Key Change: Samin Nosrat on Ani DiFranco

My guest today is my friend Samin Nosrat, the author of the bestselling, award-winning cookbook Salt Fat Acid Heat, and the host and executive producer of the hit Netflix show that's based on it. Her second cookbook comes out this fall, and it's called Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share With People You Love. Back in March 2020, Samin and I started a podcast together called Home Cooking, where we answered people's anxious questions about cooking in the time of the pandemic and lockdown. And we're bringing that podcast back later this year. Samin is one of my closest friends. We've been there for each other for all of the most important moments of our lives over the years that we've known each other. But with a total lack of consideration to our friendship, it turns out Samin’s had important moments in her life from before we met. But we're going to make up for lost time, and she's going to talk to me about one of them today. For more, visit songexploder.net/keychange https://songexploder.net/keychange. You can listen to "Untouchable Face" by Ani DiFranco here https://song.link/us/i/1208781124.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Hrishikesh Hirway?

  You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and, piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway.

• 0:11Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I'm going to be on tour, playing some shows this fall. I'm going to be in London on Wednesday, November 18th. I'm going to be performing solo at Roughtrade Records on Denmark Street, and I'm going to be in conversation about my music moderated by one of my favorite actors and writers, Matthew Bainton. And a ticket to the show also gets you a copy of my album on vinyl or CD. And in December, I'm going to be on tour supporting S. Carry. We're going to be playing a bunch of shows in the Northeast US. So I hope to see you in one of those places. You can find all the details and get links to tickets at songexploder.net/live. That's songexploder.net/live.

• 0:55Hrishikesh Hirway?

  This episode is sponsored by LinkedIn. Anyone who's ever had to spend money on marketing knows how tricky it can be to feel like you've spent that money wisely. Well, with LinkedIn Ads, you can be sure that you'll get a great return on your investment. You can target your campaigns by company, industry, job title, and more. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn Ads and get a $250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin.com/songexploder. That's linkedin.com/songexploder. Terms and conditions apply. This episode is sponsored by the podcast, What It's Like to Be. Do you ever think about what other people's workdays look like?

• 1:38Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Satisfying some of that curiosity is the idea at the heart of bestselling author Dan Heath's podcast, which is called What It's Like to Be. In each episode, Dan interviews someone from a different profession to find out what it's like to be a professional Santa Claus, or a Secret Service agent, or a long haul truck driver, or an aerospace engineer at NASA, just to name a few examples. The show gives you an insider view into all kinds of jobs from a wide range of industries, answering questions like, what do mail carriers learn about us from our mail? There are so many jobs out there that exist only as titles in our imagination, if they even register that much. This show is a chance to reach beyond what you know or think you know. If you're curious to learn more about

• 2:23Hrishikesh Hirway?

  the work lives of other people, check out What It's Like to Be, wherever you get podcasts.

• 2:30Hrishikesh Hirway?

  This is Key Change, where I talk to fascinating people about a piece of music that transformed their lives. And my guest today is my friend Samin Nosrat, the author of the bestselling, award-winning cookbook, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, and the host and executive producer of the hit Netflix show that's based on it. Her second cookbook comes out this fall and it's called Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love. Back in March 2020, Samin and I started a podcast together called Home Cooking, where we answered people's anxious questions about cooking in the time of the pandemic and lockdown. And we're bringing that podcast back later this year. Samin is one of my closest friends. We've been there for each other for-- stop making me laugh.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Sorry.

• 3:14Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Samin is one of my closest friends. We've been there for each other for all of the most important moments of our lives over the years that we've known each other. But with a total lack of consideration to our friendship, it turns out Samin's had important moments in her life from before we've been.

• 3:31Hrishikesh Hirway?

  But we're gonna make up for lost time, and she's gonna talk to me about one of them today.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  Hi, Rishi.

• 3:36Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Hi, Samin. Do you remember how you first started telling me about the song we're gonna talk about?

• 3:40Speaker 01

  The question you originally asked was like, what's the most influential song in your life? Or something like that. And I said, oh, I don't have that. I don't have one. And then I thought about it for a couple of seconds. And I said, well, there is this song that kind of was part of like a turning point emotionally and really marks a moment where I was coming out of adolescence and into early adulthood.

• 4:01Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Where were you? And when was this that you were coming out of adolescence?

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Well, I'm still coming into early adulthood. But this was like about 1997 in San Diego, where I was born and where I grew up. And the song is Untouchable Face by Ani DiFranco.

• 4:18Hrishikesh Hirway?

  So what was your life like in 1997?

• 4:21Speaker 01

  I was a senior in high school. You know, to set the scene, my family, my parents came from Iran in the mid to late 70s. I was born in San Diego. And I very much was raised in this household.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Where my mom would tell us, you know, inside this home, you're in Iran. When you go to school, that's America. And so inside the home, you respect your elders, you know, do everything you're told. You're good. And so I took that really to heart. And all I wanted was to just be a good kid and do my best for my parents.

• 4:57Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Was there a religious component to that as well, or just cultural?

• 5:01Speaker 01

  It was pretty much entirely cultural and old country beliefs. And, you know, I was the oldest kid. I was the only daughter. And I, I think there were a lot of pressures put on me for both of those reasons. And so one of the things that I was told was to, you know, study, do my homework, do well in school. So I could get into a good college and get a scholarship because we weren't going to be able to pay for a college.

• 5:24Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Is that what you did? Were you a good student in high school?

• 5:27Speaker 01

  I was a good student throughout. It's funny because I think I made up for what I lacked in intelligence in a little bit of wileness and hard work.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  But I just gave everything and I still am that person. I just gave everything that I had. And so I went to a really rigorous and competitive high school. It was a public high school. So I was nowhere near like the most intelligent in the smartest classes, you know, the highest GPA. But I did fine. And when it came time to apply to colleges, I applied to the colleges that interested me and a few that felt like I just should. You know, I was in California, so I applied to a few UC schools. But I really wanted to sort of go far, far away to a small liberal arts school on the East Coast.

• 6:14Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Why far away?

• 6:16Speaker 01

  I think it was a combination of things. One was movies, books and television, romanticized going away to college. And often the ones that were pictured or like the I pictured in my mind's eye were East Coast schools. And I really wanted that, like living in a dorm, running up and down the halls in your socks, whatever. It's just like, there was kind of a freedom in that, that I was not allowed as a kid. So it was part of it was like, I wanted to go away to get that experience that I'd seen that I knew I would never get at home. And I had a friend who I really looked up to, who was a year older than me. And she went to Vassar and she loved it. She also loved English as a subject and that was what I wanted to study.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  And she was so happy and she was also a runner on the cross country team. And it seemed like an extension of our high school cross country team that had been such a special and safe place for me. So I really got it in my head that that was where I wanted to go.

• 7:11Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Okay.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  My parents, I kind of was like, just released to the winds in some ways as a student. Like they told me to do well, but I was not given a lot of guidance at home about how to do that. They were immigrant parents, busy doing other stuff. So I had to figure out a lot of that for myself. So I studied, I applied, I got in, I got a full scholarship. But then when I think my parents realized I was actually gonna maybe go all the way to New York. My dad's like, well, no, no, like we have to go visit the school. Literally it was the only school we visited. We like got on a plane, went to whatever Albany Airport, went to Vassar for the perspective of students weekend. And I stayed with that friend.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  And I think the first night that I was there, she was like, oh, there's a concert in the chapel.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  And, and so I was like, okay, I guess we're all going to this concert. And so we went and

• 8:04Hrishikesh Hirway?

  With your dad?

• 8:05Speaker 01

  No, my dad didn't stay with us and he didn't go to the concert. So we went and the concert was Ani DiFranco.

• 8:11Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Had you heard Ani DiFranco's music before?

• 8:14Speaker 01

  No, I had no idea who this person was. And she performed this song Untouchable Face, which in Untouchable Face, she swears. She says, fuck you and your untouchable face. And I had no idea what the song was about. I just heard the fuck you, you know?

• 8:28Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Which to me was so scandalous. Like, I'm just, it's like, you know, good brown kid. Like, I was like, whoo. I was sort of scandalized.

• 8:37Hrishikesh Hirway?

  What was the reaction of the other people in the room?

• 8:39Speaker 01

  I mean, everyone else knew all the words and was singing it along and like they were, this was like hardly scandalous music for them. People were listening to way more intense stuff.

• 8:49Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And so not only are you in a room where the singer is dropping an F-bomb, everybody around you is singing along with it?

• 8:57Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, totally. And so, you know, you, you kind of probably by the end of the song, I was also singing along.

• 9:02Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  I also, it may have been the first time I ever saw live music. It was a very uncomfortable for me.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  And there was just this kind of like, you know, the show Felicity with Carrie Russell? Yes. That was on in my high school years. Part of that fueled that vision of like, what dorm life was. Also, she had curly hair. I'd never seen curly representation before. And so, so I think this was sort of like my brush with that was going and staying for one night or two nights in this dorm, going to this concert. We probably went to a party where there was alcohol. Yeah. Which like, I had never, ever been exposed to before. I was really sheltered, you know? Like, yeah. So to me, I was like, cool, ready to sign up. I'm, you know, I ate meals in the cafeteria, so excited. We get on the plane, come home. And basically my grandfather caught wind of this trip. And he was like, absolutely not.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  He's just like, no good Iranian girl goes that far from her parents. Like, she cannot go. And he was telling this to my father, like, you need to go home and lay down the law. So my dad came back and he was like, you can't go. And I was like, what? Like, I literally, I didn't understand because I'd only ever worked so hard and done everything that they wanted and done what they had told me to do. And now like, that, that was gonna, you know, pay off for me in some way. That was being taken away from me. And the alternative, the only alternative that my grandfather and I guess father found appropriate was that I would stay home, live at home and go to UCSD. Which there was just a voice inside my belly that told me if that happened, if I did that,

• 10:40Speaker 01

  I would die in some way. To be clear, there was not like, physical violence in my home, but it was a really tricky, tricky place emotionally and psychologically. And I didn't have like, I had not been therapized. I did not know, there was just a little voice in my belly that was like, get out of here. Yeah. And so, we were suddenly in this standoff and basically my dad's like, you can't go. And if you go, you're disowned. And I, that kind of didn't compute for me.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  I'd also been threatened for many things, mostly tiny, with being disowned throughout my whole life and continued to be. So, but this one seemed maybe the most real, like they were actually gonna make good on it if I left. And I didn't understand what that meant.

• 11:24Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  I didn't understand if it meant I could never come home even on school breaks, if they would never talk to me again. If I had to leave the house and could never come back, I was really confused and scared. And so initially, I like paid the deposit for two schools, which you're not supposed to do, just to get by myself, a little extra time.

• 11:42Hrishikesh Hirway?

  For UCSD and Vassar?

• 11:44Speaker 01

  I think like my dad had sort of given me a grand compromise of I could go as far away as UC Berkeley.

• 11:50Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Okay.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  So it was UC Berkeley and Vassar, which again, I know this in some ways sounds like incredibly privileged problems, but also, you know, to me, UC Berkeley was not a school I really ever thought I would go to. It was just where everyone in my high school checked the box on the application. But it was so huge. And I didn't want to go to a huge school. I was scared. I was scared I would get lost in like a 30,000 people school.

• 12:15Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  And then, you know, it's that time when everyone's wearing their college sweatshirts to school and they're all so excited and everyone's figuring out who else is going. And I was just walking around in this like haze for a few weeks. And finally, I just realized I couldn't do it. I didn't have it in me to disobey my parents in that way or to take whatever unknown risk that was. So my heart broke and I wrote to them and I said, I'm not gonna come. But it really started a moment for me. It was the first time where I felt that fuck you to my parents, and specifically my dad. And so that song sort of became this anthem for me. And especially that it was associated with this visit and this turning point and this moment.

• 13:00Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  I'm not some great scholar of music. Like, I'm not great at like, reading lyrics and, you know, it's funny because I actually studied poetry, but like, but I'm not some lyrical scholar. So I'm not great at like, being like, oh, I know that's a breakup song. Or I know that's, she got cheated on and she's mad. It was just all I heard. I'm very literal in that way, where I'm like, oh, fuck you. I'm like, yeah, fuck you.

• 13:20Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 13:20Speaker 01

  And so, so that just became this thing that I still, I never said it to my dad. But it was this way I could feel a feeling and let a feeling out that I didn't really have some other way to do.

• 13:34Hrishikesh Hirway?

  My conversation with Samin continues after this.

• 13:40Hrishikesh Hirway?

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• 14:19Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Artists can learn more and launch a merch store at distrokid.com/direct. There's a new podcast called Before the Moment with Nile Rodgers. In every legendary music career, there's a moment right before it all changes. And in every episode of this podcast, Nile Rodgers talks to a legendary musician about the choices, the events, and the relationships that shaped their career before the moment that everything changed for them. Every story is unique and opens a window into the lives of some of the biggest names in music. And Nile is the perfect person to lead these conversations, because for over 50 years, he's played guitar with artists like Diana Ross, David Bowie, Madonna, Daft Punk, and

• 15:03Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Beyoncé. In the first season of the podcast, some of Nile's guests include John Legend, Miguel, and more. New episodes are coming out every other Tuesday. Listen to Before the Moment with Nile Rodgers wherever you get your podcasts. I've talked about Quince before on the show and how some of my favorite clothes are things that I've gotten from their website. But they have a lot of categories beyond clothes. For example, I just ordered a cotton velvet tree skirt, which is the thing that goes around the Christmas tree to hide the stand and the cords from the lights and stuff. And it also catches pine needles. I grew up with an artificial tree, so I'm kind of new to the ways of having a real tree. But Quince is letting me step my game up.

• 15:46Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. So it's a great place to do all of your holiday shopping, whether you're buying clothes or accessories or stuff for your house. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. It's now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was Song Exploder. It's the best way to support the show.

• 16:24Hrishikesh Hirway?

  After that concert, did you ever end up going and listening to the recorded version of Untouchable Face?

• 16:29Speaker 01

  Oh, yes. I became an Ani DiFranco, like, fiend.

• 16:31Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Oh, you did?

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. In Berkeley, where I ended up in college, there are some amazing record stores on Telegraph Avenue. So I would always scan for used albums and I got all of the previous ones. And I think my freshman or sophomore year, she put out a new album and, you know, she toured a lot. And she, I think every year when I was in college, she came and played at Berkeley High School, which has a pretty big auditorium. So we would all walk down to Berkeley High to watch Ani DiFranco. It was a moment for me, you know?

• 16:59Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  It was funny, too, because I remember, like, putting on my denim skirt. I was just so straight edge in that way. Like, I didn't drink, I didn't do drugs. I had not a bone of, like, punkness or, you know, not being super duper normie in my body. I came from suburban San Diego, like, so I very much felt like I didn't fit in in that audience. And also, I always wanted to go.

• 17:26Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I want to know how you went from feeling uncomfortable in that concert and like not really even necessarily enjoying the experience to becoming an Ani DiFranco fan. Over what period of time did it take for you to go, like, I'm not sure I liked that, to I'm a fan of this person's music?

• 17:45Speaker 01

  It took about a year, I think, because that was my senior year of high school that I went to that concert. And- I had some friends who really were big fans.

• 17:53Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Did you tell them, did you say, oh, I went to this concert when I was at Vassar?

• 17:57Speaker 01

  Yes, totally. And I'm very absorbent in that way and porous where like if someone around me likes something and is excited, I'll be like, oh, whoa, I'm so curious and I want to know. So I think it just started like that, like through osmosis of just proximity with my friends.

• 18:12Hrishikesh Hirway?

  When was the first time that you heard the recorded version of the song? Do you remember sitting down with a CD?

• 18:17Speaker 01

  I don't remember, but I would guess it was that summer.

• 18:20Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  Just to give you some context, my mom was pretty controlling about the radio. Like she was pretty controlling about everything. And so she chose the music in our house and in the car, which were the main places where I heard music as a kid and as a teen. I also was not allowed to have my own driver's license. And so really I was always a passenger in my mom's car where she controlled the radio.

• 18:41Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 18:41Speaker 01

  And she listened to classical Persian music, but also things like Louis Armstrong, Roberta Flack, you know, Ella Fitzgerald.

• 18:49Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Did you like the music that your mom would play? Like, did your porousness extend to the stuff that she would expose you to? Or did you think, this is my mom's music? This is not for me?

• 18:58Speaker 01

  I didn't not like it. I don't think I hated it. I just think on some level, I was like, there must be more out there, you know?

• 19:05Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  So I just remember, you know, we would go on caravan rides to cross country meets and a song would come on and everyone would sing. And I had no idea what the song was about.

• 19:17Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  Or what the words were. Like I was just lost. So a couple of my friends took it upon themselves to give me a crash course in musical education and made me some mixtapes and then sort of taught me various like musical genealogies of, you know, like Perry Farrell, Violent Femmes or whatever. There was another friend who was really into Phish.

• 19:35Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Uh huh.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  And I asked her about Ani DiFranco and she sort of educated me. So I would guess that she probably was how I listened to the first like recorded version of Untouchable Face.

• 19:46Hrishikesh Hirway?

  When you would listen to that song, did it feel just by like listening to it, that you were doing something transgressive?

• 19:53Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely. Just that I had this little secret. Like I was like, I'm listening to a song that's saying, fuck. Yeah.

• 20:00Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah. Did you ever swear in front of your parents?

• 20:03Speaker 01

  Never. I was, I was not allowed to. No.

• 20:05Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Did you ever swear outside of your parents? Like with your friends?

• 20:09Speaker 01

  Maybe a little bit, but you know, what's funny is the only thing I remember, I must have learned the word fuck quite early in life because I definitely in kindergarten got in trouble for saying it twice.

• 20:22Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I'm sure it's not hard for you to imagine. It was similar in my house where there was like no swearing. If there was a swear, like we'd be watching a, you know, an American movie or something like that and a swear would come on. My mom would like cluck disapprovingly at it, you know, like, why did they have to talk like that, you know?

• 20:39Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 20:39Hrishikesh Hirway?

  So just doing this episode, recording this, talking.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  It feels so transgressive. And also your mom's not alive anymore to cluck at you.

• 20:47Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And yet I'm still, oh my gosh, are we going to get in trouble for this?

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 20:51Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Like, I can't believe Samina's saying all these words.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm saying it a lot. Like.

• 20:55Hrishikesh Hirway?

  It's not without some little electric charge.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  I understand. I understand.

• 20:59Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah. But I think there is something different about saying it with your friends or hearing it in the air and then hearing it in a song.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 21:09Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And especially to have seen it in that context where it's like, there are lots of people here to pay attention to this person, what they have to say and what they have to sing about. And then she says that and they all sing along. Like that's.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:22Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Got a power to it.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  I think another part of it too, was there was anger in that room. Right? There was an anger as she sang. There was an anger that people were releasing when they would sing it with her. And certainly by the time it became my anthem, like I had anger that I was letting out. But as much as I've always had kind of a bad temper, I would say anger in that way, like super, like feeling it to my bones and letting myself feel and express a feeling was not something that ever happened for me in my home, in my childhood or adolescence, or really until many, many years later, when I started going to therapy. And so.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  It was this little outlet for me to have a feeling and what I considered a bad feeling and to like have a way to let that feeling like move through and out of my body.

• 22:17Hrishikesh Hirway?

  There's sort of two different degrees, maybe of a thing that I'm imagining where when you describe being a good kid who's obedient and respects their elders, there's a version where you feel the feeling of like wanting to say fuck you to your parents in response to, I mean, any of the, any number of just the things that you've already talked about in this.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 22:36Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And then there's another version of it where it's like you don't even allow yourself to have that thought.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  Oh, I didn't even know it was possible.

• 22:42Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  And so in a weird way, this little song was a tiny, tiny taste of that.

• 22:47Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Wow.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  For me. This was a little tool that helped me be, it just helped me cope a little bit better.

• 22:54Hrishikesh Hirway?

  When was the last time that you listened to this song?

• 22:57Speaker 01

  I haven't listened to it in, I don't, I mean, I do feel like I pulled up on Indefranco on Spotify a couple of years ago, but I definitely didn't listen to it after you and I talked about it a couple of months ago.

• 23:06Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Can I play it for you right now?

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:09Hrishikesh Hirway?

  So the track starts with this guitar amp sound.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:14Hrishikesh Hirway?

  When you hear that before the music has even started, is this a song that you know well enough that like?

• 23:18Speaker 01

  I can, yeah.

• 23:19Hrishikesh Hirway?

  You recognize that sound?

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 23:29Speaker 02

  Tell you the truth, I prefer the worst of you.

• 23:34Speaker 02

  Too bad you had a half a better half. She's not really my type, but I think you two are forever. And I hate to say it, but you're perfect together, so fuck you. And your untouchable face, fuck you. For existing in the first place, and who am I?

• 23:57Speaker 02

  That I should be lying for your touch, say, who am I? I bet you can't even tell me that much.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  Wow, I'm crying, it like brought tears to my eyes.

• 24:08Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Then when she says fuck you, there's just a, I just remember how I felt like.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it brought tears to my eyes because I just, it really takes me back to being that age. I didn't know how fragile I was, but I was so fragile. And so I was like a little deer in this big, big world. And there's a part of me too, that's like, oh, wow, it's so obvious what the song is about. And it's not that that never occurred to me, just probably not that first time, you know?

• 24:40Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  But even that, the idea that it's about this, like, you know, this romance and she's mad that the guy had a partner or whatever, and you deserve each other, like, that part of life, I was so.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  I don't know, not the word behind, but like, there were so many other burdens for me that it wouldn't have, couldn't have even occurred to me. I just didn't even have an opportunity to feel that way about another person, some man or whatever, like, that might have been what was happening for everyone else in that chapel. You know what I mean?

• 25:13Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Right.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  Right? Who was like having their romantic, you know, adolescence or whatever.

• 25:19Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  But I just, of course, my feelings had to be about my parents, like, of course, because I just was coming from such a different place. Yeah, I was light years away from that. And I think I had a lot of shame about that in some ways. But also now, looking back, I'm like, I also just had this massive, massive burden on my shoulders. And this was exactly the right vehicle for me to have these feelings for the right people. And it just wasn't the same people in the song, and that's okay.

• 25:50Hrishikesh Hirway?

  It strikes me, the way that she sings it, the song is sung really delicately.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  Sweetly, and I loved that.

• 25:57Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I wonder if that made a difference.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, because I think that's, it did make it, it made it like, something I could consume. Because if it had been death metal, or like hardcore rap or something.

• 26:10Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Right.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  That would have been too hard for me. I needed it to come in a sweet package. Like, I needed that.

• 26:17Hrishikesh Hirway?

  She sings it sweetly, but she still managed to get a real edge.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:22Hrishikesh Hirway?

  On those two words.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. No, God, I've listened to that song so many times.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think if it had only been sweet, it wouldn't have landed with me. If it had only been harsh and edgy, I couldn't have heard that. I wouldn't have been open to it. I couldn't have let it in.

• 26:42Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  So this somehow like struck this really wonderful balance.

• 26:46Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Maybe along similar lines, did it make a difference that it was sung by a woman and not a man?

• 26:51Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure, because I could relate to it because it was from a woman. Just subconsciously, there was a way where like, there was a pathway into the song for me because it was coming from a woman.

• 27:02Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Mm hmm.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  And this song showed up in this moment with this like, language, and also this presentation that kind of broke through to me. And this was a teeny tiny crack that allowed me to, for the first time, to feel this thing.

• 27:18Hrishikesh Hirway?

  When I first met you, which was before Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat came out, and then it came out and exploded and became so popular, and your show came out and became so popular. So many people associate you with joy.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 27:33Hrishikesh Hirway?

  In the way that you talk about cooking and just like in your public persona. And it's so authentic, and I know it's authentic, that I think people just think that that's

• 27:42Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 27:43Hrishikesh Hirway?

  your whole thing.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  But I'm actually deeply unhappy and rage-filled person.

• 27:49Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Well, I was wondering if you feel like doing that for people and being that joyous source, is it all an extension of the parameters you set for yourself from having been told for so long, be a good kid?

• 28:06Speaker 01

  Oh, 100%. Yes, absolutely. Direct line from one to the next.

• 28:12Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  And also, it is genuine. I'm not an actor. I don't know how to act. So like, when I'm excited or curious about something, it's truly how I'm feeling. I do feel like I built a weird trap for myself because now people see me as that side of me only, which is tough.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  But I also feel like that's why I'm happy to talk about this with you. And that's why it gives me such joy to offer joy and goodness to people because also it's disappearing every day from our lives.

• 28:47Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Right.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  So if I can do that, I'm happy to, but I have to take care of myself to be able to feel it genuinely. And in order to have that, I have to have the full range of like human experience. And I was taught for so much of my life culturally and family wise, to keep so much of myself behind a wall. Because that's like not proper for the world to see. And that doesn't serve me. I can't do that anymore. And it's not that I need to tell everyone, every single thing about my life, but I do have like a distinct interest in sharing my wholeness, partly because I don't want to just be a flat sort of caricature of myself in the world.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  And partly because I yearn for the young me to have had that to see in the world.

• 29:40Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Did you know that Ani DiFranco is touring this year?

• 29:43Speaker 01

  No, is she coming to Oakland?

• 29:46Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Not that I can see, but she is playing San Diego.

• 29:49Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 29:50Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Should we go to that show?

• 29:51Speaker 01

  I could never.

• 29:56Hrishikesh Hirway?

  You can't go. It would be too scary.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  It's already my heart is I'm having heart palpitations. Like it's easy.

• 30:04Hrishikesh Hirway?

  You've grown a lot, but not that much.

• 30:06Speaker 01

  No, no, no, I would still, I would, no, no can do, no can do.

• 30:12Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Thank you so much, Samin.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  Oh, thanks, Rishi. That was real sweet.

• 30:15Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Samin's new cookbook is Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love. And you can preorder it right now on her website, chausamin.com. You can also get tickets to see Samin on her book tour this fall. I'll be joining her for some of those dates, including San Francisco, LA, and Dallas. And if you want to hear more of us together, subscribe to the Home Cooking Podcast, which returns this year. Special thanks to Ani DiFranco and the wonderful people at Righteous Babe Records, who graciously allowed me to play Untouchable Face in this episode. Go see Ani on tour and listen to all of her life-changing songs. There's a link in the show notes to buy or stream Untouchable Face. You can find all the other episodes of Key Change at songexploder.net/kechange, along with a playlist that includes all the songs discussed on the series.

• 31:00Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I'll be back with another Song Exploder episode next week, but stay tuned for more Key Change episodes in the future. This episode was produced by me and Mary Dolan, with production assistance from Tiger Biscuit. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at radiotopia.fm. If you'd like to hear more from me, you can sign up for my newsletter. You can find a link to it on the Song Exploder website. You can also follow me on Instagram, and you can get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net/shirt. I'm Rishi Keshavay. Thanks for listening.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  Radiotopia.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  From PRX.