Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnd, your host of Cooking Ushows Coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan, Rockefeller Center, New York City on New Stance Studios, joined as usual with Nastasi the Hammer Lopez. How are you doing, Stas? I'm good. Yeah?
Yeah. I'm a little disappointed. You're not wearing a trucker's hat. I thought you maybe I just I don't know why. I felt as I was biking here today, you'd be wearing a trucker's hat.
Do I usually? I know, but like, I don't know. I just felt trucker hat. Okay. It's because I posted that photo there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Uh yeah, yeah. We got uh John here with us too. How you doing, John?
Doing great, thanks. You chefing it up, shuffing it up strong? You know it. Love it. I'm loving it.
Rocking the panels here. We got Joe Hazen. How you doing? I'm doing great, man. Yeah.
How are you doing? Doing well. We have now, I'm told that a lot of uh back and forth with the internet, you know, you've spoken to the magic gnomes who send the ones and zeros over the tubes, and that Quinn, you're not gonna drop out today from uh from your your uh post in Vancouver Island. Is that true? Yeah, that that is the goal.
Yeah, yeah. And certainly not least, uh a man who is making a health smoothie smoothie as we speak. Whatever in the whatever in the heck a health smoothie is, we got uh Jackie Molecules in California. How you doing? Hello, I'm doing great.
Yeah. And uh, you know, this is what we're what we're gonna do from now on until someone tells us we shouldn't, is we're gonna introduce the guest that's in the studio right away so they can, you know, join us while we're shooting the breeze. So today's special guest, first time on the show. Welcome to Raja Morel. How you doing?
I'm very well, thank you. Yeah. So uh you uh the so contributor, what do you put what do you call yourself on on the on the new book? Author, contributing co-author of the new book Saver, memoir of uh Fatima Ali, which we're gonna talk about in a minute. But uh, you know, I gotta address the fact that every time when we came here, Ms.
Dasi was like, that was Taraj's old family wine shop across the hall. And she does talk like that when she's not on the air, by the way, if you've ever met her. It's true. Yeah. So we're, you know, we're across the the way here from your family's old like hyper fancy wine shop.
What's that like? Did you so this is relatively new, right? Like 2000 or 1999 or something like that? That's exactly right. I think it was uh 2001.
Maybe this this the wine shop was 2000, and then the restaurant which used to be adjacent was 2001. So when you were a kid, were you playing around in the old store? Like, you know, like yeah? Yes. I did less playing around in the shop.
In this one, yeah, right. I was sort of a grown-up. It also doesn't look very play friendly. Not play friendly. Not prey friendly.
Yeah. So for those of you that haven't, like uh first of all, for those of you that aren't like my age and uh and you know, older, like New York kind of wine scene way back in the day, there were a couple of high-end wine shops in in New York, right? And like the two, I went to cut rate wine shops. Yeah. I went to Garnett.
You know what I mean? Or like, you know, places like that. But like, you know, there were a couple of uh high-end wine shops, and the two that everyone talks about are yours, Morel and Sherry Lehman. Those are two. Were you guys friends or no?
Um, I mean, you know, the top competitors, so but I think like So no. Uh well, uh but I think there's like a commonality and understanding when you're competing against each other and and kind of doing those those same deals at those levels and looking for those interesting wines. So I'd say good vibes mostly. Yeah. Well, they were were they in that kind of in that public auction business?
Because you guys were early in in that public auction stuff, right? You've really done your homework days, I must say. Um yes. Uh my father and Morell and Company were the first to begin to do wine auctions when it was made legal, which it was not for a very long time. That one of the really difficult things about ha being a wine retailer in New York is that there's a lot of laws left over from prohibition, if you can believe it.
Things like not being able to own multiple locations. And so when the law changed in terms of being allowed to do wine auctions, my dad beat the pack, like including Christie's and Sotheby's and was able to hold the first one. So like the question, I mean I know that's not why we're here, but question on so when was that roughly? Do you remember? Oh gosh.
I would say 2005, 6. So it's relatively late, right? Because it used to be like, you know, because my family was in Westchester, so they would they would wait for like the professionals to do their wine auction stuff and then buy futures from like Zackies or something like that. Yeah. So you guys are also did that kind of business.
We did. We did my dad was big into futures and and buying the um Bordeaux when they were babies and letting them age. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So growing up as like the sign of like uh I guess you're the third generation or something like this. Uh yes. Yeah. So as a third generation uh kind of uh wine family, what happens when someone comes to your house and brings you something that you're like, oh geez, oh man. When they bring over the yellowtails?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are you okay with that? Like what's your still what happens? Um I think in the Morel household when yellowtail arrives. So much.
And then I put it under the sink with the Windex. Uh and uh and like I know that like, you know, you uh the family sold the business sometime like 2015 or something like this, right? Or 20 to 18 or something like this. Yeah, 2015. I think it was.
So but are you still allowed to kind of go over there and break something and then be like, Morel, and then walk out? You know, it's I might try that when we're done recording. Um, some of the same people still work for the company, and so they kind of I think I'm just snooping around and they go, but uh, but no, I mean I can't really afford anything across the way. And yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. It's gotten very high end. Well, they always put the, I mean, like, okay, another question, since you're you know part of the family here. Like, who who is walking into this building who looks at like, I can't read it that far away, but let's say it's a $2,000, you know, magnum of something, and they're like, I'm gonna buy that. Yeah, I'll gotta buy that one.
That one. Um, I think it's like the people with the corporate cards that are buying them as uh for as gifts on expense accounts of some kind, and that's part of something they can write off, or you know, people who really just love to drink fancy wines and and then fancy equals expensive to them. Yeah, but I I like to drink great wine. I don't like to pay for it. I'm with you.
Yeah. I'm definitely on the same page. So if you're listening live on Patreon, call in questions to 917-410-1507. That's 917-410-1507. And John, why don't you tell them how to join the Patreon if they don't know how?
Patreon.com slash cooking issues. And uh is uh is Taraj's uh book is the is Saver uh on the are we getting a discount uh at Kitchen Arts and Letters? I think I'll have to check with There we go. All right. Let's just assume that he will.
Let's just assume that'll happen. Good assumption. Yeah. Are you uh are you are you gonna go up to Kitchen Arts and Letters? Are you gonna do anything with them or no?
I mean it's not a cookbook. We'll get it in a second. We're gonna do a second. We haven't shot the breeze yet. Has anyone had any good food experiences before we of the past week?
Anything? Anything at all? I have. Oh. Am I allowed to speak?
Of course. That's why we introduced you early. Cool. Um, yeah. So this weekend, um, and in fact, the past two weekends, I've been going to a westerly canteen pop-up in upstate New York, and it's this incredible um kitted out 1971 airstream that's been turned into a mobile kitchen that this chef Molly Levine, who has great things under her belt, including working at Shea Panice and her partner, who is an amazing farmer, um, have created this mobile restaurant and they're doing pop-ups and stuff, and their food is gorgeous.
Oh, yeah? Yeah, it's crazy delicious and so flavorful and and very beautifully sourced. And is the airstream still all shiny and aluminum? It's super super shiny. Uh yeah.
I love it. Yeah, and it's also like so chic on the inside and and minimalist and and just gorgeous. And they run that thing off of propane, or they generator it, or what are they uh generator? Yeah. I mean, I don't they I think they may have have gas inside, so they may have also propane, but in terms of the overall electricity for it, generally you know who uh absolutely loves uh mobile kitchens, Nastasia.
Well, you remember our airstream, Mark and my airstream. I sure don't. You don't remember that? No. Oh, geez.
I'm not getting into it. It's bad. That's like a hell hell on hell on wheels is how you describe that, right? Like well, what did you like? What did you hate more?
Like dealing with the like the packing everything in the commissary aspect or the people that would approach you at the at the airstream. I think just Mark. I have to say, like the the the ultimate uh the ultimate on air thing was when uh uh Eric Werheim was on and we were talking about the chef's kiss. Oh my god, and the stuff you go, what'd you say, Sas? Well, they were like chef's kiss, chef's kiss.
And I was like, y'all these men talking about it. And I was like, first of all, none of you know what a chef's kiss tastes like, and I do, and it tastes like alcohol and sadness. Wow and cigarettes. Yeah, yeah. Wow.
Yeah. And we were just like, Yeah, okay. Yeah. Okay then. All right.
Um I keep my mouth shut. Well, I mean, what's in the business stays in the business. Uh all right. What about you? What about you?
Uh what about you, Jack? What about you, Quinn? Any good food experiences? Nothing good, but I will have uh some stuff to report next week because I'm going backpacking and I have a bunch of uh freeze-dried foods. I'll do a little taste test and report back if any of it's actually good.
Are you bringing any mountain house brand? What brands of freeze-dried foods are you using? Oh, they're in my trunk. So I have to report back on I but I got like four different brands that I'm gonna do a taste test. So you're gonna do a taste test, but you don't know in advance which brands you have.
I mean, dude, they're just in my trunk. I don't have them in front of me right now. That sounds like a new segment. Reporting back from Jack's trunk. Yeah, well, maybe it'll go better.
Maybe it'll go better than when we had Nastasia's sister try to do the dump meals, and like she didn't like my tone of voice, and so she only did it once. Remember that, Stuzz? And she hung up on you, rightly. So I don't remember that. I mean, rightly so.
You're like wagging on her, and she was just like, That's the whole point of discussing this stuff. Come on, man. I don't think those are two words that should be used next to each other. Me either, and yet those books sell millions of copies. Oh, is dumping that a thing?
I don't remember. Yeah, dump meals. I forget the lady's name who writes them. She has like a it's like the Hardy Boys Mysteries, but dump meals. There's like a million of them, or Nancy Drew, or whatever.
The boxcar kids choose your series. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think you have to learn that, Taraja. Cool.
I think that I think you're all right without the. Are you a slow cooker kind of a person or no? Or do you do ever do that? Have you ever done that in your life? Been like, I'm gonna throw all this stuff in and then walk away, and when I get home, it'll be done.
Do you do that? Some people a lot of people do that. I don't do that. When you look up dump meal, she doesn't even come up. It's people have rid of the easiest ever dump dinners on food network or our best dump dinners for the crossbows.
50 solo cooker dump dinners. Yeah. It very it very much smacks of uh the old farm to toilet idea for uh fat, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah that's the exhibit, people.
Farm to toilet. Why only go to the table? It's only halfway there. Anyway. Oh, there's one, hold on, very quickly.
This woman, Kathy Mitchell, who I guess does it. That's it, that's it. That's her. Yeah. There's there's a second book called Dump Cake.
Yeah, dump cake. All chocolate. Yeah. Molten chocolate dump cake. Oh yeah.
Listen, I don't know. I I don't know. I don't know. All right. So let's get uh let's get right down to it.
So you're on the show today, uh, because you just came out with a book, and it is it's very hard to describe it's a very unusual book. So let's just let's just start with it kind of how you started with. Some like a couple of months before the pandemic in late 2018. So no one knows what's gonna happen, right? You get a telephone call to get interviewed for potentially having a book job.
I think you've skipped a year. Wasn't it 2018 when you got it? Yeah, no, that's when I got called, but the pandemic started in 19, right? Uh was it 20? Twenty.
Oh, 20? Yeah. I get my years confused. Yeah. Oh, so it's a year before the pandemic.
Uh yeah, it's a year before the pandemic. So yeah. Uh I was approached via my agent, my literary agent, about the fact that Fatima Ali wanted to write a book. And I was familiar with her via her Bonapet essays. She'd published two at that time.
And I said I would adore to be considered and, you know, submitted some sample writing samples. And long story short, um, I wound up she wound up hiring me. And at that point, the plan as I understood it was that she wanted to travel and and and really experience um the restaurants of her dreams in the time that she had left. And um Right, because she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Right, less than a year earlier, right?
And then in I mean September, October, right before she she wanted to announce that she wanted to write a book and started to look for um a collaborator. And so she thought she had a year. And so um that was the premise that we all kind of were embracing and excited about. And then it was just impossible. She was too unwell to travel and to um eat like that and to to be on a plane.
And so um instead I spent one week at her bedside uh in Los Angeles and interviewed her and recorded everything and talked to her about the books she would have liked to write and um and her hopes and dreams and experiences in her past, and um, and the lion's share of saver um is from that that week together. Um, and then interviews done with her mom and her brother and her friends um and other family members after she passed. Right. Now there was a there was a a small period before because you flew out to LA in like January, right? And you done your your interviews like a couple like a couple of months before that, you realize that there's a maximum only like a year, right?
Or a month before that. Did you feel like maybe this wasn't gonna be happening? Did you know what was going on? No, I did all my interviews in that one week. Right, right.
But I mean, like in other words, there was a pause. I mean, like if someone tells me I have a year left to live and we had to write a book, you didn't fly out immediately. There was still like a Oh yeah, I was waiting to know what we were where we're gonna meet in New York. We're gonna meet in Copenhagen. Where were we gonna meet?
I didn't know. I was waiting to kind of hear what the next step was gonna be. And then it turned out the next step was to meet her in Los Angeles, and and it was very clear to me when I arrived there that she was not going to live for very much longer. And um, and in fact, she passed two weeks later after our week together. Yeah, so yeah.
So you mean so you signed on for this one project, she signed on. Well, she wanted to do this one project. It very quickly became something else because you know, she realized she wasn't gonna make it that long, and that even if she made it a while longer, she was too sick to go anywhere. So what was I mean? Let's just why don't we talk a little bit about her, talk a little bit about her life so people who don't know who she is get get a feeling for it.
Or or if you want, you can just read it. You want to read an excerpt from the book. We've never done it before on the air. Would be good. Uh sure, but it will take me a second to pull it up.
So while you're pulling it up, I'll ask you uh ask you a question. So I'm gonna just say something. So she is um, you know, was 20 28, I guess, when she was diagnosed, 29 when she died. Uh she was uh Pakistani. Uh and uh she was a queer Pakistani woman who wanted to be a chef, who's who was becoming very, very successful, was uh on chopped, was uh, you know, a very you know, well loved, regarded, and did well on um on uh top chef, and you know, had worked in you know very fine restaurants, was all excited to open her own restaurant.
Her dream was to, you know, do two things, I think, bring or three things, bring, you know, uh higher end good Pakistani food to America, and also to uh go to Pakistan and elevate the position of women and chefs in general in Pakistan, and to you know, do something to feed the hungry mouse that she was used to seeing when she was a child in um, I guess it was a Lahore Karachi, what so she had all these goals, and she was well on her way to achieving those goals, um, you know, through a lot of obstacles, which are you know well documented in the book. And then you know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, she she was deeply ambitious and incredibly gifted and um very charismatic, and um, you know, in the extremely short time that I physically spent with her, I I found her uh, you know, just magnetic. And I I understood why she had such a massive following very quickly. And then of course the lessons that she's left behind via the book are are lessons we that apply to absolutely everyone, no matter their race or their profession or their sexual identity.
And she's she's really saying, get busy living, enjoy, take your teeth in, you know. Um, and and uh yeah, she I I learned so much from her. She's made me live in a different way. So this is um an early chapter in the book from her childhood. It's called Hunger at the Market.
We often accompanied our mother to the market to go grocery shopping, which I already understood as the first phase of every meal. We sat in the back of our rickety-dinged second-hand white Suzuki kyber and drove to Kata Market with my mother playing Stevie Nick's tape, singing along loudly to the edge of 17. As soon as we pulled up to the to park, I had I heard a sharp rap on the window and my head snapped up. Large brown eyes, the same size as mine or Moe's, but seeming larger because of the sunken cheeks beneath them, appeared framed in our windows, a million miles between two centimeters of polished glass. The children put their hands out for money and then motion motioned to their mouths, the universal sign of hunger.
Hello, hello, my mother greeted them good naturedly as she and Muhammad pulled my seven-year-old self out of the backseat of the car. How many of you are there? Well, us two and our cousin, a child said sheepishly. Go round them up, my mother said. And off they ran, disappearing into the jigsaw of park cars and crowds and child-sized crevices between overflowing shops.
Sometimes they whistled to get each other's attention from afar, and suddenly there were eight, twelve, fourteen little and not so little people around us, shabbily dressed, hair uncombed, faces unwashed and thin. My mother looked around for the closest Daba, a simple little local eatery serving big vats of food where cabbbies and market purveyors all buy cheap good meals. We've got 14 kids, my mother told the proprietor. What are you going to give them and what is it going to cost? The proprietor made up big plates of doll, curries, and fresh naun for the kids, one plate for each, and named a price for my mom, usually around 30 or 50 rupees, which included Cokes for everyone.
She paid and waited for all the children to be served their food, while my brother and I watched the little kids our age laughing, poking each other in the ribs, playful and relaxed for a moment now that they knew their next meal was coming soon and that it was going to be a fresh one, not foraged from a trash heap. I watched as this band of beggars' mouths watered, and instead of getting hungry myself, my small throat went dry. Certainly, I was not immune to the seductive sense of Pakistani comfort food being readied for consumption. My mouth watered as I smelled fluffy biryani warming on the stovetop or chamois kebabs for dinner at home. But seeing these hollow-cheeked kids so giddy and ravenous, I realized I'd never really, I'd never truly known hunger.
Though I knew that money was hard-earned, not only my mother, not only could my mother always feed us, she had enough to feed the small army of street kids. 50 rupees is all it took. And every Sunday we were 50 rupees later, and those little boys and girls had full bellies for once, not knowing how or when, but I made a promise to myself that I would feed people. So that is relatively early in the book, but it comes back again and again. You know, it like it's very clear that at the end of her life, she's really reflecting on that particular goal, even more than becoming successful, which was clearly a huge goal, you know, of her life.
So, how clear, I know that there was a foundation was started. How like how clear was she to you in the time you had that she wanted this book to help with kind of that goal and the goal of allowing other people like her to see that this is possible to do. I think she was very clear about her goals. I mean, that was a lot of what we discussed was what did she want this book to be and what would she be doing if she didn't have to focus her goals in a book and could just be doing. And um, I think what she realized is that her story through the book um could inspire other young Pakistani women to realize that there were there was a world, that the world was their oyster, that they could, you know, go off and and discover new careers and have adventures that perhaps had not originally occurred to them or that they'd felt somehow were off limits to them.
I think that was a tremendous goal of hers, the inspiration of other uh young Pakistani in particular girls. Um, in terms of feeding people, uh, I think that the Chef Fatima Foundation is an incredible step in that direction. I think it really broke her heart that that was not something she figured out how to do in her lifetime to the degree that she wanted to do it. I mean, this is an incredibly ambitious person who believed that, you know, if she became uh a world-renowned chef, she would be able to really make a dent in the um hunger crisis in her country, um, using her her celebrity as a tool to help that. So I think that was a hard thing, a hard goal for her to let go of.
And I think the end of her life was a series of um recalibrations of goals. And that was extremely hard for her and her family and everyone who loved her. Right. So that now I don't know, kind of know where to where to go into this, because there's kind of two things. One's the structure of the book.
So at the end of the book, uh, towards the end of the book, when you know you fly out to the hospital, there's a scene where you're at the foot of the bed and these doctors come in and some Dr. Wise cracks. There's gonna be a book by a lot of people. And she's like, no, you know what I mean? She doesn't want it to feel like just uh like a pastiche of things from different people.
And yet the actual structure of the book is in fact, it's not a dialogue, but it it is uh I mean, it is it is a back and forth between two perspectives Fatima's perspective perspective and her mother's perspective. Um so I'm kind of wondering how that worked. There's also like very, I mean, there's stuff that you know, she brought up in the in what she was talking about with you or the notes and writing that she gave you that I can't imagine writing about you know my family if I wasn't like right at a place where none of that mattered anymore. You know what I mean? She's really pulling out like a lot of the stops, and her mom also, this is an interesting part of the book, at the very beginning of the book, is like this book's gonna be hard.
And there's this kind of amazing discussion between Fatima and the mother about is it okay to do this book? Because you're gonna have to deal with it when I'm dead, and it's gonna be unpleasant. So, I mean, one, like how did that work afterwards? And two, like what did I know she was a writer, right? So did she I know that parts of her Bonapatia uh writing are woven into the later sections of the book, but like, and I know she was writing at the end, uh, you know, feverishly and probably recording as well.
So, like what I mean, I'm sure when you were there for the week, you're just trying to absorb as much of her personalities as is humanly possible, but then what did you physically have to work with? Like how how does that work when so it's so unusual a process? Um, well, uh, in terms of weaving into the narrative what had already been written, uh, certainly the published essays that she had written before for Bonapet and for a couple other publications, um, earlier in long before she knew that she had cancer or had cancer. Um, things that she wrote when she was more of a student, and um and right after winning CHOP, so in her early, very early 20s. Um, so I I tried to weave all of anything that was originally, you know, that she'd written as much intact without as any edits as much as possible.
Um, in terms of what she was working on at the end of her life, uh there was there were some really beautiful pieces. Um it wasn't um a tremendous amount. Uh, the lion's share of the book is from our conversations, which were almost like dictation in a way, because she was so articulate and so um descriptive when she was talking about something she was passionate about, which obviously we were trying to do a lot of. Um so it was very complicated. And then the addition of uh her mother as a voice came from the fact that we had such a brief time together, and uh there was concern that there wouldn't be enough only in Fatima's voice.
And so it made sense to all of us that her mother, who from whom you know Fatima sprang and and um was very inspired by and guided by um and another strong Pakistani woman should be also a perspective in this. And uh, I mean, I'm very personally interested in mother-daughter stories, so um this was uh clear to me that this is how the story should be told. Um and then yeah, that's pretty much how that happened. So uh the parts that are from her mom's perspective are from after Fatima Pass from our interviews, and then her mother also working on those herself. That had to be incredibly difficult for everybody.
It was incredibly difficult, incredibly painful. It took a tremendous amount of bravery, bravery on the part of her family. And um I, you know, I don't I don't think there was anything easy about it. But we all sort of made this promise. I mean, it's different for me.
I was relatively a stranger, but I I still took it quite seriously, my promise to her to try to make something of this. And it was very clear to me once I understood, uh, once she shared with me more about her story that this wasn't just some food network, you know, popular chef. She didn't want to tell a sort of behind the scenes tell-all of being on on a cooking show. Um it was this was a much deeper and wider story um that touches on universal issues of love, family uh identity. Yeah.
And also like mortality. You know, even at her age, she already kind of realized she's like in the book, right? You know, one of the one of the things that is her desire to constantly be the best and succeed is most of the time driving her in the right direction until she feels it doesn't anymore. And then it like happens like a like a bunch, not a bunch, but at several big times, where she's like, Well, I I quit my I quit my job because it was too easy, it wasn't taking me in the right direction. It's like she wanted fame, but not necessarily she wanted fame, I think for fame's sake, but also to do all these amazing things.
So she must have been just a really interesting personality to deal with even for that one week. But I like I wonder what was it? She was in intense pain the entire time that you were with her. Was it did it make it difficult for her to tell the stories through the filter of all of that pain? She was on a she was on some like uh experimental pain lidocaine drip that you know was uh dreamed up by her doctors at uh St.
Kettering, you know. Something that didn't seem like it should work to help with her pain, and yet it did. Um from what I understand, yeah. I mean, it was a very um meditative, slow conversation that um had in the background of it, you know, the sound of being in a hospital, the sort of mechanical sounds of um whirring and beeping and machines that are telling you what's going on with the patient's body. And it was very, it was very slow conversing, although we covered a lot.
Um and it was deeply moving and emotional, uh, I think for all of us, I can speak for myself, and and observing some of the conversations between Fatima and her brother, who was always present whenever she and I were speaking, um, was incredibly moving, their love for each other and devotion to each other. Yeah, the the other thing that's really interesting when you read it that it's very apparent. So, you know, normally when someone's writing a book that's coming out in their own first person and they have the chance to kind of finish it themselves, right? The experience of the information that they're that they're um putting together in their head and putting out has a chance to like change and morph over time, right? But here, like, you know, you spend years working on the information that was gathered from a synthesis at this one intense crisis point in her life.
And I think it really imbues the point of view she has with uh a kind of like crystallinity of purpose that would be impossible to get in a situation where the the person whose thoughts are going on on you know on the paper has a year or two to think about it. Does that make sense? Totally. And I think that the people who were left to do that thinking were her mom and her brother, and and that was immensely difficult for them. Um and there was a tension between all of us, you know, saying, of course, we'll figure out how to make this book for you.
And then the reality of the messages that she wanted to leave behind, isn't some of which were were hard truths. And um, you know, in my introduction, I I say that my marching orders came on our last day together. She said, You're gonna figure out how to do this. I know you can do it. And I thought, well, if she knows I can do it, then I suppose I can do it.
But, you know, she was she really gave me instructions, and I tried to be very true to them and take them very seriously. So uh another interesting thing about the the mother perspective and you know Fatima's perspective is that they are sometimes at odds is the wrong term, but they definitely have different current, well, current as of the writing of the book, right? You know, whatever the theoretical present tense is in a situation when somebody's gone. But they have different current views of the same things that are being presented side by side, chapter by chapter. I mean, you know, and it's uh and it's interesting.
I don't think I've ever seen a presentation quite like that. So was it difficult to kind of go between the two voices? Because they are quite different. They're quite different, yeah. Um as I said, Farise, Fatima's mother, um, very much uh went over everything in her voice to make sure it she felt it was uh absolutely in her own voice.
Um I would say that uh Fatima and I had a lot more uh sort of common ground in the way we talked about things, probably because we were passionate about some of the same things in terms of food, and there's a commonality to talking about kitchens and and cooking school that we experiences we both have had. So I think that was like a creative shorthand to some extent. But you do share her disdain for tattooed chefs from Brooklyn. Um let me think about that. I want to answer honestly.
No, I don't have distinctly. Okay, but she could she clearly. But it's a trope, right? Exactly. So I think I thought that was funny and and great.
And um, so your original question, uh, the very the distinct voices. Um, well, I think that I find found that to be a really interesting way to talk about facts. A, a because we all have our own experiences of a situation. Two people can sit in a room and watch a movie and they might have totally different experiences of what they just watched. And I think, especially for a mother daughter, um, when there's a generational gap and uh also you know, an experiential gap, um, seeing things through both of their perspectives is really interesting.
And I and I hope that it's something that mothers and daughters will take away from this, is thinking, well, might feel different to the other side. Right. And the other uh the other main one of the other main frictions going through the book is that, you know, um Fatima clearly has a love for Pakistan-Pakistani culture, food, and a desire to like um bring like, you know, have it not just be a place that Americans think of as like land of land of terror and poverty, right? You know, to paraphrase, you know, what she has, what she said. At the other time, she's extraordinarily conflicted about what America is like, you know what I mean?
Um and so it's kind of an interesting thing because she always found, well, she told you, I guess, how difficult she found it to be things that she wasn't really supposed to be in in Pakistan, right? You weren't a woman wasn't supposed to be a professional chef. Uh a woman was supposed to marry uh a nice Pakistani man, which she clearly says like five or eight times that she doesn't want to do. She, you know, is definitely not supposed to be queer, which she is. Like none of that's okay.
You know what I mean? Um, and you know, in a lot of what she wants, she has the kind of like intense support from her mom, who also made some non-traditional decisions in her life in terms of divorce, which wasn't okay. Um, you know, and and moving, moving about uh in you know, ways that weren't necessarily okay uh for and being yeah, fiercely independent. Right, for you know, a a woman because she's a relatively, you know, they didn't have a lot of money because of the decisions she made at some points in their lives, but she was still, you know, uh uh, you know, from a upper echelons of Pakistani society. So how clear was she on that kind of friction of not being necessary like wanting to kind of fix things that were wrong in both places when you were talking to her?
In terms of America and Pakistan? I mean, as a as we touched on before, I think she really wanted to help with the poverty crisis that and the hunger crisis. Um and I think here she wanted, as you said, people to think of other things uh, you know, other than terror and fear, um, when they thought of Pakistan. And her her approach to that was absolutely beautiful, which was she wanted to just disarm people through their taste buds, and she wanted to uh introduce them to a place of beauty and care and hospitality through our through hospitality itself. By opening a restaurant, she she likened what she wanted to do here in New York or America to an Uncle Boone's, where you walk in and you're sort of um of your senses, the music, the the posters, the food, the scents are all taking you on this journey.
And in the case of Pakistan, it would be one that most people are totally unfamiliar with. Um so I think I don't I can't say how much she wanted to change about America. I think she was very clear-eyed about it not being a perfect place. And we definitely didn't want it to appear that there was a a trope in the book of America being the sort of open-minded savior land, because that's ridiculous, especially in this current atmosphere. But um but uh she did feel uh a freedom and a expansive sort of I think anonymity that she could accomplish more here.
Yeah, well, she gained quite a bit of um like back when she went back home after she was on TV and started getting press, then she seemed to be more accepted for what she was doing afterwards, right? So that seemed that seemed to be kind of a positive note, no? Oh, I think she was always accepted and um adored for her work there. Um, but I think um she was extr she she became extremely well known based on what my understanding in Pakistan. Uh and so people would sort of come up to her on the street even more than they might hear in America.
Did you ever get to go over or no? I didn't because um of the pandemic. Right. So I was supposed to go in uh March 2020, and that was right after lockdown began. Um and then I was gonna try to go the following year, but I was expecting a baby, so it wasn't the time to to do that kind of trouble.
Yeah. No, maybe someday. I hope so. I've never been to the anywhere in that region of the earth. I've been to India, but i I expect Pakistan to be a completely different experience.
I was supposed to go to Delhi in the pandemic. I was supposed to like be able to go to Delhi in the pandemic, whatever. It's a minor, minor inconvenience in life. So I'll make it hopefully someday. I've got another couple of years, hopefully.
You never know though. That's like the thing of the book. I mean, the the cancer that she got was so intensely aggressive. Here is an incredibly healthy 28-year-old woman comes, does top chef, does a uh uh is does a wins some sort of in like stage of her choice, basically goes uh to uh hang out with uh Chris Costell, right? Who apparently like, you know, she does a great job there.
Like everybody, you know, going on all cylinders is gonna do uh some opening uh out here, uh, I forget what it was, some pop-up opening out here while she's you know waiting to figure out her next move. Her social media is going through the freaking roof because Top Chef is starting to air, right? And like everything is is going great. She has this great network of people that she met on Top Chef, plus her New York City cooking network. You know, she also has people, you know, her mom's like, we'll get you a place in Pakistan.
You can you can you have the pick of your place to to cook in Lahore if you want to come back here. All this amazing stuff, and then bang. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's just it's kind of um, it's a it's a great.
I mean, obviously intensely sad, uh, but you know, just the section of it kind of like portrait of a of a young chef is kind of i is an interesting. Well, it's really most the book is really about living. Yeah. I mean, and uh everyone kind of looks at me like I'm crazy when I say that, but it is the bulk of this book is about really living. Right and really um sinking your teeth in and um and not waiting and not making excuses to do the things that you longed to do.
Um, because of course we don't know what is coming around the bend. Yeah. She also, I mean, um, she does a lot of forgiving at the end. Like, were you present for that stuff, or did you hear about it afterwards, or it was sort of happening, uh a lot of it um was happening one not when I was in the room, but in that week that I was there, and so I was getting uh some really incredible breathless accounts of the uh conversations she had had just before I'd been with her right after I'd left the night before um with her very close family members. So uh yeah, our last day together was extremely powerful.
She was having uh visions and um and she was she was she seemed past pain. She was very um punchy and and kind of excitable in a really beautiful way. And um it was it was a the entire experience of being around that much love, although it was extremely painful, was awe-inspiring. Right. And you I believe were there for the conversation when the doctors were gonna do a bunch of stuff, she's like, forget it.
Yes. That's gotta be a that's gotta be a very intense thing to be the I mean you were you were there as a fly on the wall. You just met her. A few days before, yeah. Yeah.
I mean, that's yeah, it was it were the doctors all came in the around in this pack, and um, it was probably a teaching hospital or something. So they were always followed by students. Um Yeah, she was at uh whatever that what's the LA place, right? CLA Medical Center. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Um, and as she was saying, like, no, I don't want another MRI, like, no, and then the the doctors were you could I was watching everything that was happening, and they were, you know, trying not to cry, but tears were rolling down their cheeks. Cause she was so brave, and she was sort of coaching everyone around her on being strong, and um, and you know, instead of people holding her up, she was holding them up, and it was an astonishing thing to witness. I mean, that that basically comes through. She's like, Doc, it's please enough.
That's fine. You know what I mean? Like, I'm just doing my job, and she says, you know, I know, and you've done it, and I'm gonna be okay. And like, but you gotta let me go. Yeah, she's like, you know, it's like a the end, the end of the book.
Yeah, so it it's living for like 240 something pages, and then the end of it is, you know, uh, I think, you know, kind of a good as good an ending as someone can hope uh to have in the terrible kind of situation, in other words, what she did with it. Not her physical pain was obviously a horrific night bear, but what the way she chose to deal with it, I thought was well, yeah. I mean, she's leaving this incredible legacy and message for the rest of us to to get smart. And going back to what I said about like a very like crystal like vision of a particular point in in somebody's life, what an indictment of the American medical system. Oh my gosh.
What that family went through. Like, I don't think, I mean, nothing that I read seems like it could have changed the outcome, but just what a horrific, horrific experience. We misfiled the insurance papers, so you can't get the biopsy that you need. You know what I mean? And like just like back and forth, and then when she moves from New York to LA, the insurance has to change because she's not in New York anymore, and they it, you know, what a just what a crap show.
Like what just a horrible nightmare. And you know, John, I'm sure you're privy to all of this stuff too. Just what a horrible nightmare ha having something like this happens to you. You know what I mean? Yeah.
It's just so if you want to know, you know, I thought it was a very good representation of what a intense, intense pile of crap navigating that system can be in the absolute worst time of your life. I mean, there are some medical heroes, like the guy from from Memorial Slow Kettering, Dr. Wexler comes. Apparently the family loves him. You know what I mean?
And he comes across as a good, as a good guy. But just like a bunch of a bunch of people like saying offhand things. Oh, it's it's nothing. It's falling. Yeah, put some ice on it, you know what I mean?
Oh, you're, you know, your your hip is broken or whatever. You know, all this like nutty stuff because they they can't get the the approvals to do these kind of clear procedures that are indicated. And then at the end, over proceduring. It's just like a Yeah, and we're not talking about, you know, there was no language barrier. Everyone in her family speaks English beautifully perfectly.
Um it's not like there was there were miscommunications, it's not like they weren't advocating for her. They were advocating and then some um, you know, writing everything down, sharing everything that they could with the doctors and and still there's yeah. Nightmare. You know, and you know, whatever. I mean, look, my my family, family uh of uh doctors, and we all know it's we.
I mean, you know, my the family is doctors, it's a complete nightmare, and not necessarily for any good reason. Um, so that's another reason to uh check out the book. Stas, you got any uh you got any questions? No. I'd job, Dave.
What? You read the whole book. I always read people. If you're gonna be on the show, I will read the work. That's like the least I know that most people don't, but that's the least you can do, right?
Someone wrote the book, you're having them on. No, but a lot of people like it's been getting great reviews, so everyone should buy it. Um, but uh yeah, you got reviewed in the Times? I we did. I was flabbergasted, never in my wildest dreams that I expect to be reviewed in the New York Times book review, and then it was the most thoughtful review.
So I I'm just I'm so grateful that that happened to this book. So, what's it like when you're writing and you literally write on the page of yourself the impression she has of you in the hospital as the hired witness to what's going on? I mean, that that's gotta be surreal. Well, um, you know, the book has changed, of course, as all as all books do in it the process of it coming to the world. And um, at one point, uh, you know, I was more of a character, and so I was thinking about uh in that section in particular, I was thinking I was seeing, I was recording, I was also journaling a ton while this was happening because it was so much to take on and to kind of sort through.
Um, and so uh that was probably something that I felt at that time. I felt like a hired witness. I felt my job was to be there listening, taking it all in, and then figure out how to kind of organize it. I mean, that was my job actually. So right, right.
But also like the character of you is portrayed not as an interloper because you're definitely wanted to be there, but definitely like the pale face in the room of brown people. Literally, I believe that's paraphrasing what is written in the book. And especially when the doctors come in, you know what I mean? Because it's all part of that same, that that same uh section. It's just gotta be, I mean, I'm sure you had to have felt like you were doing something that is very much what she wanted was her desire, but also that you're kind of injecting yourself, not of your own volition, right?
But you're injecting yourself into this incredibly private, intense situation that's gotta be one of the weirdest weeks ever. It was. And in my introduction, I talk about how nervous I was to take up her time when there was clearly very limited time left, and to take her away from the people who loved her the most who wanted to soak up every instant with her. Um, and her brother assured me before I went into her room for the first time that this was what Fatima wanted. And I think, and then her mother said to me that, you know, my presence and our working together toward this goal of Fatima's book was giving her purpose, and actually that purpose was was somehow I can't possibly say if it was making things easier for her, but it it did lend a an a real purposefulness to those days that we spent together because we were trying so hard to get as much done as possible together.
Right. I mean, well, the mom says that nothing can make it easier. I mean, the mom's intro at the beginning is like, don't bother comforting me. Don't bother, you know, there is no comfort. Yeah.
I mean, I think there is no more unimaginable pain than the loss of a child. And I I think we all um our I think grief evolves. I've lost someone very dear to me. Um, and it he he was not my child, so I don't know what it is like to lose a child, but um I don't know that that ever goes away. It might change forms a little bit, but that is that is the worst thing that anyone can imagine, I think losing a baby.
Yeah. Yeah, I can't imagine that, and also, but I guess the in the intro, along with her saying, don't basically don't bother trying to give me words of comfort because there's there are none, she's also like, I don't have anything left to lose, really. So this is the book with all of the stuff, whether I want you to know it or not, here it is. She really um she wants to embrace Fatima's uh approach to living, I think, uh, and be guided by that. And she wants that for others, I think.
Yeah. Um, well, the book is called uh Savor. What's the what's the slug line underneath? A chef's hunger for more. The chef's hunger for more, yeah.
Uh uh Fatim Ali and Taraj Morel, you should uh pick it up and then in the few minutes we have left. All right, or you want to answer some crazy questions, Tarajan? Related to the book or unrelated. No, no, no, unrelated. Totally want to answer some crazy unrelated questions.
Yeah. I mean, like, we'll just answer them all together. This is how it works. Anyone that has an opinion on what people ask us. Okay.
So the normal thing with this show is people ask us normal, they ask us abnormal questions, typically. Yeah. And then we have to have answers for it. Because we have issues. Cooking issues.
You know, and I think, again, while the book is by no means a cookbook or even a food book, it is a chef's memoir. And so, you know, I think is germane to the cooking issues, don't you think? Oh, 100%. Yeah. Absolutely.
It made me wish I knew more about Pakistani food, by the way. Well, I wish I knew more too, but what I do know is that it's so delicious. All I'm saying is I want that so that in one of the scenes, by the way, uh, I know I'm supposed to answer questions. One of the scenes in the book is um, so they this is after she uh quits her job with whatever the restaurant group is that owns Central and those things, right? She goes back to uh to Pakistan and and it's like wedding season there and like you know, high society friends, a bunch of cool weddings.
And so, like her mom's best friend, who's basically her aunt, right? And the the dad, who's now dead, I think as well, of the aunt, right? The husband, I think he died. Anyway, Fatima loves him and her, hires this amazing grill expert from like the north of like the very north of Pakistan, and basically only hires this this dude and his whole crew to come in for weddings and pump out this this like amazing, like on point, not very spicy, but just on point um grilled lamb stuff. And the one that she describes, and and there's a kind of a cool scene where the mom, this is from the mom's perspective, the mom's like, you know, no one is paying attention to these cooks, and Fatima goes over and like really gives, you know, really gives respect to these cooks.
And it's like the first time that anyone basically in her group has acknowledged, other than the fact that the dad clearly thinks they're cool, otherwise he wouldn't keep hiring to come back and do weddings. But like it's the first time they've been acknowledged as kind of masters of their craft, and so they make a special plate. But then it's this thing which on its face doesn't sound like something I would like, but then when the more you read about it, you're like, I need it, where they take this like young lamb's liver and salt and pepper, and then they wrap it in like a very thin veil of lamb belly fat and then quick grill it on a skewer. I love how carefully you read this. Yeah.
It's so heartening. And uh anyway, so now I want to try that. But I don't know I can get that. You can't get that in the city, right? Well, uh, I'm not I'm you probably can somewhere.
What I learned also from this experience is that um there's a beautiful network um of people who make Pakistani food, which is laborious and often is best made in large quantities, and they they're not professionals, they're sort of home cooks, but then they all kind of they could sell you a whole setup of of you know dinner um instead of you're having to make it all at home yourself. If you know who to call, you can know who to call. That's right. I'll work on that. Yeah, that's cool.
You know, that's like a thing that uh, you know, when Pierre Chom was on, he was saying that when he first came to the US, like a lot of the good uh Senegalese cooking in New York was kind of similar, where it wasn't restaurants where you it wasn't your house either. It was like this kind of third, yeah. It's kind of third thing, which I find fascinating. Uh all right, Jim. Uh so Jim asked a long time ago, I just need help from the Discord.
Jim wants to know if there's any combination salts that incorporate uh, you know, NACL, sodium chloride with MSG and disodium uh whatever the nucleic acid. I can never pronounce it, so I won't do it. Yeah, you go. Thanks, man. And guanalate as enhancers.
If not, any suggestions on the relative proportions of each for ready to sprinkle umami salt. Someone from Discord help me, because I don't do that. I don't haven't tested it. Um Andrew Zimmer. Go for it, Quinn.
Oh, sorry. Well, I was gonna say that like certain brands of like stock powders do contain MSG and the nucleic acids. Yeah, you know what else does? Uh fermented Taiwanese uh chili, like the the is a like 20% salt. It's like it's like it's like 80% chili, 20% salt, and or like 15% salt, and then MSG and other stuff.
And I add that to absolutely everything. And and my wife Jen is like, by the way, the reason I don't have the book with me today, and I had to do this all from memory, and I had to make you read off your phone is because my wife picked the book. She's like, finally a book that I want to read. Because I I don't read about people, I read about things typically. So she's like, this is not the normal book that gets mailed to you, Dave.
I'm gonna read this one. So she's reading it, she's like halfway through. Anyway. Uh Wizmard writes in, Dave, how's the book going? Give us a progress report on the miracle of moisture management.
Oh, hold up, Dave. Sorry, I'm gonna interrupt. Uh Andrew Zimmern did uh post on MSG salt combination. I think he did two to one MSG to salt. That's a lot of MSG though.
Yeah. But that's a little high to me. That's a little high. Yeah. Uh uh I I really prefer to do the Silicon MSG separate.
If you do have, if you do buy the combo of like the savory nucleic acids, I've heard a good ratio is like 97% MSG and then 3% of those other uh nucleic acids. All right. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna get one of those really ridiculous, like, you know those tuxedo, those weird tuxedo coats that are like this high, they're like up like near your chest, and then the super tight cumber bund that look incredibly preposterous that the three-star Michelin uh French dudes used to wear. Remember these, uh John, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah.
Yeah. I'm gonna wear that. I'm gonna just walk into someone's restaurant, and then I'm gonna walk up to the table with a like like a like a giant like Coquille Saint-Jacques shell and and and and uh and a pearl spoon and uh you know, mother pearl spoon, and I'm just gonna walk up and be like, Madame savory nucleic acids, and start sprinkling on the thing and see whether this is not a good sounding thing to sprinkle on your food. Is it is it, John? What do you think?
No, not really. Uh I'm with you though, Quinn. Uh Zach from Pittsburgh writes in, how's you doing? Are there any dairy-free ways to make Irish cream? I have a family member who has a new dairy allergy and is lamenting not having Baileys for both cooking and drinking.
So listen, I looked at some of the vegan Bailey's. Uh uh, do you guys any guys like are you guys Bailey's people or Irish cream people? Anything? Once or twice. Once or twice in my life.
In when you were young, makes a good milkshake. Does make a good milkshake. So listen, the internet's is uh full of people who tell you to use coconut milk for that, but I wouldn't use coconut milk. Coconut milk, unless it's incredibly highly stabilized, tends to clump or curdle when it gets uh when it gets very cold, just the function of the fat of how coconut fat works. So I would actually use uh almond milk probably, or uh some other kind of nut milk like that.
If you do use coconut milk, I would use one that's like very highly stabilized, like maybe the condensed stuff that's been stabilized so it won't curdle. And I would use a little bit of ticaloid, which is uh Xanthan and uh gum arabic mix, and apparently other than that, it's whiskey, espresso, sugar, uh, and vanilla. Hold on. Uh Dave Kleiman, has anyone prepared shucked raw rice before it gets to dry? Well, it's freshly picked and not starchy yet, and treated it similarly to raw corn nibblets.
Cooking it, is it feasible? Well, well, Dave, when rice is harvested, it's usually harvested at about 20% moisture, so it's already pretty dry. In uh Tanzania, there is something called uh Pepita, where they harvest the rice uh green when it's still high moisture. They then roast it, pound it into uh pound it into flakes, and then winnow it after they pound it to get rid of the husks, and then they eat those pellets. But I ain't never tasted it.
Uh Steve wants to know or there's a bunch of roto vaps, Steve Young. There's a bunch of roto vaps uh selling for under $2,000 and one for under $900 on Amazon. Do you think they look legit? Well, I mean, look, I think you could probably get them to work, but are they gonna be as good as the ones that cost a zillion dollars? No, but if you let me and they have no reviews, I would not buy anything like that that has no reviews.
Plus, also the glass on those things is not plastic coated. So guard your eyes, my friend. Guard your eyes. Uh Jack, I'm gonna get to your carnitas and I'm gonna get to uh John's uh Colton's uh question on pie from Pie Marches On, which by the way, John, he calls the pie bowl. He calls it the pie bowl, which I appreciate it.
We'll get to that next week. Taraja, thanks so much for coming on. Hope you had a good time. Thank you so much. Cooking issues.
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