Speaker 1: Oh, my mouth is salivating as I'm thinking about this.
Speaker 1: So I have this beautiful, pink, shallow bowl of green
Speaker 1: dandelions and they've been cooked just in a little bit
Speaker 1: of salted water, and I've prepared them with lemon juice,
Speaker 1: olive oil, and just a sprinkle of salt. This is
Speaker 1: my friend Angela Trachis. She's also my roommate. We live
Speaker 1: together in the far western outpost of San Francisco, in
Speaker 1: a chilly neighborhood full of surfers that borders the Pacific
Speaker 1: Ocean and Golden Gate Park, where sometimes the sound of
Speaker 1: fog horns wakes you up in the morning, where sometimes
Speaker 1: if you go out at night at high tide, you
Speaker 1: can smell the salt and seaweed. Since we lived together,
Speaker 1: I got to sit in our little breakfast nook next
Speaker 1: to the kitchen that's all painted Robin's Egg blue and
Speaker 1: watch Angela prepare the snack for this episode. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: was barefoot like always, and I and my slippers on
Speaker 1: like always, and we were laughing also like always, because
Speaker 1: she and I are both into big joy. She walked
Speaker 1: me through the art of preparing the dandelion because I'm
Speaker 1: a Greek girl, I had to add a million things
Speaker 1: so we could really enjoy, you know, eating the dandelions.
Speaker 1: You know, a Greek table is never gonna have just
Speaker 1: one thing. It's just not allowed. So I have some
Speaker 1: kalamata olives that I sprinkled some Greek oregano on, and
Speaker 1: then we have this gorgeous olive loaf that definitely feels
Speaker 1: freshly baked. It's soft, it's chewy, there's a nice crust
Speaker 1: to it, and that is going to be the vehicle
Speaker 1: for sopping up our beautiful um dandelion broth with olive
Speaker 1: oil and lemon juice. M I'm just gonna mirror everything
Speaker 1: that you do. So what are we doing first? Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna just swirl around our green. So you know,
Speaker 1: all of these beautiful liquids are coming together, and because
Speaker 1: of these red stalks, like the broth is is this
Speaker 1: gorgeous like fusia. And I mean I didn't plan this,
Speaker 1: I mean I really didn't, but we have these pink bowls,
Speaker 1: the fusia liquid and these greens. I mean, it's really
Speaker 1: kind of impressive that a humble weed can become something
Speaker 1: so beautiful. Yes, okay, are we putting it in our mouth.
Speaker 1: Now take a bite. I'm doing it too. Okay. M
Speaker 1: oh my god, wow m and mhm boom boom oom.
Speaker 1: I just got a little bit of that salt. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: So the first overwhelming taste is the bitterness of the greens.
Speaker 1: I mean what I'm getting is I mean, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the It's like the greens equivalent of gaminess.
Speaker 1: Do you know what I'm talking about? I do. I do.
Speaker 1: And I think that's why, you know, as someone who
Speaker 1: is a child of Greek immigrants, both sides of my
Speaker 1: family are farming families, and you know, being close to
Speaker 1: the earth is something that is just part of who
Speaker 1: we were. You know, it's not who we are now,
Speaker 1: but it's still like, I think, eating something that's wild
Speaker 1: like connects us to that. Yes, I'm just in love
Speaker 1: the humble weed. The humble weed. Angela and I have
Speaker 1: traveled the world together in search of delicious food from
Speaker 1: the knockoff markets of la with the most insane hot dogs.
Speaker 1: Anything you could possibly want on a bacon dog, I mean,
Speaker 1: available to the buffets of ship Showanna, Indiana ended up
Speaker 1: at the Amish Easter Feast. We waited three hours in
Speaker 1: line to have this Easter buffet. Oh to the villages
Speaker 1: of Greece. There's this really great bakery in Athens, who
Speaker 1: you know, makes one of the best sudekis, and they've
Speaker 1: introduced the chocolate covered tudeki. And you know, sometimes I'm
Speaker 1: a purist, I don't think we need the chocolate, but
Speaker 1: in this case, we loved the chocolate sudeki. Part of
Speaker 1: what makes something a comfort food is who you eat
Speaker 1: it with. Food is a love language for me and Angela.
Speaker 1: A couple of years ago, we decided we wanted to
Speaker 1: go on a road trip together and we made it
Speaker 1: all about a truly iconic American dessert item, pie. We
Speaker 1: dubbed the trip I Only Have Pies for you. We
Speaker 1: ate pie all the way from Philly to Chicago, through
Speaker 1: over eight hundred miles of US highways in the rain
Speaker 1: and shine. We ate apple pie, cherry pie, chocolate cream pie,
Speaker 1: key lime pie, and something called shoefly pie, a molasses
Speaker 1: pie which is sort of like pecan pie without the nuts.
Speaker 1: And we stopped along the way to enjoy lakes, forests,
Speaker 1: hot tubs, and of course the Church of Chocolate Hershey World.
Speaker 1: We have so much appreciation for food in part because
Speaker 1: we each have a mom with hunger in her past.
Speaker 1: Angela's mom lived through German occupation during the Second World War.
Speaker 1: My mom had a full blown eating disorder. I can't
Speaker 1: prove it, but I one hundred percent believe that the
Speaker 1: memory of hunger gets passed on somehow, and that when
Speaker 1: we eat unapologetically, we feed our spirits, which helps heal
Speaker 1: our families and our bloodlines. While we were eating greens
Speaker 1: in our kitchen, Angela told me why dandelions are so
Speaker 1: special for her family. I would probably if I think
Speaker 1: back to, you know, my childhood days where I just
Speaker 1: wanted to be like every other kid um in my school. Um,
Speaker 1: I probably balked at something like dandelions. You know, it
Speaker 1: was definitely like oh, jortha again, jortha is the Greek word. Um.
Speaker 1: It was not the thing, you know. We want to
Speaker 1: eat pizza, we want to eat hamburgers. We wanted to
Speaker 1: eat little debbies right like everyone else. Little debbies. Yes,
Speaker 1: But as I grew older, I really started to appreciate
Speaker 1: the dandelions. As the girlder, I paid attention to how
Speaker 1: important they were to my mother. Um. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's the thing that she always goes to. I mean
Speaker 1: it's her comfort food. And my mother, my aunts, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, our extended family the Chicagoland area. When we
Speaker 1: couldn't find dandelions, we would go hunting for them, and
Speaker 1: you know, you had to leave, you had to leave,
Speaker 1: you know, the city or the suburbs a little bit
Speaker 1: because because they do grow wild, right, and so you know,
Speaker 1: you want to avoid the dog pee and pesticides and
Speaker 1: other things like that. So I could probably put money
Speaker 1: on this, but every Greek household probably has a pairing
Speaker 1: knife or some kind of sharp tool in the trunk
Speaker 1: of their car. And you know, the mother, my mother,
Speaker 1: every mother, every Greek mother has like dandelion radar, and
Speaker 1: they we could be on the highway and like, you know,
Speaker 1: pull over because I see a patch of dandelions, and
Speaker 1: those dandelions look like no one's been around them, no
Speaker 1: stray dogs are near them. You know, it looks like
Speaker 1: a good bet for a nice little dandelion harvest. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm curious about when it comes to food, what was
Speaker 1: it like growing up in a Greek household. Um, there's
Speaker 1: just so much that happens around the Greek table. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that I love most about it,
Speaker 1: even from a young age, is that my parents always
Speaker 1: encouraged my sister and I to you know, be an
Speaker 1: active participant in the conversation. And that meant that we
Speaker 1: could say and think whatever we wanted to, and you know,
Speaker 1: like they encourage that like philosophical kind of questioning, you know,
Speaker 1: what does this mean and why and all of that,
Speaker 1: and you know that often leads to debate, and that
Speaker 1: often leads to you know, intense conversations. But there's also
Speaker 1: this like beautiful connection to a country that seems very
Speaker 1: far away, and and often that's like a very bittersweet
Speaker 1: kind of thing to to witness as a child whose
Speaker 1: parents who who but whose parents really like you know,
Speaker 1: I could see that one foot was in one country
Speaker 1: and one foot was in the other, and neither of
Speaker 1: them was stable, you know, right. I think back to
Speaker 1: the dandelion and why it's so important, and I think about,
Speaker 1: you know, the circumstances that my parents grew up in.
Speaker 1: My dad was born in nineteen thirty nine and my
Speaker 1: mom was born in nineteen forty five. This was the
Speaker 1: height of access occupation in Greece. My father's family home
Speaker 1: was occupied by soldiers there was scarcity. I mean there
Speaker 1: was there were so many people that died because there
Speaker 1: wasn't enough food. And also, you know, after the occupation ended,
Speaker 1: in World War two ended, there was a civil war
Speaker 1: in Greece because of kind of the fact actions that
Speaker 1: built up as a result of the occupation. And so
Speaker 1: you know, this is this is the most traumatic experience
Speaker 1: that that you know, my parents were born into. But
Speaker 1: then you know that I inherited, right, And I think
Speaker 1: I think of the scarcity um that comes with that,
Speaker 1: and the pain and the suffering um. And I think
Speaker 1: of you know, why something like dandelions, why something like
Speaker 1: a weed is so important? You know, because when you
Speaker 1: have nothing and you can offer someone food, you know,
Speaker 1: that is love, right um. And you know they were
Speaker 1: so proud of where they came from. UM. I think
Speaker 1: the reason that dandelions are so special is or just
Speaker 1: like food, you know, Greek food is something that is
Speaker 1: so meaningful for me, is because it was really like
Speaker 1: it's not a stretch to say, the only or best
Speaker 1: way that my mother could show her love, you know, Oh,
Speaker 1: like I can feel that. I mean I grew up
Speaker 1: with you as you know, sort of like a lot
Speaker 1: of love, but not a lot of safety. But one
Speaker 1: of the ways that my grandmother, who raised me as
Speaker 1: someone who was deeply traumatized by her own childhood and
Speaker 1: the loss of her mother, food and cooking and the
Speaker 1: kitchen were a place that she clearly felt power and
Speaker 1: she could consistently show up in that space, even when
Speaker 1: she couldn't consistently show up emotionally for us or for
Speaker 1: me otherwise. And I think I also relate to And
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is something that you feel
Speaker 1: connected to, but this sort of way in which food
Speaker 1: becomes how our parents teach us about gets like the
Speaker 1: education in our own identity, that that non American identity
Speaker 1: that gets translated through food in a sort of obviously
Speaker 1: like non linguistic way. And but there's so much in it, right,
Speaker 1: Like I just think, like I'm thinking literally of you know,
Speaker 1: you didn't grow up in Greece, but when I think
Speaker 1: of how you cook, um, I always am reminded of
Speaker 1: the Mediterranean son and the landscape. And I mean, having
Speaker 1: been to the village where your mom grew up, having
Speaker 1: visited with you, Um, just sort of like how those
Speaker 1: things are, you know, they're sort of their own special
Speaker 1: kind of storytelling age. I mean, and I think there's
Speaker 1: something so metaphorical about it right where it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: this this weed, which is it's sort of it's it's resilient,
Speaker 1: right like it's like it grows everywhere, and it's not
Speaker 1: it's not a high maintenance plant, and yet it is edible,
Speaker 1: and yet it is delicious, and yet it is complex.
Speaker 1: And I think there's something I don't know like that,
Speaker 1: that simplicity and that availability and that resiliency I think
Speaker 1: tells a story about you know, your family. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: resiliency is absolutely you know the word that stands out
Speaker 1: for me too. You know, we were joking about how
Speaker 1: many times I had to rinse the dandelion leaves. But
Speaker 1: as I was rinsing them, I really like, you know
Speaker 1: what came to mind. We're just like images of all
Speaker 1: of my aunts and you know, these women that work
Speaker 1: the fields and we're so industrious and you know, took
Speaker 1: care of land and their kids. And I just saw
Speaker 1: all of their faces that was cleaning these and you know,
Speaker 1: like their strength comes through Even now. I want to
Speaker 1: go back to what Angelo was saying about how dandelions
Speaker 1: helped people survive a war in Greece. I wondered, how
Speaker 1: does war affect food? What's the social history of hunger?
Speaker 1: A twenty eighteen report by the UN's World Food Program
Speaker 1: pointed out that there's an unequivocal link between conflict and hunger.
Speaker 1: In twenty sixteen, of people suffering from chronic malnutrition, sixty
Speaker 1: percent of them lived in areas affected by armed conflict.
Speaker 1: In fact, damage to local food systems can have a
Speaker 1: bigger impact on the people who live there than guns, bombs,
Speaker 1: or rifles. In war, farms can be destroyed. That means
Speaker 1: the land and the animals on it are taken out
Speaker 1: of the food system. Farmers can be forced to abandon
Speaker 1: their land, which means no one is growing whatever they
Speaker 1: were before. This means there's less supply. Less supply means
Speaker 1: higher costs. Higher costs mean more people can't afford to
Speaker 1: buy food for their families. In war, markets and grocery
Speaker 1: stores that stock food can be accidentally or intentionally destroyed.
Speaker 1: Though it's considered a war crime now, military forces can
Speaker 1: block outside food aid, literally preventing people from getting food.
Speaker 1: Pregnant women who are exposed to more conflicts often have
Speaker 1: babies with low birth weight. It's harder to survive infancy
Speaker 1: if you're a low birthweight baby, and there can be
Speaker 1: long term health and developmental impacts. Could it be that
Speaker 1: some of these war babies remember being hungry. Resiliency is
Speaker 1: more than our will to survive. It's our ability to
Speaker 1: create and grow. We've talked a lot about resiliency this season.
Speaker 1: It's exemplified in Deshawn's velvety yet grainy Reese's peanut butter cups,
Speaker 1: in the potato chips that Janet enjoys, and the finger
Speaker 1: licking that Jennifer practices in the face of a culture
Speaker 1: that vilifies it, in the cup of noodles that Francis
Speaker 1: has reclaimed, and in joe Anne's span. Food tells all
Speaker 1: these stories, it's a marker of place, space, and time
Speaker 1: of relationships as well as loss, celebration and mourning, war
Speaker 1: and peace. We'll be right back. Angela and I are
Speaker 1: two fat women united in our pursuit of yummy snacks
Speaker 1: and in our culture. That's kind of a big deal.
Speaker 1: We met back in twenty fourteen at a retreat for
Speaker 1: fat women called Abundia. It's a conference for and buy
Speaker 1: fat women who want to live fully joyfully and abundantly.
Speaker 1: At a Bundia. There were workshops on love and desirability, disability,
Speaker 1: and aging, but the real magic was just all of
Speaker 1: us hanging out with each other. It feels so good
Speaker 1: to laugh, relax and eat with other fat women away
Speaker 1: from the eyes of a culture that dismisses us as broken, pathetic, lonely,
Speaker 1: or sick. Angela and I were conference roommates and we
Speaker 1: became instant friends. Angela was new to fat positivity, but
Speaker 1: you never would have known it because she already seemed
Speaker 1: like a pro at being a proud fat babe. We
Speaker 1: would stay up until two or three in the morning
Speaker 1: talking about art and philosophy, travel and fashion hopes and
Speaker 1: histories and how much we hated dating. My friendships with
Speaker 1: other fat women like Angela are sacred to me. There's
Speaker 1: so much shared experience right there under the surface that
Speaker 1: we don't really have to say out loud, like a
Speaker 1: silent footnote that reads I know a lot of what
Speaker 1: you've been through and you are more beautiful to me
Speaker 1: because of it. When I meet a new fat friend,
Speaker 1: it's like when a single string of notes becomes a harmony.
Speaker 1: I love how our bellies touched when we hug. I
Speaker 1: love how our laugh is often rounder and lower, and
Speaker 1: I love eating with that friends. One of our top
Speaker 1: food experiences, this one is someone you know, some might
Speaker 1: say humble, but so important to our friendship. And it
Speaker 1: is Grocery Outlet aka gross Out affectionately known as but
Speaker 1: So for those who don't know, Angela, like, if an
Speaker 1: alien visited the Earth and you had to describe grocery outlet,
Speaker 1: what would you tell our alien friend? Oh, it's just
Speaker 1: a treasure hunt. So it's a grocery store that for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, has pulled in items. They could be considered gourmet,
Speaker 1: they could be considered artisan, they could be considered special,
Speaker 1: and they're usually really expensive at a regular grocery store
Speaker 1: like a Whole Foods. So these are the kinds of
Speaker 1: things that you know, we would cove it, but can
Speaker 1: sometimes we ought of reach find, you know, economy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I literally called the Ross for food. Any consistent Ross
Speaker 1: shopper knows you. You know, you go there for some
Speaker 1: of the staples, but you really are holding out for
Speaker 1: that thing that got weirdly rejected or returned and it
Speaker 1: was from Nordstrums and you're like, how did it get here,
Speaker 1: it's normally seventy four dollars, but here it's six. And
Speaker 1: it's like, that feeling is what you're holding out for
Speaker 1: a grocery outlet, right right, I feel like grocery outlet
Speaker 1: ties into our identities so deeply. We're both children of immigrants.
Speaker 1: We are both women who have epigenetically inherited the ecstasy
Speaker 1: of a bargain from our mothers. We are both people
Speaker 1: who enjoy the finer things in life and believe that
Speaker 1: perhaps maybe they are made better by getting them on sale.
Speaker 1: And I think also, I think it also connects to
Speaker 1: our identity as fat women. UM. And so I'm like,
Speaker 1: I want you to unpack this. Where do we start?
Speaker 1: Everything that you said resonates with me. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: the quality is something that that will never be sacrificed, um.
Speaker 1: But money is something that was never um in abundance. Right.
Speaker 1: So it's like, well, how do you get the best
Speaker 1: thing for the least amount of resources? And I think
Speaker 1: there's something beautiful about your knowing that you deserve the
Speaker 1: best thing. And as we see, how like you know,
Speaker 1: in in modern culture, like all the beautiful things tend
Speaker 1: to be reserved for people with the most resources, and
Speaker 1: I just think that is just unjust, you know, like
Speaker 1: everyone deserves something delicious um And I think as an
Speaker 1: immigrant kid, that's just like a lesson that you learn
Speaker 1: kind of intrinsically. In diet culture, women are taught to
Speaker 1: bond over diets, hating our bodies and calorie counting. Creating
Speaker 1: friendships that celebrate food feels like repairing the years and
Speaker 1: years of being told I wasn't allowed to enjoy eating
Speaker 1: because of my body size. Eating with Angela is as
Speaker 1: therapeutic to me as an actual mental health appointment, because
Speaker 1: we are doing the repair work. Like. There's a word
Speaker 1: for this that I love. It's called praxis. It's when
Speaker 1: an idea, like food positivity or fat positivity meets the
Speaker 1: real world and becomes an embodied action. Eating with Angela
Speaker 1: is that when the rubber meets the road, when an
Speaker 1: idea moves from our minds into our bodies and the
Speaker 1: ripple of fact begins. When we fill our tummies. We
Speaker 1: aren't just doing it for us. We're doing it for
Speaker 1: our moms and grandmas. We're doing it for other fat people.
Speaker 1: We're doing it so that all of us can feel
Speaker 1: a little more free. There are two really important hot
Speaker 1: dog stories in our life, Virgie, I'm ready. A more
Speaker 1: recent one is with San Francisco's Sticks Cafe, which is
Speaker 1: their version of a Korean hot dog, which is it's
Speaker 1: this really savory hot dog with a big hunk of
Speaker 1: mazzarella cheese dipped into this mochi batter which is like
Speaker 1: a rice flower, so it becomes very gelatinous, and then
Speaker 1: it's like breaded with panko and deep fried and you
Speaker 1: eat it with with sabi mayonnaise or spicy mayonnaise, and
Speaker 1: it's just like the most playful, indulgent, decadent, fun delicious
Speaker 1: thing on a stick that you might ever eat if
Speaker 1: it wasn't for the bacon wrapped hot dog of Santie
Speaker 1: Alley Alle. I was like wondering if you're gonna remember that.
Speaker 1: I was wondering in my memory it is all caps insane,
Speaker 1: fully loaded hot dog. Um. So we ended up at
Speaker 1: the knockoff sunglasses mecca of the world, Santie Alley, essentially
Speaker 1: like it's on the street, they're cooking it. The fragrance
Speaker 1: of the tot dogs. They're wrapped in bacon and there's
Speaker 1: grilled onions. I mean the aroma is so distinct and
Speaker 1: so intoxicating, and it literally seduced us in and we
Speaker 1: were just like, yep, fully loaded everything. I don't even
Speaker 1: know what was on there, Like it was like, manis
Speaker 1: nanto cheese onions? I don't even know how. Yeah, everything
Speaker 1: anything you could possibly want on a bacon dog. I
Speaker 1: mean it was available, yes, And then we just sat
Speaker 1: there and we wore those amazing sunglasses that look like
Speaker 1: lips that are open, and we ate our santi Alli dogs. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think we haven't already talked about this, but
Speaker 1: like eating while fat in public is not easy to do,
Speaker 1: and you really have to lean into your enjoyment of
Speaker 1: it to really kind of like, you know, not give
Speaker 1: a shit what people are doing or saying and you
Speaker 1: know around you. So, yeah, you've got to lean into
Speaker 1: the idea that I mean, first of all, when you're fat,
Speaker 1: you're you know, according to the culture, you're already always
Speaker 1: theater for people. And then when you're eating while fat,
Speaker 1: it's like you've really just got to like there's no
Speaker 1: point in not leaning it. I mean, it's going to
Speaker 1: be theatrical whether you want it to be or not.
Speaker 1: So it's like it doesn't make any sense to just
Speaker 1: not go, you know, like lean all the way into
Speaker 1: the experience because like people are already having the thoughts
Speaker 1: like to then not moan and scream and laugh with joy.
Speaker 1: It just makes so sad. It's just like you're just
Speaker 1: it's just self sacrificial for no purpose, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Agree, Okay, when you're fat, eating in public
Speaker 1: is kind of a revolutionary act. We're breaking all the
Speaker 1: fat lady rules. Those rules say don't eat just don't,
Speaker 1: but for sure don't eat in public, and certainly don't
Speaker 1: eat in public with other fat people and triple dog
Speaker 1: all caps definitely don't hang out with other fat people
Speaker 1: in public, and eat anything that isn't steamed vegetables and
Speaker 1: cardinal sin. Never be caught enjoying food when you're fat.
Speaker 1: The rules are often silent stuff we learned as kids
Speaker 1: or on TV, but sometimes they really are one hundred
Speaker 1: percent clear, Like when someone yells weight loss advice out
Speaker 1: of a moving vehicle when you're walking home. Yes, true story.
Speaker 1: I don't get to consent to this experience. It happens
Speaker 1: whether I wanted to or not. I love trolling these
Speaker 1: stupid rules by playing into the stereotype. Extra hard, marginalized
Speaker 1: people do stuff like this all the time. We take
Speaker 1: back a little bit of power, a little bit of
Speaker 1: dignity by saying I see your rules, and I raise
Speaker 1: you an act of absurdity. I will become the most
Speaker 1: ridiculous version of your expectation and expose you and your
Speaker 1: bigotry through that act. I take back the power. And
Speaker 1: Angela is often my collaborator in this project because she
Speaker 1: has also been on the receiving end of fat phobia.
Speaker 1: I mean, like I remember, and this could be triggering,
Speaker 1: but I remember when I was in high school and
Speaker 1: they're all these diets going around, like the cabbage suit
Speaker 1: diet and the like turkey and egg or turkey and
Speaker 1: tomato diet and this and that, and like, I mean
Speaker 1: people were cruel. People would like mail these things to
Speaker 1: our house anonymously. I mean, like theephobia is legit people, right,
Speaker 1: And so there was this cabbage suit diet, which essentially
Speaker 1: was like you just like it's like cabbage and some
Speaker 1: vegetables and you just eat that all all the time.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, this is like rationing form like a
Speaker 1: war torn country, right, this is what people eat when
Speaker 1: they don't have anything else, Like it didn't make any
Speaker 1: sense to me that like this was what I needed
Speaker 1: to do, Which doesn't mean that like I wasn't still
Speaker 1: shaming myself and feeling bad about myself and like thinking
Speaker 1: about how I could miraculously, you know, be different. But
Speaker 1: the restriction never made sense to me. The shame was
Speaker 1: always there, but the food piece it never clicked. I guess,
Speaker 1: like I've never been the kind of person that can
Speaker 1: like just not eat, like I just have to, Like
Speaker 1: food was so essential to my to like to who
Speaker 1: I was, that I couldn't just not eat. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that makes sense. Yeah, no, I get it,
Speaker 1: And I mean I think that that's really that's really powerful.
Speaker 1: How were you in diet culture and yet having this
Speaker 1: sort of like very clear boundary around I'm not restricting
Speaker 1: things that I love. I don't know. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's like because it was like such
Speaker 1: an innate like joy that I got that I didn't
Speaker 1: experience in a lot of other places. I love that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm thinking back on what you said about
Speaker 1: the cabbage diet and how it is it reminded you
Speaker 1: of like rations and food during wartime. And I mean
Speaker 1: as someone who has pretty consistently used the metaphor of
Speaker 1: war and food yet culture as the war against women,
Speaker 1: it makes complete sense. And like, of course it's war food.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of reasons why I do not limit
Speaker 1: my intake of food, and a lot of them are
Speaker 1: like they're political, they're personal, they're human, and and you know,
Speaker 1: I think there's sort of a bigger you know, maybe
Speaker 1: feminists maybe spiritual refusal to play along, you know, right,
Speaker 1: and and we don't. We can't change it all overnight, right,
Speaker 1: So you have to find your way in. You have
Speaker 1: to find the way that makes sense to you. You
Speaker 1: have to find the way that makes you feel like
Speaker 1: you matter. Worthiness is something that I you know, talk
Speaker 1: about all the time with people, Like our sense of
Speaker 1: worthiness is just like a really critical point of entry
Speaker 1: and learn. You know, this is like it took me
Speaker 1: thirty plus years of living in a world that made
Speaker 1: me think that there was something wrong with me, and
Speaker 1: it's gonna take a long time to unravel that. But
Speaker 1: you know, there's something bigger at stake, Like your true
Speaker 1: liberation is what is at stake? I love it. What
Speaker 1: was that transition into fat activism into fat liberation. What
Speaker 1: was that? Like? Yeah, well one, it took a long time.
Speaker 1: I remember the moment where I identified my own internalized
Speaker 1: fat phobia, my own internal fat shame, like where I
Speaker 1: named it as such and something that I could no
Speaker 1: longer live with, right like that was the first shift
Speaker 1: I knew I wasn't putting up with the bullshit anymore,
Speaker 1: and I was celebrating being in community with all of
Speaker 1: these like wonderful fat women. Like you know, when you
Speaker 1: sit in a room and you see the multiplicity and
Speaker 1: you feel the energy, and you feel the power, and
Speaker 1: you feel like the strength of all these people who
Speaker 1: until that moment like had like I. You know, it's
Speaker 1: so rare to be in a room like that and
Speaker 1: see yourself, you know, mirrored and all these other people
Speaker 1: and you don't feel alone, and you don't feel like
Speaker 1: there's something wrong with you. You actually feel like there's
Speaker 1: something absolutely right with you. And that's when you know
Speaker 1: the healing accelerates. There's something absolutely right with all of us.
Speaker 1: My friendship with Angela is magic. I think of all
Speaker 1: the times we've driven down the highway on the way
Speaker 1: to our next food adventure, the windows down Stevie Nicks
Speaker 1: blasting and our tummies grumbling. Friendships built on celebrating our bodies,
Speaker 1: our joy, and our appetites defy diet culture. You know,
Speaker 1: food is so many things. Food is pleasure, food as sustenance,
Speaker 1: food is experience. Food can be your friend if you
Speaker 1: need it to be in that moment, and that is
Speaker 1: absolutely okay. And the fact that people are trying to
Speaker 1: take that away from us is it's just it destroys
Speaker 1: the spirit. And so my recipe is to find things
Speaker 1: that you like to eat and don't be so hard
Speaker 1: on yourself ever. I love it, Angela. Thank you again
Speaker 1: for being an amazing rebel eater. Thank you it was
Speaker 1: so much fun. Thank you Angela for giving us the
Speaker 1: permission slip. We all need rebel eaters. This is the
Speaker 1: final episode of the season. I'm sad to see you go,
Speaker 1: but before you do, let's get in the kitchen for
Speaker 1: a second and imagine whipping up a truly unique Rebel
Speaker 1: Eaters Club dish. Start with a cup of Deshawn's fat Love.
Speaker 1: Add a heaping tablespoon of Janet's passion for exposing shitty science,
Speaker 1: a pinch of Francis Loving to watch his daughter, eat
Speaker 1: some finely chopped resilience inspired by Joanne's spam, half a
Speaker 1: cup of Jennifers fill up your tummy, and a dash
Speaker 1: of friendship mixed together. Bake it up and La, You've
Speaker 1: got a whole new world. We'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: What did you take away from season two? Hit us
Speaker 1: up at Rebel Eaters Club at gmail dot com. Rebel
Speaker 1: Eaters Club is produced by Transmitter Media. Our lead producer
Speaker 1: is Jordan Bailey. Lacy Roberts is our managing producer. Sarah
Speaker 1: nix edits the show, and our executive producer is Gretta
Speaker 1: Khne and I'm your host Verge Tobar Ben Shano is
Speaker 1: our mix engineer. Special kudos to James T. Green, Jessica Glazer,
Speaker 1: and Mitchell Johnson for the production assist an Taka Yasuzala
Speaker 1: who wrote some of the music we use in the show.
Speaker 1: And a big thank you to Maggie Taylor and Alca
Speaker 1: Carl who helped the show marketing, and Lucilla Parini who
Speaker 1: designed our beautiful show art. And thank you for listening,
Speaker 1: for snacking with us, and for helping to make the
Speaker 1: world just a little bit yummier. Yeah, yes,