Session 466: Reclaiming Soul Food

When you think about the Black American experience, soul food is interwoven throughout its fabric. It carries stories and traditions across generations, and marks memories shared with people you love. And through the years, its definition has evolved and even been misunderstood by those who don’t understand its significance. Today, we’re unpacking all of that with Sierra Reece. Sierra is a culinary creator and entrepreneur focused on Black American foodways, soul food, and African diaspora cuisine. We talked about what soul food really means, how she balances tradition with experimentation, and why food can be such a powerful tool for preserving culture and identity. About the Podcast The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. Resources & Announcements Want to reflect on this conversation in community? Join us inside our Patreon https://community.therapyforblackgirls.com/ community where we’re unpacking this episode together. You can now catch episodes of the Therapy for Black Girls podcast on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@therapyforblackgirls. Be sure to subscribe to get new episodes every week. Did you know you can leave us a voice note with your questions for the podcast? If you have a question you'd like some feedback on, topics you'd like to hear covered, or want to suggest movies or books for us to review, drop us a message at memo.fm/therapyforblackgirls https://memo.fm/therapyforblackgirls and let us know what’s on your mind. We just might share it on the podcast. Grab your copy of Sisterhood Heals. https://www.sisterhoodheals.com/ Where to Find Our Guest Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sierranicolereece/?hl=en Substack https://substack.com/@sierranicolereece Stay Connected​https://click.convertkit-mail.com/27uv20p9mpioh8edr34s8ug63w344hg/58hvh8ug08p6wzc6/dGhlcmFweWZvcmJsYWNrZ2lybHMuY29tb3JibGFja2dpcmxzLmNvbS9wYXRyZW9u Is there a topic you'd like covered on the podcast? Submit it at therapyforblackgirls.com/mailbox https://www.therapyforblackgirls.com/mailbox. If you're looking for a therapist in your area, check out the directory at https://www.therapyforblackgirls.com/directory. Grab your copy of our guided affirmation and other TBG Merch at therapyforblackgirls.com/shop https://therapyforblackgirls.com/shop. The hashtag for the podcast is #TBGinSession. Make sure to follow us on social media: Instagram: @therapyforblackgirls https://www.instagram.com/therapyforblackgirls Facebook: @therapyforblackgirls https://www.facebook.com/therapyforblackgirls Our Production Team Executive Producers: Dennison Bradford & Gabrielle Collins Director of Podcast & Digital Content: Ellice Ellis Producers: Tyree Rush & Ndeye Thioubou Production Assistant: Bria Mosley See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:10Speaker 00

  Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website at therapyforblackgirls.com. While I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional.

• 0:56Speaker 00

  Hey y'all. Thanks so much for joining me for session 466 of the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast. We'll get right into our conversation after a word from our sponsors.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 1:16Speaker 00

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:47Speaker 02

  Overwhelmed? That was me with diabetes. Hey, I'm Jabran. Between teaching and coaching, managing diabetes felt like an extra job. With the Freestyle Libre 3 CGM, I get real-time glucose readings and have the insights to make informed decisions. My life feels lighter now. Learn more at freestylelibre.us.

• 2:06Speaker 03

  The views expressed should not be used for medical diagnosis or treatment as a substitute for professional medical advice. Individual circumstances may vary. For prescription only. Safety info found at freestylelibre.us.

• 2:16Speaker 04

  I'm Martha Stewart from the Martha Stewart Podcast. When you want to make your best, it's got to be McCormick. From everyday meals to hosting dinner parties, turn to McCormick. Their convenient, versatile flavors elevate every dish. McCormick has been and is an essential in the kitchen. Now they have a new line of signature seasonings crafted by flavor experts. With everyday favorites like garlic and olive oil, globally inspired ones like chimichurri, and more. McCormick's signature seasonings make it easier to add bold flavors that make each bite of your meal more delicious. Try the chimichurri blend that elevates grilled meats. Explore the full array of blends and find your favorite at McCormick.com.

• 2:57Speaker 05

  Granger knows if you're a procurement manager at an industrial manufacturing facility, you're balancing inventory and budget while sourcing critical supplies across the operation. Too much inventory? Costs climb. Too little? Production slows. Granger's $2 billion in on-hand inventory helps you get what you need when you need it, so you can help keep budgets balanced and lines moving. Call 1-800-GRANGER, click Granger.com, or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done.

• 3:30Speaker 00

  When you think about the Black American experience, soul food is interwoven throughout its fabric. It carries stories and traditions across generations and marks memories shared with people you love. And through the years, its definition has evolved and even been misunderstood by those who don't understand its significance. Today, we're unpacking all of that with Ciara Reese. Ciara is a culinary creator and entrepreneur focused on Black American foodways, soul food, and African diaspora cuisine. You may know her from social media where she shares recipes, cultural context, and fresh takes that make soul food feel both rooted in tradition and part of everyday life. We talk about what soul food really means, how she balances tradition with experimentation,

• 4:15Speaker 00

  and why food can be such a powerful tool for preserving culture and identity. If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation, please share with us on social media using the hashtag #TVGNSession, or join us over in our Patreon to talk more about the episode. You can join us at community.therapyforblackgirls.com. Here's our conversation.

• 4:40Speaker 00

  Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Ciara.

• 4:43Speaker 06

  Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

• 4:46Speaker 00

  I'm excited to chat with you and I want to start our conversation today with the question that we ask as a part of all of our hiring of interviews here at Therapy for Black Girls. Can't get higher without answering this question. So what is your choice, sweet or savory grits?

• 5:03Speaker 06

  Oh.

• 5:06Speaker 06

  I think when I want grits, I always go for savory grits, but I support all sweet grits people.

• 5:14Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 5:14Speaker 06

  I've played it because I just like a porridge. I'm a porridge girl. Like I love a oat, I love a millet, I love a grit. So when I want a sweet grit as like a little treat, I will have it and not be ashamed. But when I just want like grits, grits, I'll go for a savory grit. But I do not shame sweet grits people. Everyone is welcome here.

• 5:30Speaker 00

  All grits are welcome. We love it. We love it. These are often very contentious questions as a part of the hiring interview.

• 5:36Speaker 06

  You know, for what though? Why are we fighting? We have bigger issues. Why are we fighting over grits?

• 5:40Speaker 00

  It feels like people are very tied to their way of grits, which I think says a lot. So just a fun question.

• 5:45Speaker 06

  I hear it. I want to create space for everyone's preferences.

• 5:51Speaker 06

  Truly.

• 5:53Speaker 00

  So tell us more about your journey. What has it been like to go from studying hospitality at Georgia State to getting your MBA in Madrid and now being a voice for Black American food culture?

• 6:03Speaker 06

  Oh, man. Oh, my God. Call me the voice for Black American food culture. It's like, ah, scary. But

• 6:10Speaker 06

  oh, my God, I would say like the last, this is the last year of my twenties also, like I used to do youth work. So I had a kid literally call me a geriatric Gen Z once and I was offended when it happened. And now I've just owned it, which I'm like, okay, cool. I'm like the Gen Z big cousin. But definitely looking back at the last 10 years, I've been reflecting a lot on my twenties and this year, it just so much change has happened. Especially when you think of just like how crucial and how important your twenties are into like your identity formation. Definitely, everything that's happening right now makes complete sense to me because I know other people don't know how I got to this point yet. But for me, I'm like, this makes complete sense. Like every step makes sense. Like I was just thinking this morning about what was like a really key.

• 6:55Speaker 06

  Turning point for me and just my understanding of my own culture because I grew up in the suburbs. I am a classic suburban black girl, second gen. My mom grew up in the suburbs. Both my parents went to college, my dad went to an Ivy. Like our family's sport is lacrosse. We are very suburban.

• 7:10Speaker 06

  But I don't want to go into the whole like tragic suburban black girl story because I think we've heard. I want to see more people talk about it, those experiences, but I think we've heard it. But more so that is a very specific kind of like childhood trauma to say to be a black girl in the suburbs. And for me, it was a lot of being put into boxes that didn't make sense for me. And I understand why people put me in those boxes, but I didn't really get why. Like it never felt right. I was born and raised in New Jersey, grew up going to high school in South Jersey. And once I got to the end of my high school career, I was like, I gotta get out of here. Picked up and ran, went to Georgia State, went down to Atlanta, and that just changed everything for me. It just opened up kind of my world of what blackness looks like for me, what that means.

• 7:54Speaker 06

  As well as it was the first time I really got the opportunity to learn about my own culture in an academic context, in a comprehensive academic context. Like this morning, I was just thinking about when I was taking African American studies. I did four straight years of African American studies at Georgia State. The only reason I didn't get a minor in it, I was one class short of a minor, but I would have had to take another semester, so I wouldn't have graduated on time, so I decided not to. But my very first class was with Dr. Lisa Shannon, who is an icon at Georgia State. And that changed everything, like everything, the way I moved through the world and the way I experienced life, like taking African American studies when I was eighteen, nineteen, just colored all of that in a different light.

• 8:34Speaker 06

  And it's definitely changed the way I approach things because I'm always approaching my life choices from the perspective of like, I know what had to happen for me to be in this position. I know what had to happen for me to be able to do, to do my bachelor's degree at an out of state institution. I know what had to happen for me to be able to go get my masters in another country. There's so many things on the back end, so many sacrifices that had to be made. For me to be who I am now, and I'm just always moving, understanding that I'm standing on the shoulders of giants. It's never just about me. And I think with this whole conversation around soul food and Black American cuisine and the future of it,

• 9:14Speaker 06

  I'm always moving in that direction of like, I know what it took for me to have the level of education and knowledge that I have. And I want to make sure that I'm not wasting it, if that makes sense. I've done all kinds of side quests over the last 10 years, all kinds of interesting, weird, unique experiences that when I say them to people, it doesn't make sense in its own container, but in the grand story of Sierra Nicole and who I am, it all just makes sense. So this moment happening was definitely not an accident. It was just like, good timing for me. So yeah, it's been fun.

• 9:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I can definitely see, I mean, without even knowing the story behind all the side quests, I can see how like going there, being a hospitality major, but also being very immersed in African American studies, then leads to this person who is now really deeply interested in soul food and like Black American culture and what it looks like to preserve it.

• 10:02Speaker 06

  Yeah, for sure. And definitely on the soul food front specifically, I think the big turning point for me and my own learning and understanding, because I grew up in a food household, like my dad, he did the hospitality program at Cornell. He's a chef, he's worked in kitchens, he caters mostly now as like a side gig, but we're just like a foodie household. Like I had a Whole Foods mom. When I was a kid, she used to take me over to the cheese section of Whole Foods and try different cheeses. And then we got to know the lady, the cheesemonger behind the counter. So I would call her the cheese lady. I never knew this lady's name. She will always be the cheese lady in Six Year Old Me's Head and Twenty Nine Year Old Me's Head. But just, I loved food and I had a family that supported my curiosity about food.

• 10:43Speaker 06

  And I think the big turning point for me in redirecting that into understanding Black American foodways was High on the Hog, when that came out in, I think, 2021. I think it was 2021, I'm not sure. But that blew open a whole bunch of things for me. And it really forced me to kind of question my understanding of our history around food and wanting to learn more. And then What does that look like for me coming up into adulthood? And this whole journey on social media has just been a very recent kind of understanding of food for me because I was living abroad and I was a black American living abroad. So people are trying to contextualize you in a whole different way. I'm at an international institution. Pretty much all of my classmates, I was their very first black friend. So it wasn't even like, I'm African from the continent.

• 11:28Speaker 06

  I'm black from the United States of America. And outside of the United States, Americanness equals whiteness. So for people to come and meet me and I'm telling them like, I don't eat that on Thanksgiving. Actually, I've never seen that in my life was just a lot for them to understand and contextualize. And that also forced me to sit with my own relationship with our food and with my identity. So, yeah.

• 11:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, so your journey has now converged, at least in part, to your writings on The Daily Corvina, which is your subject. So what is your North Star for your work? How are you hoping people engage with your writing?

• 12:04Speaker 06

  My North Star, especially now that I've just moved back to the States, is a big one, but I want to fundamentally change the way the world engages with American food and understands American food. It's just very tiring when you're living outside the country and the understanding of what Americans eat is hamburgers, french fries, hot dogs, McDonald's, fast food. And then I show up to the community picnic with chicken biscuits and they're like, what is that? You know, so I was just sitting with that. People outside of the US, and it's partially our own fault because American imperialism and the way that works, we've fed the world a very specific vision of what Americanness looks like and American identity.

• 12:46Speaker 06

  And then even when it comes to black American identity, like the kinds of things that have made it out of the country are a very specific version of black Americanness. So the world only understands us from the things that we've chosen to put out into the world. So when you meet real Americans in the wild and out and about abroad, in Europe, in Latin America, wherever, they're trying to take their expectation and place it on you and it might not always fit. And I started to feel that way about our food. So I found myself abroad being this like culinary diplomat where I was just finding these opportunities with my friends and my classmates to introduce them to things that I would eat on holidays, things I would eat growing up, my own learnings and understandings of what black American food is and cuisine and my learnings from High on the Hog.

• 13:28Speaker 06

  And coming back from that, I was really like, this needs to change. For me, it's this very played out understanding of who Americans are and the things that we eat. And I want to see that shift and change, and I think it's very much possible. We've seen other major chefs do this with other cuisines, like Jose Andres is known for this with Spanish cuisine. He's the person who pretty much brought Spanish cuisine to the United States and invested his life's work into that. And I think that's possible in reverse when it comes to American food. But in knowing that, I know that that's a process that starts at home, that starts with my own food, my own relationship with Black American food. I went to an international private school for my MBA in Madrid. And I would realize when I would go to like my Mexican classmates' house, there was always tortillas.

• 14:10Speaker 06

  Or I go to my Indian friend's house, there's always dal, there was always rice. Like, I always knew what to expect when I was going to their house. But I would go home and look at what I have meal prepped in the fridge, and it was always Asian food. And I was just sitting with that, I was like, I know what fits in our cuisine. I know we have all of these things, why am I not making these all the time? Why am I not making this every day? And I was like, oh, wait, like, I should explore why I'm not making this. And I started thinking through all the questions, okay, what's the why? It takes too long to make. Okay, it's not healthy, it's this and it's that. And I started working through all the different questions around like, what makes soul food something that we don't typically associate with eating every day? And typically, the two things are the time consumption of it, how long it takes to make.

• 14:51Speaker 06

  And that it's considered not healthy, which now I've figured out the why around that and how it came to be. But I've been doing this own unpacking for myself. I'm like, okay, how can I make this for myself to eat every day? And then I had friends and family fly in in December for my graduation. And my best friend and I are sitting in my apartment. And I was like, hey, I think next year with my content, because I just started doing content around like last year. It was a project that me and my, one of my best friends were doing, who's from Colombia, but he's living in Spain. And I was teaching him all these different Black American recipes. And he said, you need to put these recipes online in Spanish. So all of my early content from like May until June is completely in Spanish. I speak Spanish, self-taught. And then I ended up pivoting back to the more English speaking market.

• 15:36Speaker 06

  But I was engaging with our food through trying to teach it to someone I care about who had never engaged with it. And I also went through a health treaty a couple of years ago. I gained fifty pounds in the pandemic. I lost fifty pounds, but I was also like an athlete growing up. I know my body pretty well. I had a Whole Foods mom. So I've always been really interested in health and wellness and food. And then having to gain and lose weight forced me to have an even deeper understanding of nutrition and the impact on my body. So I told my friend in my apartment at the time, I'm like, I think I want to like make an ebook of just how to take soul food recipes, take everything I know about soul food and how to make it healthier. And I was just waiting for the right time because I'm always approaching social media from the perspective of marketing. And a lot of times with marketing, timing has a lot to do with that.

• 16:21Speaker 06

  So I was just waiting for the time to kind of play around with this idea online. And another creator named MK Alan Granderson, he's a writer. He proposed this conversation around how soul food isn't just mac and cheese and fried chicken and all these things that we associate it with. It's also black eyed peas. It's also different kinds of card greens, field peas, it's wild asparagus, it's all these things. And that was when I was like, okay, this is the opening. And then I posted my video bouncing off of his idea and tagging him and crediting him. And it just went and it took off from there. And because I already have the plan in place, I've just been able to execute and keep going and just keep going. And I'm going to keep going, but I had to have the plan and then I waited for the right time and I've just been taking it from there. But

• 17:04Speaker 06

  overall, it's this wanting to the world to see Americanness and American food differently, but knowing that that starts at home. And it starts with fundamentally changing the way that Black Americans engage with Black American food, cuisine and culture. So that's a long way to answer that question, but.

• 17:21Speaker 00

  No, I appreciated that. And it left me with a couple of thoughts. So as you were talking about, like you visited Indian friends home or Mexican friends home, what they would have. I was trying to think, oh, what would I consider like a staple of a Black American home? So in your mind, like what would some of those things be?

• 17:37Speaker 06

  Everyone should have cornbread. Ready? Everybody should have cornbread. If I was like having a friend over and I just had things in the fridge and I'm like, oh, you hungry? You want something? It would likely be like some kind of roast protein or roast chicken. Or if they want something more snacky, like canned fish, sardines, mackerels, just any kind of canned type fish, canned salmon. But yeah, some kind of roast chicken or like salmon cakes are super easy. And then a rice and bean dish, like even across the Americas, when you travel through the Americas and you're just understanding how we're all connected because of colonialism. Everyone's gonna have a rice and beans. Everyone has some kind of like cooked down vegetable. Like we're very the same in that.

• 18:17Speaker 06

  And that's what I enjoy the most about traveling on this side of the planet is you really understand the way in which we're all connected in that way. So yeah, always having like a rice and beans type dish ready. Either it's a hop and john or it's a red beans or rice, whatever. It's just there. And then typically greens, just like in the fridge. And I've played around with all different kinds of greens recipes. I've tried greens recipes with coconut milk, which is really good. Coconut milk, doing vegan versions, doing more Asian version. Greens are so versatile because they're so thick. And you can play around with a lot of different things and they hold really well in the fridge because of their density. So I think everybody should have a rice and beans ready at all times. Like it's a complete protein. You can, it warms up really well, holds really well. So rice and beans, some kind of roast chicken, salmon cakes, maybe.

• 19:02Speaker 06

  And like a green, just ready. And then cornbread, cornbread, because you can make cornbread once and it's good all week. And you can do a bunch of different things with cornbread. You can make cornbread milk, you could. So I saw somebody do a cornbread latte. They tagged me in, people are even getting creative. It has been so fun and people tag me in these really cool recipes every single day. I'm like, oh, we're now, this is great. I love it here. But those would be the things that I would say I should just have all the time because they're very nutritious and they hold well for multiple days in the fridge and keep their integrity.

• 19:31Speaker 00

  Nice, nice. So you talked about like two different reasons why you think we don't necessarily engage with this food all the time. One being the time it takes to cook, but also the, the thing I want to more often dig into is this idea that it's unhealthy, right? And that I think has led to a lot of stigma around our thoughts and our relationship to soul food. So can you talk more about that stigma and like how we got to that, please?

• 19:53Speaker 06

  So you know, as everything in America tends to do, it all comes down to racism. Unfortunately, and the more I've learned about our own food, the more I mourn the what could have been if racism hadn't gotten in the way. But I think now where we are as a people and a community, we have a really huge opportunity to change that. So basically what happened now soul food is not what we always called it soul food. The term came out around the 1960s during the black power movement where soul, the word soul, like soul music was used to just describe black identity and black power. Before that, it was just like black food. It was just country cooking, you know? But then we started using soul food as a way to empower our relationship with our food.

• 20:35Speaker 06

  Where things really started to take a change was the Great Migration. So more than six million black Americans left the South between 1910 and 1970 fleeing political persecution, seeking economic opportunity and just like violence. It was really dangerous to live in the South. And a couple of things happened out of the Great Migration. The first big thing that occurred was that we switched as a community from being subsistence farmers to being wage workers in these urban areas. So what's really interesting is like if you read The Cooking Gene by Michael Twitty, he kind of talks about how European enslavers knew where they were going for specific things.

• 21:17Speaker 06

  Different West African groups had very different skills. So once the transatlantic slave trade was up and moving, they weren't just like going up and down the coast and just grabbing whoever. They're going to Senegal because they know Senegal and the Sanagambian region is great rice producers and that low country area between Charleston and Savannah, that Goligachi corridor is a rice producing region. So they're pulling people from there. There's different regions that are better at mining, better at metallurgy. They weren't just grabbing people, they were picking people with very specific skills. And agriculture and farming and our relationship with the land was something that West Africans were very in tune with that our oppressors were not. And they needed that skill set in order to support the American economy.

• 22:02Speaker 06

  So we were this group of people who were knew how to work the land, who knew how to live with the land. And we were living very rurally as subsistence farmers were growing our own food. We're raising animals, we're hunting, but. Jim Crow happens, the Nadir period, the Great Migration happens, people have to start moving. So I'm a descendant of the Great Migration. My folks came out of Virginia and South Carolina. They moved out to New York, settled in Harlem. I grew up in New Jersey, I was born in New Jersey. So we start moving to these areas that don't have a bunch of fresh land, that don't have access to fresh food or fresh vegetables, and we're just left with the resources that are available to us in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver, all of these places where we ended up having to go

• 22:47Speaker 06

  just to have better opportunity. And that changed the way we eat. And I started playing around with this idea a couple of weeks ago about what are the comparisons between the Great Migration and the experiences of refugees? Refugees fleeing war, fleeing political persecution, and how displacement impacts nutrition. And I was reading this one paper, I wish I remember the name, where research was conducted, and I forgot the name of the town, but it's near like Stone Mountain outside of Atlanta. But there's just a high population of refugee resettlements in this town. And they were interviewing adolescents about what are the things that you were eating very often prior to having to be displaced in the United States? And what are you eating more of now?

• 23:28Speaker 06

  And the top three things that these kids were eating less of was rice, beans, and potatoes. Three very nutrient-dense crops that are very common in the Americas to grow and very common across diets in the Americas. And they were like, what are you eating more of? They're eating more pizza, not very nutrient-dense, not very healthy. And the same thing happened with the Great Migration when you compare it as like a refugee story, we were fleeing. So our nutrition changed because we had to move and we weren't living on the land anymore. We didn't have access to the same kinds of resources, so we just had to make do. And it created this flattening of our understanding of what soul food is because we could only recreate the things based on the kinds of things that we had access to.

• 24:11Speaker 06

  And that ended up being bag and cheese, ended up being fried chicken, and ended up being lots of processed foods. And just, we had less access to fresh vegetables because we weren't living with and on the land. Like our ancestors had been doing. And then you start bringing on in all these other things like redlining and food deserts is starting to come out of popularity as a word. People are now more using food apartheid, but which was coined by Karen Washington. So it speaks more to the fact that food resources have been like politically and strategically borrowed from black people. It's not like, oh, black people just ended up in this area that had nothing. It was like, no, we, we could have these things, but racism got in the way and has made it specifically that we can't have them.

• 24:55Speaker 06

  So that's just what happened. We weren't living with the land anymore. We didn't have a relationship with nature. We had been stripped of our skills for the sake of capitalism and then it impacted our health in the same way that when refugees have to move and adapt to a new country as they're fleeing war. And it changes the way they eat and it changes the access to certain kinds of ingredients that they were used to having. The same thing happened to black Americans. We had to adapt to, we had to adapt our cuisine to being in new environments, which we had done before. The transatlantic slave trade was the exact same thing. The reason we call sweet potatoes yams is because a real yam, if you've ever seen one, it's like a really big white, like tuber root. It's huge. When people are making like pounded yam, fufu, those kinds of things that are common in West African cuisine.

• 25:38Speaker 06

  We call candy yams, sweet potatoes that because it was the closest kind of produce, the closest thing to something that we had back home that we could find. And that's why we call them yams. Sweet potatoes aren't an actual yam. They look nothing alike. They function completely differently as ingredients. So, but it was just us making do with what we have. That's what we've always done as a people. So we're always adapting our cuisine. And then now, looking forward, it's like, okay, knowing all of this, knowing our food has been flattened in our understanding of it. Cause I get a lot of people who come in my comments on my original video saying black Americans should eat soul food every day, saying, well, we never stopped eating soul food. We've always been eating it.

• 26:18Speaker 06

  But a lot of folks who are still living rurally in the South, they might have more access to like land and a lot of those traditions have been preserved. So there was just like a flattening of our understanding of what the food was. And now moving forward, it's this looking back in order to go forward. Sankofa, if you're familiar with the concept, this like, what were we doing prior to this thing happening to us? What did our eating patterns look like? How did that impact our nutrition? And then how do we bring that back? Into the future of the way that we eat. And I think that's what my work is trying to do, what I'm trying to get at.

• 26:50Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. More from our conversation after the break.

• 26:58Speaker 00

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions. Each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities? How do shared experiences help light the way forward? How do we best show up for each other? Tune in to find out.

• 27:41Speaker 00

  Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 27:47Speaker 00

  Keeping your money safe from fraud deserves to be a priority, and Cash App treats it that way. With security lock, Cash App requires a successful Face ID or biometric authentication to access your account. It's like your money is protected by your own personal bodyguard, even if your phone is lost or stolen. Plus, if you're about to send money to someone new and Cash App notices something looks a little bit off or that you might be falling for a scam, it'll send you a warning before the money is sent to confirm that everything looks right. Download Cash App and spend with peace of mind today. Download Cash App today and make your money work for you. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partners.

• 28:29Speaker 00

  Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. Cash App Visa Debit Flex Cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC, and the Bancorp Bank, N.A., pursuant to a license from Visa USA, Inc. See terms and conditions for the Sutton Prepaid Card, Sutton Debit Flex Card, and Bancorp Debit Flex Card. Discounts and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block Incorporated brand. Visit cashapp/legal/podcast for full disclosures.

• 28:59Speaker 03

  Hey, it's Niall Rogers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by my friend, John Legend. So you're helping Will.i.am write hooks. What made "Ordinary People" become the one song from those sound checks you knew you had to make your own?

• 29:26Speaker 07

  I was just writing for the Black Eyed Peas. I wasn't expecting to write something for myself in that session, but I wrote the hook for "Ordinary People," and I recorded a demo, and I'm like, I would rather keep "Ordinary People" for myself. This station in Chicago, W G C I, they start playing it before we're promoting it. The song spoke for itself. It became the defining song for my first album. I knew it was special, but you never know how special it's going to be and how much impact it's going to have in people's lives. And you never believe that you're going to actually change people's lives with a song.

• 29:56Speaker 03

  Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 30:05Speaker 00

  Host Nora McInerney is back for an all-new season of The Head Start, embracing the journey brought to you in partnership with AbbVie. In each episode, Nora has honest conversations with real people living with chronic migraine, people who are figuring out how to adapt, advocate, and stay connected to the things that bring them joy. This season, she's revisiting familiar voices and introducing new ones who will share their stories about what it means to live with this condition, from the missed moments to the strategies that help them keep going when things feel uncertain. As always, she'll be joined by headache specialist Dr. Christopher Rhine, who offers insight into these challenges and the questions many of us have. If you're new to the podcast, check out the three previous seasons, each one offering

• 30:49Speaker 00

  a different perspective on this condition and the theme of resilience, displayed while navigating it. So don't miss season four of The Head Start: Embracing the Journey. Listen on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 31:06Speaker 00

  And in your mind, where is that, right? Because I think you're right. Like, we have had a history of kind of making do with what we have and turning it into something miraculous, right? There's very good taste that come from us figuring out how to make it do what it does. But we do also know that there are health impacts, right? And that we do need to be mindful of those kinds of things. And so what does it look like to kind of reclaim and like meld all of those things together into the future of what our history with food looks like?

• 31:35Speaker 06

  I think a big part of it is education. And it's, what's really important for me is that I'm using the district, like I said, I'm geriatric gentry. I'm using the distribution strategy that makes sense for people my age and younger, which is the internet. At one point in time, it was literature, it was books, it was newspapers, it was PhD dissertations, whatever. At a point in time, it was cable television, but now it's the internet, short form platforms. And that is where people are getting a lot of their information, a lot of their news, just anything that they want to go deeper on. People are checking short form platforms first. But education at the same time becomes, in the world that we live in, is a privilege in a lot of ways.

• 32:19Speaker 06

  Being able to have access to certain kinds of education, being able to have access to certain people who can teach you certain things. And I think nutrition as a whole and what food does for our body and our relationship with food unfortunately becomes like an educational gap that needs to be filled as well as a food access gap. There's still lots of Black Americans who don't have access to fresh foods and vegetables, who don't have access to a local grocery store or farmer's market or somewhere where they can get real fresh food. But if you do or are someone who has access to those things, then it's like an understanding of what does this thing do for me in my body?

• 33:01Speaker 06

  So for me, when I was on my health journey, one of the things that I was struggling with was pre-diabetes, right? And diabetes also runs in my family, so it's just something I'm always going to have to be mindful of. But in that process, I was learning more about the way food breaks down in my body. And the way starches break down in your body and we always say when we say sugar, we think like candy. We think like sweet drinks, we think pastries, but also rice is a sugar. Now, there's nothing wrong with rice. Rice isn't a bad thing. I don't believe in moralizing food. You will never hear me go and say, this is bad, this is good. I will always just present, this is what this thing is. And this is what this thing is, and they both do different things and it's up to you to decide what you want to do with it. So I will never moralize a food.

• 33:45Speaker 06

  But then I started getting into, okay, rice. Rice breaks down in my body a certain way as someone who processes sugar differently. What does brown rice do versus white rice? How does that break down? Brown rice breaks down a little bit slower. White rice breaks down faster, so it means it's going to spike your blood sugar a little bit quicker. Blood sugar spikes aren't bad. They're supposed to happen, but if you're someone who needs to be more mindful of their blood sugar, you have to know that ahead of time. So then, okay, how do I make it so that the spike isn't as bad? Oh, you can eat fiber before you actually have your rice. And then that helps mellow the spike out so it's not as high. And so that it keeps you more stabilized throughout the day when you're processing it. And this is like how the food is breaking down your body.

• 34:28Speaker 06

  So I'm going through this process of like learning this on my own, working with my doctor, working with my dietitian. Of just understanding glycemic index, understanding just like how food impacts my body as somebody who doesn't break down sugar well. But I don't think that's something that most people know about how the food impacts your body. And that's why protein is such a big thing now because protein helps your satiation, it helps you stay fuller. So now everybody wants to be on the protein for the protein wagon, but don't eat a ton of protein without fiber or else you're going to be real constipated like that. You caught fun, eat the fiber, please. So there's, I think, a gap in nutrition education when it comes to just like high level understandings of nutrition. And the everyday person, and I think that's a really great space that content creators fill.

• 35:11Speaker 06

  I was listening to Deontay Kyle talk to FD Signifier, their interview a couple of weeks ago. And FD was talking about how he doesn't really feel like he's doing anything new or special. He's just taking things from people with PhDs in Africana studies or African American studies.

• 35:27Speaker 06

  And then putting them on YouTube and putting them on TikTok or whatever platform he's using. So it's this great middle man because it's like this trickle down effect that actually works, not like trickle down economics. But it's this trickle down effect of information that's happening where like you have these high level understandings of a hard concept. Content creators are filling this gap and understanding how to sell the concept to everybody else. And then that information is making its way through the world. So I think that's the space that I'm filling when it comes to nutrition in relation to soul food is that one. Knowing what I know about our cuisine, knowing what the roots of our cuisine is. That's also a big part that a lot of people don't realize is that the roots of black American cuisine are very nutritious. In the same way that most global cuisines are quite healthy.

• 36:11Speaker 06

  It's once you start modifying too much that things start to get out of hand. And we're eating like celebration meals, like things you should have once a week, once a month, all the time. And associating it with that, most cuisines are very healthy, very nutritionally dense. Black American cuisine is very nutritionally dense. Black eye peas are very good for you. Rice is great for you. Chicken is good for you. Shellfish is good for you. Like all of these things provide nutrition to your body. And it's for me with my content, I'm trying to reframe that. Say you go to your doctor or dietitian, they're like, oh, you should try the Mediterranean diet. Then you can push back and say, why are you recommending that? Cause I'm, I lived over there, they really not eating anything special. Those folks eat, and they have a cigarette and an espresso for breakfast. I'm supposed to look at you like you're the pinnacle of health? I'm not with that.

• 36:56Speaker 06

  So it's, why is that the standard? It's this decolonization also of our understanding of our own food. And realizing like all of these things that our ancestors were eating are very nutritious. If you saw Black Panther, there's the joke that Mbaku makes about, oh, we're vegetarians. Most of those West African tribes, there's studies to show that most of them were vegetarian. They weren't eating meat. So it's just trying to frame health and nutrition, but putting our food at the center of it. I'm not going to put Mediterranean food or these very white ideals of what.

• 37:31Speaker 06

  Health and wellness looks like at the center, I'm putting black cuisines at the center. I'm putting black American traditional country cooking at the center of it. I'm putting West African cooking at the center of it. That's what I'm trying to do. So it's like, people are already doing this on the internet. I'm just packaging it differently. And I think that's what's working. It's like, it feels more approachable. It feels like it makes more sense to a lot of folks. So that's what I'm trying to keep going, because, and I'm gonna ride that wave until that one runs out. And then I'll find another wave to ride.

• 37:59Speaker 00

  I appreciate the story from Black Panther. Mbaku was one of my favorite characters in Black Panther.

• 38:06Speaker 06

  Me too.

• 38:06Speaker 00

  But I do think it introduces this not new, but new, maybe for people who are talking about this idea of plant-based soul food, right? And now you're talking about, actually, that is a thing that is coming back, right? Like, because West African tribes were already using plants, right? And so talk to us about these plant-based ideas around like, how to integrate that with soul food? And what does that look like in practice?

• 38:29Speaker 06

  So there's a couple of people who have been working on this, now I won't say decades, but for a long time already. Bryant Terry is a great resource for that. Janaye Claiborne, Sweet Potato Soul, if anyone's watched her, they're both vegans. And I keep up with vegans and I follow vegans, but I am not vegan. Just because, especially with what I'm trying to do, again, social media is marketing. You have to sell an idea. As soon as you say vegan to people, 50% of your audience turns their brain off. There's nothing wrong with being vegan at all. And honestly, there's a lot of vegan creators that I follow, who have amazing recipes that help me put more plant-based things into my diet. Like, there's this one creator, Afia, who was amazing. Eat with Afia.

• 39:12Speaker 06

  But she shows all these different plant-based recipes from Ghana. And the way they're using grains and corns and roots and tubers. And I've been following her for years on my personal page, and I just followed her on my professional page. Like, she's just such a beautiful representation. It's so different from what we see of West African cuisine. And I really appreciate her content, and I'm always very inspired by it. But there are people who have been doing the work on the vegan front. What I'm trying to help do is create more of a middleman. Just because being vegan is really hard. As someone who floated in and out of vegetarian veganism between like, age 12 and 22. It is a very difficult thing to do like emotionally and socially like it's hard to be a vegan.

• 39:55Speaker 06

  And people know that. So from a marketing perspective, I think veganism is a great resource, but it is very difficult to do. And I'm trying to find this middle ground that feels authentic. So I look to recipes on the continent. That makes sense and fit into this style of diet as well as things that we do here. Like I just posted a video about salmon cakes. Talking about the nutrition in salmon and how canned salmon just like makes your life easier. Like it fits these two buckets that I'm working with when it comes to soul food. Like how we make it easier to make every day? How is it nutritious? And salmon cakes are a great option in that salmon has is high omega threes. It's a great source of protein. So it helps keep you full. And also there's vegetables in it. So that's adding nutrition.

• 40:38Speaker 06

  And at the same time, it's a canned product. Like you don't have to cook it. When you're making a salmon cake, you can get it from a can. So that makes it easier. So I think looking to vegan people is very helpful. But I don't set them as my standard just because a lot of people do not want to be vegan. Unfortunately, is it more sustainable for the planet? Yeah. Is it good for your body? Yes. But at the core of it, it's just like eating more whole foods, eating more vegetables. That's what the core of it. So I'm always going to promote like you should be eating more vegetables, more produce, more plants in general. But and maybe incorporating a vegan meal once a week, twice a week into your routine, into your meal prep, if you meal prep.

• 41:19Speaker 06

  But I'm not going to be like, everybody should go be vegan because that kind of feels like an extreme in in some ways. But they are good resources to check out. Definitely Brian Terry for sure. He's been in the game for a long time, talking about food access, talking about health and wellness and all these things. But there are people who've been doing the work. So that's not my work.

• 41:37Speaker 00

  Got it, got it. More from our conversation after the break.

• 41:47Speaker 00

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions, each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities? How do shared experiences help light the way forward? How do we best show up for each other? Tune in to find out.

• 42:30Speaker 00

  Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 42:36Speaker 00

  Keeping your money safe from fraud deserves to be a priority, and Cash App treats it that way. With security lock, Cash App requires a successful Face ID or biometric authentication to access your account. It's like your money is protected by your own personal bodyguard, even if your phone is lost or stolen. Plus, if you're about to send money to someone new and Cash App notices something looks a little bit off or that you might be falling for a scam, it'll send you a warning before the money is sent to confirm that everything looks right. Download Cash App and spend with peace of mind today. Download Cash App today and make your money work for you. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partners,

• 43:19Speaker 00

  prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC, Cash App Visa Debit Flex Cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC, and the Bancorp Bank, N.A., pursuant to a license from Visa USA, Inc. See terms and conditions for the Sutton Prepaid Card, Sutton Debit Flex Card, and Bancorp Debit Flex Card. Discounts and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block Incorporated brand. Visit cashapp/legal/podcast for full disclosures.

• 43:48Speaker 07

  Hey, it's Niall Rogers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by my friend, John Legend. How does music actually enter your mind?

• 44:10Speaker 02

  I'm not sure why or how the music Comes to me, but I think people who love music and write music, our brains are just filled with music.

• 44:20Speaker 07

  Right.

• 44:20Speaker 02

  Like, we have listened to so much music, we've been a part of so much music. I think of the story that I want to tell, the mood that I want to create with the music, start playing chords, see where they lead me.

• 44:31Speaker 07

  Sometimes I'm just not even thinking about music, right? And I hear this little thing and I go, oh, that could be this.

• 44:42Speaker 02

  You know, you just have to be ready for when the inspiration hits.

• 44:45Speaker 07

  It comes.

• 44:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:46Speaker 07

  Experience before the moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeart Radio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 44:55Speaker 00

  Host Nora McInerney is back for an all-new season of The Head Start, embracing the journey brought to you in partnership with AbbVie. In each episode, Nora has honest conversations with real people living with chronic migraine, people who are figuring out how to adapt, advocate, and stay connected to the things that bring them joy. This season, she's revisiting familiar voices and introducing new ones who will share their stories about what it means to live with this condition, from the missed moments to the strategies that help them keep going when things feel uncertain. As always, she'll be joined by headache specialist Dr. Christopher Rhine, who offers insight into these challenges and the questions many of us have. If you're new to the podcast, check out the three previous seasons, each one offering

• 45:38Speaker 00

  a different perspective on this condition and the theme of resilience, displayed while navigating it. So don't miss season four of The Head Start, Embracing the Journey. Listen on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 45:55Speaker 00

  So talk to us about the Black American sofrito that you have come up with and how we might be able to incorporate that into our diets as well or our recipe book.

• 46:04Speaker 06

  I've definitely got a lot of feedback on that one that was interesting, but I was more coming from the place, and I have other recipes in the pipeline that are like this, of trying to make these adaptations, but I was coming from this place of... Okay, this is a thing that our fellow brothers and sisters who have similar ethnic mixes to us across the Americas do. It's super common. And looking to our cuisine, I was like, okay, we don't do this thing where we take a bunch of vegetables and we blend them down with like oil and seasonings or whatever, and we put it in everything. Puerto Ricans are putting their sofrito in everything. Jamaicans are putting their green seasoning in everything. We don't really have that. The closest is the Holy Trinity, which is more common around Louisiana, which is that bell pepper celery onion.

• 46:46Speaker 06

  And that's a take on mirepoix, which is a French technique. Of course, that makes sense, Louisiana French. But even in Europe, like I remember if you want to make a paella in Spain, you have to make a sofrito, which is a different kind of version, but than the ones in the Americas, they don't blend it up necessarily, but it's about the same. So I was just looking about these things that exist around the world that are in cuisine. And I was like, okay, this is something that's similar to how do we take it a step further and make it a standard in the cuisine? So I was like, okay, what if we did this? Hey, guys, I have this idea. Look at all these people who also do this thing. Maybe we should try doing it. I'm not saying everybody has to. If you don't want to, you don't need to, but I think it could be cool if you do. And I had started playing around with it in my own recipes.

• 47:31Speaker 06

  And I was like, oh, I'm gonna keep doing this because we've already seen it be tried and true in other cultures and seen it work. There's a reason they've been making these sofritos and things for however knows how long. So I was like, we could also do the same thing. And then it's also coming from this place of cuisine is supposed to be creative. It is supposed to be adaptive, like no tradition survives when it's stagnant. You know, you always need people trying to push things forward while maintaining tradition and maintaining its authenticity. And that was where I was coming from with that perspective because it was just bringing us into a technique that was already being done by people who are similar to us and what it would look like for us to do that and to adopt that.

• 48:16Speaker 06

  So the response has been awesome and people have been making their own, have been tagging me. And I also think what's really cool about it is that it gives your food kind of a signature taste that's just yours. Because maybe somebody in your family likes thyme, but you like rosemary. Maybe someone likes Laurie's all purpose seasoning, but somebody likes a different one. So everyone's food, you create this like signature taste to your own cuisine. And then if you decide to have kids and you want to pass that down, then they're learning like your technique. They know how to make it taste like your mom's or your grandma's or whatever. And I thought that that was a really cool preservation technique of how we preserve our recipes going forward. So I've been using it. I think some of the feedback I've gotten is that people, well, one, people don't really get, they didn't get it.

• 48:59Speaker 06

  They were like, well, we have the holy trinity. I'm like, yes, I know I said that, but this is just a little bit different. If you just like, stay with me, just walk with me on this one. Some folks were not feeling that. Some people were like, well, let them do their thing over there. Why do we have to? And I was like, I'm not trying to, for us to be them. I think we offer the world so many amazing things as it. I don't think we have to be anyone other than ourself, but I think we can play around with different ideas and different concepts. What's wrong with that? That's what food is for, for us to be creative and have fun with it. And then a lot of people were confused as to why I use a Spanish word. And I just had to be like, this is my life experience. You know, I'm an international person. I'm bilingual. I taught myself Spanish and they're like, well, are you Dominican? I'm like, no, I'm black American.

• 49:43Speaker 06

  I just taught myself a language that honestly, everyone should be learning Spanish if you live in America right now. I'm not gonna lie. It's a very helpful resource to have, having that in your back pocket. But I just, I just speak the language. I have a lot of Latin American friends. I've traveled in Spanish speaking countries. It makes sense that this is just my experience. You know, there would be no mac and cheese had James Hemings not gone to France with Thomas Jefferson. And then brought that technique back here and then boom, we have mac and cheese. Though honestly, the French fighting us for mac and cheese, they're not. It's ours. It's an American thing. So cuisine itself is just this, it's meant to be fluid and influenced by all different kinds of cultures and all different kinds of life experiences. That's the point. That's how we got to the food that we have now.

• 50:27Speaker 06

  Black Americans are a mix of West African, indigenous and European influences. That's how our food was built. And I'm just trying to do the same thing with some different influences. But I'm really excited that other people feel excited about it. I'm really excited that people are actually making it. I'm always surprised when I'm like, oh wow, y'all really listen to me. Like, okay, cool, great. But I definitely have more ideas I want to play around with on that front of like, looking at what other people are doing and what would it look like for us as Black Americans to to also adopt something that makes sense for us.

• 50:57Speaker 00

  And your recipe for people who have not had a chance to check it out for this was what?

• 51:02Speaker 06

  So I took white onion, celery and bell pepper, which is the holy trinity. I also added garlic. There's one recipe I have out there where I forgot to add garlic and I told people, I was like, I shot four recipes this day. I'm so sorry. I forgot garlic. And then some kind of fresh herb, like a rosemary or a thyme and olive oil. And that's just like the base. And then whatever your choice of seasonings is, I have an all purpose seasoning that I like, but if you like more spice, you can do a pepper in there. You can add some cayenne or paprika or something. So from there you can be more creative based on your flavor profile.

• 51:40Speaker 06

  Put that on a blender, blend it up, and then it can be used. Oh, I also put a little bit of acid in there, either lemon or apple cider vinegar. And then I store that in freeze little cubes, like the super cubes. Or I store it in the fridge in like a glass container and I'll use that as like a marinade if I'm making fish or if I'm making chicken or something, or if I'm doing a soup or a stew, like a black guy peas, like a red bean. I have a black guy pea lentil soup I just did the other day. I'll just put like a little table food oven in there. Rice also, I've been using it. I've been playing around with it in so many different recipes and it's been so versatile and such a great resource to use. But that's the base. It's like the blended holy trinity, some herbs, oil and seasoning.

• 52:19Speaker 00

  So you already talked about several foods that you feel like we can kind of reclaim and kind of play with more in terms of like our daily recipes and daily food. You talked about salmon, you've talked about rice and peas, you've talked about beans, you've talked about like greens. Are there other foods that you feel like need to be put back on the table as not something that we eat only on special occasions or for celebration meals, but that could actually be a part of our regular diets?

• 52:43Speaker 06

  To be honest, I think that is the core of it. It's the Greens, beans, lean proteins at a minimum. That's what I think should be what should be the standard going forward. It's less so specific foods to me, though. Like, there's things like I want to see more people doing like black guy stewed black eye peas every single week, just like a pot of beans every single week, a pot of rice every week. But it's more so like an ideology that I want to see more people doing. I think a book that every black American should have in their household is The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis. I was reading it the other day and I literally had to like just put it down and stand with my thoughts for a second. Cause it's not, that is a religious text for me. It's not just a cookbook with recipes, just the ideology.

• 53:28Speaker 06

  And if you don't know who Edna Lewis is, she's what people consider mother of the modern farm to table movement for black folks specifically. And her work speaks to her experience growing up in Free Town, Virginia, which was a free settlement for freed and slave people founded by, I think, her father and some of his family members and friends. And just how they would eat and how they would live with the land. And it goes back to what I was saying earlier about how during the transatlantic slave trade, Europeans knew exactly who they were pulling for what tasks. Like, we are a people who are meant to live with the land, live on the land and like work the land. Like, we just, we are so in tune with nature as a people.

• 54:10Speaker 06

  And this book, Taste of Country Cooking, speaks to that so amazingly. Like, I was just reading this one section, the section on spring, because she splits it up into seasons, talking about like seasonal cooking and how not everything is available all year. That's not a normal way to eat. That's a capitalistic way to eat, that you can get tomatoes all year long, that you can get certain kinds of greens all year long. It's not, it's not normal. Is it convenient? Yes, it is convenient, but it is not a normal way to eat. We should all be eating seasonally now. That's difficult because farmers markets are quite expensive. All food is expensive right now. But it can be very difficult to do, but that's the way we're supposed to be eating. And Taste of Country Cooking just takes you through like, not just the way they're making these meals, but their philosophy around them.

• 54:54Speaker 06

  Like in the spring section, and the Lewis is talking about how there were certain crops you could only like, plant during certain signs of the zodiac. And then some of them can only be harvested when, under a full moon, and some had to be harvested at night when there was a new moon and it was completely dark. Like that is a level of just intuition with nature that for me is so amazing. And I mourn the fact that we don't, as a collective, have that relationship with nature as much anymore. My first job out of college, I worked, I lived on a hippie commune, basically, but I worked as an after-education teacher, so I took kids like hiking and stuff all day. And it was just such a cool job to just be outside and just be by the creek, be with the trees, be and just share and teach and educate.

• 55:38Speaker 06

  And, but it's something that you look at like, and say, you know, black people don't do that. We don't go outside. We don't spend time with nature. And being in that job was, was a big pushback on that to say, actually, yes, being in nature is actually our birthright. It is one of the things we know how to do best. And I have lots of colleagues, while I'm not in education and youth work anymore, I have lots of colleagues who are still doing amazing work in that space. It's genuinely like an intuitive kind of thing. I want black Americans specifically to come back to this, this fact that we, we have this very intuitive spiritual relationship with the land that was taken from us forcibly. It was, we were forced out off of our land because of racism. And I want to see more people coming back to that understanding.

• 56:23Speaker 06

  Like my mom is a gardener. She has a massive garden at her house. And she also makes beginner gardening content, so she comments on all my videos from her page, saying, "You could grow this," which is very cute. But that's what I want to see. Like, I love seeing my mom in the garden, how like happy it makes her to be with her cabbages and be with her peppers and be with her, her cucumbers. And when like summer harvest comes, how excited she is to take pictures and show us like what she grew and how happy it makes her to like give things away on Facebook. I want to see us coming more back to that understanding that we are a people who is, who are meant to be with nature and meant to be intuitive. And that's the relationship we should be having with our food at that level of intuition. And that's why I appreciate that book so much Taste of Country Cooking by Anna Lewis,

• 57:06Speaker 06

  because it shows like this is who we are as a people. This is the relationship we're supposed to have with our food, like this very intuitive relationship. So I would say if you can pick up that book, get that book, take your time reading it, but really understand like what they're doing. That is what I want to see more people trying to find a way back to, whether you live early or you live in a city, just that intuitive relationship we have with our food and our traditions. Yeah.

• 57:31Speaker 00

  Love that. Thank you so much for this, Sierra. It's been so much fun to chat with you. Tell us more about where we can stay connected with you. Any new exciting projects that are coming up for us to pay attention to?

• 57:42Speaker 06

  Oh, man, I am still in a major life transition since I was not living in the country for two years. So I'm going through a lot right now, but it's been a lot of fun. Still expect lots of fun short form content from me. I do also have some long form content available on YouTube. So you can find me on TikTok at Sierra Reece on Instagram and YouTube as Sierra Nicole. I also have a newsletter called The Daily Cornbread on Substack, where I share recipes, I share stories, I talk about just life and living abroad as well as sharing recipes. I also do a shopping list every single week just to help make it easier for people to figure out what they're going to eat for the week. I want to bring down as many barriers to eating soul food every day as I can, as much as I can. So I do have a shopping list.

• 58:27Speaker 06

  And then, yeah, this year has been folding really interestingly. I have big ideas and things that I am going to do that I can't speak on yet because I am a little superstitious, but they're going to be really cool and really fun, that I can guarantee you. And being more visible has brought lots of new and interesting opportunities in my way. So by December, like later this year, I have no clue where we're going to be. But I'm excited. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. And I'm just excited for more people to just like come along on the ride and be a part of this. I'm happy to see more people just in their kitchen, eating, being with their community, and just learning more, being proud. Like, I'm proud. I'm very proud. You will never make me feel bad for being a black girl, for being a black American girl, ever.

• 59:08Speaker 06

  Never. So I just want people to feel proud in their food, in their culture, and in the way they eat.

• 59:13Speaker 00

  We will definitely stay tuned and make sure to share all that information in the show notes. Thank you so much for spending some time with us today.

• 59:20Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 59:24Speaker 00

  I'm so glad Ciara was able to join us for today's conversation. To learn more about her and her work, be sure to visit the show notes at therapyforblackgirls.com/session466. And don't forget to text this episode to two of your girls right now and tell them to check it out. Did you know that you could leave us a voicemail with your questions and suggestions for the podcast? Let us know what's on your mind and drop us a message at memo.fm/therapyforblackgirls and we just might feature it on the podcast. If you're looking for a therapist in your area, visit our therapist directory at therapyforblackgirls.com/directory. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram at @therapyforblackgirls and come on over and join us in our Patreon for exclusive updates, behind the scenes content, and much more.

• 1:00:08Speaker 00

  You can join us at community.therapyforblackgirls.com. This episode was produced by Elise Ellis, Inde Chubu, and Tyree Rush. Editing was done by Denison Bradford. Thank y'all so much for joining me again this week. I look forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon. Take good care.

• 1:00:31Speaker 00

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:01:02Speaker 05

  With ChatGPT, you can do more than get answers. You can get things done. Whether you're leading a big project, planning an elaborate trip, or trying to balance work and life, ChatGPT can help. Give it a goal, plus things like files, notes, or project plans, develop a trip itinerary with daily updates, or create a prioritized schedule so you can spend less energy

• 1:01:22Speaker 07

  Sorting out the details and more on bringing your biggest ideas to life. Get started at chatgpt.com.

• 1:01:30Speaker 07

  This January, bare-knuckle fighting championship takes over the ocean. The inaugural Brew's Cruise sails from Miami to the Bahamas aboard the Norwegian Jewel. Three straight days with pool deck bare-knuckle fights in the Caribbean. Mess of parties, beach events, DJs, cigars, tequila tastings and non-stop action. The lineup reveals coming soon. Cabins are disappearing fast and the prices won't stay this low. Reserve your spot with just $200 down at bkfsea.com.

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.