A new episode is here! We did something a little different. Soleil shares a story of the first time she ever waited tables, and how it changed her life (but also, how it didn't).

She told this story at the Holocene in Portland, Oregon back in November. This recording was done by Pamela Santos at KBOO Community Radio. Enjoy!

P.S. We're still working out the kinks of recording a remote show, but rest assured we will be back to Peak Audio Quality soon.

It's our last show of 2016! Soleil and Zahir (recording remotely for the first time) begin by distracting you from the news with their top five favorite things they ate this year.

Then, Zahir interviews Arab-American writer Randa Jarrar, author of the new collection of short stories Him, Me, Muhammad Ali. Randa has a lot of insightful things to say about Palestinian food, growing up in Kuwait during the First Gulf War, body image and what it means to be a fat femme, and much more.

We're really excited about this one. Zahir and Alan (don't worry, Soleil will be back on the show soon!) interviewed Hari Kondabolu when he was in Portland. If you're not familiar with Hari and his work, fix your damn life and get on it!

We cover a lot of ground in this episode, including: the food at Bowdoin College, calling out racism in the age of Trump, and why Hari doesn't like being described as an "activist comedian." Plus, Hari unpacks an old joke he once told about vegan soul food, and talks about what he'd change.

How does it feel when your body doesn't fit the definition of "desirable," when no one around you looks the way you look, when taking up space seems like an insult toward the people around you? For this episode, we wanted to consider these questions in the context of eating disorders and how living in a racialized body complicates the mainstream narrative of who gets them. Our guest, Portland-based pop-up chef and caterer Salimatu Amabebe, was kind enough to speak with us about her experience with eating problems and how it informs her own body consciousness, her feelings about desirability, and her career as an independent chef. (Thank you for the title, Warsan Shire.)

Produced by Alan Montecillo. Music by AF the Naysayer and Blue Dot Sessions.

Want to help us continue to make more episodes like this? Support us on Patreon!

Links du jour

• Eating Disorders Do Not Discriminate via Slate
• Not All Black Girls Know How to Eat
• Mixed Fat Chick
• Diagnosing the Asian American Eating Disorder via Mochi Mag
• Nalgona Positivity Pride
• Trans Folx Fighting Eating Disorders

 

We've launched another crowdfunder! Instead of talking about why you should open your wallet for us, Alan collected three of his favorite clips from our podcast.

P.S. On this holiday, please also consider giving to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

In this episode, we interview Buzzfeed Books Editor Isaac Fitzgerald about his new book, Knives & Ink: Chefs and the Stories Behind Their Tattoos. The book, which features beautiful illustrations by Wendy Macnaughton, is out now. Isaac and Soleil share tattoo stories, both of which you don't want to miss. In addition to talking about the book, we grill Isaac on what it takes to be a good ally and gatekeeper in the publishing industry, which is so very homogenous

We also have a few big announcements packed into this episode: Soleil is moving to Mexico to open a restaurant (and will continue hosting the show from abroad), AND we're starting a Patreon help make the podcast more sustainable! 

Produced by Alan Montecillo. Music by AF The Naysayer, Blue Dot Sessions, and Brown Bird.

We needed to turn off social media and talk out our post-Election Day feelings. If you want to let us know how you're doing, leave us a voicemail at (971) 800-1389, or email us at racistsandwichpodcast@gmail.com

Food photography is just about showcasing food...right? In this episode, we talk with freelance photographer Celeste Noche about how an art as "neutral" as modern food photography can actually be loaded with signifiers of race, gender, and class. We discuss the strange positioning of chopsticks in photos of Asian food, the slow trickling down of the Kinfolk aesthetic, and all the things we lose when we divorce food from its cultural context.

 

Episode 13 is here! Charley Wang, the CEO of Josephine, an up-and-coming food tech company, explains how his version of the sharing economy can bolster home cooking, empower small-scale entrepreneurs, and combat gentrification. He believes that food tech can do more than simply provide a product in an ultra-convenient and commodified way, and that there's room for food justice and labor rights, too.

This is a sprawling and fascinating conversation about food justice, the tech world, empathy, and gentrification. We also drag Blue Apron and Soylent a bit. (A lot.) 

On this episode, we talked with food writer and cookbook author Nicole Taylor about popularity of Southern food, and its roots in black history that are often erased in a trend-driven food landscape. We also delve into the homogeneity of food media itself, by talking through actionable steps we need in order to move the race and food conversation forward. 

Or, #NeverPhogetNeverPhogive! Soleil embarked on our first OFF-SITE INTERVIEW and caught up with comedian and writer Jenny Yang this past weekend. She produced and starred in "PBJ is the New Grilled Cheese," a brilliant send-up of that pho video that everyone's been talking about.  (AKA the food media's regularly scheduled announcement that they don't give a fuck about us!) Soleil and Jenny talk about community, staying in touch with one's culture, and what it means to respond to racism with art.

For our tenth(!) episode, we talked with Abel Hernandez and Jaime Saltero. They are, respectively, the head chef and owner of Tamale Boy in Portland, Oregon. Abel and Jaime shared their stories about starting their restaurant, designing the space, and making dishes that break American stereotypes about Mexican cuisine. They also dropped some serious knowledge about the history of the tamale, and its close link with indigenous cultures in Mexico.

Anyone in Portland can tell you that we've been experiencing a huge increase in restaurants and bars this year. What we sought to find out in this episode was whether that same increase has meant more opportunities and financial stability for food service workers—the people who form the backbone of our growing service economy.

On this episode, we explore food from a slightly different angle. We talked with Amy Lam, associate editor at BITCH Magazine and co-founder of the group "Portland Creatives of Color" — which is the reason why we met and started this podcast in the first place. Amy talked to us about her relationship with food, and how the gendered expectations she was raised with shaped the way she sees cooking. From there, all three of us share what it means to be writers and children of immigrants at the same time.

For our Filipino food episode [E7], we asked our listeners to call in to our Google voice number to talk to us about their relationships with Filipino food. And y'all really rose to the occasion! We got a lot of voicemails, so we put our favorite ones together. The messages form a really beautiful narrative about the cuisine and the place it has in people's hearts; one that we think everyone can relate to in some way.

For years, we've been hearing from the food media that Filipino cuisine is the "next big thing;" that it would only be a matter of time before it "arrived." To hash that all out, we talked to a bunch of Pinoys! First, our producer, Alan Montecillo; then we patched in Sarahlynn Pablo & Natalia Roxas of the website, Filipino Kitchen. They all walked us through the history of Filipino cuisine and the meaning it holds for Filipino Americans today. And of course, we went back and forth on the question of whether or not validation from Western society matters all that much, in the end.

We start with a brief conversation about Pokemon Go, #BlackLivesMatter, and the place of politics in food media. Then we interview Emiko Badillo, one of the owners of Food Fight, the first vegan grocery store in Portland. She also started Vegans of Color and is a COOL LADY DRUMMER! She talks to us about lifestyle veganism vs. political veganism, the "double trouble" of being a racial as well as a political minority, and how human-centered social justice can have a place within veganism, too.

Dr. Kate Cairns, an Assistant Professor of Childhood Studies at Rutgers University, joins us remotely to share her research on how foodwork—the researching, buying, and preparation of food—plays into modern ideas of what it means to be a good, responsible woman. She talks about what she learned after interviewing more than a hundred women for her study, and about how race and class inform the way people moralize women's food choices for themselves and their families. Food and Femininity, the book she coauthored with Josée Johnston, came out last year via Bloomsbury.

On this episode of Racist Sandwich, we talk with sneaker maven Ian Williams, who owns and operates Deadstock Coffee, a sneaker-themed coffee shop in downtown Portland. We discuss what it means to take up space, why sneaker culture is integral to urban life, the ways in which Portland has changed since Ian's childhood, and the whiteness of the coffee scene here. And of course, a little bit about basketball too!

Zahir and Soleil are back! In our intro, we discuss the food media's new obsession with poke, Anthony Bourdain in Vietnam, and chaat. After that, Portland chef Kusuma Rao of Ruchikala talks to us about the pop-up life, growing up Indian in Tucson, dudebros and the sexualization of food, and identifying as "miscellaneous brown.

Han Ly Hwang, the chef and owner of Portland's Kim Jong Grillin food truck, joins us in the studio to talk about the Korean-American food revolution, being on Chopped, what it means to cook your own food, and the Sisyphean task of gaining parental approval.

Our podcast begins with a discussion about the difficulty we often have connecting food to the broader issues of race, gender, and class. Bertony Faustin, an Oregon winemaker and documentarian, joins us in the studio to talk about breaking into the wine industry and defying expectations as the first Black winemaker in the region.