the paper plates, you know, and there would be the chow line to make your leftover plate. But it was such a big deal. And I think people felt like, I cooked all this food, and we can't waste it.

[Michelle Norris]

And it was also a sign of respect.

[Michelle Obama]

It was definitely a sign of respect because if you didn't take somebody's potato salad and some aunts, you didn't want their, you know, their takeaway. We had one Aunt Carolyn, may she rest in peace. But all my cousins, if they hear this, will understand. Whenever she cooked, we were very disappointed.

[Michelle Norris]

Oh, no.

[Michelle Obama]

Because Aunt Carolyn, who never had kids, my mom's oldest sister, and she lived with my grandfather, which was even more annoying, because my grandfather was an amazing cook. Southside. Southside was known to cook throughout the day.

[Michelle Norris]

You know, if your name is Southside, of course you're a good cook.

[Michelle Obama]

He was just that. He's a jazz listener. He was the grandfather with. The house was filled with music, and he was always cooking barbecue up some ribs. But if you stayed and played cards long enough, he might just go in the back and fry some chicken wings and make some milkshakes as, like, a midnight snack. So that's who Southside was. Right. So if you went over to Southside's house and Carolyn had cooked, the kids would just. All the kids would be like, no.

[Michelle Norris]

We'Re on a podcast so people can't see what you did with your head.

[Michelle Obama]

But you just, like, just roll your head. It's like, no, not Carolyn. And your mom would be, shh, don't say anything. You know, don't be rude. One day we were over there, the cousins. We still talk about this. You know what she made liver and onions for company for a family meal.

[Michelle Norris]

I mean, that's what you make.

[Michelle Obama]

Maybe that's the punishment dinner. Right?

[Michelle Norris]

That's not dinner company.

[Michelle Obama]

That's the dinner that you don't. You walk home from school and you can smell it, and it's like liver. Right. Carolyn made liver.

[Michelle Norris]

So I actually like liver and onions.

[Michelle Obama]

But I did not that way. You were a rare child, but you.

[Michelle Norris]

Got to cook it or otherwise. Like shoelace.

[Michelle Obama]

No child in our family like liver. Right. It's not what you went to Southside's house for. So, yes, we never took her leftovers. And you would be insulted not to take home. Who's going to take home liver and onions? We'd be like, mom, do not get leftovers because we are not eating this again. So our currency was. Was shared food. Right.

[Michelle Norris]

And that is an act of love. Let me take a plate.

[Michelle Obama]

Yes, indeed. Yeah.

[Michelle Norris]

And there was always a little plate for somebody who couldn't come too elderly, you know, too infirm. And make sure to send a plate home to.

[Michelle Obama]

Yeah. Cause it was really. Yeah. We couldn't loan people money. You know, you. You things.

[Michelle Norris]

Love.

[Michelle Obama]

Food is love. Acts of kindness because you couldn't afford anything else. So, yes, that was our neighborhood, our family. It was all about the food, for sure.

[Michelle Norris]

Stay with us for more of my conversation with Michelle Obama. That's coming up after this short break.

[Unknown]

And now it's time to share our Maker's Mark custom cocktail recipe inspired by today's guest, former first lady Michelle Obama. This special segment is presented by Maker's Mark. During my conversation with Michelle Obama, I was really taken by what she said about how the kitchen can be small but big at the same time. Her mama's kitchen on the south side of Chicago was a tiny, makeshift space, yet it worked. No matter the size or complexity, the kitchen table can hold a great weight in our lives. And the same thing holds true for cocktails. It doesn't take a lot of extravagant or splashy ingredients to make a great tasting cocktail. All you really need is a few things you probably already have and a great bourbon. This inspired recipe has simple ingredients, but still packs a lot of flavor. It even leaves you with a delightful bit of fizz. And who doesn't love A cocktail with a little fizz. That's why we're calling it the Bourbon Fizz. Now, let's get to the good stuff. The ingredients to make this recipe, you will need two parts Maker's Mark bourbon, three to four fresh mint leaves, preferably still on the stem, one part fresh lemon juice, one half part simple syrup. That's a one to one ratio of sugar and water, two part sparkling water, some ice cubes, a lemon wil, and a sprig of mint for garnish. You always have to have that garnish. Now the instructions in a cocktail shaker. Gently muddle the fresh mint leaves to help release their flavors. Not too much, just enough so you get that aroma. Add Maker's Mark bourbon, always Maker's Mark fresh lemon juice and simple syrup to the shaker. Fill the shaker with ice cubes and shake vigorously until the whole thing is thoroughly chilled. Strain the mixture into a glass that's already filled with ice. Top off the glass with sparkling water to add a refreshing splash of fizz. And then garnish with fresh mint and a lemon wheel for some extra flair. There you have it. The Bourbon Fizz. Raise a glass to toast today's guest with this simple yet delicious drink. And thank you so much to Maker's Mark for sponsoring this custom cocktail recipe. Produced by Acast Creek, Maker's Mark is the perfect full flavored bourbon to use in this recipe. The taste is sweet with a balance of oak, vanilla and fruity essences. You could feel that spice mixing along with the sweeter flavors. It pairs extremely well with all the other ingredients. Hope you'll enjoy it. Maker's Mark makes their bourbon carefully, so please enjoy it that way. Maker's Mark Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey 45% alcohol by volume Copyright 2023 Maker's Mark Distillery Incorporated, Loretto, Kentucky. If you'd like to make this recipe yourself, and I hope you do, check out my Instagram ichellenorris to get the full breakdown. That's two underscores.

[Michelle Norris]

That's Michelle M I C H E.

[Unknown]

L E Norris N O R R.

[Michelle Norris]

I S We grew up in an interesting era where there was a collision of cultures. The women's movement was really starting to explode when we were in junior high and high school, and I've always wondered what that meant for a generation of women who were conditioned with certain expectations in life. And then suddenly a generation right behind them was coming up and saying, we can be more. And what wasn't said, but somehow was maybe implied, is you should be wanting more too. And I wonder if that debate found its way into your household at all. And do you, do you remember that at all?

[Michelle Obama]

You know, it's interesting because it's sort of yes and no. The no part is because like a lot of black households, the women were the matriarch earners. My father's generation, he was the breadwinner in our family. He had a steady city job. My mother stayed home until we went to high school. She was a housewife. But that was unusual because every other woman in my life, aunts, grandmothers, everybody worked. My great grandmother, my mother's grandmother, was the primary breadwinner.

[Michelle Norris]

And they were working out of necessity. They worked out of necessity, not because of self actualization.

[Michelle Obama]

Right. And also because men couldn't be guaranteed steady work. Unions kept them out of trades jobs. So it was rare that they could earn a regular enough income to support a family. So every woman I knew in my family worked. So there was that kind of, well, what are we fighting for? We're already on the job, doing it all. There wasn't a conversation of more. The conversation was, how do we make sure our men can get something right? But generationally, the aunts that I was closest to, who was my father's youngest sister, she was only 10 years older than me, right? But I was very close to her. And she was one of the first people I knew that went to college. She definitely at the kitchen table, I would see the battles between my aunt and her mother.

[Michelle Norris]

And it was generational, generational.

[Michelle Obama]

You know, my aunt, she was of the movement on all different fronts, how you wore your hair. She was the first woman in our family to wear her hair in a big Afro. She went to college, she studied African dance, and she brought new ideas. And she was more critical of her mother's way of being, which was more traditional. But my grandmother would go to work and then she would come home and start making dinner.

[Michelle Norris]

Second shift, second chef, second shift.

[Michelle Obama]

My aunt used to bristle at that, bristle at what she probably perceived as a subservient way of being to her father, my grandfather. She would challenge the system in ways she was frustrated by her mother and her sort of backwards ways. She would come to our dinner table where my mother was more of her contemporary, and there would be the discussions about what she was frustrated with in her household versus what she saw for herself. So I guess that's the long way of saying yes, those conversations started to happen around the kitchen table. But I didn't have to have those conversations with my mother, you know, Being a woman means you do it all. You gonna cook and clean and.

[Michelle Norris]

But that do it all thing is interesting because when we were young, that was still the message. Yes, women should go to the workplace. They should climb the corporate ladder. They should get jobs that were normally reserved for men, and then they should come home and take care of the family. Also, it was this sort of. You have to have it all. And do you remember Angelique?

[Michelle Obama]

Yes. That perfume. That perfume, that ridiculous. That's where the song came from. Me, because I know that I didn't know the song other than that commercial.

[Michelle Norris]

Was that song made for that commercial, or was it actually brown with the bacon?

[Michelle Obama]

I don't know. Try it out with a pen. And never let them, Let them know.

[Michelle Norris]

Never let him forget he's the man.

[Michelle Obama]

Cause I'm a woman by Jolie. Right on. It's stupid.

[Michelle Norris]

I hated that song. I hate that ad. I've actually played with trying to go back and figure out who's the ad company that created that ad. In my mind, it was a bunch of men who came up with it because remember the woman, she was all dressed all sexy and everything and taking off her clothes and doing all this. And I thought, that's a bill of goods. They were just trying to hold on to the idea that woman would still cook in the kitchen and bring home while she was also burning and bringing home a pinto.

[Michelle Obama]

Well, we, you know, we're not beyond those arguments, you know, those challenges with gender roles we still struggle with. When women say, I want to have it all, it's still the remnants of that. What does having it all mean? Because you can't have it all, nor should that ever be a goal. But I think it's still the fragments of that falsehood that was sold to us.

[Michelle Norris]

Breakfast. Were you a big breakfast family?

[Michelle Obama]

Me? Michelle was not. Everybody else was, and they thought I was.

[Michelle Norris]

What did you have against breakfast?

[Michelle Obama]

I was kind of a picky eater. I didn't like any breakfast anything. Picky eater who ate everything all the time, thought I was crazy. We had big breakfasts because my brother, he's a growing athlete.

[Michelle Norris]

Yeah.

[Michelle Obama]

So it was everything. Cereal followed by scrambled or fried eggs followed by lots of toast and bacon and link sausage. But every now and then we'd get the patty sausage. So breakfast was big. You know, I was at a time my mother tried to force me to eat breakfast, but I was really stubborn. I didn't like bacon. I hated eggs. I only started liking eggs. I didn't like bacon, sausage. All of the breakfast so what did I eat? Peanut butter and jelly every morning until I went to college. Really?

[Michelle Norris]

That was your.

[Michelle Obama]

That was my go to.

[Michelle Norris]

Was that out of protest? I'm just not going to eat with y'all that much.

[Michelle Obama]

And then my mom. I really like peanut butter and jelly. It was sort of a compromise that I made with my mother because I thought, well, it's got peanuts, protein, a little bit of oil. Nothing's wrong with bread. If we're having toast, why can't I have it in a sandwich form? And jelly. Everybody was having jelly on their toast. Let me just put it on my peanut butter. She gave up. And I literally ate peanut butter and jelly every morning for most of my life, literally until I was in college. That's when I sort of started liking eggs. So that's what I mean by. Everybody else in the whole household, on the whole planet love breakfast food, except for Michelle Robinson. So I despised breakfast. I. It was just.

[Michelle Norris]

But you like breakfast now.

[Michelle Obama]

Oh, yeah. I'm big into all of it now. Oh, give me eggs Benedict. Any eggs, anyway. But peanut butter and jelly. Until I was into my 20s.

[Michelle Norris]

Do you still sneak off and have.

[Michelle Obama]

A peanut butter and jelly and jelly? I think I kind of OD'd on it. I don't. I don't do it anymore. If I sit here and think about it, I think, yeah, that would be nice. But don't keep it around. Because also, Malia was allergic to peanuts.

[Michelle Norris]

No peanuts. So there was no peanuts in the house.

[Michelle Obama]

We tested the theory. We didn't believe she was really allergic because the babysitter saw her have the allergic reaction. So my worst parenting move was when I decided on my own that she really wasn't allergic. Cause I didn't. Nobody in our family was allergic to peanuts. Barack and I together forced her to test it out, and she was. She was maybe 3, and she was like, no, Mom, I really don't think. I'm. I'm like, nah, come on, kid. It's just peanut butter. And we made her try a big spoonful. Luckily, her allergic reaction was digestive, so.

[Michelle Norris]

She didn't break out knives or have an anaphylaxis.

[Michelle Obama]

She just threw up right on me, which was, thank God. And Barack and I looked at ourselves with our peanut butter going, oh, well, we shouldn't have done that.

[Michelle Norris]

You just admitted that in front of a microphone.

[Michelle Obama]

I did. We. You know, we did. We force fed her peanut butter, and until she threw up, and she was like, yeah, I'm allergic. So. So from then on, we stopped Having peanut butter in our house. I haven't had peanut butter in a while.

[Michelle Norris]

One of the best things about this journey that I'm about to go on with all of you in this podcast, your Mama's Kitchen, is what we are going to hear next. Every week, I will ask guests to share a recipe or a technique or something special that comes from or is inspired by their mama's kitchen or the food they grew up with. These recipes will cover a full array of flavors. Sweet, salty, fatty, healthy, decadent. And everything in between. Because Michelle Obama is so generous, she shared two things that take her down memory lane.

[Michelle Obama]

So when I go home, if I ask my mom to cook anything, there are a couple of things that taste like home. Her homemade cakes. Because she used to bake us our birthday cakes each year. And.

[Michelle Norris]

And she did that even in the White House.

[Michelle Obama]

She tried to, but she felt like the ovens weren't right. And there's something different about a homemade cake. Like we lived in the White House. Pastry chefs Susie Lover. Still the best. But there's something about professional cakes that are too dense, they're too solid, they're too perfect. A homemade cake is moist and it's looser. Right. The cake itself, it's just. And it's got a crustiness on top. The imperfection of it is what makes it good, especially around the edge. Yeah, yeah. That was my mom's cakes and she did chocolate for me, of course. I am a devotee to chocolate red velvet from my brother. So getting her to do a homemade cake, that's one. And then one dish that feels very much like home, which was a hand me down recipe from our South Carolina elders who were great cookers. And my father's mother learned how to cook this dish and my father loved it so much. My grandmother taught my mother. And it's something called red rice.

[Michelle Norris]

Red rice.

[Michelle Obama]

Red rice is a rice that is steeped in tomato sauce, not runny, but where the tomato mixture soaks it up, right? So that the white rice becomes red. Then in that you add bacon, a spicy kind of sausage, and shrimp. But it's not creole.

[Michelle Norris]

It's really just like a jambalaya.

[Michelle Obama]

It's not a jambalaya and it's drier, but it's so flavorful and it tastes great hot or it's a great picnic kind of rice where you can serve it cold or warm, and it tastes better over time. The longer it's set in the refrigerator, the better it tastes. So it's the kind of rice when it's in there. You come and get a scoop. Even when it's cold, you don't even want to warm it up. You just go back and eat it. Red rice feels like home, and it feels like big home, like way back home, like the southern part of home for us.

[Michelle Norris]

It sounds delicious. Sausage, sliced.

[Michelle Obama]

Or is it the patty sausage? All of it cut up into bits, so you get little bits, chunks of it, different sizes, you know, so it's sort of crumbled by hand. Not cut too finely.

[Michelle Norris]

Not like a jambalaya. You usually get a disc, like a link sausage.

[Michelle Obama]

No, this is a patty. More of a spicy patty. Now, I'm not sure how much of my mother's recipe is a take on the original, but this was how my mom cooked it. And when I go home, I'm either gonna ask her for a cake or red rice.

[Michelle Norris]

Red rice. All right, Now I'm gonna figure out how to make this red rice.

[Michelle Obama]

Yeah.

[Michelle Norris]

Next time you come over, I'm gonna serve it.

[Michelle Obama]

Yeah, we'll share. That's home for me.

[Michelle Norris]

We have spent a delicious bit of time talking about your kitchen. How has it influenced you?

[Michelle Obama]

Oh, wow.

[Michelle Norris]

Michelle Obama that we know now, the forever first lady, how is she influenced by all the things that she saw and experienced in that little old kitchen on Euclid Avenue?

[Michelle Obama]

Well, all of it happened there because the tools that I have for getting through that keep me upright, that have gotten me through a really interesting life journey that I could have never expected, that led me out of the south side into some of the finest universities that I never thought I could compete in, let alone thrive in, Led me through a career in law, through a career in nonprofits, helped me become the mother that I am and gave me the resilience to stand by the first black president and try to be an equally impactful first lady. All of that, it was imparted around that little table with that yellow checkerboard plastic tablecloth as my mom did dishes on that formica sink and talked to us little girls as we played Jack on that linoleum floor. The conversations around my household about fairness and honesty and how to be a person in this world, how to treat others, the compassion that all happened around the table, either by spoken word or story or just watching my father pay the bills every week at that table. The humor that I have, my ability to tell stories and laugh at myself and laugh at the world, it happened at that table. Those stories happen there in that little bitty kitchen. And that's one of the reasons why I tell Parents today, when they think about how do you raise a whole human being, I remind them that it has nothing to do with stuff. It doesn't have anything to do with the size of the house or the depth of the kitchen counter or whether you have the right kind of stove or oven. We had none of it. We had so little. This stuff wasn't was the quality of the love in the space. And I still believe that that's true. And we have lived in some of the grandest homes that you can see. But when I think about what I want to teach my girls, it reverts back to those messages I got in that little bitty kitchen. That was the power of my parents. Love that consistency, the quality of the interactions. That's what it means to be a parent. That's how you instill something worthwhile for your kids. Yeah, that's what my kitchen table, my kitchen was for me.

[Michelle Norris]

I can see how much that means to you and how much it still lives inside you.

[Michelle Obama]

For sure.

[Michelle Norris]

I have loved talking to you. I always love talking to you.

[Michelle Obama]

Sweet.

[Michelle Norris]

I've loved talking to you about this in particular. I think there have been a lot of life lessons here today.

[Michelle Obama]

I think it's an important question. It's such a valuable way to reflect on one's life. This is start at that kitchen table.

[Michelle Norris]

It's kind of a rear view mirror. We're looking backwards so we can figure out how to order our steps now.

[Michelle Obama]

Amen.

[Michelle Norris]

And the kitchen table is an important space in our lives today. Thanks for sitting down with me.

[Michelle Obama]

Thanks for having me, babe.

[Michelle Norris]

Kitchens really do bring us so much more than just meals. The Robinson family's itty bitty Chicago kitchen is a great example of that. There was plenty of food, but the most important items on the menu weren't the kinds of things that you find at the farmer's market or the grocery store. Unconditional love, honesty, loyalty, integrity, and the kind of laughter you feel deep down in your soul. We all know a little bit more about how Michelle Obama turned out to be such a special person now that we've learned about life inside her mama's kitchen. And best of all, we all get to share a little bit of Marian Robinson's brand of home cooked love. You'll find a link to a recipe for the red rice Michelle Obama craves when she wants a taste of home on our show page and on my Instagram account. We hope you decide to try it out in your kitchen. And when you do, we want to hear about it. Share your pictures your feedback, your own family spin on red rice or your thoughts on this special conversation and messages about the important of building a supportive kitchen table in your own life. Now remember, use the hashtag your Mama's kitchen on Instagram or wherever you post. We'd love to see all of it. Thanks so much for being with us as we launch this new show. We've got so much more in store for you in coming weeks, including conversations with Gayle King, Andy Garcia, Dee Nice W, Kamau Bell, Harry Kondabolu, Abby Wambach and Glennon Doyle and Kerry Washington. Those are just the start. We hope you'll make your Mama's Kitchen a part of your regular podcast diet. We are dedicating this episode to the life and beautiful legacy of Tafari Campbell. We will miss you, we'll miss your food, we'll miss your smile. And this week's special thanks go to Clean cuts in Washington, D.C. phil DeRosa and Anthony Esposito with TPS Audio on Martha's Vineyard. Phil's looking at me right now as I'm reading this. Crystal Carson and Melissa Winter Melissa Baer with say what? Media and good ear music supervision for their help in getting the music you will hear at the end of these episodes. That's 504 by the Soul Rebels. Love it. Okay, that's it for now. I'm Michelle Norris. Come back next week to see what we're serving up. Until then, be bountiful.

[Unknown]

This has been a Higher Ground and Audible original produced by Higher Ground Studios. Producers for your Mama's Kitchen are Natalie Wren and Sonia Tun. Sound design and engineering from Andrew Epen and Roy Baum. Production support from Angel Carreras and Julia Murray. Higher Ground Audio's editorial assistants are Jen11, and Camila Thurdekoose. Executive producers for Higher Ground are Nick White, Mookda Mohan, Dan Fearman and Michelle Norris. Executive producers for Audible are zola Mashariki, Nick D'Angelo and Anne Hepperman. The show's closing song is 504 by the Soul Rebels. Special thanks to Joe Paulson, Melissa Baer and Angela Peluso. Head of Audible Studios Zola Mashariki Chief Content Officer Rachel Giazza Copyright 2023 by Higher Ground Audio, LLC, LLC. Sound recording Copyright 2023 by Higher Ground Audio, LLC. Higher Ground.