J. Kenji López-Alt, Ann Powers, and Khatumu (REBROADCAST)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Live Wire with Luke Burbank
Episode: J. Kenji López-Alt, Ann Powers, and Kutumu (Rebroadcast)
Recorded: August 2025 | Rebroadcast Date: June 5, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of Live Wire presents an eclectic blend of culinary exploration, music journalism, and alternative folk. Luke Burbank hosts conversations with chef and food writer J. Kenji López-Alt, legendary music critic Ann Powers, and introduces a moving live performance by rising singer-songwriter Kutumu. The episode features discussions on Seattle's teriyaki culture, sobriety in the restaurant industry, the complex legacy of Joni Mitchell, and memorable concert stories from the audience.

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Key Segments and Highlights

1. "The Best News We’ve Heard All Week"

[05:24–09:31]

• Nuns Spreading Joy in Brazil:
  Sisters Marizel Casiano and Marisa De Paula, known for working with troubled youth, go viral after beatboxing and dancing on a local TV show.

  • Quote: "This nun is going—like the deacon host gets up and they start dancing. And it is so full of joy and glorious." – Elena Passarello [06:39]

• Burger King Grad Receives a Windfall:
  Mikael Baker, a high school graduate from Dacula, Georgia, works at Burger King on graduation night, inspiring a customer to start a GoFundMe which raises nearly $200,000 for his education.

  • Quote: "Mikael Baker being rewarded for his service to his friends at Burger King. That's the best news that I..." – Luke Burbank [09:32]

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2. Interview: J. Kenji López-Alt – Chef, Food Scientist & Podcaster

[10:36–26:38]

Seattle Teriyaki Scene

• Kenji’s Teriyaki Quest

  • Exploring nearly every teriyaki spot in Seattle (30+ out of about 90).
  • Origins of Seattle-style chicken teriyaki, invented by Toshi, a Japanese immigrant in the 1970s.
  • Teriyaki shops’ evolution into multicultural, immigrant-run businesses with fusion menus.
  • Quote: "Teriyaki as we know it in the U.S. chicken teriyaki was invented in Seattle by a Japanese immigrant in the 70s. Toshi. You can still—he still cooks." – Kenji López-Alt [11:25]

• Being Recognized When Dining

  • Fans approach Kenji for recommendations; he shares the mutually beneficial dynamic.
  • Quote: "It's a really nice self feeding cycle...The more you share information with people, the more people are like, oh, you should check out this territory." – Kenji López-Alt [14:08]

Sobriety and the Restaurant Industry

[17:08–19:49]

• Kenji discusses how choosing sobriety impacted his career and the shifting culture in food service toward supporting non-drinkers and mental health.
  • Quote: "I don't think there's ever been a better time to be a non drinker...Every restaurant has a really robust, really good non alcoholic cocktail program, a non alcoholic wine and beer program." – Kenji López-Alt [19:03]

The Podcast: "The Recipe" with Deb Perlman

[19:49–21:30]

• Exploring contrasting approaches to home recipes; one episode featured broccoli cheese soup—a polarizing favorite.
  • Quote: "Hers is mostly broccoli seasoned with a little cheese, and mine is basically just like, you went to the stadium and, like, yeah, pump the nacho cheese sauce into it and, like, garnish it with a floret." – Kenji López-Alt [20:56]

Food Origins: Nachos & Oklahoma Onion Burger

[22:06–24:43]

• Dispelling myths about nachos' origins.

  • Quote: "All these stories are apocryphal...It's all the same." – Kenji López-Alt [23:30]

• Explains the Depression-era resourcefulness behind the Oklahoma Onion Burger.

  • Quote: "It was born of frugality...replaced a lot of the meat in a burger with a pile of onions." – Kenji López-Alt [23:54]

The Best Way to Cut an Onion

[24:43–26:38]

• Compares traditional French and new approaches, referencing mathematical analysis for efficiency and consistency.
  • Quote: "If you angle your knife at a point under the table, about 0.6 under the table...that is the most efficient way." – Kenji López-Alt [25:53]

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3. Audience Q&A: Most Memorable Concerts

[27:54–31:29] A selection of stories from audience members:

• Pot brownies and sleeping through the Grateful Dead.
  • Quote: "I slept through the whole Grateful Dead concert laid out." – Audience member [28:11]
• Sufjan Stevens' chilling performance on a birthday.
• Sneaking close to James Taylor and Carole King at Tanglewood, and the anxiety of seat-upgrading.

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4. Interview: Ann Powers – Music Journalist & Author

[32:39–45:55]

Writing about Joni Mitchell

• The daunting task of capturing a living legend, Joanie's artistic legacy, and Powers' choice not to interview Mitchell directly.
  • Quote: "I didn't know if her legend would obscure her as a subject to me, so I actually kind of made that part of the book." – Ann Powers [04:13, 32:55, 34:03]

Joni Mitchell: Persona & Impact

• Early life influences—polio, artistic drive, and adoption experience—shaped her music and public persona.
• Complex relationship with second-wave feminism and her own ruminative, therapeutic songwriting.

Confronting Blackface and Legacy

[42:06–44:41]

• Powers addresses Joni’s troubling donning of blackface, the artist's fascination with jazz culture, and how fans and peers (often) excused it.

  • Quote: "Entitlement is very hard to shake. And even if you are as Joni is a very, very sympathetic and close friend to her collaborators who are not white...It's easy to cross lines if no one is saying, hey, I'm calling you out..." – Ann Powers [44:01]

• Invokes Claire Dederer’s concept of "the stain"—how we acknowledge the problematic aspects of artists’ legacies.

  • Quote: "You have to acknowledge the stain. You have to see it, you have to live with it. And that is kind of how I think of it." – Ann Powers [44:10]

After Immersing in Joni

• Ann Powers discusses writing a very long (edited down!) jazz fusion chapter, and how her deep dive has only increased her appreciation for Mitchell’s music—now accompanied by the confidence of real expertise.
  • Quote: "No, I just feel so smart. I know all about it." – Ann Powers [45:44]

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5. Live Performance: Kutumu

[48:10–54:45]

• 23-year-old alt-folk songwriter, viral TikTok artist, and former Yale Wiffenpoof shares her journey and the inspiration for her song “Allergy Season”—an emotional work written after a breakup and a favorite with her group of friends.
  • Performance of "Allergy Season" [50:10–54:45]

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Notable Quotes by Timestamps

• Kenji López-Alt on Teriyaki's Origins:
  "Teriyaki as we know it in the U.S. chicken teriyaki was invented in Seattle by a Japanese immigrant in the 70s. Toshi. You can still—he still cooks." [11:25]

• Ann Powers on Writing About Joni Mitchell:
  "I didn't know if her legend would obscure her as a subject to me, so I actually kind of made that part of the book." [04:13, 32:55, 34:03]

• Kenji López-Alt on Sobriety in Food Service:
  "I don't think there's ever been a better time to be a non drinker...Every restaurant has a really robust, really good non alcoholic cocktail program, a non alcoholic wine and beer program." [19:03]

• Ann Powers on Reckoning with Artists' Mistakes:
  "You have to acknowledge the stain. You have to see it, you have to live with it. And that is kind of how I think of it." [44:10]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:38] Show proper begins
• [05:24–09:31] Best News of the Week
• [10:36–26:38] J. Kenji López-Alt Interview
• [27:54–31:29] Audience Concert Stories
• [32:39–45:55] Ann Powers Interview
• [48:10–54:45] Kutumu Interview and Live Performance

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Tone & Vibe

• Warm, witty, and conversational, blending humor with insight and empathy.
• Frequent light banter and cultural tangents, evoking a “late-night for radio” atmosphere.
• Depth in both culinary and cultural subjects while remaining accessible and engaging.

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Memorable Moments

• Kenji’s enthusiastic mapping of Seattle teriyaki, his scientific onion-cutting method, and honesty about sobriety’s place in his life and industry.
• Ann's transparent struggle with reconciling Joni Mitchell's legacy, the rigor of cultural biography, and the lively, self-deprecating admission of being "insufferable" at barbecues.
• Audience stories infusing the show with lived experience, from psychedelic mishaps to concert seat capers.
• Kutumu’s endearing reflection on heartbreak and viral fame, capped by a heartfelt live performance.

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For a rich mix of culinary, musical, and cultural exploration—with a balance of fun and reflection—this “Live Wire” episode is not to be missed.

Transcript

[Luke Burbank]

Hey there. Welcome to Livewire. I'm your host, Luke Burbank. This week on the show, we are digging in with the legendary chef and food scientist Kenji Lopez Alt talking about his quest to sample every teriyaki joint in my hometown of Seattle and also the peculiar ritual that you might observe him performing if you see him at a teriyaki place. We are also going to discuss the surprisingly controversial world of broccoli cheese soup. And we're going to talk to music journalist and legend Ann Powers to find out why she initially didn't know if she wanted to write a book about Joni Mitchell when her publisher called her to say, you should write a book about Joni Mitchell. And then, from past legends to future legends, we've got some music from ctumu. It's going to be a tasty episode of Livewire this week because we are serving up something very special. It all gets started right after this. Hey there, Livewire listeners. Spring is in the air and so is Livewire's annual membership drive. Here is what we are trying to do. We have set a goal to get 50 new members to help keep Livewire fully charged all year long. We need our members to help us make this show. I can't overstate that. Members also receive exclusive discounts on live events. You get on air mentions and you get bonus content in our monthly newsletter. Here's how you can join Livewire. You head to livewireradio.org and become a member. We're trying to get 50 new members this spring and here's where the producers have written in Sing Please, Please, Please by Sabrina Carpenter with the words Please, please, please become a member. I don't know if that was a good idea, but I just did it.

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[Luke Burbank]

this episode of Livewire was originally recorded in August of 2025. We hope you enjoy it. Now let's get to the show.

[Elena Passarello]

From prx, it's Livewire. This week, chef Kenji Lopez alt.

[Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Hers is mostly broccoli seasoned with a little cheese. And mine is basically just like you went to the stadium and like pumped the nacho cheese sauce into it and like garnish it with a floret.

[Elena Passarello]

Music critic Ann Powers.

[Ann Powers]

I didn't know if her legend would obscure her as a subject to me, so I actually kind of made that

[Elena Passarello]

part of the book with music from Kuthumu and our fabulous house band. I'm your announcer, Elena Passarello. And now the host of Livewire, Luke Burbank.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, thank you so much. Elena Passarello. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in to Livewire from all over the country. And thanks to everybody for coming out to the Nordstrom Recital hall here at Benaroya in Seattle. All right, it is no secret that times are tough out there. The news is not great nationally, globally. But we here at Livewire are of the opinion that there are, in fact, still a few okay things happening here on planet earth. And we spend most of our week looking for them. Sometimes it takes most of the day, but we find them and we present them to you in a little segment we call the best news we've heard all week. All right, Elena, what is the best news that you heard all week?

[Sponsor/Announcer]

Okay, Brad.

[Elena Passarello]

Brazilian. Best news. Okay, Catholic. Best news. All right, Sisterly. Best news.

[Luke Burbank]

Love it. Three for three.

[Elena Passarello]

We're going to Pantagrasa, Brazil, where there are two nuns named. I hope I get these pronunciations correct. Sister Marizel Casiano and Sister Marisa De Paula, they actually work in the community. They work a lot with troubled youth. They work with addiction. And apparently in this part of Brazil, Punta Grassa, there is a television program called Pietero. And it looks kind of like. Remember church chat with Dana Carvey?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, sure.

[Elena Passarello]

Kind of like studio lighting and like a little couch, and they're holding handheld mics. And so the two sisters are there as guests, and they're being interviewed by the host, who's a deacon. And the subject turns to, like, religious callings, being called to a certain kind of action for faith and what that feels like. And one of the sisters, Sister Marizel, says, oh, man, I wrote a song about this. She stands up and she starts singing. And then Sister Marissa stands up and starts dancing. Kind of like pop lock kind of moves. Like she's doing, like, stepping kick out. And I was like, okay. And it's very appropriate, these hip hop coded moves. Because then Sister Marzel starts beatboxing.

[Luke Burbank]

Nice.

[Elena Passarello]

This nun is going, like, the deacon host gets up and they start dancing. And it is so full of joy and glorious. Like, it really is just people, like, moving their bodies in this really happy way. Sister Maryzel says that she sees beatboxing as a tool that God uses to reach the hearts of the people we work with.

[Luke Burbank]

Aw.

[Elena Passarello]

Now they're working with a lot more people. Now. Sister Marissa, the dancer, does not have Instagram, but Sister Mary Zelia does. I hope I got that right. She now has 100,000 followers on Instagram, thanks to people like Viola Davis, who sent it out.

[Luke Burbank]

Nice.

[Elena Passarello]

Whoopi Goldberg saw it. And Whoopi Goldberg recently sent on the View that this was Sister act come to life.

[Luke Burbank]

Beautiful.

[Elena Passarello]

So that's the best news I heard this week.

[Luke Burbank]

That's amazing. The best news that I saw all week actually takes us to Georgia. I'm wondering if you know where this place is. It's. Is it Dakula, Georgia?

[Elena Passarello]

Dakula, Georgia.

[Luke Burbank]

Georgia.

[Elena Passarello]

Whatever county where I'm from. Okay, well, they were our rivals in high school.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, well, what happened in Dakula? It's a very sweet story about your rivals and specifically about a guy named Mikael Baker. Okay. Mikael Baker was graduating high school, and he was in his whole robe, and he got some special kind of medal for some academic achievement or whatever. And as he was getting off stage, he got a call on his phone because he also worked at the Burger King, and it was slammed.

[Ann Powers]

Oh, no.

[Luke Burbank]

There was, like, a huge line, and his coworkers were like, Mikael, could you get over here, please? So while all of his friends were going and partying the night of graduation, he was at the Burger King, like, keeping the line moving and helping out his coworkers. And a mother of one of the other graduates of the high school came through the drive through at the Burger King.

[Elena Passarello]

She was one of the reasons why it was so slammed.

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly. And she noticed that he was still there in his graduation uniform with the little headset on, like, you know, welcome to Burger King. And she just thought that this was such a really sweet thing that this kid. Did I say kid? You know, anybody younger than me feels like a kid. But. And so she thought, you know, I bet you that he could use a little blessing. How about we start a GoFundMe page for him to pay for college or other things that he might need? He was just showing himself to be such a nice young person. The GoFundMe has raised at last check, $199,000.

[Elena Passarello]

199.

[Ann Powers]

Wow.

[Luke Burbank]

190. You see the headline, the article I have. I crossed out 180k because I checked it right before the show and it went back up. It's going up. It's like 199 like this. It's gonna be $200,000 for this kid, for his. And it's gonna be for his education. I don't know what college costs anymore, but let's just say it's a very, very good start on things for this kid.

[Elena Passarello]

Yeah, that's fabulous.

[Luke Burbank]

Mikael Baker being rewarded for his service to his friends at Burger King. That's the best news that I. Our next guest is a chef, food scientist, culinary innovator, Internet star, and author of the New York Times bestseller the Food Lab. He's also a James Beard award winner and honestly is pretty much the guy to ask if you want to know where to get a bagel here in Seattle, which, because I'm from Seattle, I can't say the word bagel correctly. He's also the co host of the hit podcast the Recipe, along with Deb Pearlman. We are so happy to have him back on the show. Please welcome Kenji Lopez alt to Livewire. Kenji, welcome back to Livewire.

[Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Thanks for having me again.

[Luke Burbank]

The last time you and I were hanging out, it was for my other job, my TV job, and we were driving around South Seattle and we were like, checking out different teriyaki spots, which you've kind of become known for, really being very thorough in your exploration of the teriyaki food scene here. In Seattle, I think at one time you're going to try to eat at every single place.

[Kenji Lopez-Alt]

I'm still trying to, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Have you gone since you and I last had teriyaki, have you still been going out and exploring?

[Kenji Lopez-Alt]

I have. I mean, when I started it, I was going to about one per day, and then after a week, I slowed down to a couple per week. Now I'm at maybe one or two per month, but I'm up in the 30s now. Out of slightly less than 90 places. There's around 90 places in Seattle, and that's not counting, like the east side and like Seattle.

[Luke Burbank]

Teriyaki is kind of its own thing, right? What makes it different than things like it you could get in other parts of the country?

[Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Yeah, well, Seattle. I mean, teriyaki as we know it in the U.S. chicken teriyaki was invented in Seattle by a Japanese immigrant in the 70s. Toshi. You can still. He still cooks.

[Luke Burbank]

I was up at his spot in Mill Creek. In Mill Creek. And he is there seven in the morning, just cutting up chicken and cooking rice and doing it.

[Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Yeah. So he. I mean, he invented the style of chicken teriyaki that we know here. So the chicken thighs that are marinated, sliced, sort of sweet and savory glaze and, you know, that became sort of the, you know, I'm from New York, so I equate it to like a New York slice of pizza, where you ask someone, what's your favorite pizza shop? And it's like the one that's down the street from you because there's a pizza shop in every neighborhood. And so there's a teriyaki shop in every neighborhood. And it's all started with Toshi's place. And so the chain. There's a lot of teriyaki shops called Toshi's now, which at some point were all franchises of his original shop. And then eventually they all separated into their own individually owned locations. So the Toshis are not related to each other anymore. Even though some of them have the same logo and the same typeface and everything, they're all unrelated to each other. And Toshi himself has his place up in Mill Creek.

[Luke Burbank]

Now, is there, I mean, is there a cultural significance to the food, to the folks who are making it, to sort of how it fits into the Pacific Northwest?

[Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Well, I mean, I think like a lot of immigrants, they found the jobs they could, and a lot of that is in food. So, you know, that's why there was this proliferation of Chinese restaurants across the country. But, yeah, it's and you see it still as largely an immigrant owned and immigrant run restaurant operation. These days you'll find, I mean teriyaki originally Japanese or Japanese American, although these days I think you'll find most of them are not actually Japanese run anymore. There's a lot of shops that are Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, immigrants. And oftentimes what you'll find is that there's the basic teriyaki menu that has your chicken and your gyoza and your spicy chicken. But then there's also going to be bibimbap or there might be like General Tso's chicken or there might be, you know, banh mi and pho and generally those are the things that the people who are running the restaurant, that's their food. And the teriyaki is there because people expect the teriyaki to be there.

[Luke Burbank]

I see when we were out eating teriyaki, I think there was at least two groups of people who approached you to say, oh man, we're fans of your videos and the things and we kind of look for places that you're recommending and stuff like that. What's it like for you out in the Seattle area when you're. Cause I watch a lot of your videos where you're set up at a picnic table or something and you're about to try something. Are people coming up to you and like interrupting the filming process or are you an object of a certain amount of attention when you go to a place?

[Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Sometimes. I mean more and more increasingly, but it's a really nice self feeding cycle. I'm also a self feeding cycle, but the process itself is a self feeding cycle because the more you share information with people, the more people are like, oh, you should check out this territory. I was sitting at a restaurant in Eastlake two nights ago and this guy walks past the table as he was leaving, like winks at me and puts a piece of paper down in front of me and I read it and it just says like, check out. Oh, I have a picture of it. I can't remember which one, but I wrote it down. But he's like, check out this teriyaki joint. And that's all it said. And so I get really good recommendations because the people who follow my stuff also want to give me advice and they tend to have tastes that align with mine. And so I get a lot of good recommendations and that makes, I mean my job, which is just going around eating things that other people cooked a lot easier.

[Luke Burbank]

The last time somebody handed me a note in a restaurant and I turned it over. I woke up four days later in Reno with no memory of what had happened. So teriyaki is a much better outcome. It's Livewire radio from prx. We are talking to Kenji Lopez alt. We're at Benaroya hall in Seattle this week. We've got to take a very quick break, but stay with us. We will be right back.

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[Luke Burbank]

Welcome back to Livewire from prx. We're at the Nordstrom Recital hall at Benaroya in Seattle this week and we are talking to Kenji Lopez, alt chef and food writer and a food personality. I was watching a video on your YouTube channel where you were talking about your sobriety and I was wondering about the, you know, alcohol and food are often so intertwined. You know, it's this wine with this pasta or whatever. Has now being a person who doesn't drink, has that changed your relationship with food at all?

[Kenji Lopez-Alt]

You know, it was something when I realized I needed to stop drinking, that was one of my concerns. Although, you know, alcoholics, when they are trying to quit drinking, they'll come up with many excuses not to.

[Luke Burbank]

It's gonna ruin the pasta if I stop having a cask of wine every night.

[Kenji Lopez-Alt]

But you know, it is like an intense part of the industry where both in terms of the idea that when people go out to eat, they are, you know, the wine, the drinks are part of that experience. And so as a cook or as a restaurateur, you should be knowledgeable in means tasting It. And it's also just the lifestyle. It is like cooks and musicians, I think, tend to drink a lot. But I quickly found out that in

[Luke Burbank]

fact, sometimes they laugh for reasons we don't understand.

[Elena Passarello]

There's just a lot of cooks and musicians in this audience, I think.

[Luke Burbank]

But I mean, one of the things that you mentioned in that video, Kenji, was that for you when you really got sober was because of talking to some other people in the industry, other chefs and who are both people who were sober. I have family members that are in the restaurant business who also don't drink alcohol. Do you? I mean, it's hard for you to speculate on this, but do you feel like there is some sort of a movement with at least more mindfulness around drinking or sobriety in the food industry?

[Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Absolutely. You know, I think the food industry has changed a lot for the better over, you know, the, the 25 years since I started cooking in restaurants. Both in terms of just care for the mental health of people working in restaurants. The abuse that goes on, I mean, it still happens, but it's a lot better than it used to be. And also in terms of the substance abuse. And yeah, there's a lot of conversation. I don't think there's ever been a better time to be a non drinker for. So like, you know, my career has been a series of real lucky breaks and I chose to go sober at the right time because I don't know if you've had like the non alcoholic beers or gone out to a restaurant recently. Every restaurant has a really robust, really good non alcoholic cocktail program, a non alcoholic wine and beer program. So it's a real good time to be a non drinker right now.

[Luke Burbank]

I've been enjoying your podcast, the Recipe with Deb Perlman. For folks that haven't heard it, what's the premise of the show? I guess it's kind of right there in the title.

[Kenji Lopez-Alt]

You know, Deb came out with a book a couple years ago and she and I have sort of been in similar in each other's orbits for years because we both started writing recipes online around the same time and both of us have a, you know, our focus is home cooks, but we have real different approaches to how we bring recipes to home cooks and how we think about developing a recipe. And so, yeah, we thought, hey, you know, like, we should, we should do a show because we, we have overlapping audiences, we're trying to solve the same problem, but we're solving that problem in really different ways. And so the premise of the show is that we. We pick a recipe that we've both worked on, say, like, macaroni and cheese. And then I'll make her version of the recipe. She'll make my version of the recipe, and then we discuss how sort of the development process. The idea is like, to take a peek under the kitchen hood.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, there you go. Why did you dedicate an entire episode to broccoli cheese soup? That seemed left field to me.

[Kenji Lopez-Alt]

I mean, people. People devote entire bowls to just melted cheese and broccoli. Right? It's. It's. No, because it was a real. It was a very popular. It's a very popular recipe. Like, we both have broccoli cheese soup recipes, and our recipes couldn't be more different. They're very, very different from each other. Hers is mostly broccoli seasoned with a little cheese, and mine is basically just like, you went to the stadium and, like, yeah, pump the nacho cheese sauce into it and, like, garnish it with a floret. But no, broccoli cheese soup is really popular. You know, thank Panera.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's it. I think that's. They've really kind of moved the needle on America's appetite for.

[Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Well, it was Panera, and it was. It was George Bush. George Bush Sr. Who, when he became president, famously said, like, I'm president now, mom. You can't make me eat broccoli. And then I think Campbell's then developed broccoli cheese soup to capitalize on the. On the. On the publicity that.

[Luke Burbank]

I remember when that was an extreme thing for a US President to say, oh, yeah, he's not having broccoli.

[Kenji Lopez-Alt]

It's, like, long for the days of vegetables and tan soup.

[Luke Burbank]

I would crawl across broken glass to have that be the main political scandal we're dealing with. You also talk on the podcast about nachos, and what I was struck by was you were talking about the origin of nachos. And I think it maybe goes to sort of credit with being a place in Texas. I had read in the LA Times years ago a totally apocryphal history of nachos.

[Kenji Lopez-Alt]

All these stories are apocryphal about a

[Luke Burbank]

particular restaurant in LA that Jack Nicholson used to go to. And this, the woman who was credited as inventing them had been, like, trying to find something to make for people. This was printed in the Los Angeles Times, and I was telling everyone this story that nachos were invented in la. Does the success that is nachos have many mothers?

[Kenji Lopez-Alt]

These stories are always like, somebody who's part of the restaurant trying to feed someone when there's apparently no food in the restaurant. We ran out of everything. What can we do? All we have is the chips and cheese and beans and everything. Exactly what it takes to make something delicious. I'd never heard that story. No, the only story I heard was about. Yeah, Ignacio, nicknamed nacho, and he invented it because American tourists, I think, were coming to his restaurant. Or maybe this is the Caesar salad story. Oh, yeah. Someone was coming to his restaurant, and he ran out of ingredients and made nachos.

[Ann Powers]

Yeah, I heard that, too.

[Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Same story with buffalo wings. Same story with, like, onion dip. It's all the same.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. I was going through some of your older New York Times cooking section columns that just. Each one, I don't want you to feel like you have to give away the milk for free. But I did want to ask you some of the things that are posed in these columns. For instance, the burger that you were unable to improve. The Oklahoma Onion Burger.

[Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Yeah. Well, the Oklahoma Onion Burger is a burger that, like a lot of good foods, was born of frugality. And so during the Depression in Oklahoma, they replaced a lot of the meat in a burger with a pile of onions. And so in Oklahoma Onion Burger, you take a very, very small ball of beef, you put a big pile of thinly shaved onions onto a grid, and then you smash the beef down into it, or sometimes the other way around, and you let that cook, and then you flip it over, and what you end up with is these onions that have this kind of array of textures and flavors. So the ones that are, like, hanging over the edge get really dark and frizzled. And then you get these kind of caramelized onions that are along the top. And then there's these kind of softer, steamed onions and a little bit of crunch in them in the middle. So you get, like, a ton of onion flavor and not a ton of beef flavor, but it's real delicious.

[Luke Burbank]

Speaking of onions, and this is the final question, because I'm 48 years old, and I still know how to do this. What is the best way to cut an onion?

[Kenji Lopez-Alt]

So I learned how to cut an onion from Jacques Pepin's book La Technique, and he does the classic technique where you split an onion in half. You take off the peel. He always recommends taking off the peel plus one layer on the inside. And then you hold your knife vertically, and you make a series of vertical cuts up and down. And then you hold your knife sideways and make a couple of horizontal cuts. And then you rotate it and slice across those. Right. That's the classic sort of French method, how they teach you to do it at culinary schools. Then Alton Brown, he recommends slicing radially because onions are radially symmetric. Right. So it makes more sense to slice them radially. So to me, I was like, okay, so which one is actually the best method? So I had a friend of mine build a mathematical model of an onion, and we tested a variety of angles and a variety of slice sizes. We tested whether adding a horizontal slice would make a difference or not. And so basically what we did was we calculated, first of all, the method that would give you the most number of dice using the fewest number of strokes. So the efficiency of the method. And then we also counted the standard deviation of a cube size to tell, you know, how even your dice is going to be. And what we found is that if you take your half onion and you place it on the table, and you call the height of it. So the radius of the onion, you call that one. Okay. You angle your knife at a point under the table, about 0.6 under the table. So if you aim your knife down to there, it's not quite straight up and down, and it's not quite radially symmetric. It's somewhere in between. If you just kind of fudge it somewhere in between, that is the most efficient way.

[Luke Burbank]

Is that now how you cut onions, like, at home? Yes.

[Kenji Lopez-Alt]

That's not how I do it. Yeah, I follow my own advice usually.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, well, we're glad to have it, because you sure know a lot. Kenji Lopez Alt, thank you so much for coming on Livewire. That was Kenji Lopez Alt, right here on Livewire. His podcast, the Recipe, which he hosts with Deb Perlman from the Smitten Kitchen, is available wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, special thanks this episode to Joan Cirillo of Portland, Oregon, who is part of the Livewire member community and is generously supporting our show with a donation each month. Not sure if you're reading the news, but those listener donations are now even more vital to keeping Livewire going. So a big, big thanks to Joan for helping out. You're tuned in to Livewire. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. Okay. Each week on the show, we ask the Livewire audience a question. And this week, we were inspired by an upcoming guest's career as a legendary music journalist. So, Elena, what did we ask the Livewire audience?

[Elena Passarello]

We asked them to tell us about the most memorable concert they ever saw.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow. Okay. We actually went out into the audience at a recent live recording of the show to get some answers, Here is what folks said. This was Marcia. Here was my most memorable.

[Kutumu]

I was a teenager and I went to a Grateful Dead concert, and I didn't know the brownies were laced with pot. And I slept through the whole Grateful Dead concert laid out.

[Ann Powers]

So I guess you didn't remember the concert.

[Kutumu]

No, but it's certainly memorable that I didn't remember it.

[Elena Passarello]

I mean, as far as I'm concerned, that's the best way to experience a Grateful Dead concert.

[Luke Burbank]

I never quite connected with the Grateful Dead, but I know that their fans are legion and they really, really like it, whether they're conscious for the concert or not.

[Elena Passarello]

I think the Grateful Dead exists on both sides of a person's consciousness. You know, like, I think they are dream logic.

[Ann Powers]

So.

[Elena Passarello]

So well done. Well done.

[Luke Burbank]

That's intense. How many brownies did you have before we started recording today?

[Elena Passarello]

I just stuck like, six of them into a smoothie just the right amount.

[Luke Burbank]

Here is a very memorable concert that listener Frank attended. At one point, I saw Sufjan Stevens at the Aladdin theater on my 16th birthday, and I was sitting in the the front row. He sang the Ballad of John Wayne Gacy Jr. And I had a moment of feeling deep panic that this was an unsafe individual, which was. That's good performance right there. That was a good show. Unclear how many brownies Frank had consumed before the Sufian show. Frank's premise is that because he was concerned about what Sufjan Stevens, the singer, was going to get up to, that indicated that the performance was actually very good, that Sufian had him feeling a little bit on edge. Now, the song, of course, the Ballad of John Way Gacy, for being kind of on a dark topic, it's a very beautiful song.

[Elena Passarello]

Oh, yes.

[Luke Burbank]

All right. Caroline had a memorable concert experience. Let's take a listen to this.

[Elena Passarello]

I saw James Taylor at Tanglewood. I'm originally from the Boston area, and we had lawn seats, which was lovely.

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like if you go to Tanglewood at any time, day or night, James Taylor might be there, just kind of hanging.

[Elena Passarello]

Feels tangling in the wood, you know?

[Luke Burbank]

Feels tangling out there. I feel like he might live there. It just seems it's very James Taylor coded, as the people would say these days.

[Elena Passarello]

But we very illegally snuck our way into the front row after intermission, and we were feet or inches away from him and Carole King and John Travolta and all these ridiculous people that they run on stage. I see John Travolta he did have a. He did have a single. Dude, did you know, like, gonna let her in?

[Luke Burbank]

Like, you know, and Travolta had a single. I was unaware of that.

[Elena Passarello]

I feel like everybody in the late 70s, you know, like Lou Ferrigno, John Travolta, Joe Piscopo. Yeah, they all had Bruce Willis, and

[Luke Burbank]

they were all at the James Taylor concert in Tanglewood. I have decided at my ripe old age of 49, Elena, I am done sneaking into the better seats than I have at concerts or sporting events. And here's why. I've realized I am unable to enjoy the rest of the performance because of my anxiety around getting kicked out of the place I'm not actually supposed to be. I'm better off just being in my original seats. View obstructed and relaxed.

[Elena Passarello]

That's right. Have a brownie. Stay in the cheap seats. Enjoy yourself, Burbank. Just go for it.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, thank you to everyone who answered our question about a memorable concert. Our next guest is one of America's best loved music critics, with stints at npr, in the LA Times, and New York Times, among other places. Her body of work writing about musicians has made her kind of a legend in her own right, which came in handy when she set her sights on a book about the one and only Joni Mitchell. The result of all of that is the book Traveling on the Path of Joni Mitchell, which Publishers Weekly calls a dazzling portrait of a legendary musician. Now, just a heads up in our conversation, we're going to talk about Joni Mitchell's use of blackface. And in case it's not abundantly clear, we obviously believe that was unacceptable back then and also as it would be now. Anne has got some thoughts on how she has sort of struggled to reconcile Joni Mitchell's actions with her legacy as an artist. So we're gonna hear about that and a whole bunch more from our conversation with Anne Powers, recorded live in Seattle at Benaroya Hall. Take a listen. Anne Powers, welcome to Livewire.

[Ann Powers]

I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much.

[Luke Burbank]

Can you take me back to the day that you got a phone call from a book editor in New York?

[Sponsor/Announcer]

Oh, yes.

[Luke Burbank]

And they said we would love it if you would write a book about Joni Mitchell. And you said you had to take a walk around the block to think about it.

[Ann Powers]

I definitely did. I mean, I'm a Joni fan, all of us. I mean, who isn't a Joni fan, right? We've all had our moment. We love Blue we love Jira, but I looked at tackling a subject like that as similar to trying to, say, climb Mount Rainier or something. It was very daunting to think about really taking on a legend like that. And I wasn't sure that I wanted to do it. I didn't know if her legend would obscure her as a subject to me. So I actually kind of made that part of the book. You know, my journey toward figuring out how to take into account what we as fans have made Joni, what the culture has made Joanie, and then how she reacted and became the artist she is through that process.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, it sounds like in the book that because you're a music writer, you were, of course, aware of the impact of Joni Mitchell, but that, like, she wasn't maybe your number one just because of some thoughts about her. And she had a lot of success early, and she sort of looked a certain way. And you said you didn't really vibe with that part of her career.

[Ann Powers]

Yeah, well, first of all, given just my age, when I grew up in Seattle, you know, I was a new wave girl, so really, like, Kate Bush was my pinnacle. But, you know, a thing that happened is when I started on this book, I got into the early Joni records, and I suddenly was like, oh, my God, Kate Bush took so much from Joni Mitchell, and I never realized it, so then I felt kind of bad. So that was part of it. And then also, yeah, you're right. I write in the introduction about how she was daunting to me partly because of her image, her Persona, and, as you say, her looks. But what I figured out was she had just the same anxieties and questions about herself that I have, and she wrote that right into her songs.

[Luke Burbank]

You made the decision to not try to interview Joni Mitchell for this book?

[Ann Powers]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Cause you basically. It sounds like you were afraid of falling in love with her.

[Ann Powers]

In a way. Yeah. I was afraid of being dominated by her. I know from other friends of mine, people I know who've written a lot about her, that she's so charismatic. But it's not just that. Anyone who writes a biography, once you are connected to your subject, whether it is officially authorized or not in that way, then it is really their book. But I wanted it to be a book that was about the world that Joni Mitchell made and the world that made Joni Mitchell. And there are great books out there that are simply interviews with her. There's a fabulous book called Joni on Joni by Malcolm Arom. I highly recommend it. Michelle Mercer's book, will you take me as I am David Yaffe's reckless daughter. Those books exist, so I wanted to do something different. But I will say I did interview many people around Joni, everyone from David Crosby, RIP To Graham Nash to Joni's ex, Larry Klein. So I really, like, have a lot of research in the book. It's not just me rambling on about my thoughts.

[Luke Burbank]

It's the right amount of that and the right amount of information about this person's life. One of the things that seems to come to light in this book is that Joni Mitchell is maybe not always the most accurate storyteller on the life of Joni Mitchell.

[Ann Powers]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, for instance, it sounds like she had polio as a child in Saskatoon, Canada, and credits it with. With why and how she became an artist.

[Ann Powers]

In some ways, yes. Her biographer, David Yaffe really emphasizes that in his book, too, in Reckless Daughter. It's an excellent book, by the way.

[Luke Burbank]

But you. It seems like you were a little suspicious about if it actually played the role in her life artistically that she thought she did or that biographers thought it did.

[Ann Powers]

Yeah, well, as Michelle Mercer, all of us Joanie writers, we all hang out in a little club. So anyway, as Michelle Mercer has written, Joanie, Arty was on the path to be an artist before she got polio. She was interested in dance, she was interested in painting. She wanted to write. So I think she was already on the creative path. But what polio. What going through, the experience that polio gave her, I think, was this incredible determination. This is the kind of trauma that can make or break a person and absolutely no judgment on what happens after you go through such a trauma. But for her, I think it made her determined to be great. If her life was going to go on, she had to learn to walk again. Again. She had an aneurysm much later in life, and that was the third time she had to learn to walk. This is one tough woman. And that experience was the beginning of her sense of herself as needing to make a difference in the world, needing to be a genius, a great artist, not just some lady playing in a coffee house on a Thursday night at 7pm you know, but a very important artist.

[Luke Burbank]

Another sort of big development in her early life was that she was pregnant and she gave her daughter up for adoption and wrote about it in her music, including the song Kelly Green.

[Ann Powers]

Little Green, Little Green. Yes, yes.

[Luke Burbank]

And how did that impact her as an artist going forward?

[Ann Powers]

Well, you know, Luke, I'm Also an adoptive parent myself, and I'm very lucky to have an open adoption. My daughter's birth mother, we are close to her. In fact, she's coming to visit us this week here in Seattle. And my daughter's coming out, too. So this is a very emotional subject for me. And I want to say, I think only the people involved in an adoptive family can truly speak for that family.

[Luke Burbank]

Sure.

[Ann Powers]

But after she was reunited with her daughter, Joni said, I was hanging out with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, recording a session, and they said to me, something is different about your voice. Your voice is fuller. I mean, this is Joni as the doyenne. By now she is in midlife. She said something in me, a loss, a hole was filled by this. I think the loss and grief you go through as a birth mother. Only a birth mother can speak of it, but it's so deep. And for Joni, that went into her music, you know, there is a kind of a melancholy in her music, and there's a depth in her music that is in part related to having entrusted her child in adoption. At the same time, the ongoing theme of, like, what does it mean to be a free woman? What does it mean to be mobile? What does it mean to be ambitious? All of that, this is what women have dealt with so often, and especially in the 60s and 70s during those days when women's liberation was happening. And it's full flower. This was so relevant to her personally, partly because of her status as a birth mother, but also just because she was a young woman at that time.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. You write in the book about where she fit into and maybe didn't fit into feminism. Would it be second wave feminism?

[Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Sort of.

[Luke Burbank]

But the idea that maybe that movement was about going out and gaining equality versus ruminating in sadness. And she was ruminating a lot of sadness.

[Ann Powers]

Well, the thing about the rumination, I think that's related to another phenomenon of the 70s, which is everybody got a therapist in the 70s. You know, everybody was seeking enlightenment. Everybody was into self help, including Joni. And. And so she kind of gave us the soundtrack to her inner thoughts. And that was very powerful. Like, if you. You know that song Coyote, for example. Yeah. You know how the. It just goes on and on and on, like, nobody can sing that song because, like, where do you breathe? And that was partly because she is kind of creating what it sounds like inside of our heads, you know. And how that applies for women at that time, I think, is that that women were trying to figure out how to reconcile their Desire for intimate relationships, heterosexual women in particular, with men who, you know, maybe didn't value their freedom that much. I'm just saying a few of them might not have, you know, and in a world that didn't value that. And she wanted to figure out, how can I love and be loved and still be that singular artist I want to be and go on the road? And she was that exemplar of that. I think so many people related to that.

[Luke Burbank]

We're talking to Ann Powers about her book Traveling on the Path of Joni Mitchell. You'd be remiss if you didn't talk about it in the book, which you do. And we would be remiss if we didn't talk about it here, but I know it's coming. Yes. You mentioned Wayne Shorter and Charles Mingus and Joni Mitchell's love of jazz and jazz fusion and her embrace of black American culture, which also showed up in a pretty bizarre kind of phase of her life and career where she was regularly performing and showing up in blackface.

[Ann Powers]

Not regularly, but she created a character. So as she told it, one October, she was walking down Sunset Boulevard, or was it Hollywood Boulevard in la, looking for a Halloween costume to go to a party at the home of Leland Sklar, the bassist. And she walks by a black man on the street. They kind of exchange a flirtatious look. And she felt like she was possessed by the spirit of this man, she said, and ended up putting on it, basically dressing in blackface, I would say, or passing as this character whom she named Claude and later named Art Nouveau. And this character is one that she wore at this costume party. But then later, on the COVID of Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, the album also Twice in film, so you can see it very shortly in the Shadows and Light concert film. There's a tiny moment where you see Claude, and people have written about it in the past. She herself never talks about it at this point, really, but most people who have written about it or talked about it have kind of defended it and said, well, as a woman in a sexist world, she could relate to what black men were going through. Or this is kind of a tribute to people whom she admired. But what I wanted to confront was, why did we all accept it? Why did everyone around her accept it? You know? And I didn't really ever come to, like, a firm conclusion. I had to confront my own complicated feelings about this part of her life. In the end, I mean, I think entitlement is very hard to shake. And even if you are as Joni is a very, very sympathetic and close friend to her collaborators who are not white. She loves the music. She understands it. It's easy to cross lines. If no one is saying, hey, I'm

[Luke Burbank]

calling you out, that doesn't certainly for you, invalidate the rest of the music that she created and art that she created.

[Ann Powers]

I think, you know, I'm going to refer to the great Claire Dieterer, who is a fabulous Seattle writer, and she has this wonderful concept in her book Monsters. The concept is the stain. How do we deal with the artists we love making transgressions that we cannot accept? She says, do not necessarily reject the artwork, but it has a stain. And you have to acknowledge the stain. You have to see it, you have to live with it. And that is kind of how I think of it.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. I'm wondering for you, from going from when you got that phone call and you had to take a walk around the block to now on the other side of it, you've just been, like, sort of floating in this, you know, amniotic sack of Joni Mitcheldom.

[Ann Powers]

Well, the sack was big because, first of all, I have to tell you, I got really into jazz fusion. I wrote a 27,000 word chapter on jazz fusion.

[Elena Passarello]

Nice.

[Ann Powers]

Thank goodness for editors, because y' all don't have to read that.

[Elena Passarello]

But I feel like anything on jazz fusion needs to be at least 25,000 words long in respect for the.

[Ann Powers]

Just, like the songs, right? Exactly. But I got so into, like, all this obscure stuff around her, too. That was really. That was. That was the beautiful part.

[Elena Passarello]

But the thing that I would be afraid of, or maybe you weren't, because she wasn't. Straight down your lane is after five, six years working with the subject. What do you do when you pull out hissing of summer lawns or a Joanie? Like, is it. Is it over for you?

[Ann Powers]

Oh, heck, no. No, no. What does it feel like to listen

[Elena Passarello]

to her now in a casual capacity?

[Ann Powers]

No, I just feel so smart. I know all about it.

[Luke Burbank]

You got to be insufferable. At a barbecue, somebody puts Joni Mitchell

[Elena Passarello]

on, it's like, actually got 30 minutes.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, that's Ann Powers, everyone. The book is Traveling on the Path of Joni Mitchell. That was Ann Powers recorded live at Benaroya hall in Seattle. You can check out her book Traveling on the Path of. Of Joni Mitchell, wherever you get your books. All right, we have to take a very quick break here on Livewire, but don't go anywhere. Speaking of music, up next, we'll hear an incredible song from Kutumu. More Livewire coming your way in just a moment. Welcome back to Livewire from prx. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. Okay, before we get to our presentation performance by Kutumu, a little preview of what we're doing next week on the show. Sarah Marshall, who you might know from the hit podcast you're wrong about, will return to the Livewire stage to talk about her latest project. It's a CBC podcast. It's called the devil you know and it follows the satanic panic phenomenon of the 1980s and 90s, something I lived through as a churchgoing kid who is very worried about Satan. Also, the acclaimed writer Camille Dungey will stop by. She has been on the show before. She's gonna be back talking about her first book of poetry in over a decade. It's called A love Story, which explores how she loves and lives in today's America as a black woman. Then drummer, rapper and producer, Cassa overall is going to do some amazing things with the drums that really redefines jazz. So you do not want to miss next week's episode of Livewire is going to be incredible. This week our musical Guest is a 23 year old alternative folk singer songwriter who had a breakout hit, hunting days that went super viral on TikTok. Her EP Free Therapy was released this spring and she's probably maybe the only one time Yale Wiffen poof we've ever had on the show, which is the country's oldest acapella group. She's performed hundreds of times with them. This is Kutumu, who joined us at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon. Take a listen.

[Kutumu]

Hi.

[Luke Burbank]

Hello there. Okay, I have to admit, I spend far too much time on TikTok and I was seeing your music on TikTok and I was really excited that you were going to be on the show. But it was news to me talking to the producers that there were rumors that you were like an industry plant. Do you take that as a compliment?

[Kutumu]

High praise. Yeah. One of my friends sent me like a Reddit post that was like industry plan. And I was like, oh my God. So I thought it was funny.

[Luke Burbank]

You're not part of that pop music, folk music machinery that is Yale Whiffin poof into pipeline.

[Kutumu]

I wish it would make my life so much easier if there was a huge budget behind what I do, but there's unfortunately not. So

[Luke Burbank]

what was that like with all those performances with the Yale Acapella group, which is like a really well known Group. And, I mean, did you learn a lot about music and performing from that?

[Kutumu]

Yeah. I mean, I thought it was so fun. Also, for people that don't know, it's tenor, tenor, baritone, bass. So I was singing pretty low in my register, and it was, like, pretty much all guys. But, yeah, I mean, I learned a lot. And harmony is super cool. I don't know if anyone here has ever done acapella college.

[Elena Passarello]

Acapella is crazy.

[Luke Burbank]

Most of these people have it.

[Elena Passarello]

This is actually just one big acapella group. They sound amazing.

[Luke Burbank]

Some of them were just doing it outside the theater for money earlier.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Was it like being in the movie Pitch Perfect?

[Kutumu]

Oh, exactly like it. Exactly like it. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Tell me a little bit about the song we're going to hear.

[Kutumu]

So I just graduated in May, and congratulations. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah. And I, like, dated some guy from Belfast, and we broke up, and I was very heartbroken. And this was one of the first songs that I wrote. And over Covid, I got really into songwriting. And this song is called Allergy Season, and it means a lot to me and my friend. We all, like, jam it. When I'm back in New Haven, it's fun.

[Luke Burbank]

This is Kutumu on Livewire.

[Kutumu]

You had me over unannounced and my nose was bleeding. It was allergy season. You put your hands up my blouse. I can't explain the feeling, but it was like now. A new house, the faint smell of cut grass in your lap with your head on my breastbone like an old porch. A wood swing, a shared kiss in a backseat, a tent sit up five feet from the shore. So when you went and talk to your friends and they thought, how was it? Dead end. You couldn't tell me then what you're telling me now that you used me to figure out what you didn't want and what you didn't need? No. So I'm tired of wishing you were with me. Delusional is it sounds I hate the love when you're around I'm tired of thinking you still miss me and I hate the way that I sound when all this love bug things keep coming out of my mouth I guess it's allergy season now now. You know I'm like a soldier's wife. You could die on me but I still wouldn't believe it no. But I would learn to make a neck tight so I could practice you leaving. But from my new house to your old job on 8th street the parking is empty so you sit alone in the backseat thinking about an old porch you would swing? A shared kiss that you missed? Cause your mind was wandering? So when you thought you kind of felt boxed in? How could I hear you through the silence? I guess my, my love was never enough? It's kind of selfish to bluff for what you didn't want and what you didn't need? No? So I'm tired of wishing you were with me? Delusional as it sounds? I hate that I love when you're around? I'm tired of thinking you still? And I hate the way that I sound? When all these love bug things keep coming out of my mouth? I guess it's allergy season now? Oh, look, I never noticed you wanted out And I can really take rejection? Like maybe use your words and I wouldn't seem this crazy? Maybe I'm the girl that you just keep around and call when you're feeling down? Cause I'll never figure out I meant nothing to you? Is that true? No, it can't be? Cause I'm sitting where we used to under the canopy? Now it's 2022, too? And I'm still sneezing the same love bug this allergy season. Thank you very much.

[Luke Burbank]

That was Kutumu right here on Livewire, recorded live at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland. Their EP Free Therapy is out now. All right, that's gonna do it for this week's episode of Livewire. A big thanks to our wonderful guests Kenji Lopez, Alt Ann Powers and Kutmu. Special thanks this episode to the Hotel Sorrento in Seattle.

[Elena Passarello]

Lara Haddon is our executive producer, and Melanie Sevchenko is our producer and editor. Eben Hoffer is our technical director. Trey Hester is our assistant editor. Valentine Keck is our operations manager, and Ashley park is our marketing manager.

[Luke Burbank]

Our house band is Ethan Fox, Tucker Alves, Mike Gamble, Danny Ailey, Zach Domer, and A. Walker Springs, who also composes our music. This episode was mixed by Eben Hofer and Hazik Bin Ahmad Farid.

[Elena Passarello]

Additional funding provided by the Oregon Arts Commission, a state agency funded by the State of Oregon and the National Endowment for the Arts. Livewire was created by Robin Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week we'd like to thank member Joan Cirillo of Portland, Oregon.

[Luke Burbank]

For more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast, head ON over to livewireradio.org I'm Luke Burbank. For Elena Passarello and the whole Livewire crew. Thank you for listening and we will see you next week. Hey, if you appreciate the work that Livewire is doing to amplify riveting and unexpected voices to a national audience. And I gotta tell you, it's a big audience these days. Please, please, please consider offering some monthly support by becoming a member of our League of Extraordinary Listeners. Here's how it works. Membership starts at just five bucks a month and there are great perks at every level, including a special shout out on the broadcast. Impress your friends by being shouted out on Livewire. It means that the world to us and really does make it possible for us to do the show. So please, if you can help, support us by visiting livewireradio.org Memberships.

[Ann Powers]

From prx.