Speaker 1: Welcome to Go Ask Ali, a production of Shonda Land
Speaker 1: Audio and partnership with iHeartRadio. Rolling on the full. Laughing
Speaker 1: is a thing I can I've seen you know, We've
Speaker 1: all seen people do it. I've done it. Kiddy's for me. Now.
Speaker 1: The work is to warrant what I have, even kind
Speaker 1: of shitty stuff. You know, that's my works. It's imperfect.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you a question about actors because
Speaker 1: you are Yeah, me too. We are old funny duddies.
Speaker 1: We go to sleep at ten, we wake up at six,
Speaker 1: we go to bed at eight, so there are more
Speaker 1: funny duddies than you. You are the funny duddiest. Yes,
Speaker 1: welcome to Go ask Alli. I'm Ali Wentworth. Now, before
Speaker 1: we jump into the most amazing episode of Go Ask
Speaker 1: Ali ever, guess what. We've been nominated for a Webby Award.
Speaker 1: It's a People's Choice award, so our people need to
Speaker 1: vote for us. That is you please. I'll say more
Speaker 1: about this at the end of the show, so stay tuned,
Speaker 1: and there's also info in the show notes, or you
Speaker 1: can go to the real Alley Wentworth Instagram and click
Speaker 1: on my bio. Okay, we'll spin your rod and get
Speaker 1: at your clamming rake, because this is an episode for
Speaker 1: the books. Everything I love is in this episode of
Speaker 1: Go ask Alley Fishing and clamming badass women, foragers and providers.
Speaker 1: That's right, I have some unbelievable guests today. First up,
Speaker 1: I get to introduce you to the Ebony Anglers, a
Speaker 1: trailblazing team of sport fishing women. And later I share
Speaker 1: a giddy conversation I had with my clam and sister
Speaker 1: and soulmate, award winning New York Times food columnist and
Speaker 1: cookbook author Melissa Clark. We talk about why we love
Speaker 1: crouching and saltwater by ourselves. So damn much. Okay. First up,
Speaker 1: the Ebony Anglers. Oh lord. They are a trophy winning,
Speaker 1: groundbreaking group of women who have come together to promote
Speaker 1: the joys of fishing, boating, and the great outdoors. Their passion,
Speaker 1: victories and awards have inspired the creation of the Ebony
Speaker 1: Angler Foundation, which has created educational programs, mentorship, and access
Speaker 1: to phishing and voting experiences, primarily with a BIPOC community.
Speaker 1: Its driving force is to make all of the outdoors
Speaker 1: accessible and enjoyable for everyone. Based in North Carolina, the
Speaker 1: Ebedy Anglers are Gia Peebles, Leslie Maousi, Tiana Davis, Bobby
Speaker 1: at Palmer, and Glenda Turner, who unfortunately could not join
Speaker 1: us for this. So we got four out of five,
Speaker 1: which was a miracle. Damn it. It's the best day
Speaker 1: of my life. And I'm going to tell you why,
Speaker 1: because the Ebony Anglers are with me. I have been
Speaker 1: chasing them like Moby Dick for years. I was emailing them,
Speaker 1: I was going to their website. I was like, dear God,
Speaker 1: I think that there Reese Witherspoon faster than these people.
Speaker 1: And finally the day has come. The Ebony Anglers are here.
Speaker 1: And first of all, ladies, thank you for being here,
Speaker 1: thank you for anchoring and coming in and talking to me.
Speaker 1: And second of all, I am a huge fisherwoman. I
Speaker 1: showed you some photos before we started this podcast. I
Speaker 1: am in it. I love it. It is my happy place,
Speaker 1: it is my meditation place. I love to fish. And
Speaker 1: you know, I've always been intimidated because my husband doesn't fish.
Speaker 1: But I've never had a girlfriend that would go fishing
Speaker 1: with me. And I've always wanted to go on a
Speaker 1: fishing trip and I don't want to go with some dudes,
Speaker 1: I want to go with my girlfriends and nobody will come.
Speaker 1: So when I saw that you were a group a
Speaker 1: bad ass fisherwoman, I was like, I want in, but
Speaker 1: you're ebony Anglers. So unless the Ivory Anglers come along,
Speaker 1: I'm out of luck. But we can be the ebony
Speaker 1: and ivory angle. There we go. Absolutely, that's beautiful. Consider us.
Speaker 1: Your girlfriends come on and join us. Listen, don't do
Speaker 1: not say that to me. I will be on a
Speaker 1: plane so fast it'll make your head spend everything about
Speaker 1: the Ebony Anglers, your charitable component, all of it. And
Speaker 1: I'm a big child advocate. I'm all about raising awareness
Speaker 1: for girls. And there you all that one delicious little
Speaker 1: net of fish. Have you captured everything that I love? Okay,
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to talk anymore because I want
Speaker 1: to hear from you. How did this start? How did
Speaker 1: you guys come together? Were you drinking you know, sex
Speaker 1: on the beaches one day and You're like, we could
Speaker 1: start a fishing group. Yeah, so I'll jump in on
Speaker 1: that one. Essentially, I got into fishing because my husband
Speaker 1: loved to fish, so it was something kind of we
Speaker 1: did as a pastime to equal out our crazy lives
Speaker 1: as entrepreneurs. But we were down at the coast and
Speaker 1: there's a huge tournament called the Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament.
Speaker 1: And the first day, this boat is backing in and
Speaker 1: five ladies get off the boat, and then another boat
Speaker 1: backs in and five more ladies get off the boat.
Speaker 1: So I look at him and I'm like, okay, what's
Speaker 1: going on here? Why all these women? And he was like, well,
Speaker 1: the first two days is the ladies tournament. So, being
Speaker 1: the natural competitor that I am, I'm like, okay, how
Speaker 1: do you get into this right? And so he's like,
Speaker 1: you gotta get a boat, you gotta get a captain,
Speaker 1: you gotta get a team together. So immediately my rolodex
Speaker 1: starts turning, like, Okay, who can I call that is
Speaker 1: crazy enough to do this with me? Because, like you, Alie,
Speaker 1: I don't know a lot of other women who fished, right,
Speaker 1: who'd you call? Who'd you call? First? I called Leslie? Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: And we actually had just been out fishing together and
Speaker 1: I saw her fishing off of our boat and I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, she's got some grit about her. So
Speaker 1: she immediately rose up. So I called Leslie. Then I
Speaker 1: called Bobby. We kind of have a long relationship in
Speaker 1: the beauty industry. Then I called Glinda. We worked together,
Speaker 1: and Leslie brought in Tiana because she knew her very well.
Speaker 1: Tiana's a mother of five and owns the business, and
Speaker 1: so I said she'd be a perfect fit for us. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know what we're missing, Glinda, but let's do a
Speaker 1: quick intro of everyone else here. Okay, I am Bobby
Speaker 1: at Glover. I am recently married, I will be turning forty,
Speaker 1: and I am also a grandmother, which is funny. And
Speaker 1: I have five kids now. I went from one biological too.
Speaker 1: Now I have five kids, a grandchild and one on
Speaker 1: the way. I'm Leslie MAUSI I am a wife, a mom,
Speaker 1: a retired educator. I own a music festival. I'm a
Speaker 1: newly published author, and I turned fifty this year. I'm
Speaker 1: a hashtag boy mom and all things music. That's me. Hello.
Speaker 1: I'm Tianna Davis. I'm from Long Island, New York. I'm
Speaker 1: the owner of a hospitality and catering company, the mother
Speaker 1: of five amazing children, all of whom I've pushed through
Speaker 1: my womb. And I'm a badass ebony angler I'm Ga Peebles,
Speaker 1: the mother of three sons, entrepreneur, stylist, and former professional athletes. Amazing.
Speaker 1: So okay, so let me here's my first question, because
Speaker 1: I know there's a good answer to this. How do
Speaker 1: the white men I feel about a bunch of black
Speaker 1: women competing with them for fish? Because that is a
Speaker 1: primal thing. You must have some stories about this, and
Speaker 1: I want to hear them right now. The totally love it.
Speaker 1: White men love us. Yeah, after they get over the disbelief,
Speaker 1: like you know, like shock, like yes, are they really
Speaker 1: out here fishing? And then after they realize we're really
Speaker 1: out there fishing, they're like all in. They want to know, like,
Speaker 1: you know, what are y'all doing? Who are y'all? How
Speaker 1: are you doing this? Until we beat their ass? Not
Speaker 1: only that they're that's right, they're looking at us and
Speaker 1: we've got a full face of makeup and we've got
Speaker 1: all these matching outfits. They don't we're matching outfits out
Speaker 1: there on the water, but we're all color coordinated. Well
Speaker 1: maybe they do below deck, but they certainly, and they're like,
Speaker 1: what's going on here? But then when we pull our
Speaker 1: fish out, you know, and we go up to the
Speaker 1: way station. Then I think that's where that respect comes in.
Speaker 1: And then they want to come over and talk and chat.
Speaker 1: So it's like, oh, yeah, these ladies are serious, and
Speaker 1: well how do they react when you beat them in
Speaker 1: a competition? You're all smiling? Come on, I want to
Speaker 1: hear just like fill the tea right, yeah, in disbelief. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're shocked. They're in disbel leave. Like you know, I
Speaker 1: think even what you know, one person was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll checked the scale, you know, like and and they
Speaker 1: just because they just couldn't believe it, you know initially.
Speaker 1: But we walked over proud with our fish, like yeah,
Speaker 1: you know we've won. This is our fish. You know,
Speaker 1: take note, take note, take note. We're doing this too.
Speaker 1: So all right, So to put it in a relationship metaphor,
Speaker 1: do you all each have a story of the one
Speaker 1: that got away? Did you have like a Marlin or
Speaker 1: something huge at the end you lost it? Because that's
Speaker 1: got that I oh, that's heartbreaking more than losing a relationship.
Speaker 1: If that big fish is on and you lose it,
Speaker 1: poor Bobby. Yeah, let me tell you my heartbreak in
Speaker 1: marlins story. Um, so you know, it takes a lot
Speaker 1: of intestinal fortitude. I always say to do this deep
Speaker 1: sea fishing thing, especially competitively. And the first like super
Speaker 1: huge tournament we had besides our very first one that
Speaker 1: we won was the Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament and
Speaker 1: we are out on our you know, sixty foot yacht
Speaker 1: in eight to ten foot ocean swells while it's pouring
Speaker 1: down rain, and we did pretty good. We had a
Speaker 1: pretty good hawk. We caught four large mahi, about twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three pound mahi. And so it was my turn
Speaker 1: up at the rod, and wouldn't you know it, five
Speaker 1: six hundred pounds marlin hits the rod. And when I
Speaker 1: tell you, it was like a train hit the rod.
Speaker 1: I was not ready. Was I saw Jaws? I know
Speaker 1: what it feels like. I guess it was like Jaws.
Speaker 1: And I'm telling you that fish for forty minutes just
Speaker 1: swam straight down like, did not rest, did not give
Speaker 1: any slack. And I just remember thinking, well, something's wrong
Speaker 1: with this rod because it's not the reels. It's just
Speaker 1: not reeling. It just won't go. It wasn't the rod.
Speaker 1: It was me and you know, just fighting this fish
Speaker 1: that I'd never experienced that power before ever and could
Speaker 1: not fathom what that felt like. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: forty minutes and at this point, I didn't think that
Speaker 1: I could pass the rod to my teammates because you know,
Speaker 1: every tournament has different rules and we're knew, we're still
Speaker 1: learning everything and um, and so no one could touch
Speaker 1: the rod. You know, everybody was like yelling at me,
Speaker 1: like hey, keep really keep red. I'm like, I can't,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, you know, trying to trying to do
Speaker 1: this thing. I put me in the fight chair and
Speaker 1: for another twenty twenty five minutes, I'm in this chair,
Speaker 1: fish swimming straight down. Next thing I know, I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I got this. Now. The rod's easy to reel now.
Speaker 1: And that's because he was gone. That was the last
Speaker 1: opportunity that we had in that tournament to get something.
Speaker 1: And I just felt like, oh my god, I failed
Speaker 1: my team. And also I was kind of like, oh God,
Speaker 1: thank god this is over. Wow. So, Tiana, for people
Speaker 1: that don't fish, it explain to my listeners how strong
Speaker 1: you have to be to be a fisher person. Like
Speaker 1: when you've got a big fish at the end on
Speaker 1: your hook, it's your guns better be like Michelle Obama's
Speaker 1: I mean you got to reel that thing. And there
Speaker 1: are times where I want to give up because I'm
Speaker 1: just like, I don't have the strike. Yeah, absolutely, to
Speaker 1: talk about that. Yeah. So one of the things that
Speaker 1: we try to do is, you know, make sure that
Speaker 1: we are ready and stay in shape, like we're hitting
Speaker 1: the gym and we're working on our cardio and weightlifting,
Speaker 1: because as Bobby had said, once that fish hits the line,
Speaker 1: you feel like you've been hit by a truck, and
Speaker 1: it is like sink or swim. Right, forgive me for
Speaker 1: the poor metaphor right now, I love it, but it
Speaker 1: is really a test of everything that you have inside
Speaker 1: of you. You're great, you're endurance, particularly in the tournaments
Speaker 1: when you cannot pass the rod over to your teammate.
Speaker 1: You have this potentially three four five hundred pound fish
Speaker 1: fighting for its life and you're fighting for a million dollars.
Speaker 1: So who's gonna win? Right, Gia. Let me ask you
Speaker 1: this greatest win like for some people that oh the
Speaker 1: super Bowl that you know, for you guys, what competition
Speaker 1: did you win? And it was just great? So people
Speaker 1: can fish, you know, basically their entire career and never
Speaker 1: win a tournament like just like the last one we
Speaker 1: fished in for KLLA. I think those ladies had been
Speaker 1: fishing for seven years and that was their first win
Speaker 1: at So we always say it was kind of divine
Speaker 1: order for us to actually win the first tournament that
Speaker 1: we ever competed in as a team. Right, So with
Speaker 1: that kind of being said, we're always chasing that high,
Speaker 1: like that initial experience was just I mean, it gives
Speaker 1: me goosebumps now just thinking about it. Right, our boat
Speaker 1: captain was eighty years old and when we ruled that
Speaker 1: fish in, he leaped off of his feet because he
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, this is the biggest catch
Speaker 1: that he's ever had of his career. So I would
Speaker 1: have to say that it's called the Carteret Community College
Speaker 1: Spanish Mackerel Tournament. That was the first tournament that we
Speaker 1: competed in as a unit or a team together, and
Speaker 1: that was our first win. And do you get a trophy?
Speaker 1: If you get a trophy, do you get a J
Speaker 1: max gift card? Like what do you win with? So
Speaker 1: we did get a monetary prize along with a trophy
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, and we would have took the TJ
Speaker 1: Max to gift card also because to look at exactly
Speaker 1: who wouldn't, right, who wouldn't So Leslie, let me ask
Speaker 1: you this. So, when you guys you're doing these tournaments,
Speaker 1: what's the furthest place from home you've gone to compete.
Speaker 1: The farthest we've gone is Almarado, Florida. We really wanted
Speaker 1: to take advantage of fishing during the winter months, and
Speaker 1: here in North carolina's just so cold, it's kind of
Speaker 1: miserable on the water. So we were just thinking, where
Speaker 1: could we go it's warmer, Where do they have fishing
Speaker 1: all year long? And we actually met on social media
Speaker 1: some lovely, lovely ladies called real Gals, and that kind
Speaker 1: of took us down to Florida, the West Palm Beach area,
Speaker 1: and we found a really nice tournament down there called
Speaker 1: the Fish for Holly Tournament, and it was tied to
Speaker 1: a really great cause. And you know, we had just
Speaker 1: put on Instagram that we were going to travel to
Speaker 1: Florida and participate in this great tournament for a great cause.
Speaker 1: And we get down there. We're wearing our sweatshirts and
Speaker 1: our hats, and there were so many people there that said,
Speaker 1: we know you guys. We were so happy to hear
Speaker 1: that you were coming like we follow you. So just
Speaker 1: to just to get all the way down to our
Speaker 1: maraud Or Florida, the Keys and meet up with people
Speaker 1: who had followed our journey and to know that we
Speaker 1: all had the same connection. And that was the love
Speaker 1: for this sport and it was the respect for um,
Speaker 1: this family who had set up this wonderful tournament in
Speaker 1: honor of their child. Yeah, it was a great experience.
Speaker 1: How often do you guys fish in a year? Every
Speaker 1: weekend every few months? Only wanted to hot out, like,
Speaker 1: how does your schedule work? So we formed the team.
Speaker 1: We wanted to make sure that we were fishing once
Speaker 1: per quarter competitively and then um in between there how
Speaker 1: often can we realistically practice? And so we try to
Speaker 1: get out there maybe once every six to eight weeks,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't always happen that way. Imagine trying to
Speaker 1: sink five schedules and it's it's hell getting you on
Speaker 1: my podcast exactly exactly now you understand one. So, Gia,
Speaker 1: it's expensive the sport. Yes, you know. I know that.
Speaker 1: When I want to fish in the summer because I
Speaker 1: love it, it's it's cost me a pretty penny. So
Speaker 1: it must cost you guys money renting the boats, buying
Speaker 1: the gear. It really does. And you're exactly right, because,
Speaker 1: especially for the larger tournaments where the purse is a
Speaker 1: lot bigger, we have to charter a much larger like
Speaker 1: Bobby had said, you know, sometimes it's forty one foot
Speaker 1: to sixty, you know, plus and from North Carolina, we
Speaker 1: have to go about two hours off of our coast
Speaker 1: to get to the gold stream where the much larger
Speaker 1: fish are that we're looking to catch. So you know,
Speaker 1: we pretty much have financed it all ourselves. That is
Speaker 1: the beauty of having a team, and that we can
Speaker 1: kind of divvy up the costs and split it among
Speaker 1: the five of us to all pitch in. And you know,
Speaker 1: we agreed in the beginning, like we all agreed that
Speaker 1: we were committed to this and it was something that
Speaker 1: we not only wanted just to do, we wanted to
Speaker 1: do it well. And so you know, we're all moms,
Speaker 1: we're all business owners, were all wives. It's a sacrifice,
Speaker 1: but we've been willing to make that sacrifice. Now, if
Speaker 1: truth be told, for some of us, it is an escape, right,
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about. It is an escape.
Speaker 1: We need that little breath, you know, just to to
Speaker 1: recharge ourselves. And so it does make it nice to say, oh, honey,
Speaker 1: I've got a fishing tournament this weekend, so I'll be
Speaker 1: back so with your camps Black Girls Fish and Black
Speaker 1: Boys Boat, which I think are incredibly fantastic. Has there
Speaker 1: been a kid or an experience that really stands out
Speaker 1: to you. One of the things that really is just
Speaker 1: amazing to me each and every time it never loses
Speaker 1: its luster, is when we see a kid that's caught
Speaker 1: their very first fish that has happened so many times,
Speaker 1: where the look on their face, the pure unadulterated glee
Speaker 1: that they are feeling because they've caught this little pinfish
Speaker 1: that's like four inches big. Right. But but for them,
Speaker 1: you can't say that it's not that fifteen pound salmon,
Speaker 1: right or the five hundred pound balls right, because it
Speaker 1: is life changing. Y. Yeah, it's a moment of success,
Speaker 1: it's an accomplishment, it's a reward, and you have to
Speaker 1: have patience. They call it fishion, not catching, so you
Speaker 1: you never know if you're going to get something and
Speaker 1: you're casting out, you can't see what's below the surface,
Speaker 1: and you know when you feel that tug on that line.
Speaker 1: It's adrenaline, you know. It's that it's those endorphins that
Speaker 1: are released and reeling it in and seeing what it is.
Speaker 1: And when something hits our line, it's that moment when
Speaker 1: you first see color, you know, and you're wondering what
Speaker 1: it is. And you know, we're learning to tell different
Speaker 1: fish by the type of fight that they give, but
Speaker 1: you really never know until you see that color come
Speaker 1: toward the surface, and when it breaks that surface, you
Speaker 1: know that that's what these kids are feeling. It's that adrenaline,
Speaker 1: natural high. Don't you think there's something really primal about
Speaker 1: it too. You know. I remember during the during COVID,
Speaker 1: I went out fishing a few times, and there was
Speaker 1: something great about coming home with a fish and putting
Speaker 1: it on the counter and looking at my husband and saying, like,
Speaker 1: I'm a prof fighter. Yes, you know, I went out,
Speaker 1: I got dinner. I cooked dinner. That's right, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. I love that feeling too, yes, absolutely absolutely,
Speaker 1: and that that just adds to the feeling of accomplishment.
Speaker 1: And I think for not only for us, but for
Speaker 1: the kids, you know, learning how to fight something that
Speaker 1: you can't see learning how to fight the unknown. Like
Speaker 1: Bobby was saying, you don't know what it is until
Speaker 1: you reel it up. So the only thing you have
Speaker 1: to depend on is you your strength and your fortitude,
Speaker 1: and you have got to pull it in and it's
Speaker 1: all up to you. So it's a it's very self rewarding,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's a great feeling to pull it
Speaker 1: out the water. And that's why we do what we do.
Speaker 1: You know, tournaments are amazing. We do that for the
Speaker 1: thrill of it, but our foundation really is so that
Speaker 1: we can impact lives of little kids that look like
Speaker 1: us and just open them up to so many more opportunity.
Speaker 1: I love it. There's a lot more to come after
Speaker 1: the short break and we're back. You know. I actually
Speaker 1: think teenagers could benefit so much from this too. I mean,
Speaker 1: with all the issues they're dealing with right now, mental health, trauma, addiction,
Speaker 1: global warming, civil unrest. You know, I've been saying for
Speaker 1: years that I think there's a real mental health crisis
Speaker 1: in our country for teenagers, and how amazing would it
Speaker 1: be for them to have a place to go to
Speaker 1: be competitive and to find their strength is such an
Speaker 1: important thing, you know. I found clamming during COVID. But
Speaker 1: you know, but it was a great coping thing for me,
Speaker 1: and I think they need those sort of outdoor coping things.
Speaker 1: But it's empowered too, and it's healthy, and it's something
Speaker 1: else to focus on. Yeah, it is. It is healthy.
Speaker 1: We have really noticed how children, even with addiction to devices,
Speaker 1: when they're with us, it's a no device zone, and
Speaker 1: so how they kind of don't want to release their
Speaker 1: devices or turn them off. But after about thirty forty
Speaker 1: five minutes there are yards away from their backpacks. They
Speaker 1: are not thinking about phones, video games, consoles, none of that,
Speaker 1: and they are playing with one another like we used
Speaker 1: to back in the day, right outside, rolling around in
Speaker 1: the sand, frolicking in the water. And it is just
Speaker 1: a return to what's most important. And that was the
Speaker 1: vision behind really creating the camps, because you know, we
Speaker 1: see kids they deal with so much, whether it be depression,
Speaker 1: a lot of kids are cutting themselves, a lot of
Speaker 1: kids are coming out of the pandemic with emotional trauma
Speaker 1: just from isolation. So we're really really glad that we
Speaker 1: can be a part of healing. It's healing to us
Speaker 1: to be out there. I mean just mentally, emotionally, it's
Speaker 1: healing being out on the water perfectly. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if you ladies remember, but we had a young
Speaker 1: lady that was very apprehensive about engaging with the group.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you ladies remember that, like I do,
Speaker 1: remember socialization perspective. You know, she was like, I don't
Speaker 1: have any friends, and you know, kind of nobody wanted
Speaker 1: to play with me. And I think it was Tianna.
Speaker 1: I think Tiana you were the one who kind of
Speaker 1: really facilitated that. She took the young lady, she brought
Speaker 1: her over to the other girls, and Tianna introduced her
Speaker 1: to the other ladies, and like like Leslie was saying,
Speaker 1: by the end of the camp, they were, you know,
Speaker 1: playing together. You know, they're probably lifelong friends. Like remember
Speaker 1: when we were in camp. What's really incredible with the
Speaker 1: children is that I think for each of us, we're
Speaker 1: able to identify parts of ourselves in these kids. So
Speaker 1: for that particular young lady, I wanted to beat for
Speaker 1: her what I needed when I was her age, and
Speaker 1: just I saw something in her that really was an
Speaker 1: opportunity to make connections that she could not do on
Speaker 1: her own. In that moment and she just needed some nurturing.
Speaker 1: Do you guys ever get any animal activists after you
Speaker 1: I once posted a picture of me holding a big fish,
Speaker 1: and people started talking about how inhumane I was, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I ate it. I fed my family
Speaker 1: with us. Yeah, we absolutely have, Okay, Yeah, yeah, we
Speaker 1: do get some comments like that on social media. You know,
Speaker 1: for the most part, it's it's positive, overwhelmingly positive. But
Speaker 1: you know, you get those trolls out there and the
Speaker 1: animal activists, they are serious and just like you said,
Speaker 1: you know, like we picked charitable tournaments. You know, we're
Speaker 1: about conservation. We always you know, when we bring in
Speaker 1: meat fish and we divvat them up between our families.
Speaker 1: We have fish tacos. You know, our husbands are waiting
Speaker 1: at the docks for us to cook up our fish
Speaker 1: that we went out and caught. And we really are
Speaker 1: about stewardship of the environment and teaching the next generation,
Speaker 1: which is why we started our foundation, you know, to
Speaker 1: teach kids how to fish and how to boat and
Speaker 1: you know, and about conservation. And we do have some news.
Speaker 1: If I kid, you're giving me some breaking news, breaking news,
Speaker 1: we saved it just for you. Yes, So um. So
Speaker 1: our nonprofit is the Ebony Anglers Foundation, and we are
Speaker 1: so excited to say that we've just partnered with the
Speaker 1: National Parks Foundations and the National Parks Service and they
Speaker 1: have awarded us a large grant to expand our programming
Speaker 1: and our goal is to take the programming nation and wide.
Speaker 1: We started off with a summer camp for kids here
Speaker 1: in Durham, North Carolina, black girlish um about twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five kids, Black girlsmission black boys. Yeah yeah. And and
Speaker 1: the National Parks Service and Foundation they found us and
Speaker 1: they you know, they pursued us and said, we want
Speaker 1: to be a part of this. We love what you're
Speaker 1: doing and we want to help, you know, and so
Speaker 1: this is our pilot program and they have just been
Speaker 1: so amazing and giving us the support that we need.
Speaker 1: UM and so you know this this is huge for us,
Speaker 1: huge for our foundation and our goals as UM as
Speaker 1: a team to teach teach the littles. So we are
Speaker 1: just so is amazing. Thank you. That is really great.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Oh gosh, I just that is the best news.
Speaker 1: And because I love the blueprint for your whole foundation
Speaker 1: should be nationwide. I mean it should be global, but
Speaker 1: let's start locally, but it should be nationwide. So congratulations,
Speaker 1: thank you. So I can be part of it in
Speaker 1: any way, Please tell me thank you. I'm serious. Oh absolutely,
Speaker 1: we would love to invite you to come fishing with us.
Speaker 1: I'm there, I am there, I am this is I
Speaker 1: am not bullshitting you. Okay, lying there? Can you invite me?
Speaker 1: I am gonna come. Wonderful Okay, yes, well you have
Speaker 1: an open invitation, so just let us know when you're
Speaker 1: You're available. I'm available, I'm available. Why don't you guys
Speaker 1: come up to Long Island and come fishing with me?
Speaker 1: How about that? There's some big, big fish in Long Island.
Speaker 1: Let's do it. That would be awesome. So, you know,
Speaker 1: my my podcast, Go Ask Ali, I ask people a
Speaker 1: lot of questions, and so I like to give them
Speaker 1: an opportunity at the end of the podcast to ask
Speaker 1: me something. So all four of you can ask me
Speaker 1: a question. You can go ask Ali, and let's start
Speaker 1: with Bobby. Ask me anything, Bobby. You know, Al, I'm
Speaker 1: so glad that you started with me because I have
Speaker 1: a very important question to ask you. And my question is,
Speaker 1: if this was a zombie apocalypse, what is your weapon
Speaker 1: of choice if it's a But by the way, I
Speaker 1: watch The Walking Dead and I'm watching The Last of Us,
Speaker 1: so I think about this all the time. I don't
Speaker 1: I don't believe in guns, but it seems to be
Speaker 1: the only thing that they can use to kill the
Speaker 1: zombies because you have to, you know, get them in
Speaker 1: the head. So um, but I think some kind of
Speaker 1: a big like a fish gutting knife would be you know,
Speaker 1: because you can get him in the head with that,
Speaker 1: you can kill the un zombie humans with it. So yeah,
Speaker 1: pick cutting knife. She's given this some thought, Janna, how
Speaker 1: can I answer her question? Okay, my question? So I
Speaker 1: had several really great questions, but the one that I
Speaker 1: landed on is what makes a good spy Um, a
Speaker 1: poker face. A SPI will not let you know what
Speaker 1: they're thinking or what they're doing. And I say that
Speaker 1: as an empowered female, because you know, female spies are
Speaker 1: always just using their sexuality. I think it's so much
Speaker 1: more than that. But I think if you have a
Speaker 1: poker face and they can't guess what you're thinking or doing,
Speaker 1: or the fact that you've got a gun duct tape
Speaker 1: to your thigh, or a good SI, I like it
Speaker 1: is okay, giaf okay. So I am a beauty professional.
Speaker 1: So I have a beauty question. To wax or to shave,
Speaker 1: that is the question. What is your proper gia? I'm
Speaker 1: I'm fairly hairless like that has never been an issue
Speaker 1: for me. I shave okay. I have a Greek husband.
Speaker 1: So my daughters are half Greek and they are dipped
Speaker 1: in wax weekly. They are very good for me. Save
Speaker 1: for my little Greek hairy daughters. It's wax everywhere everywhere.
Speaker 1: You're not dipping the babies, are you. I'm not dipping them?
Speaker 1: All right, leslie? What about your question? All right? So
Speaker 1: here's my question. What was the worst advice you ever received? Oh?
Speaker 1: Just stay with him, collaborate, listen. I am so happily
Speaker 1: married right now. But you know, we all had our
Speaker 1: bad choices. Our our frontal lobe hadn't developed. So you know,
Speaker 1: I dated some bad boys and one of them was just,
Speaker 1: you know, a bit of a drinker and a philanderer.
Speaker 1: And I would say to my friends, well, he's cheated
Speaker 1: on me so much. He's always drunk, and he never
Speaker 1: pays for anything. And I would get nobody's so cute,
Speaker 1: just stay with him. And I was like, that is
Speaker 1: the worst advice now ever, I wish I got advice
Speaker 1: like from my mother, like where sunscreen and you know,
Speaker 1: have your own bank account. But this was the one
Speaker 1: that stands out as the worst. Ebbony Anglers. I'm obsessed
Speaker 1: with you. I love you. I am coming fishing with
Speaker 1: you because I have it on tape, you asking me
Speaker 1: and let's do it. I so look forward to it.
Speaker 1: I love everything you do. Keep winning those competitions, keep
Speaker 1: supporting our youth, and I'll see you down south soon.
Speaker 1: So thank you, thank you, absolutely, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: It's time for a short break. But when we come back,
Speaker 1: we're going to jump off the boat, put our tushies
Speaker 1: in the wet sand. Go from competition to meditation with
Speaker 1: Melissa Clark, the New York Times food calmnist and cookbook author.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to go ask Gali, and now it is
Speaker 1: time for my clamming soul sister. Melissa Clark is an
Speaker 1: award winning New York Times food columnist and cookbook author.
Speaker 1: She has written forty five cookbooks, including the best selling
Speaker 1: Dinner in French and the award winning Dinner Changing the
Speaker 1: Game In twenty twelve, she joined the staff of the
Speaker 1: New York Times, where she writes the highly popular food
Speaker 1: section column A Good Appetite. Her latest book is Dinner
Speaker 1: in One, a collection of complex tasting but easy making
Speaker 1: one pot, one pan meals. She lives in Brooklyn with
Speaker 1: her husband and daughter. So one morning in August, I believe,
Speaker 1: my husband, George emailed me a article that you wrote
Speaker 1: in the New York Times about clamming, and it spoke
Speaker 1: to me like no other book article I've ever read,
Speaker 1: because I discovered clamming and I got into it really
Speaker 1: hardcore during COVID because we were out in Long Island,
Speaker 1: and it saved my life because I would go out
Speaker 1: there in my waiters with my rake, and I started
Speaker 1: getting a few clams for the family, and then I
Speaker 1: became so good at it that I started getting clams
Speaker 1: for our neighbors, and then some food pantries, and I
Speaker 1: just I became this incredibly. I don't know if there's
Speaker 1: a god god in Greek mythology that clams, but I
Speaker 1: became that person. So when I read your article, and
Speaker 1: you too loved clamming and felt very meditative about it,
Speaker 1: I thought, wow, I can't believe I married George. I
Speaker 1: have just found my soulmate. So tell me about your
Speaker 1: whole clamming experience. Well, first of all, I also found
Speaker 1: clamming during the pandemic. I didn't grow up clamming. I
Speaker 1: grew up in brook We didn't eat a lot of
Speaker 1: clams though. I mean, we went to Lundy's, you know,
Speaker 1: we did the whole Brooklyn thing. We went and we
Speaker 1: had clams there, but we didn't actually go out and
Speaker 1: get our own clams. It just wasn't a thing. We
Speaker 1: went to fish stores and bought them. So I was
Speaker 1: out on Shelter Island the first year of the pandemic
Speaker 1: and I just got it in my head that I
Speaker 1: wanted to clam because I love pasta with clam sauce.
Speaker 1: I thought, well, they're right there, they're there. I don't
Speaker 1: see them, I don't hear them, but I had faith.
Speaker 1: It was crazy. It was like, I'm not religious, I'm
Speaker 1: not a meditator, but somehow I knew that those clams
Speaker 1: were there and they are waiting for me, and I
Speaker 1: was going to get them. And I thought I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try it. And I'd never done it, but
Speaker 1: I asked my friends who live on Shelter Island we
Speaker 1: were out visiting them, if they knew anything about clamming.
Speaker 1: And they had a friend who was a clamming guru
Speaker 1: and they went clamming all the time. So they brought
Speaker 1: me along. I put my waiters on, I had my bucket.
Speaker 1: They gave me a rake, and I got out there
Speaker 1: and within fifteen minutes I had shed all that. I
Speaker 1: was like, you know what, my toes need to be
Speaker 1: in the sand. I like clamming with my toes. So
Speaker 1: I it's summertime now, I assume it's warm out. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh this was This was July or August actually, and
Speaker 1: so every the water was warm. It was hot out.
Speaker 1: I was in the sunshine and I was just like
Speaker 1: doing a little shimmy dance on the sand because you know,
Speaker 1: you do a little dance and your toes get in
Speaker 1: the sand and you can find those clams with your
Speaker 1: toes and you go down and you pull them up
Speaker 1: and you're like, it's a rock. At the beginning, I
Speaker 1: felt like Charlie Brown at Halloween. Yeah, you know, I
Speaker 1: got a rough. I got a rock. But then I
Speaker 1: started to my toes got sensitive and I could feel
Speaker 1: the curve of the shell, and I was like, oh hah,
Speaker 1: that's a play. I'm not a rock. And I started
Speaker 1: to figure out what was what, and soon my bucket
Speaker 1: began to fill and we caught one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: five clams that day between five of us, and we
Speaker 1: made the biggest pasta with clamshus feast ever. And I
Speaker 1: was ecstatic, right because here's the thing, Melissa. The first
Speaker 1: part is there's something very primal, particularly during a global pandemic,
Speaker 1: with the idea of I'm going to go out and
Speaker 1: be a provider, like I'm going to actually go out
Speaker 1: and get the food. So that was my first excitement
Speaker 1: because I love my husband, but he is not a
Speaker 1: forager of any kind. Then the next thing was and
Speaker 1: I experienced a similar thing where I had a hard
Speaker 1: time finding the clams. My first couple of times I
Speaker 1: brought nothing back because I didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker 1: And then when you start to find a few, whether
Speaker 1: through your toes or with your rake or I use
Speaker 1: my hands, it is like finding diamonds in a mind.
Speaker 1: It is the most exciting thing. And then you sort
Speaker 1: of hone your skill. Then you start to realize how to,
Speaker 1: like you said, figure out what is a clam, what
Speaker 1: is a rock? What is a broken shell? Exactly? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you know your spot, right, you go back
Speaker 1: and you're like, that's my spot. And then you see
Speaker 1: someone else in your spotty really mad, even though you
Speaker 1: know you don't live there and you're just visiting. Oh No.
Speaker 1: I got extremely territorial about this area because I would
Speaker 1: go to a place in the springs in Long Island,
Speaker 1: which usually there was nobody ever there, which another part
Speaker 1: of it I loved was it became very meditative for me.
Speaker 1: It's like I like to go out there by myself, exactly,
Speaker 1: and every once in a while I'd see usually this
Speaker 1: like eighty year old guy with no shirt on, you know,
Speaker 1: with his basket. But we had that very simple nod
Speaker 1: of like you stay out of my area, I'll stay
Speaker 1: out of your, you know, And it was very if
Speaker 1: it's very calm. So then my clamming and I don't
Speaker 1: know how far it went with you, and I'd like
Speaker 1: to hear, but my clamming has gotten so out of
Speaker 1: control that I do it in the winter and I
Speaker 1: recently at the end of the summer in Long Island
Speaker 1: they have the biggest clam contest that I tried to
Speaker 1: win and just missed out. So then I had to
Speaker 1: go look for the biggest clam and I found almost
Speaker 1: a two pounder. You didn't. Yeah, So then it's like,
Speaker 1: how do I find like the little ones for the
Speaker 1: linguidy of Bengali, but that I need the big ones
Speaker 1: to win the clam contest. So tell me about that
Speaker 1: part of the experience. Okay, that you are a clamor
Speaker 1: beyond me and will you take me clamming? Will that
Speaker 1: ever happened? Yeah? I feel like now you could be
Speaker 1: my new clamming guru. Because we don't have a place
Speaker 1: on Long Island. The first summer we rented a place
Speaker 1: on Shelter Island and we went clamming there. Then last
Speaker 1: summer we went to Orient on the North Fork and
Speaker 1: we rented a place there and I got I got
Speaker 1: my legal clamming license. It isn't that a great feeling. Yes,
Speaker 1: I went down to the town hall and they sold
Speaker 1: me the seafood license and so I was very official,
Speaker 1: and so I was out there every day and so
Speaker 1: for me it was only two weeks. You know, it
Speaker 1: was a week in summer twenty twenty one, and then
Speaker 1: a week in summer twenty twenty two or two weeks then.
Speaker 1: So I've all told three weeks of clambing experience. So
Speaker 1: obviously I'm nowhere near where you are, but it really
Speaker 1: is to me. I can't wait. I mean, I'm looking
Speaker 1: for my house again this year. I'm like, I need
Speaker 1: a house where I can go clamming because I need
Speaker 1: the meditative experience and that is the most important part
Speaker 1: of it. Yes, I love the clams. I don't want
Speaker 1: to buy clams. It's funny because I think about it.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I, like you said, I need to pull
Speaker 1: them out of the sand myself. Yeah, for to me
Speaker 1: as delicious and satisfying. So you made the Linguinian clams,
Speaker 1: so I found that was my daughters their favorite food,
Speaker 1: and I kept making Linguinian clams during COVID and then
Speaker 1: they were like enough with the linguinan so then I
Speaker 1: had to be creative. But there's nobody more creative with
Speaker 1: food than you. So did you make other things besides absolutely? Yes, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's hear the beginning with clam was like the first summer.
Speaker 1: Then the second summer I branched out. I did clam chowder,
Speaker 1: all kinds of clam chowder. So I did traditional clam
Speaker 1: chowder with milk and potatoes. I did Manhattan clam chowder,
Speaker 1: which I love with the tomatoes. I did a coconut
Speaker 1: clam chowder with corn and coconut milk, which was so good.
Speaker 1: It was almost a little bit a tie and inspired
Speaker 1: by Thai food. There was a lemongrass and cilantro and
Speaker 1: um lime juice and it was so good, um okay.
Speaker 1: And then so I decided that really what I love
Speaker 1: is I love raw clams. I love the crunch of
Speaker 1: a raw clam like I love oysters. But I really
Speaker 1: love raw clams. And so I decided I was going
Speaker 1: to try to open them, and I can't do it.
Speaker 1: I am brilliant at opening oysters. Give me two dozen,
Speaker 1: three dozen oysters. I can open them in two seconds.
Speaker 1: You're a shucker. I can't get the damn clams open.
Speaker 1: They won't open like when they're when they when they
Speaker 1: clam up, they do not want to open for me.
Speaker 1: And they were good the ones you got when you
Speaker 1: went clamming a Long Island, I mean the three that
Speaker 1: I got open. Yeah, Oh you know what, I did
Speaker 1: a lot. Also, we steamed them. So I steamed him
Speaker 1: like muscles, garlic, white wine, red pepper flakes, and parsley,
Speaker 1: and then a big bag yet and you just yes,
Speaker 1: we did that. We did that too. It was delicious. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: So here's the thing I'm wondering now if after my
Speaker 1: clamming I kind of want to get an oyster bed now, Okay,
Speaker 1: so that interests you at all? Yes? So, yes, I've
Speaker 1: written about oysters. I wrote a big story about how
Speaker 1: oyster farming is going to save us. I truly believe
Speaker 1: in oyster farming. I belong to an oyster CSA where
Speaker 1: I get oysters every other week. How do you do that?
Speaker 1: I want to be part of that. It's amazing. They'll yeah,
Speaker 1: they have delivery points. They're Maine or they're from all
Speaker 1: actually from all over the Northeast. It started out in
Speaker 1: just Maine and now it's in Massachusetts. They have some
Speaker 1: from Canada. And it started out because the oyster industry
Speaker 1: was having a huge problem during early COVID because all
Speaker 1: the restaurants were closed and they couldn't sell their oysters.
Speaker 1: So they started in oyster CSA to distribute directly to
Speaker 1: people so that they could stay basically stay afloat. And
Speaker 1: I've been a member ever since, and there's so much
Speaker 1: easier to shut. Yeah, they're easier to shut. I don't
Speaker 1: cook them. I don't like them cook. If I'm gonna
Speaker 1: eat my I like my clams cooked or raw. I
Speaker 1: like my oysters raw. They have to be raw. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't like them any other way. What about muscles?
Speaker 1: Can you can you go muscling? Like in Maine? It
Speaker 1: Can we just go gather muscles on the beach somewhere?
Speaker 1: I'm sure. Well, two of my best friends are from Maine.
Speaker 1: They're main girls, and they say yes. And I've seen
Speaker 1: a lot of muscle shells in Long Island, and I
Speaker 1: know that you can go scaloping, So I don't see why.
Speaker 1: I mean on my feeling is if I see a
Speaker 1: trace of it, you got to be able to do it.
Speaker 1: So if I see lots of muscle shells, there's got
Speaker 1: to be muscles in there somewhere. The question is is
Speaker 1: there enough of them to gather or are they protected?
Speaker 1: So well, that's now that we have our license, our
Speaker 1: seafood license, this is stuff we need to explore exactly.
Speaker 1: But the big issue is will it be as meditative
Speaker 1: as it is when we go clamming, because I used
Speaker 1: to go crabbing, and crabbing I found meditative and I
Speaker 1: did it with a long net off a dock, and
Speaker 1: that was very meditative. And it also had like a
Speaker 1: bit of battle, you know what I mean. There was
Speaker 1: you felt a little bit like you were a game
Speaker 1: of throwing trying to get the you know, lure them
Speaker 1: in and then grab them up and then grab them up.
Speaker 1: And that was exciting. But it's not necessarily meditative the
Speaker 1: way the clamming is. So I'm curious if there's other
Speaker 1: crustacean sports that will give us the kind of sedated,
Speaker 1: you know, less anxious state that obviously Melissa and I
Speaker 1: need to be in. Well, I think the thing about clamming,
Speaker 1: and for me, the thing that really is attractive to
Speaker 1: me is that I don't I can't have my phone
Speaker 1: because I'm in the water. Yeah, so no phone, I'm offshore,
Speaker 1: I'm away from my people. No one wants to go clamming.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you, no one wants to go clamming
Speaker 1: with me. I beg people to come clambing with me.
Speaker 1: I know, I can't get people now, wait, let me
Speaker 1: ask you this. How deep in the water have you gone?
Speaker 1: What's the deepest? Um, I guess okay, So I only
Speaker 1: go as far as I can take my arm and
Speaker 1: reach down to pick up the clam without getting my
Speaker 1: hair wet, okay, because I don't want to have to
Speaker 1: shampoo every day, So fair enough. What about you? So
Speaker 1: I same with me. I could get up to the
Speaker 1: waist as long as I could take my arm down.
Speaker 1: But there was a few times in the summer where
Speaker 1: I got overly excited and I went under, oh like
Speaker 1: literally submerged myself because I my hand felt a bevy
Speaker 1: a host as you call it. But I felt a
Speaker 1: lot of them, the convention of clams, convention of clams,
Speaker 1: and I just I couldn't help myself, so I went under,
Speaker 1: which was I had to. I had to sort of
Speaker 1: pull myself together after that because if I felt a
Speaker 1: little aggressive and slightly crazy. But usually it's I need
Speaker 1: to just reach down as far as my hand can go. Yeah, exactly. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean if I time it right with the tides,
Speaker 1: there's times when I can go and I'm just up
Speaker 1: to my ankles right. Well, No, I always go low tide. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's just not worth it. So I always go
Speaker 1: low tide, and there's been time times where it's been
Speaker 1: so low that I'm not even in water there. It's
Speaker 1: just like muddy mushy, and I can feel down with
Speaker 1: my hands and pull them up, which I like to
Speaker 1: do as well. I mean, they're all forms of clamming,
Speaker 1: and I love them all equally. Have you ever done
Speaker 1: razor clams? No, because I don't like them as much.
Speaker 1: I like it. They're not as thick and chewy as
Speaker 1: a regular cohg. Yes, little neck carrystone co hogs. I
Speaker 1: love them all too. I mean, and I'm a cape
Speaker 1: cod girl, so I love steamers. You know steamers are funny. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I love steamers too. I think I love them
Speaker 1: because of the melted butter. I think, well, of course.
Speaker 1: But given a choice between a little neck and a steamer,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna eat the little neck. Oh that's interesting, I'll
Speaker 1: eat the steamer. You'll eat the steamer. Yeah. And I
Speaker 1: love fried clams, fried steamers, ipswich, fried clams, fried clams amazing,
Speaker 1: but they have to be real clams. I don't like
Speaker 1: the clamstrips. I don't like it when they give you
Speaker 1: the fried clam strips and pretend they're clams. I like
Speaker 1: the clam bellies. Oh yeah, you have to have the
Speaker 1: clam bellies you can. Otherwise it's just fried dough, you know,
Speaker 1: like that. I don't even know what. I think they're squid.
Speaker 1: I think they lie. I think they're not. It's fried dough.
Speaker 1: It's fried dough. It's not even anything. Do you potentially think, Melissy,
Speaker 1: that you could write a cookbook that was just all
Speaker 1: clam based recipes of all the different clams, or would
Speaker 1: that end up at the Strand bookstore? Well, it depends.
Speaker 1: I think that if um, if I had enough storytelling
Speaker 1: behind it, you know, like all, get all the clamming
Speaker 1: personalities out there, like you and whoever, and all the
Speaker 1: recipes right, and get everybody's recipes and everybody's clam stories,
Speaker 1: and and maybe if it were a clamming how to
Speaker 1: meditation wellness guide crossed with cookbook, see, I think that
Speaker 1: would work. And then I think if you threw in
Speaker 1: a menopause group that would go clamming together, oh my god,
Speaker 1: and you got Oprah to endorse it, I think then
Speaker 1: you get your pollar. So when you're out there and
Speaker 1: you get a hot flash, no problem, You're just like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna spend right down and splash myself off. Exactly.
Speaker 1: I feel like there is a thread between clamming, menopause,
Speaker 1: and meditation that I'm going to figure out and I'm
Speaker 1: going to pull you on board as one of the
Speaker 1: members of the new of my Foundation. I am one
Speaker 1: hundred percent there. You know another thing, though, I think
Speaker 1: that it might actually be true, I do sleep better
Speaker 1: when I clam, Like I sleep better, you know. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: It's like when I'm out there and then I come in.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe it's just the physical exertion of it.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's because I only clam when I'm on vacation,
Speaker 1: but I sleep so much better. Of course, you're you're
Speaker 1: exerting muscles that you probably don't use that much. I
Speaker 1: don't care if you go to soul cycle. You know,
Speaker 1: some of the stuff you do for clamming is not typical.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that reaching down you're in the water, yea yeah,
Speaker 1: and the water is very soothing. And also I'm bringing
Speaker 1: it back to the caveman thing, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: you foraged. That's exhausting. You know, you go you hunt,
Speaker 1: you gather, and then you sleep. That's what we used
Speaker 1: to do, and that's all we used to do as
Speaker 1: human beings. So you know, I've gone mushrooming. I've gone
Speaker 1: foraging in the woods. I have done that, but it's
Speaker 1: not like clamming. No, it's not. And I'm scared of
Speaker 1: mushrooming because I'm afraid I'm going to pick the wrong
Speaker 1: mushroom and I'm going to have a different experience. I've
Speaker 1: only gone mushrooming where it was like morals, where you
Speaker 1: really knew right like there's no mistaking them, there's no doubt,
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, okay, that is a patch of
Speaker 1: morals and I know exactly what they are, and all
Speaker 1: these other mushrooms around here are just going to stay
Speaker 1: right in the ground. Yeah, because I don't need to
Speaker 1: go on some acid trip and think I'm Bob Dylan
Speaker 1: for the rest of my life. No, don't need any
Speaker 1: phantom thread, no experiences. What about truffle hunting? Have you
Speaker 1: ever done that? I have done that, But you know
Speaker 1: the thing about truffle hunting is it's ninety nine percent
Speaker 1: when they bring people like me and you out there staged,
Speaker 1: it's all staged, they bury the truffle totally. Oh okay,
Speaker 1: so forget it. Forget It's not if they dumped a
Speaker 1: bunch of clams in a baby pool and asked us
Speaker 1: to go. Okay, all right, again, nothing compares to clamming.
Speaker 1: There is. It's just being out in the water by ourself.
Speaker 1: And even when you go with someone, I mean a
Speaker 1: few times I've dragged my poor family out with me.
Speaker 1: You're kind as far away and the water absorbs the
Speaker 1: sound and you can't really hear what they're saying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is kind of a good thing. No, exactly, because
Speaker 1: then you've got companionship. Like if you and I would clamming,
Speaker 1: we would be out there, we'd both have our buckets,
Speaker 1: we'd like say hi, maybe we'd like compare hot flashes.
Speaker 1: Then we'd do our clamming thing and we wouldn't even
Speaker 1: talk to each other, except if we caught like a
Speaker 1: big one, we'd be like yeah, or you know, we'd
Speaker 1: show our buckets occasionally and then we'd be so happy,
Speaker 1: and then we would come in and we'd make lunch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's where all the talking happens, exactly, yea. And
Speaker 1: I mean, another thing that makes it meditative is because
Speaker 1: you are so in the moment, right, you don't have
Speaker 1: your phone, You're not thinking about work. All you're thinking
Speaker 1: about is the sensation of can I feel the clam?
Speaker 1: Can I feel the clam? Can I feel? And there
Speaker 1: is no other time that I'm as the moment as that, right,
Speaker 1: And so think about when we were in a global pandemic.
Speaker 1: There was so much anxiety at that point that clamming
Speaker 1: to me was meditative because I just focused on the
Speaker 1: one task at hand and it was incredibly relaxing not
Speaker 1: to be reading the paper and freaking out or listening
Speaker 1: to my husband doing ABC news briefs down in the
Speaker 1: dining room so zoom. Yeah. So that to me, it
Speaker 1: was on all levels meditative because you focused on the
Speaker 1: one thing. Yeah. All right, So I'm going the summer.
Speaker 1: Are you going to come with me? I am all right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be there. We're gonna clam we're gonna cook,
Speaker 1: and then we're gonna put it on our instagrams and
Speaker 1: people are gonna go, oh, what about that? Those girls
Speaker 1: were talking about clamming, and they went and they did it,
Speaker 1: and there they are and there's the recipe, and everyone
Speaker 1: else can go clamming too. You know, I don't know
Speaker 1: if people like clams as much as you and I do. Though,
Speaker 1: I feel like people don't understand clams. They just don't know.
Speaker 1: So we are going to take them by the hand
Speaker 1: and the rake, and we're going to show them exactly. Hey,
Speaker 1: do I get to ask you the question? Yes? Oh
Speaker 1: my god, I was again so excited about finding a
Speaker 1: clambing partner. You can ask me anything you want. The
Speaker 1: Wasp Cookbook, Yes, you wrote that. I wrote that a
Speaker 1: million years ago. And it is not a real cookbook
Speaker 1: in that I don't want people to actually make their recipes.
Speaker 1: It is a social commentary on my people because I
Speaker 1: grew up eating deviled eggs and prune whip and chipped
Speaker 1: cream beef on toast, and I didn't realize that there
Speaker 1: was a whole culinary world out there. Things like garlic
Speaker 1: existed and spices, and so that's what got me interested
Speaker 1: in cooking. Is there? Okay? So if I was going
Speaker 1: to make one recipe from your Wasp cookbook, which I
Speaker 1: have ordered, oh my gosh, what is the recipe from
Speaker 1: your Wasp Cookbook that I should make? Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: I have to say deviled eggs or a staple, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I say in the book that there's a
Speaker 1: fine line between white trash cooking and wasp cooking. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of mayonnaise with both. But the deviled eggs
Speaker 1: and then bourbon balls, I call them Grandpa's bourbon balls. Oh,
Speaker 1: bourbon balls balls, So that would be it. I mean,
Speaker 1: prune a whip sounds disgusting, but it really tastes good.
Speaker 1: It's just basically whipped cream and prune juice, which is
Speaker 1: actually delicious. But everything else, I would enjoy the book
Speaker 1: for its social commentary unless it's recipes. Okay, well, I'm
Speaker 1: very excited to get it. I'm going to make the
Speaker 1: bourbon balls because I do love them, and make deviled eggs,
Speaker 1: and then you and I are gonna go clambing. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be awesome. I can't wait. Thank you, Thanks, I'm excited.
Speaker 1: Oh don't think I'm not going to be deep sea
Speaker 1: fishing with the Ebony Anglers or clamming with Melissa Clark
Speaker 1: this summer, because I am. So you just be checking
Speaker 1: my Instagram because you're going to see a lot of
Speaker 1: pictures of me bringing in a marlin or chucking a
Speaker 1: bunch of co hogs. Thank you for listening to Go
Speaker 1: ask Alli. The ebbty Anglers team is on Instagram and
Speaker 1: Facebook at ebboty Anglers and its website is super easy
Speaker 1: ebbedy anglers dot com and be sure to check out
Speaker 1: Melissa Clark's New York Times food section column a good Appetite.
Speaker 1: You can also keep up with her on Instagram at
Speaker 1: clark Bar for more info and what you heard on
Speaker 1: this amusing episode. Check out our show notes. Okay, so
Speaker 1: what about the Webby Award nomination. It's for the best
Speaker 1: individual interview talk show episode and we are beyond excited.
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