WEBVTT - Ruthie's Table 4: Vanessa Kingori 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.840 Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:05.400 Adamized Studios. 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:11.319 Last week I spelled on a paddle with Vanessa king 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:16.520 Or celebrating International Women's Day. Listening to Vanessa that evening, 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:19.639 it became apparent that it really wasn't necessary for the 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:22.600 rest of us to be there. It was her views 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:26.720 on social justice, women in business, creativity and leadership that 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:30.640 everybody wanted to hear, most of all me. Her path 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:34.400 towards Chief Business Officer of Conde Nasty International is a 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:37.240 story of a young girl from Kenya a chieving remarkable 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:42.200 amount in a British world through sheer, intelligence, motivation and determination. 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:46.479 This we all know, but for me, the revelation was 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:49.800 when Vanessa began talking about the food of her family, 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:54.480 her culture, especially the cooking of her grandmother. Today we're 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:58.440 here together to hear more about memory and food, change 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:02.600 and connectivity. As always, I will listen with awe, with 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:10.800 love and deep admiration the recipe that you chose. Yes, 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:12.160 you love artichokes. 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:14.760 I love artichokes and I love that you can only 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:17.000 have them for a certain time in the year properly, 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:21.319 and Italians do them incredibly well. I hope I pronounced 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:25.640 this correctly, but it's for Carchoffi ala Piperno. You wanted 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:28.200 to explain a little bit about the Piperno element. 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:31.760 Well, first of all, carcioffi. They're also called karchoffi, which 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.880 is a word for artichoke in Italian ala Judea. And 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:37.880 there's an area of Rome which is called the Jewish Quarter, 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:41.520 which I suppose, like in many Italian cities, was a ghetto, 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:44.679 and it's right near the Colisseum. And there's a restaurant 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:47.880 there called piper Now and Richard and I used to 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:49.960 go there. It's on the top of a little hill 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:54.960 and you actually can overlook the cabin Ilia and it's 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:57.840 just a great little restaurant. And like a lot of 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:02.040 Italian restaurants, you go there for one reason and yeah, 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:05.120 one dish. And so there it's the artichokes dala Judea. 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:08.839 And we call them for the cookbook artichokes al Peperna, 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:12.720 because that's the name of the restaurant. Yeah it's good. 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:18.119 Well, I mean, get ready to be absolutely swarmed with exactly. 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:20.280 It might not be there anymore. 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:24.280 Okay, So this recipe serves six. 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:30.600 You need twelve reminiscent art chokes, sunflower oil, sea salt, 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:35.120 and black pepper, and three large lemons. Right, so, you 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:38.400 heat the oil to one hundred degrees in your deep fryer. 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:39.640 You need to have a deep fryer. 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:42.120 First of all, well, you can use a large saucepan 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:42.960 with olive oil. 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:45.480 Peel away the leaves of the art choke, cut the 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:49.680 stalks two centimeters from the heads. Fry the artichokes in 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:54.040 batches until the leaves begin to crisp and the hearts soften. 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:59.040 Drain on kitchen paper when cool, peel off the outside leaves, 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:03.040 trim the tops of the artichokes. Increase the temperature of 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:06.880 the oil to one hundred and seventy degrees. To fry 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:09.560 the second time, this is a healthy one. 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:12.840 It does strain. We off the oil. 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:16.320 I have to say it's tasty. It's healthy in love. 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:20.120 So to fry the second time, you place two to 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:22.720 three art chokes at a time in a hot oil 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:26.120 and fry until crisp for about two to three minutes. 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:30.480 Then flatten out the artichokes, set each on a board 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:34.920 and gently separate out the layer of the head, exposing 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:39.680 the heart. Squeeze between two plates season and serve with 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:41.920 lemon amazing recipes. 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.240 But than I said, an choke has a head and a. 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:53.440 Heart, So I was thinking about myself, what do you 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:53.920 read it for? 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:55.320 Can you start for lunch? 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:56.840 It depends. 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:01.400 So I'm very lucky because I entertain lot our clients 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:04.880 and business partners. So we go out to We're in 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:07.680 Mayfair and we go out to lovely Mayfair restaurants. So 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:11.920 I'm at Scott's a lot carriages, I love the Mount 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:17.320 Street restaurant and things which I all now associate with work, right, 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:20.039 But then there are lots of days where I'm doing 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:22.360 the business end, so I don't leave my desk all day, 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:25.120 and my assistant will go and fetch me a salad 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:26.880 and all some sushi. 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:29.599 I try to eat raw food in the day. 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:33.480 But the way it is that Vogue House is each 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:35.600 magazine kind of dominates a floor. 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:37.560 So I worked on GQ for years. 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:40.520 I was running that business, and I was that's the 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:43.039 first floor, and then you graduate up and Boga's the 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:47.719 fifth floor. And there was always this idea that nobody 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:50.960 eats at Vogue, you know, so people would deliver. You'd 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:55.320 see in the reception of Vogue House. You know, cakes 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:57.760 and these amazing things being delivered, and we'd all sort 0:04:57.800 --> 0:04:59.719 of scoff, Oh, well, you know they'll be in the 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:02.560 bin and needs them up there, and you know a GQ. 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:05.839 We all sort of it was food everywhere all the time, 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:09.600 you know, and actually is a big misconception because. 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:11.599 We were Yeah, we work really hard. 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:15.039 It's a really hard working team, the Vogue team. I 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:17.880 still now I'm overseeing all of the brands at Conde 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:21.440 Nas but I still sit with Edward on the fifth floor. 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:24.240 And he loves to eat. 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:25.919 We love to eat. 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:30.000 We love to plan a dinner. We love to incorporate 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:32.719 a bit of our culture into dinners. So even when 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:36.400 we did his wedding, his wedding was at long leads 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:38.360 and it helped him to plan that. It was amazing. 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:41.000 But we were saying, you know, we need to have 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:46.520 John Off in there, which caterists can go. Yeah, we did, 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:49.880 and we had you know, he loves spicy food. Anytime 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:51.679 he comes here, he'll always say, can I have chili 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:55.080 and chili Island, So we had chili sauces and everything. 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:59.520 So it's talking about food eating a lot of times 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.800 he and I eat our lunch at desks you know, 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:06.839 across from each other. So he'll have steam vegetables and 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:09.400 you know, some fish or chicken or something, and I'll 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:11.840 have sushi. But we sit together and eat it if 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:14.760 we're if we're doing a working lunch. Otherwise I'm out 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:15.920 with clients. 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:19.240 When we talked to Edward Nifl, and he just felt 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:22.120 quite a lot about wanting to change the culture of 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:26.240 you know, the stick thin model and the denial of 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:28.839 food and the denial of pleasure and in order to 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:32.159 show clothes at their best. Now that you're in such 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:35.800 a senior position at Cande Nast, does that does that 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:40.560 into your yes world? Yeah, what do you feel about it? Well? 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:43.440 I think that you know, the reason that Edwind and 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:46.359 I's partnership kind of is so important to me is 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:49.320 we had been separately and a bit together talking about 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:54.560 this challenge in our industry, not just about beauty being 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:57.400 about stick thin, which is kind of a bit preposterous, 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:01.640 but just the idea that magazin scenes in media represented 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:05.040 this kind of one really hard to reach version of 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:08.880 being a woman, which we didn't grow up surrounded by 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:13.240 my friends, weren't those people, and yet there were these 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:18.160 magazines that we loved representing that in an industry which 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:20.480 we loved and we were a part of, you know, 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:25.679 and so you know, the joy and beauty for both 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:29.440 of us was all around, in different shapes and different 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:32.760 sizes and different color And what we did behind the 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:36.200 scenes at Vogue was build a group of people who 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:39.240 didn't think like us. That's how you learn about new, 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:42.360 exciting things if you're all speaking to each other. And 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:45.400 you you know, Edwin and I actually have quite similar backgrounds. 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:49.760 I was laughing with Steve McQueen about our mothers did 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:50.880 exactly the same thing. 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:53.120 Nurses in the same hospital did your mother? 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:57.160 Yeah, and so our background, you know, he can start 0:07:57.160 --> 0:07:59.680 a sentence, I can finish it because our backgrounds are 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:03.520 so similar. And so what's really fascinating is talking to 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:05.680 I mean, I could talk to Steve forever in a 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:08.960 day or Edward forever in a day. But what I 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:11.320 really love is to talk to people who didn't grow 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:13.800 up like me. That's where and I think that's what 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:18.600 I really want to challenge not only the media industry 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:22.080 but the but any organization to do a little bit more. Is, 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:25.000 you know, how can you connect with people and wider 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:26.800 audiences if you don't have them. 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:27.640 In your midst. 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:36.679 And food and food is the great connector with him, 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:39.880 and he remember him talking very much about growing up 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:43.520 like you, very very interesting conversations about his mother and 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:45.719 the markets and kind of keeping the food of their 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:49.679 parents and their grandparents and adapting to the food of 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:50.280 the culture. 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:56.520 The keeping food alive through food is everything, you know, 0:08:56.520 --> 0:09:00.160 when when everything was planned around food, I remember all 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:03.600 of our great excursions on the weekends being about going 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:06.840 to get food, you know, so particularly in London in 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:11.640 the nineties late eighties nineties, where a lot of the 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:14.160 foods that we ate in the Caribbean in particular were 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:19.120 not readily available. You couldn't pop to, you know, Sainsbury's, 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:23.920 so you'd go from West London to Dulstone Market because 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:26.400 somebody told you that there was something there or what 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:26.760 have you. 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:28.520 And Wembley Market. 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:30.920 We used to go to south All Market lots because 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:33.960 the Indian community had lots of the ingredients and spices 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:37.880 and so on that we used. And so that's really unifying. 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:41.920 But I think with one of the best ways to 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:44.920 get to know people and groups of new people when 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:49.280 you're trying to connect and create these kind of diversity 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:52.800 of perspective, spaces where you know it's through food. 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:05.040 Where were you born? 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:09.319 So from the very beginning, I was born in Kenya, 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:13.760 in Nanuki. My father is Kenyan and my mother is 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:17.320 from Saint Kitts in the Caribbean, Saint Kittenita, it's tiny 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:20.559 into the islands. And they met here in London. It's 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:24.839 kind of a strange pairing in the seventies, and it 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:26.719 was quite a radical relationship. 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:28.200 There's because. 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:35.160 At that time Africans and people from the Caribbean did 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:36.600 not spend that much time together. 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:38.719 They certainly didn't end up in relationships. 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:43.200 And London is the great sort of unifying space, right 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:45.600 It's a true melting plot I think in the world. 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:46.520 They met here, they. 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:50.880 Fell in love, and my mother moved with my father 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:55.960 to this strange land where she knew no language or 0:10:56.000 --> 0:10:59.520 the culture. Lots of her family didn't speak to her 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:02.040 because of the move, and indeed lots of his family 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:06.079 didn't speak to him because someone from yeah, from a 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:09.000 different culture, and he was a very eligible bachelor. 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:11.079 So I was born in this kind of context. 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:13.720 Why did they both plan to come to London for 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:16.000 a short time and then go home or did. 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:19.800 My father what did he do? He did some of 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:20.920 his education here. 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:24.360 He's a military man, but he studied engineering, came to 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:28.079 London with studies and works and things. And my mother, 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:31.920 who is a great inspiration in my life, has moved 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:35.000 here at seventeen on her own. She took the flight 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:39.199 and came to London to become a nurse with the NHS. 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:44.240 And it was a time where British were recruiting heavily 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:47.920 in the Commonwealth to establish the welfare states to come 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:50.000 and become nurses and. 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:51.760 Bus drivers and all of those things. 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:55.880 And she had a big kind of dreamy heart and 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:58.679 came here thinking this is going to be an incredible life. 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:01.760 Then to us supported to yeah, Kenny. 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:06.120 Was it a small village, Quite a small village, yes, 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:09.240 And it's in a sort of mountainous area. His family 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:13.800 were in Coffee, so yeah, quite rural, but they were 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:17.440 very well off. But my mother had a very difficult 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:20.360 time settling in there. And this is where food comes 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:27.280 in because she was encountering women who didn't understand her 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:32.199 literally and figuratively. She only spoke English and they often 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:36.320 spoke five languages, you know, and so the language barrier 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:39.080 was there. She didn't speak Swahili, she didn't speak the 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:42.280 dialect as well, and so food was her way to 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:44.640 connect with people. She used to say to me, it's 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:48.319 quicker to learn addition than to learn a language. And 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:50.559 I think one of the most ingratiating things you can 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:52.880 do in a new culture is you know, know some 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:56.720 basic words to greet people. And she looked at food 0:12:56.720 --> 0:12:58.640 in the same way. If you could cook the food 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:01.800 really well, it was a show of respect. So she 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:04.640 learned to cook, which I also found strange because she 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:07.000 had cooks and nannies and all of those things. But 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:08.800 she loved to cook, and. 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:10.000 She loved to cook before. 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:12.880 Yeah, my grandmother was a great cook. 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:14.120 And grandmother and Saint KITT's. 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:17.800 Yeah, so we're all over the place, and my. 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:22.400 Family are not a family who say I love you 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:27.440 a lot, but we're incredibly loving family and expressed through stories, 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:30.560 like everyone in my family is a bit of a joker, 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:32.800 you know, funny stories and food. 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:35.800 Yeah, she was a kitchen Like do you remember the 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:36.760 kitchen in the house? 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:37.959 Well, I didn't. 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:42.000 I we left Kenya at when I was eighteen months old. 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:47.319 I don't have any real memories. But again, she would 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:50.640 cook the dishes to keep I guess the Kenyon in 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:55.120 me alive. So we left when I was eighteen months old. 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:57.280 We moved to Saint Kits and then we came to 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:03.600 London and she would cook ugalley and soka mawiki and 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:06.040 mung beans and these are Kenyan dishes. 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:07.880 What are the first two? I know? Mung beans? 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:13.520 Yeah, So soka mawiki is it's like collared greens or 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:19.200 kale with tomatoes and onions, and you tend to have 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:22.760 it with rich dishes, so like a beef stew or 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:28.800 stewed mung beans and ougalley, which is like a maze 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:32.680 kind of it's almost like a not a mashed potato, 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:37.520 but it's quite a firm, dense carrier almost for shoes 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:39.840 and things. And the soukamwiki is like a palate cleanser. 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:43.560 So she would make these dishes for us, my sister 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:46.800 and I, I guess, to keep that Kenyan culture alive 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:51.880 in us growing up, moving around, living in belonging to 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:58.320 three places. Food was a brilliant connector to places we'd 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:02.040 left so that they didn't become lost, but also a 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:06.720 really good way of connecting with somewhere new, with new people, 0:15:07.720 --> 0:15:12.160 with new communities and within new life almost. 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:16.040 Well. Okay, So at two we went to live with 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:19.080 my grandmother. My mother and father got divorced. 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:22.000 My mother came back to London to try and re 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:25.320 establish herself by a house and all of those things, 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:29.720 and we stayed in Sant Kits with her, visiting frequently 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:32.560 with my grandmother. So I was very young, so I 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:36.640 was stuck to her all the time. And she is 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:42.760 definitely the most powerful sort of figure in my life. 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:45.240 My mother's a very powerful figure. We're very close. 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:49.920 When my grandmother is almost my heart, you know, and 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:51.720 I gosh, I'm welling up. 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:52.760 Even talking about her. 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:56.280 It's so because when we spoke about this, No, she's not, 0:15:56.560 --> 0:16:00.680 but she's very much alive in me. I think about 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:06.480 her every day, not only through food but also just 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:09.280 her advice. Was amazing because it's so funny, it's really 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:10.400 evocative thinking about this. 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:11.360 I'm getting emotional. 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:20.040 No, it's kind of happy to you know, when someone 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:24.320 leaves a mark on your life that's so powerful and 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:27.960 kind of runs through everything in my working life, whenever 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:30.920 I'm up against any kind of challenge, in the way 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:34.360 I raise my son, in the way that I connect 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:37.400 to people, and what I place is important. These kind 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:40.680 of figures are so strong, and I miss her, I 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:41.400 really miss. 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:42.200 Her, but she's alive. 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:44.840 What was her food like? Describe? Was she in the 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:45.840 kitchen all day long. 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:48.840 I don't remember her not wearing an apron or some 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:52.520 sort of overalls. So she made food that was needed, 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:54.200 constant nurturing, you know. 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:56.200 Her house was also. 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:00.800 Where everyone dropped in, so my sister and I lived 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:05.600 there on and off. Four of my cousins lived there, 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:08.560 and my uncle's children, and then she was sort of 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:12.720 everyone's grandmother. So her house was, Oh, it was so fun. 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:15.920 It was a wash with children all the time. And 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:18.120 I was the youngest, so I was always with her. 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:21.280 I slept in her bed, and I was literally on 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:26.960 her apen strings. So her food was very rich. It 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:31.880 was like almost like a warm embrace, you know, hearty, 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:37.080 and lots of sort of stews and meats and heavily 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:43.680 marinated delicious comfort food, dumplings and you know, sort of starchy, 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:48.040 delicious things. And she kept her own little farm, at 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:50.800 least it felt like a farm to me. She grew 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:54.000 her own vegetables, she had her own fruit tree, She 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:58.640 would graft her own strains, of mango. She grew herbs 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:00.960 and things that people would come and visit her to buy, 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:03.560 and she kept her own animals, and I used to 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:07.080 help her tend to those little gardens, and then she'd 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:11.080 make up these amazing dishes from food, and she'd tell 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:13.840 me stories of the food as well. 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:16.919 So did she grow up in poverty or did she 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:18.560 grow up any Yes? She did. 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:23.440 And I look at sort of my life now, which 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:26.280 is so much on her shoulders, and all of the 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:31.040 opportunity I have now, and I think about how important circumstances. 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:34.959 So she was a really intelligent woman. She was the 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:38.760 most prolific reader I ever knew. She was either cooking 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:43.720 or reading. But she was forced to leave school at fourteen. 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:49.160 Her mother was a She also had a slightly strange 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:58.120 parentage in that her father was previously a slave and 0:18:58.440 --> 0:18:59.359 her mother. 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:03.960 Was grandfather was a slave. Yeah in syn kids, yeah, 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:10.800 and probably like the Civil War probably yeah. 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:15.600 But her mother, which is really strange, was a Portuguese 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:19.880 woman from a slave owning family, so it's really really 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:24.000 unusual that way around. And her mother was not very 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:28.520 maternal at all, and so they fell upon hard times. 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:31.960 Her mother was seen I think as having made bad decisions, 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:36.080 and so she didn't grow up surrounded, as I understand it, 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:40.000 by lots of love, and so she created this love 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:42.640 loving world. But the reason that it's important at how 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:46.320 she grew up is her food was very much worker food. 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:49.160 You know, she made food that they would have made 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:51.960 for men and women who worked picking cotton. 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:53.760 She was picking cotton at fourteen. 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:57.720 Years old in the fields, and then after that taking 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:01.520 books under the house to read them in evening and 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:07.040 cooking and supporting the households and so on. So she 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:14.480 had this really eclectic upbringing where she really valued education 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:18.280 and missed her opportunity I think, to have a full education. 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:22.400 But food was also the key joy. 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:26.040 Yeah, and so would you sit down? Would you go 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:28.120 to school and then every evening come home and sit 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:30.760 down for dinner. Would there be for dinner on the 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:32.520 table for you? Yes? 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:37.520 Yeah, So my grandmother always liked us to sit and 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:41.720 eat together again because I think sharing stories and storytelling 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:44.800 was really important, and food's a really good way to 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:47.280 get everyone together and understand what their days were like. 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:50.600 I was very young, so I was always around the house, 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:54.880 So I looked forward to people coming home with their 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:57.600 stories of the day and enjoying that over food. 0:20:58.359 --> 0:20:59.000 And so. 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:04.240 We would have great mounds of kind of rice and 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:08.080 vegetables and these kind of incredible with me and everybody 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:10.600 would pile in and pour in and go for second plates. 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:14.000 It wasn't a very formal sit and the table was 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:16.480 also off the kitchen, so it was kind of part 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:19.240 of the action, and it was just a really lovely 0:21:19.280 --> 0:21:21.840 way to be connected with the people around you. 0:21:22.119 --> 0:21:24.439 Breakfast, what was breakfast? Icen that? Do you remember? 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:27.400 Do you know what's so funny? I do not remember breakfast. 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:31.560 What I remember, really really vividly at my grandmother's house 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:37.160 is the back door of her house was at the. 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:37.800 Base of it. 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:40.240 We called it a mountain, but it was really just 0:21:40.280 --> 0:21:43.240 a big hill and there were mango groves and things, 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:45.800 and so we would take buckets in the morning. We'd 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:48.399 just run out barefoot, all the kids together with the 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:51.920 older kids, and go and pick fruit and slightly gorge 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:53.280 ourselves on the things. 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:55.879 So you left this kind of your mother took you 0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:57.159 to London, then, did. 0:21:57.000 --> 0:21:59.359 You, Yeah, so my mother, while we were having this 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:03.720 lovely time, you know, with my grandmother, learning these amazing 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:07.399 lessons about life and opportunity and food and you know, 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:10.400 all of those things. My mother was in London, toiling away. 0:22:10.480 --> 0:22:14.399 She was very focused on us moving to London and 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:17.639 having the kind of cultural access that you could have 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:20.920 in London. Being part of different communities was a big 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:24.280 thing for her, and getting a really, really great education. 0:22:24.640 --> 0:22:29.719 So she was working very hard. She'd managed to on 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:34.720 a nurse's salary by a three bedroom house in West London, 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:38.920 which was her dream, and were all while coming back 0:22:38.960 --> 0:22:43.399 every three months to sink it to visit us. But 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:47.640 this sort of sad thing happened where she became this 0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:52.720 kind of glamorous figure in my life. But I didn't. 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:55.720 I didn't really connect that we were ever going to 0:22:55.760 --> 0:22:59.280 live together. So when we came to London, it was 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:02.119 a bit of a room awakening, to be honest, Like, 0:23:02.760 --> 0:23:05.360 I missed my grandmother terribly. 0:23:05.960 --> 0:23:09.960 Had you ever experienced, either in Kenya or in Saint 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:13.720