The Kitchen Sisters Present

In 1898, the United States Department of Agriculture created a special department of men, called “Agriculture Explorers,” to travel the globe searching for new food crops to bring back for farmers to grow in the U.S. These men introduced exotic specimens like the mango, the avocado, and the date. In 1900, the USDA sent plant explorer, Walter Swingle, to Algeria to study the date. As Swingle took temperature readings and soil temperature, he realized that the conditions were very much like those in California’s hot, arid Coachella Valley, sometimes referred to as the American Sahara. In order to market this new fruit and promote the region, date growers in the Coachella Valley began capitalizing on the exotic imagery and fantasy many Americans associated with the Middle East. In the 1950s date shops dotted the highway, attracting tourists. There was Pyramid Date shop where you could purchase your dates in a pyramid. Sniff’s Exotic Date Garden set up a tent like those used by nomadic tribes of the Sahara. One of the most well-known date shops, which still exists today, is Shields Date Garden, established in 1924. Floyd Shields lured in customers with his lecture and slide show titled, “The Romance and Sex Life of the Date.” This story was produced in collaboration with Lisa Morehouse.

Niloufer Ichaporia King lives in a house with three kitchens. She prowls through six farmer’s markets a week in search of unusual greens, roots, seeds, and traditional food plants from every immigrant culture. She is an anthropologist, a kitchen botanist, a one-of-a-kind cook, a Parsi from Bombay living in San Francisco, and the author of My Bombay Kitchen: Traditional and Modern Parsi Home Cooking. Niloufer is known for her ritual celebrations of Navroz, Parsi New Year, on the first day of Spring, when she creates an elaborate ceremonial meal based on the auspicious foods and traditions of her vanishing culture. The Parsi culture is some 3,000 years old and goes back from India to Persia. It’s estimated that there are now under 100,000 Parsis in the world. Also featured in this Hidden Kitchens story are author Bharati Mukherjee, sharing her memories of the forbidden Bengali kitchen of her girlhood, with its four cooks and intricate rules of food preparation. And Harvard Professor Homi Bhabha, born in Mumbai to a Parsi family, who talks about auspicious lentils and the birth of his son. The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson) with Nathan Dalton and Brandi Howell. We are part of Radiotopia from PRX, a curated network created specifically for independent podcasts—some of the best stories out there. Special thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and contributors to the non profit Kitchen Sisters Productions .

Little known stories of pioneering architects — Julia Morgan, the first accredited female architect in California, who designed Hearst Castle and was nearly written out of the history books. Natalie de Blois, who helped imagine the first glass skyscrapers on Park Avenue by day and raised four children by night. Amaza Lee Meredith, a Black queer modernist architect from the 1930s South who helped establish Sag Harbor as a haven for Black intellectuals, artists and beachcombers. A new special from The Kitchen Sisters, the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation and PRX, hosted by Academy Award-winning actress Frances McDormand. Story production by Brandi Howell for the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation’s podcast, New Angle: Voice, in association with The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva), mixed by Jim McKee.

A look at the President’s kitchen and some of the first cooks to feed the Founding Fathers—Hercules and James Hemings—the enslaved chefs of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Hercules, described as a “dandy,” had eight assistants—stewards, butlers, undercooks, waiters. He cooked in a huge fireplace—hearth cooking. He walked through the streets of Philadelphia in a velvet waistcoat, with a gold-handled cane. When Washington was getting ready to leave Philadelphia to return to Mt. Vernon, Hercules escaped. Washington sent out search parties and offered rewards. Hercules was never found. In 1784, Thomas Jefferson was appointed minister to France. He took with him his body servant, 19-year-old James Hemings (the brother of Sally Hemings), to master the French style of cooking. Hemings apprenticed with well-known French caterers and pastry chefs and assumed the role of chef de cuisine in Jefferson’s kitchen on the Champs-Elysees, earning $48 a year. In 1793, Hemings petitioned Jefferson for his freedom. Jefferson consented upon one condition—he must train someone to take his place. After teaching his brother, Peter Hemings, the cooking techniques he had learned in France and at home, James Hemings became a free man. These stories begin a long connection of presidents and their African American cooks, including the story of Zephyr Wright, President Lyndon Johnson’s cook who worked for the family for 27 years. Johnson spoke to Zephyr Wright about the Civil Rights Movement and the March on Washington. She attended the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Johnson gave her a pen he used to sign the document. Featuring interviews with: Jessica Harris, Culinary Historian and author of The Welcome Table: African American Heritage Cooking; Historian Willliam Seale, author of The President’s House; Chef Joe Randall, founder of African American Chef’s Hall of Fame; William Woys Weaver, food historian and author; Sharron Conrad, African American food historian. Special thanks to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum and Michael L. Gillette for use of Zephyr Wright’s oral history. The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva) and Nathan Dalton and Brandi Howell. Part of Radiotopia from PRX, a curated network of podcasts created and owned by independent producers.

Jelly Roll Morton talks of being a “Spy Boy” in the Mardi Gras Indian parades of his youth. Bo Dollis, of the Wild Magnolias, tells of sewing his suit of feathers and beads all night long. Tootie Montana masks for the first time as Mardi Gras starts up again after World War II. Big Queen Ausettua makes connections between the black Mardi Gras Indian traditions of New Orleans and Africa. Sister Alison McCrary, a Catholic nun and social justice attorney, tells of Big Chief Tootie Montana’s death at the podium in city council chambers defending the rights of the Mardi Gras Indians to parade without harassment. A collection of stories and interviews in honor of the Mardi Gras Indian tradition in New Orleans. With special thanks and a shout out to all of the “Keepers” who have documented, preserved and shared these stories, including the Folklife Center Collection at the Library of Congress, Nick Spitzer and American Routes, filmmaker Lisa Katzman, and WWOZ in New Orleans. The Kitchen Sisters Present is part of PRX’s Radiotopia network and is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson), with Nathan Dalton and Brandi Howell.

Sarah “Sally” Pillsbury and Jean B. Fletcher were both architects who married architects. The two women and their husbands were founding members of The Architects Collaborative (TAC), a visionary, idealistic architecture firm founded just after WWII. The two women, who had 13 children between them, lived with their families and several other founding partners in Six Moon Hill, a residential community in Lexington, Massachusetts, designed by the group. TAC was a world class firm of eight architects, including famed architect Walter Gropius, working collectively as a team, stressing anonymity of design. The group won design awards and competitions, and was hired by the National Institute of Architects to design their new headquarters.They also designed the Harvard Graduate Center, many civic and educational buildings, and the University of Baghdad. Soon after the founding of the firm in 1947, Sarah and Jean wrote an article for House & Garden titled “Architecture, Family Style” which – as their biographer Michael Kubo writes – constituted something of a manifesto for the changing needs of the postwar housewife. Produced by Brandi Howell for Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation’s podcast New Angle: Voice with host Cynthia Krakauer. Editorial advising from Alexandra Lange. Production assistants Virginia Eskridge and Aislinn McNamara. Special thanks to Sara Harkness and Joseph Fletcher, Michael Kubo and Amanda Kolson Hurley. Current Six Moon Hill residents Linda Pagani and Barbara Katzenberg kindly opened their homes and shared their stories. Long time TAC partners Perry Neubauer and Gail Flynn were generous with their time as were Andrea Leers and Jane Weinzapfel. The archival oral history of Sally Harkness comes from her interview with Wendy Cox. Funding for New Angle: Voice comes from National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Graham Foundation. The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson) with Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton. Supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and contributors to the non profit Kitchen Sisters Productions. The Kitchen Sisters Present is part of Radiotopia from PRX, a curated network of podcasts created by independent producers.

For five years Davia’s father, Lenny Nelson, asked her to go to Rattlesden, England, to visit the Air Force base where he was stationed during WWII and to find an old photograph hanging in the town pub honoring his 8th Air Force squadron. It was still there, over 50 years later, he told her. Finally, one fine Sunday, Davia headed out in search of the pub and a piece of her father’s past—the piece he was proudest of. Lenny died on Christmas Eve 2015. In his honor, we share the journey with you. Samuel Shelton Robinson helped produce this story with The Kitchen Sisters. He’s from London. It seemed only right.

Deep in the hidden archives of Harvard’s Houghton Library are the butter stained recipes of Emily Dickinson. Who knew? Emily Dickinson was better known by most as a baker than a poet in her lifetime. In this story a beautiful line up of “Keepers”— dedicated archivists, librarians, historians, poets and more—lead us through the complex labyrinth of Emily Dickinson’s hidden kitchen. Black cake, gingerbread, slant rhyme, secret loves, family scandals, poems composed on the back of a coconut cake recipe —we journey into the world of poet Emily Dickinson. Filled with mystery, intrigue and readings by Patti Smith, Thornton Wilder, Jean Harris and an array of passionate poets and experts.

Lou Reed, musician, rock icon, poet, leader of the legendary Velvet Underground, was obsessed with tai chi — the practice, the community, the health and spiritual benefits. Lou had been writing a book about this ancient martial art that was unfinished when he died in 2013.Lou’s wife, the artist and musician Laurie Anderson, looked at Lou's unfinished work and decided the book needed to be completed, that there was something important to be shared in Lou’s long, life-altering journey with tai chi.She turned to three of Lou's friends to help her with the project. By the time the book, The Art of the Straight Line: My Tai Chi by Lou Reed, hit the stands in the spring of 2023, they had spoken with nearly 100 people and created a riveting portrait of Lou’s spiritual, medical and musical life, beckoning readers to enter the world of tai chi.The Kitchen Sisters read the book and we kept thinking, these conversations must have been taped. We asked Laurie if there were recordings. There were. Dozens and dozens of them from rock stars, to tai chi masters, to doctors, to family….We listened to the raw interviews, this remarkable trove of sound and story, and created a podcast that goes deep inside the making of this book. Voices heard in the story include Laurie Anderson, Iggy Pop, Julian Schnabel, Hal Willner, Anohni, Master Ren and many more, plus archival recordings of Lou Reed.The Kitchen Sisters Present: Lou Reed’s Tai Chi.“Well, everybody does something, some people race cars, others collect stamps. I find tai chi to be philosophically, aesthetically, physically and spiritually fascinating.” — Lou Reed

Late autumn is Kimjang season in the Republic of Korea when families and communities come together to make and share large quantities of kimchi to ensure that every household has enough to sustain it through the long, harsh winter. This story is part of series Hidden Kitchens: Kimchi Diplomacy — War & Peace and Food “Kimchi is everywhere in Korea. It’s like air,” says Hyunjoo Albrecht, a San Francisco-based chef who grew up near the DMZ border between South and North Korea. 1.5 million tons of kimchi are eaten each year in Korea and there are hundreds of different varieties. South Korea is one of the nations most involved in branding itself through its food, using food as a part of its “soft power.” It’s called “gastrodiplomacy” — the use of food as a diplomatic tool to help resolve conflicts and foster connections between nations. “The government gave financial support to some of the Korean restaurants in US,” says Hyunjoo. “They want more people outside Korea to eat more Korean food.” Si-Hyeon Ryu is a chef and writer from South Korea who, with support from the government, has traveled in The Kimchi Bus to more than 34 countries cooking traditional Korean food and spreading his love of kimchi. “People on the street, they know just about North and South Korea,” he says, "but not much about Korean cuisine. “If I explain about kimchi they will understand about Korea.” Astronaut Soyeon Yi, Korea’s first astronaut, describes the Korean government’s efforts to invent kimchi for space travel — not an easy task. Soyeon Yi prepared a special Korean meal for her Russian comrades in space. “Having kimchi in space, you are far from your home planet,” she says. “When you eat your own traditional food it makes you feel emotionally supported. I can feel my home.”

Anna Wagner Keichline (1889–1943) was the first registered woman architect in Pennsylvania and was among the first registered women architects in the United States. During her long career, she designed dozens of commercial and residential buildings, as well as numerous industrial products. She was awarded seven patents for her innovative residential and building designs, including one for The Building Block (1927), popularly known as the K-brick, which was a forerunner of today’s concrete block. Not every architect has the opportunity to build skyscrapers. In Bellefonte, Anna used her talents to improve the lives of her neighbors, by designing their houses and gathering places. She adopted a gently accommodating architectural style in the shadow of high Victorian lacery, and designed sturdy churches, theaters, homes, schools, and recreation facilities in her hometown that still stand well and firmly in their context. Produced by Brandi Howell for New Angle Voice podcast of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation. Host, Cynthia Kracauer. Editorial advising from Alexandra Lange. Thanks to production assistant Virginia Eskridge and special thanks to Nancy Perkins, Sarah Lichtman, and Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler. Funding for this podcast comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Graham Foundation. The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson) with Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton. From PRX’s Radiotopia network.

In this episode, we borrow a cup of sound from the podcast, What You’re Eating, a production of FoodPrint.org, hosted by Jerusha Klemperer. In the episode, “Coffee: From Seed to Cup,” Jerusha interviewed coffee entrepreneur Bartholomew Jones, who co-founded CxffeeBlack, a "multimedia coffee educational company," with his wife Renata Henderson in Memphis, Tennessee in 2018. Bartholomew is an educator, an MC, a “coffee nerd,” and an amazing storyteller. Today, The Kitchen Sisters Present… Make Coffee Black Again, a co-production with What You’re Eating. You can hear the entire episode, “Coffee: From Seed to Cup” at foodprint.org/what-youre-eating or by searching for What You’re Eating on your podcast app of choice. The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters, Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson, with Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton. We’re part of Radiotopia from PRX, a curated network of some of the best podcasts out there. Thanks for listening.

Since the start of the pandemic, more than 90 colleges have merged or closed permanently. One of these schools, Lincoln College, closed its doors with only about one month’s notice in May of 2022 — after 157 years. Due to the pandemic and a ransomware attack, administrators say the school was unable to retain, recruit, or fundraise. Since then, students have been left scrambling and many have dropped out. Alan Jinich and Max Strickberger, recent graduates of the University of Pennsylvania and producers of the Generation Pandemic Project about the impact of Covid on young people around the country, set out to follow this story last year. Lincoln College was a small private college in central Illinois — the only school named after Abraham Lincoln in his lifetime. But instead of attracting local students, the school drew many from three hours north: Chicago’s south and west sides. More than 40% were first generation college students and, even though the town is 95% white, the university was a Predominantly Black Institution. Students, alumni, and faculty described the community as deeply close-knit and, for many, a “second chance.” For some, it was also a refuge from gun violence. After the sudden closure announcement, dozens of students confronted President David Gerlach expressing grief, frustration, and concern over what might happen to those who didn’t have a safe home to return to. It was the start of a fundraising predicament that drove a wedge between students’ grassroots efforts and administrators. How much money is enough to stay open? What’s at stake for Lincoln’s brittle economy? We follow voices from across the community — professors, administrators, locals, students dispersed across the Midwest, and a member of Lincoln’s last graduating class. More than a year after closing, many continue to reel. The campus is still up for sale, but a new vision for Lincoln may soon be on the horizon. Produced by Alan Jinich and Max Strickberger with soundtracks by Reed Rosenbluth and support from the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation. A special thank you to Pati and Danny Jinich for their endless support (and SUV), Deborah and Adam Strickberger for their lifelong role modeling, and for all those who helped along the way: Ron Keller, Tim Rivera, Ms. Linda, Aundrae Williams, Jaylah Bolden, Spencer Davis, David Gerlach, Scott Raper, Seth Goodman, Aaron Butler, David Upchurch, Julia Figueroa, Klaudia Blaszcyk, Dougie Barron, and the Rose family. Thanks also to Nikki Silva and The Kitchen Sisters (and The Kitchen Sisters thank these young producers!) You can follow more of Alan and Max’s work at www.generationpandemicproject.com or on instagram @generationpandemic_ The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva) with Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton. We’re part of Radiotopia from PRX, a curated network of some of the best podcasts out there. Visit kitchensisters.org for more stories and info about upcoming events — like our annual Bowling with Grace Party and fundraiser at Mission Bowling Club, San Francisco, October 28, 2023, with celebrity guest bowlers Boz Scaggs, Alice Waters, Samin Nostrat, Roman Mars, Roman Coppola, Wendy MacNaughton, Song Exploder’s Hrishikesh Hirway, KQED’s Alexis Madrigal, Ear Hustle’s Nigel Poor & Earlonne Woods, Rebecca Solnit… and so many more.

Filmmaker Wim Wenders premiered two new films at Cannes this year — Anselm, a 3-D, cutting edge documentary about the contemporary German painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer, and Perfect Days, a quiet, meditative film about a toilet cleaner in Kyoto who who drives from job to job, listening to music on cassettes — Patti Smith, the Kinks, Lou Reed… Ernst Wilhelm “Wim” Wenders, filmmaker, playwright, author, photographer, is a major figure in New German Cinema and global cinema. His films include Paris, Texas, Wings of Desire, The American Friend, Alice in the Cities, Kings of the Road, Buena Vista Social Club, Pope Francis: A Man of His Word, Pina, Until the End of the World, and many more. In honor of Wim and his extraordinary work, this story, from our Keepers series chronicles the filmmaker’s life and inspirations. In our interview with Wim he told us about the impact Henri Langlois and the Cinémathèque Française had on his own filmmaking, about Lotte Eisner, Werner Herzog, and much more. Produced by Vika Aronson and The Kitchen Sisters. Mixed by Jim McKee. Special thanks to Tom Luddy, Robb Moss, Homi Bhabha, Haden Guest, Sophia Hoffinger, Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton. And most of all, to Wim Wenders who has inspired us across the years.

When Lena Richard cooked her first chicken on television, she beat Julia Child to the screen by over a decade. At a time when most African American women cooks worked behind swinging kitchen doors, Richard claimed her place as a culinary authority, broadcasting in the living rooms of New Orleans’s elite white families. She was an entrepreneur, educator, author, and an icon—and her legacy lives on in her recipes. Produced by Sidedoor: A Podcast from the Smithsonian. Special thanks to producer Lizzie Peabody and the Smithsonian for sharing this story with The Kitchen Sisters Present. The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva) with Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton. We are part of Radiotopia from PRX, a curated network of podcasts created by independent producers—some of the best storytelling out there.

We delve into the story of the founding of the Hiphop Archive and Research Institute at Harvard by Dr. Marcyliena Morgan, Professor of African and African American Studies and Professor Henry Louis Gates to “facilitate and encourage the pursuit of knowledge, art, culture, scholarship and responsible leadership through Hiphop.” You’ll hear from Professor Morgan, Professor Gates, Nas, Nas Fellow Patrick Douthit aka 9th Wonder, The Hiphop Fellows working at the Archive, an array of Harvard archivists, and students studying at the Archive as well as the records, music and voices being preserved there. And we take a look at the Cornell University Hip Hop Collection, founded in 2007, through a sampling of stories from Assistant Curator Jeff Ortiz, Johan Kugelberg author of “Born in the Bronx,” and hip hop pioneers Grandmaster Caz, Pebblee Poo, Roxanne Shante and more. This episode is part of The Kitchen Sisters’ series THE KEEPERS—stories of activist archivists, rogue librarians, curators, collectors and historians—keepers of the culture and the cultures and collections they keep.

It was top secret. But everyone in Santa Fe knew there was something going on up on the hill in the remote, desert mountains of Los Alamos in 1943. J. Robert Oppenheimer and dozens of the top scientists and thinkers in the world were sequestered away up there — fenced in, with military guard towers all around. But there was one little sanctuary down along the river where they could escape and find solace, nature, normalcy — Edith Warner’s Tea Room. Edith Warner’s small, rustic home and her legendary chocolate cake brought solace to members of the Manhattan Project as they secretly worked to build the atomic bomb — reshaping the future of modern warfare. When they weren’t at the lab, there was a good chance that Robert Oppenheimer and his colleagues were at Edith’s tea room, savoring the fresh vegetables she grew in her garden and the chance to disconnect from the unimaginable weight of their task. Through Edith’s eyes and the civilian bystanders who witnessed this extraordinary effort we see these souls in their last mundane moments before man and god bled together forever. Produced by Brandi Howell, Mary Franklin Harvin, and Zoe Kurland Special thanks to Jon Else, Meridel Rubenstein, Patty Templeton, Nick Lewis, Steven Horak from the Los Alamos National Lab, to Sharon Snyder and the staff of the Los Alamos Historical Society, Ellen Bradbury Reid, and Paul Rainbird. The Kitchen Sisters Present, part of PRX’s Radiotopia, is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson) with Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton.

In 1981, The Kitchen Sisters interviewed filmmaker Jon Else about his Academy Award nominated documentary, The Day After Trinity, a deeply moving film about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the dramatic story of the creation of the atomic bomb. The film, now showing on the Criterion channel, traces Oppenheimer’s evolution from the architect of the bomb to an outspoken opponent of nuclear proliferation. The documentary features honest and insightful Interviews with Robert’s brother Frank Oppenheimer, several scientists who worked in secret in the isolated high mountains of New Mexico building the bomb, and farmers and ranchers who were displaced by the military and the 6,000 people who descended on the region during the 1940s. Today, the horrifying threat of the escalation of atomic weapons continues. Recently Belarusian President Lukashenko offered nuclear weapons to any country willing to side with Russia in its war against Ukraine. And interest in the history of the bomb and how we got to this place is on the rise. This summer Christopher Nolan’s new biopic about Robert Oppenheimer is hitting IMAX theaters around the country and the Criterion channel is featuring The Day after Trinity. Today, from the Archives, The Kitchen Sisters Present one of our first interviews—a conversation with filmmaker John Else about the making of his extraordinary documentary, The Day After Trinity: J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb.

Behind the scenes at the International Congress of Youth Voices when 131 youth activists,13 to 26 years old, from 37 countries — students, writers, poets, marchers, community leaders all gathered together in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 2019, to share and amplify their ideas and energy — to brainstorm possibilities for how to achieve a better world. The International Congress of Youth Voices, founded by author Dave Eggers (co-founder of 826 National) and nonprofit leader Amanda Uhle, gathers the world's most inspiring teen writers and activists. They come from all over the world, including Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, the United States, Colombia, Guatemala, Cuba, Australia, Denmark, Nepal, Russia, England, Thailand, South Africa, Ireland, Canada, Uganda, Pakistan, Burundi, France, India, and Puerto Rico. Student delegates are chosen based on their commitment to leadership and social justice and their passion and eloquence as writers. The event is designed to provide a path to leadership for all delegates and represents a continuum from students who have exhibited potential in local writing and tutoring programs to writers and activists who have already made notable achievements at a very young age. Produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva) in collaboration with Nathan Dalton, Brandi Howell, Rachel Templeton & Teddy Alexander. Mixed by Jim McKee. Story Intern: Jonathan Hsieh. Special thanks to Dave Eggers & Amanda Uhle and to all the delegates from around the country and around the world who came to Puerto Rico and shared their stories with us. The Kitchen Sisters Present is part of the Radiotopia podcast network from PRX. Funding for work of The Kitchen Sisters comes from The National Endowment for the Humanities, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Robert Sillins Family Foundation, The TRA Fund supporting our Intern Program, and Listener Contributions to The Kitchen Sisters Productions.

Born in 1895 in Lynchburg, VA, Amaza Lee Meredith was an African American architect, artist and educator who taught at Virginia State College where she founded the art department. Despite the fact she was never a registered architect, she was one of the few Black architects practicing at the time, and one of the country's very few Black women architects. In 1939, Amaza designed Azurest South, a tidy white International Style house on the edge of the Virginia State University Campus, where she and her life-long partner Edna Meade Colson lived. Both women maintained significant teaching positions at the University, living openly queer lives. In 1947 Amaza and her sister Maude began developing Azurest North, a 120 lot subdivision and vacation destination for middle class African Americans in Sag Harbor, New York, near the summer haunts of Melville, Steinbeck, Betty Friedan, Spaulding Gray. During the 1950s & 60s the community grew as a Black vacation spot attracting celebrities like Lena Horne and Harry Belafonte. Together, the homes and communities that Amaza Lee Meredith helped establish provided a sense of joy, pleasure, and a safe haven for members of the Black community, at a time when this wasn’t always possible. This episode explores the intersections of sexuality, modernity, art, architecture, and the faith community that nurtured this pair of lovers. Amaza and Edna found their home in each other and shared it openly with their church, their colleagues and their students. Special thanks to host Cynthia Kracauer, writers Jacqueline Taylor and Jessica Lynne, and to Brooke Williams who graciously provided Sag Harbor resident insights, as did advocates and preservationists Georgette Grier-Key, Michael Butler, and Renee Simons. And to Reverend Grady Powell and Reverend Dr. George WC Lyons from Gillfield Baptist Church in Petersburg, Virginia. Franklin Johnson-Norwood is the Director of Alumni Relations at Virginia State University, and our excellent tour guide for Azurest South, and to Christina Morris of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. This episode was produced by Brandi Howell for the podcast New Angle Voice, a presentation of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation. Editorial advising from Alexandra Lange and assistance from Virginia Eskridge. Funding provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Graham Foundation. Take a look at the illustrated Amaza Lee Meredith profile on the Pioneering Women of Architecture website. The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson) with Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton. Funding for these programs comes from The National Endowment for the Arts, the Kaleta Doolin Foundation, and contributors to the non profit Kitchen Sisters Productions. The Kitchen Sisters Present is part of the Radiotopia Network from PRX.

In 1983 Prince hired LA sound technician Susan Rogers, one of the few women in the industry, to move to Minneapolis and help upgrade his home recording studio as he began work on the album and the movie Purple Rain. Susan, a trained technician with no sound engineering experience became the engineer of Purple Rain, Parade, Sign o’ the Times, and all that Prince recorded for the next four years. For those four years, and almost every year after, Prince recorded at least a song a day and they worked together for 24 hours, 36 hours, 96 hours at a stretch, layering and perfecting his music and his hot funky sound. In celebration of Prince’s birthday The Kitchen Sisters reprise “Prince & The Technician.” An award winning professor of cognitive neuroscience and a legendary record producer, Susan Rogers has recently written a book, “This is What It Sounds Like," one of Behavioral Scientist’s Notable Books of 2022. It’s a journey into the science and soul of music that reveals the secrets of why your favorite songs move you. The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva) with Nathan Dalton and Brandi Howell. Part of Radiotopia from PRX, a curated network of independent producers — some of the best podcasts out there. Find out more at kitchensisters.org.

Chris was a man possessed. “El Fanatico,” Ry Cooder called him. A song catcher, dedicated to recording the traditional, regional, down home music of America, his adopted home after his family left Germany at the close of WWII. Mance Lipscomb, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Big Mama Thornton, Clifton Chenier, Rose Maddox, Flaco Jimenez… the list is long and mighty.Chris Strachwitz was a keeper. His vault is jam-packed with 78s, 33s, 45s, reel-to-reels, cassettes, videos, photographs — an archive of all manner of recordings. And an avalanche of lifetime achievement awards — from the Grammy’s, The Blues Hall of Fame, The National Endowment for the Arts – for some 60 years of recording and preserving the musical cultural heritage of this nation through his label, Arhoolie Records.In honor of Chris Strachwitz The Kitchen Sisters reprise The Passion of Chris Strachwitz, produced for The Goethe Institute’s Big Pond series. With interviews with Linda Ronstadt and Bonnie Raitt. Also featuring selected interviews done by Chris Strachwitz with Howlin’ Wolf and The Maddox Brothers and Rose.Produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson) with Nathan Dalton and Brandi Howell, mixed by Jim McKee.The Kitchen Sisters Present is part of the Radiotopia network from PRX.

Ada Louise Huxtable, who “invented” the profession of architecture critic, wrote countless articles for two great daily newspapers and had a gigantic influence on our understanding of the work of architects, real estate developers, city bureaucrats, and the city itself, over the course of six decades in print. Beginning in 1963, Huxtable was the first full-time architecture critic at an American newspaper. In 1970, she won the first Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. With her impeccable civic values, cultivated aesthetic sensibility and lacerating accuracy, Ada Louise Huxtable, praised and razed. Huxtable, who was born and lived her life in New York City, raised the public’s awareness of architecture and the urban environment. She wrote for the New York Times and later for the Wall Street Journal. She served as Curatorial Assistant for Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art. Produced by Brandi Howell for the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation’s podcast, New Angle Voice. The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson), with Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton. It is part of the Radiotopia Network from PRX.

Cab drivers, children’s jump rope rhymes, folk songs, dialects, controversial TV ads, interviews with blacklisted artists and writers during the McCarthy Era — Tony Schwartz was one of the great sound recordists and collectors of the 20th Century. In honor of Tony Schwartz’s Centennial, The Kitchen Sisters Present an audio portrait of a man who spent his life exploring and influencing the world through recorded sound. It was 1947 when Tony first stepped out of his apartment in midtown Manhattan with his microphone to capture the sound of his neighborhood. He was a pioneer recordist, experimenting with microphones and jury-rigging tape recorders to make them portable (some of these recordings were first published by Folkways Records). His work creating advertising and political TV and radio commercials is legendary. The Kitchen Sisters visited Tony in his midtown basement studio in 1999. He had just finished teaching a media class at Harvard by telephone — Tony was agoraphobic and hardly ever ventured beyond his postal zone. He was there in his studio surrounded by reel to reel tape recorders, mixing consoles, framed photographs and awards — and row upon row of audio tapes in carefully labeled boxes. Tony passed away in 2008. His collection now resides in the Library of congress — 90.5 linear feet, 230 boxes, 76,345 items — some 30,000 folk songs, poems, conversations, stories and dialects from his surrounding neighborhood and 46 countries around the world. Tony’s Centennial is being celebrated on April 27, 2023, at the Library of Congress, as part of the Radio Preservation Task Force Conference—A Century of Broadcasting: Preservation and Renewal. This story is part of the Lost & Found Sound series produced by The Kitchen Sisters, Jay Allison and NPR. Special thanks to The National Endowment for the Arts and The National Endowment for the Humanities.

For some eight years now thirty-four Black women have gathered monthly around a big dining room table in the orange house on Orange Street in Oakland, CA—meeting, cooking, dancing, strategizing—grappling with the issues of eviction, erasure, gentrification, inadequate health care, and the sex trafficking of Black women and girls that are overwhelming their community. Spearheaded by dancer/choreographer Amara Tabor-Smith and theater director Ellen Sebastian Chang, this House/Full of Black Women—artists, scholars, healers, nurses, midwives, an ice cream maker, a donut maker, an architect, a theater director, a choreographer, sex trafficking abolitionists and survivors—have come together to creatively address and bring their mission and visions to the streets. Over the years they have created performances, rituals, pop-up processions in the storefronts, galleries, warehouses, museums and streets of Oakland. This hour-long special features sound-rich “episodes” of performances and rituals, interviews with sex trafficking abolitionists, personal stories of growing up in the Bay Area, music, Black women dreaming, resisting, insisting. Produced by Ellen Sebastian Change, Sital Muktari and The Kitchen Sisters, narrated by Sital Muktari, mixed by Jim McKee, in collaboration with an evolving House/Full of Black Women collective, Nathan Dalton and Brandi Howell. Funding for this House/Full of Black Women Special comes from The Creative Work Fund, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Kaleta Doolin Foundation, The Texas Women’s Foundation, Susan Sillins, listener contributions to The Kitchen Sisters Productions, and PRX. Original funding for House/Full of BlackWomen was provided by Creative Capital, Creative Work Fund, The Kenneth Rainin Foundation, MAP Fund, and the Hewlett 50. House/Full of Black Women is part of The Keepers series produced by The Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, in collaboration with Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton and mixed by Jim McKee. Archival sounds, recordings and compositions by Alexa Burrell. Visuals created by photographer Robbie Sweeney and designer Kevin Clarke. Ricardo Iamuuri Robinson created some of the soundscape. For names of all the many House/Full members who have had a hand in this project visit deepwatersdance.com.

Many know Ray Eames as the small, dirndled woman behind her more famous husband, Charles Eames. But Ray was the industrial designer bending plywood in the spare bedroom, a talented artist who saw the world full of color, the visionary who treated folk art, cigarette wrappers, flowers, and toys as equally valuable and inspiring. Ray brought the sparkle and inspiration to the legendary Eames Office. The Kitchen Sisters Present Ray Eames from the New Angle Voice a podcast of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, produced by Brandi Howell. Editorial advising from Alexandra Lange. Thanks also to Virginia Eskridge, and Amy Auscherman, Director of Archives and Brand Heritage for MillerKnoll. The archival audio heard in this episode comes from the MillerKnoll archives and the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. Intro music composed by Emma Jackson. Special thanks to Pat Kirkham, Lucia Dewey Atwood, Llisa Demetrios, Jeannine Oppewall, Donald Albrecht, Meg McAleer and Tracey Barton at the Library of Congress, and Alexandra Lange. Funding for this podcast comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Graham Foundation, and MillerKnoll. Funding for The Kitchen Sisters comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Susan Sillins Foundation, and contributors to The Kitchen Sisters non profit productions.

In 1935, W. E. B. Du Bois, scholar, public intellectual, and social and political activist, published his magnum opus: Black Reconstruction in America. In it, he tackled the subject of the American Civil War and, especially, the decade or so that followed, a period known as Reconstruction. During Reconstruction it seemed, for a time, that the South and the United States as a whole, might be remade as a radically more equitable society. What was achieved during Reconstruction and why these efforts ultimately failed, is what concerns Du Bois in Black Reconstruction. He was also concerned with challenging and correcting the racist histories of Reconstruction that were prevalent in both popular and academic circles in his day. Black Reconstruction is a widely respected and celebrated book today, but many of its early readers were dismissive, perhaps none more than the academic historians who Du Bois was justifiably calling out. The American Historical Review, for its part, ignored the book entirely. No review. Well, until now. Almost a century later, the AHR just published a review of Black Reconstruction in the December 2022 issue, penned by Yale historian Elizabeth Hinton. Professor Elizabeth Hinton serves as our guide exploring W.E.B. Du Bois’ Black Reconstruction. We also hear from Eric Foner, Chad Williams, Sue Mobley, and Kendra Field. Produced by History in Focus, a podcast from The American Historical Review, hosted and produced by Daniel Story, Digital Scholarship Librarian at UC Santa Cruz. Voices in this Episode Elizabeth Hinton (Associate Professor of History and African American Studies at Yale University, with a secondary appointment as Professor of Law at Yale Law School) Eric Foner (DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University) Chad Williams (Samuel J. and Augusta Spector Professor of History and African and African American Studies at Brandeis University) Sue Mobley (New Orleans based organizer/activist/urbanist; Director of Research at Monument Lab) Kendra Field (Associate Professor of History and Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at Tufts University; Project Historian for The Du Bois Freedom Center) Daniel Story (Host and Producer, Digital Scholarship Librarian at UC Santa Cruz)

In the early 1980s, Black students and the African American community at American University had been demonstrating for more access and inclusion in the university’s community services. One of the demands was for four hours of time every Saturday on Radio station WAMU, the campus station. This demand was met and suddenly Black students and the community were pouring into the station on Saturdays to make radio, to learn the craft, to be heard. Judi Moore Smith heard the call and soon was producing 10 minutes every week during that four-hour Saturday slot. Someone heard one of Judi’s pieces and urged her to apply for funding. She was already going to Union Temple Baptist Church in Anacostia near Washington DC, mesmerized by the preaching of Rev. Willie Wilson. She began to cross the country interviewing preachers and ministers, capturing their speaking styles, their preaching styles, listening, watching, realizing these were not only religious men delivering weekly sermons—these were performing artists. Judi lit the path with this piece and the creation of a deep archive of Black history and creative expression. It is one of the projects that has inspired us over the years—the spirit, the stylizing, the swagger, the soul, the poetry—and the music. Judi asked one of the preachers, Reverend Robert Pruitt, to do the narration for the piece and gathered a kind of congregation in the studio with him to enact call and response. Davia reached out to Judi this year to see if she had a copy of the piece. It was created in the days way before the internet and the archiving of everything. Luckily we found a cassette of it at the Pacifica Archives. Special Thanks to Judi Moore Latta for all her pioneering radio documentary work especially about Black culture, history and expression and her decades of teaching and working with hundreds of young people across the years. And thanks to Pacifica Archive. The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, with Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton. The Kitchen Sisters receive support from the National Endowment for the Arts, and from generous contributors to The Kitchen Sisters nonprofit Productions. We’re part of PRX’s Radiotopia – a network of independently created and owned podcasts – some of the best stories out there.

Criticisms of fast food often focus on the industrialized system that produces the burgers, buns and fries, or the food’s negative health impacts. Some criticisms have noted the deep ties between McDonald’s and the Black community, blaming communities of color for bad choices, sometimes blaming the fast food industry for being predatory with its advertising or store locations. But the relationship between fast food and Black America is way more complicated. Jerusha Klemperer, host of the podcast “What You’re Eating” talks with Dr. Marcia Chatelain about her Pulitzer Prize winning book, “Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America,” and the history of that complicated relationship. This story was produced for “What You’re Eating” by Nathan Dalton and FoodPrint.org. We thank them for sharing it with The Kitchen Sisters Present. The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters with Nathan Dalton and Brandi Howell. We are part of Radiotopia from PRX, a curated network of independent producers who own their own work. Support for The Kitchen Sisters comes from The National Endowment for the Arts and supporters of The Kitchen Sisters Productions non profit.

In 2015 we presented this story about Curtis Carroll, the Stock Market Wizard of San Quentin. Everyone in San Quentin called him Wall Street. He was teaching his fellow prisoners about stocks and had become an informal financial adviser to fellow inmates and correctional officers. After serving 27 years of a 54 years to life sentence in prison, Curtis Carroll, has been released on parole. We hear his story and talk to him about what’s next. When Wall Street was put in prison almost three decades ago he couldn’t read or write. One day he stumbled on the financial section of the newspaper thinking it was the sports section, which his cellmate used to read to him. An inmate asked him if he played the stocks. “I had never heard the word before,” Wall Street said. “He explained to me how it works and said, ‘This is where white people keep their money.’ When he said that I said, ‘Whoa, I think I stumbled across something here.’ ” Wall Street taught himself how to read and write beginning with candy wrappers and clothing logos. He pored over financial news: the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Forbes. On the inside, Wall Street didn’t have access to a computer or the Internet, so he called his family members to check the closing prices for the day and told them what to buy. He says business is like a soap opera — he’s always trying to anticipate what will happen next. “I like to know what the CEO’s doing. I like to know who’s in trouble.” “I’m in prison, but I’m on just the same playing field as Warren Buffett,” Carroll says. “I can pick the exact same companies. I can’t buy as many shares, but technically we’re just the same.” You can find out more about Wall Street, his life and Financial Empowerment, Emotional Literacy Project at ProjectFeel.org. He’s also on Instagram (@CurtisWallstreetCarroll) and Youtube (@WallStreetCarroll). The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson) with Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton. Wall Street’s original story was mixed by Jim McKee at Earwax Studios. We are part of PRX’s Radiotopia Network. This episode was produced in collaboration with Nancy Mullane and Life of the Law. Many thanks! Special thanks to Curtis Carroll, San Quentin Financial Literacy Program, Anna Deavere Smith, Arnold Perkins, Troy Williams, Lt. Sam Robinson, Tom DeMartini, Zach Williams, Clarence Long, James Fox and the Prison Yoga Project, Tracy Wahl, Jacob Conrad, Nigel Poor, TED, Pop-Up Magazine, and NPR. The Kitchen Sisters are supported by NEA and contributions to the non-profit Kitchen Sisters Productions.

Since the devastating 2019 fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, the ringing of the cathedral’s bells has ceased. Sound artist, Bill Fontana, known for his sound sculptures of Golden Gate Bridge, temple bells in Kyoto, and trees in Sequoia National Forest, creates a new work giving voice to the silenced bells of Notre Dame. To create his new work, Silent Echoes, Fontana attached seismic accelerometers—sensors designed to detect vibrations—to each of its ten bells of Notre Dame. As the bells reverberate in response to the ambient sounds of Paris—rain, the calls of birds, the noise of the street—the live feed is transmitted to a series of speakers at the Centre Pompidou creating a haunting, immersive sound sculpture. Silent Echoes debuted at the Centre Pompidou in June, where, on the fifth floor terrace of the museum, visitors stood awash in the acoustics of the bells, with the towers of Notre Dame in view just across the Seine. Alisa Carroll of the podcast Alcôve interviewed Bill Fontana in San Francisco and Davia Nelson spoke with him in Paris before the opening of the exhibition. This story was produced by Jim McKee. Sound design and mixing by Jim McKee. Special thanks to Alisa Carroll and Jim McKee for sharing this piece with The Kitchen Sisters Present. The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson) with Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton. For more info and stories visit kitchensisters.org The Kitchen Sisters Present is part of Radiotopia from PRX - a curated network of independent, creator owned podcasts.

Over 7000 hours of interviews, oral histories, songs, field recordings, along with photographs, notebooks, journals, and research material created by The Kitchen Sisters has recently been acquired by The Library of Congress where it will be preserved and made accessible to researchers, students, other producers and the general public into the future. Alexis Madrigal of KQED’s Forum talks with Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva about the collection and their 40 year history of producing audio stories together. Stories featured and discussed include The Packhorse Librarians of Eastern Kentucky; The Birth of Rice A Roni; The Mohawk Iron Workers at the Twin Towers; and The Homobile—a Story of Transportation, Civil Rights and Glitter. The Kitchen Sisters have been working together since 1979 creating audio stories for NPR, public broadcast and their Kitchen Sisters’ Present podcast. They are the producers, with Jay Allison, of the Peabody Award winning series Lost & Found Sound and The Sonic Memorial Project, the DuPont Columbia Award winning series Hidden Kitchens, the NPR series Hidden World of Girls, and The Keepers, Stories of Activist Archivists, Rogue Librarians, Historians, Curators, Collectors — keepers of the culture and the free flow of information. The Kitchen Sisters Productions is supported by National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, California Humanities, Creative Work Fund, Robert Sillins Family Foundation, TRA Fund, Kaleta A. Doolin Foundation, Franklin Legacy Foundation, Susie Tompkins Buell Fund, and Listener Contributions to The Kitchen Sisters Productions. The Kitchen Sisters Present is part of PRX’s Radiotopia podcast network.

Edmond Richardson is an audio producer for Uncuffed, a KALW podcast produced by people in prison. Recently, Edmond and his love, Avelina, got married inside San Quentin and Uncuffed produced this story. The Kitchen Sisters are great admirers of KALW’s Uncuffed podcast and are proud to share this story. KALW, San Francisco, has led rehabilitative classes in audio production inside San Quentin State Prison since 2012, and Solano Prison since 2018. Their mission is to provide media training to people in the carceral system. Radio producers from KALW visit the prisons to teach classes in audio production, and to help edit the stories. Audio engineers at KALW do some final polishing before it goes out to the world. Special thanks to the Uncuffed crew at San Quentin Prison: Tommy Shakur Ross, Edmond Richardson, Thanh Tran, and me, Greg Eskridge. Thanks to the team at KALW Public Radio: Ninna Gaensler-Debs, Angela Johnston, Sonia Paul, James Rowlands, Andrew Stelzer, Ben Trefny, Eli Wirtschafter, and sound designer, Eric Maserati "E" Abercrombie. Theme music by David Jassy, the Swedish phenom. And thanks to the staff at San Quentin Prison who make this possible: Mr. Skylar Brown, Ms. Madeline Tenney, and Lieutenant Sam Robinson, who approved this episode. We fact checked everything to the best of our ability. And a special thanks to Avelina and Carla for being a part of this episode. And Edmond and Avelina, Uncuffed wishes you all the happiness in your marriage. Thanks for listening. Uncuffed gets support from the California Arts Council and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva) with Nathan Dalton and Brandi Howell. We are part of the Radiotopia podcast network from PRX. Special thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts and contributors to the non profit Kitchen Sisters Productions.

Each fall, the Ojibwe tribes of northern Minnesota harvest wild rice by hand. It’s a long process that begins with families in canoes venturing into the tall grasses, where rice is poled and gently brushed with knockers into the bed of the canoe. We journey to White Earth Reservation, out onto Big Rice Lake in a canoe, to see how one tribe is supporting itself and changing the diet of its people through community kitchen projects. And we talk with the founder of White Earth Land Recovery Project, Ojibwe leader, Winona LaDuke, about the land, her fight to save wild rice, GMOs, her family, philosophy, and her candidacy for vice president of the United States on the Green Party ticket with Ralph Nader. LaDuke is an Ojibwe leader, writer, food activist, rural development economist, environmentalist, Harvard graduate —and a force to be reckoned with. She’s the executive director of Honor the Earth, and most recently she was a leader at Standing Rock fighting the Dakota Access pipeline. When we visited Winona on the White Earth Reservation in 2004 for our Hidden Kitchens story Harvest on Big Rice Lake she spoke to us about her family, her life and work—and about how her Ojibwe father met her bohemian/artist/Jewish mother in New York City, how her dad went on to Hollywood to star in the Westerns and how he later became the New Age spiritual leader called Sun Bear. Born in Los Angeles and raised in Oregon, Winona moved to White Earth, her father’s reservation, after she graduated from Harvard in 1982. When she first arrived, she worked as the principal of the Reservation’s high school and became active in local issues. Seven years later, she started the non profit White Earth Land Recovery Project, dedicated to restoring the local economy and food systems and preserving wild rice. Today Winona LaDuke operates a 40-acre industrial hemp farm on the White Earth Indian Reservation with the idea of creating textiles for the people and the planet — of working towards a non petroleum based future. And she’s started 8th Fire Solar, operated by Anishinaabe, manufacturing solar thermal panels. “According to Anishinaabe prophecies, we are in the time of the Seventh Fire. At this time, it is said we have a choice between a path that is well-worn and scorched, and a path that is green and unworn. If we move toward the green path, the Eighth Fire will be lit and people will come together to make a better future.”

We trace the history of country music in Kenya, dating back to the 1920s and 30s when local populations first heard Jimmie Rodgers on early country western 78 records, to the current day, where the clubs of Nairobi are filled with rising stars bringing their own unique sounds to country music. Hear their takes on the hits of Don Williams, Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton and more. And an interview and performance from Kenyan country singer Steve Rogers, radio and TV presenters Catherine Ndonye and David Kimitho, music historian Elijah Wald, and Olvido Records founder Gordon Ashworth. The music and stories of other artists in this episode include: John Nzenze. Reuben Kigame, Don Williams, Sir Elvis, Sammy Ngaku-Rosana, Herbert Misango, Frances Rugwiti, Carlos Kiba, Ythera Cowgirl, Steve Rogers, HM Karuiki, Joseph Kamaru. Produced by Brandi Howell for Afropop Worldwide The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson) with Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton. Support comes from the National Endowment for the Arts and contributors to the non-profit Kitchen Sisters Productions. The Kitchen Sisters Present is part of the Radiotopia Network from PRX.

As elections loom, we need to get involved, step up to the civic plate, take part in discourse. And that’s what Manny Yekutiel has been driven to do since 2018. He’s created a community-focused meeting place in San Francisco — a gathering space for people to watch presidential debates, meet people working on the front lines of social change, and discuss issues with policy makers in person. From community forums debating the new trash can designs in San Francisco, to town hall meetings with political candidates for the Senate and the Presidency, Manny’s is place to commune, listen, and be heard. They’ve got a restaurant — Farming Hope, a non-profit that hires formerly homeless and formerly incarcerated individuals and trains them in the food skills needed to work in the restaurant industry. They’ve got a bookstore specializing in local history and politics — with no pressure to buy books. During the pandemic when every restaurant in town was building parklets on the street, Manny’s built a long string of outdoor booths, where instead of serving food, they ran a highly organized ‘Get Out the Vote’ campaign with citizens flocking to their parklet to text and phone bank for the 2020 Election. As church basements and social clubs fade as places where young people feel comfortable gathering, Manny has created a place — not home, not work — but a ‘third place’ where people can come together to meet and engage with civic leaders, elected officials, artists, and activists. Thanks to Precious Green and to the staff of Farming Hope. Thanks also to Valerie Velardi who led us to Manny’s, and to Manny Yekutiel for the time and the vision. The Kitchen Sisters Present is part of the Radiotopia from PRX, a network of hand crafted, independent, vibrant podcasts that widen your world.

The legendary Linda Ronstadt has a new book out. Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands — a historical, musical, edible memoir that spans the story of five generations of Linda’s Mexican American German family, from the Sonoran desert in Mexico to the Ronstadt family hardware store in Tucson to the road that led Linda to LA and musical stardom. Intimate and epic, "this is little Linda, Mexican Linda, cowgirl Linda, desert Linda."The book, written in collaboration with New York Times writer Lawrence Downes, is a road trip through the Sonoran Borderlands, from Tucson to Banámichi, Mexico — the path Linda’s immigrant grandfather took at a time when the border was not a place of peril but of possibility. We went to see Linda at home to ask her about the journey.This story was produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva) and Evan Jacoby in collaboration with Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton. Mixed by Jim McKee Thanks to Lawrence Downes, John Boylan, Bill Steen, Janet Stark and The PRX Podcast Garage. And to the team at Heyday Books: Steve Wasserman, Kalie Caetano & Megan Beatie and to Putamayo Music who just released Feels Like Home: Songs From The Sonoran Borderlands, Linda Ronstadt’s Musical Odyssey. Special thanks to Linda Ronstadt for opening her home and her vault to this story.

The story of The Real Ambassadors, a jazz musical created by Dave Brubeck and Iola Brubeck for Louis Armstrong in the 1950/60s—a poignant tale of cultural exchange, anti-racism, jazz history, and it’s a love story—between life-long husband and wife partners, Iola and Dave Brubeck and their vision for a better world. The original show, featured Louis Armstrong, Carmen McCrae, Dave Brubeck and Lambert Hendricks and Bavan, and was performed live only once, at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1962. This year’s Monterey Jazz Festival, September 23-25, 2022, is the 60th Anniversary of the performance. The musical is based on the Jazz Ambassadors Program established by President Eisenhower and the US State Department during the Cold War as an effort to win hearts and minds around the world. Jazz musicians were sent out to represent the freedom and creativity of America through their art form. The irony is that Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and most of the other Jazz Ambassadors were Black—they were treated like royalty around the world, but could not stay in hotels or play in integrated bands in their own country. The Brubeck’s musical was a chance for Louis Armstrong to speak out about his deep feelings about racism and segregation in this country — feelings he rarely expressed publicly. The story features original music, rare archival recorded letters back and forth between the Brubecks and Louis Armstrong about the project, rehearsal recordings and interviews with Dave and Iola Brubeck. Other voices include: the Brubeck’s sons, Chris and Dan Brubeck; Keith Hatschek, author of newly released book, "The Real Ambassadors;” Ricky Riccardi, Director of Research Collections for the Louis Armstrong House Museum; and singer/actress Yolande Bavan, the last surviving performer involved in the project. Thanks to: Keith Hatschek, Chris, Brubeck, Dan Brubeck, Ricky Riccardi, Yolande Bavan, Lisa Cohen, and Wynton Marsalis. Special thanks to: The Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation and the Louis Armstrong House Museum; Michael Bellacosa and the Brubeck Collection, Wilton Library, Wilton, Connecticut; The Complete Louis Armstrong Columbia & RCA Victor Studio Sessions 1946-66 Mosaic Records 270; The Milken Family Foundation Archive Oral History Project; and The Library of Congress. The Real Ambassadors was produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson) and Brandi Howell in collaboration with Jackson Spenner. Mixed by Jim McKee.

In the early morning hours of August 16, 2020, 12,000 lightning strikes exploded across northern California, igniting more than 585 wildfires. In the Santa Cruz Mountains scattered blazes grew into one massive burning organism — The CZU August Lightning Complex Fire — eating all in its path, scorching some 86,000 acres, destroying over 900 homes and Big Basin, California’s first state park. We hear from young men and women from the Amah Mutsun Tribal band who have been working to clear and steward the land; archaeologists and historians from the historic Big Basin redwood State Park; and from residents of the Santa Cruz mountains who shared their experiences and stories for the historical record. This story grew out of a collaboration with the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History. People who lost their homes in the blaze were invited to bring in artifacts sifted from the ashes to be photographed by award winning photographer Shmuel Thaler and to be interviewed by The Kitchen Sisters about the fire, their homes, the environment, their lives. For more stories, photos and a video about the fires and this project visit kitchensisters.org. Special thanks to: Valentin Lopez, Chairman of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band; Mark Hylkema, Cultural Resources Program Manager, Tribal Liaison, Archeologist, CA State Parks Santa Cruz District; Martin Rizzo Martinez, Historian, CA State Parks Santa Cruz District; Jennifer Daly, Museum Collections Manager, CA State Parks, Santa Cruz District; Dana Frank, Professor of History, UCSC; Members of The Amah Mutsun Land Trust and Stewardship Program; and all of the many who shared their stories for the historical record. With support from The California Humanities and The National Endowment for the Arts. Produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson) and mixed by Jim McKee in collaboration with Grace Rubin, Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton. In collaboration with photographer Shmuel Thaler and The Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History,

In August, 2021, a group of young Afghan women journalists, musicians and activists fled their country in fear for their lives when the Taliban took over their nation. These women are navigating life today in the US. Many of these women were well known in their country as TV personalities, women wearing western clothing, their hair uncovered, who interviewed women and men on the popular morning news shows. “My background in the TV was one of biggest reasons for them to kill me,” says Taban Ibraz. “To do anything they want to do with me like they did with a lot of women in Afghanistan. They were targeting us.” Maryam Yousifi, journalist and clothing designer remembers, “I saw that my mother's crying. And she's saying that we have to hide you somewhere. We can’t keep you here because people knows our address. She gave me a hijab and she said, please wear this. She never told me that never, ever. She never told me that what should I wear.” The women were assisted by the nonprofit, Restore Her Voice, set up to help Afghan women, who had been in media or the arts, get out of Afghanistan and to help support them once they arrived in the United States. Special thanks to Taban Ibraz, Anaitza Walizada, Maryam Yousifi, Helal Massomi, Elham Karimi, Marika Partridge, Lori Davis, Ed James and Ajmal Subat. Thanks also to The Daily Antidote Podcast. Special thanks to writer and photographer Valerie Plesch for her article and photographs in the DCist that inspired this story. Thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts, The Kaleta Doolin Foundation, The Texas Women's Foundation and listener contributions to The Kitchen Sisters Productions for the funding that makes these stories possible. The Kitchen Sisters Present... is part of Radiotopia, an independent, story driven, carefully crafted podcast network from PRX.

A blind oud player from humble beginnings, Sheikh Imam’s destiny changed drastically when he met a dissident poet called Ahmed Fouad Negm in 1960s Cairo, and they formed a duo. Together, they would go on start a new era in Egyptian popular music. Their songs would shake regimes, travel the world on cassette tapes, and transcend their own time to become part of the soundtrack to Egypt’s revolution decades later. And they managed all of this while dealing with constant harassment by the state - including long periods in prison. The story features two historians, one of Sheikh Imam’s collaborators, and a university lecturer who’s parents used to host Sheikh Imam’s concerts in their living room. The songs in this episode were composed and performed by Sheikh Imam and written by Ahmed Fouad Negm and Zein Alabidin Fouad. Lyric translations by Ahmed Hassan and Elliott Colla. This episode was produced by Kerning Cultures Podcast—Nadeen Shaker, Heba El-Sherif, and Alex Atack, and edited by Dana Ballout. Fact checking was by Deena Sabry and sound design, music, and mixing by Monzer El Hachem. Voice over by Eihab Seoudi, and translation help from Maha El Kady. Cover art by Ahmad Salhab. Many thanks to Kerning Cultures / Stories from the Middle East, North Africa, and the spaces in between.

Originally a Filipino restaurant and music club, The Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco’s North Beach transformed into a mecca for Bay Area punk and New Wave bands in the 1970s and 80s. The Avengers, the Nuns, The Dead Kennedys, Pearl Harbor and the Explosions, The Tubes, and so many others performed regularly at the club on Broadway. As the original Mabuhay Gardens, which featured Filipino celebrities and musical acts, fell on hard times, promoter Dirk Dirksen convinced club owner Ness Aquino to let him book bands on Monday and Tuesday nights. Soon the nights expanded and the club was packing in a growing young punk rock audience. Dirkson, the “Pope of Punk“ was the abrasive MC, whose insults baited the audience to heighten the energy of the club. He lured in big names like Nico, The Dead Boys, Patti Smith, the Runaways and connected the Mabuhay Gardens with the English punk scene helping to spread punk rock globally. “To play, you need a place – be it where you live, the street, a venue. For unrestricted play, you need an unrestricted playground. Dirk Dirksen envisioned The Fab Mab just as such a playground. Without him and The Mab, there might not have been the great punk scene in the late 1970s in San Francisco. The San Francisco punk scene was fun. I miss it. But as Iggy Pop said, ‘Let’s Sing.'” — Mindy Bagdon Special thanks to Denise Demise Dunne, Liz Keim, Penelope Houston, Ron Greco, John Seabury, V Vale, Janet Clyde, and Kathy Peck. The archival interview with Dirk Dirksen is from Vale's RE/Search Conversations 13. We would like to dedicate this story to Mindy Bagdon (1934-2022), who brought warmth and kindness to every community he touched throughout his many years in San Francisco. Produced by Brandi Howell with production support from Mary Franklin Harvin.

The story of a group of young Afghan women journalists, musicians and activists, how they fled their country in fear for their lives when the Taliban took over their nation, and how they are navigating life today in the US. Many of these women were well known in their country as TV personalities, women wearing western clothing, their hair uncovered, who interviewed women and men on the popular morning news shows. “My background in the TV was one of biggest reason for them to kill me,” says Taban Ibraz. “To do anything they want to do with me like they did with a lot of women in Afghanistan. They were targeting us.” Maryam Yousifi, journalist and clothing designer remembers, “I saw that my mother's crying. And she's saying that we have to hide you somewhere. We can’t keep you here because people knows our address. She gave me a hijab and she said, please wear this. She never told me that never, ever. She never told me that what should I wear.” The women were assisted by the nonprofit, Restore Her Voice, set up to help Afghan women, who had been in media or the arts, get out of Afghanistan and to help support them once they arrived in the United States. Special thanks to Taban Ibraz, Anaitza Walizada, Maryam Yousifi, Helal Massomi, Elham Karimi, Marika Patridge, Lori Davis, Ed James and Ajmal Subat. Thanks also to The Daily Antidote Podcast and to writer/photographer Valerie Plesch for inspiring this story and sharing her photographs with The Kitchen Sisterhood. Special thanks to writer and photographer Valerie Plesch for her article in the DCist that inspired this story. To see photographs and more about this story, plus an interview with Tanya Henderson, Founder and President of Mina’s List, a non-profit advancing women’s political leadership and global peace, are on our website, kitchensisters.org Thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts, The Kaleta Doolin Foundation, The Texas Women's Foundation and listener contributions to The Kitchen Sisters Productions for the funding that makes these stories possible. The Kitchen Sisters Present... is part of Radiotopia, an independent, story driven, carefully crafted podcast network from PRX.

Long before there was Coachella, Outside Lands Festival, and the popular music gatherings of today, the Monterey Pop Festival was the first of its kind. Taking place in the fairgrounds of Monterey in the summer of 1967, the three-day festival brought to the stage the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and The Who. Their performances are now viewed as legendary markers in the history of rock and roll, but at the time, Jimi and Janis were newcomers to the rock scene. These debut appearances introduced them to the rest of the world and helped revolutionize the entire landscape of rock and roll music to come. In this episode, Darice Murray-McKay, Jonathan King, and Rosalie Howarth recount their experiences as young teenagers attending the legendary music festival. Additional commentary is provided by famed music critic Joel Selvin. Produced by Kitchen Sisters’ producer, Brandi Howell. Check out her podcast, The Echo Chamber, about music and its impact on culture.

The Egg Wars—a hidden Gold Rush kitchen—when food was scarce and men died for eggs.We travel out to the forbidding Farallon Islands, 27 miles outside San Francisco’s Golden Gate, home to the largest seabird colony in the United States. Over 250,000 birds on 14 acres.But it wasn’t always so. One hundred seventy years ago it was the site of the “Egg Wars.” During the 1850s, egg hunters gathered over 3 million eggs, violently competing with each other, and nearly stripping the island bare.In 1969 the Point Reyes Bird observatory began working to protect the Farallones. The islands had been through a lot. The devastating fur trade of the 1800s. The Egg Wars. During WWII the Islands were used as a secret navy installation with over 70 people living on the island. From 1946-1970 nearly 50,000 drums of radioactive waste were dumped in the Farallon waters. Fisherman often shot high powered rifles at sea lions and helicopters were causing whales and other animals to panic.Today the Farallones are off limits to all but researchers, some who live out on the desolate island for months in the old lighthouse there. Surrounded by thousands of birds, they wear hard hats to keep the gulls from dive bombing their heads.The Islands are a sanctuary—The Farallon National Wildlife Refuge, managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The Kitchen Sisters were given permission to travel out to the islands on one of the supply runs that goes out to the islands 2 times a month.The Farrallon National Wildlife Refuge is managed by US Fish and Wildlife ServiceOur story features: Gary Kamiya, journalist and author; Mary Jane Schram, Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary; Peter Pyle, Farallon Biologist; Ava Crosante, Illustrator; Peter White, Author of Farallon Islands—Sentinels of the Golden Gate; Skipper Roger Cunningham; Pete Warzybok, Scientist Farallon Islands; Russ Bradly, Farallon Program Leader for Point Blue Conservation Science.Special thanks to: Melissa Pitkin, Point Blue Conservation; Doug Cordell and the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge Complex; Edward Jenkins; Julia Gulka; Sean Gee; Keith Hansen, Eve Williams, Gerry McChesnwey; and the Farallon Marine Sanctuary.The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters, Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson, with Nathan Dalton and Brandi Howell. We are part of PRX’s Radiotopia Network.

As an architect, Florence Knoll was the force behind the seamless integration of furniture, space, textile, art, graphic design into a perfect brand concept: Total Design. She revolutionized office design and bringing modernist design to office interiors. She defined the modern corporate interiors of post-war America. Take a listen to this little known story of an amazing, little known architect and designer. Her influence transcends the specific disciplines, she was the force integrating them, and in her work at the Knoll Planning Unit, she promulgated the values that still motivate architects and designers today: solve the program with scale and detailing appropriate to the interior in support of how people behave in the active environment. This story was produced by New Angle: Voice of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation with host Cynthia Phifer Kracauer, AIA. Podcast production by Brandi Howell.

Late last year Hillary Rodham Clinton and best-selling Canadian mystery writer, Louise Penny, came out with a ripping geo-political thriller called State of Terror that quickly hit the New York Times Best Seller List. At about that same time, Secretary Clinton’s former close aide, Deputy Chief of Staff, and the vice chair of her 2016 presidential campaign, Huma Abedin, came out with her memoir, Both/And: A Life in Many Worlds, a story of her roots and the path that led her to work with the First Lady and the triumphs and controversies of her life. The two were crisscrossing the country separately on book tours at the same time. One night they both found themselves in San Francisco and were asked to be onstage together to talk about their new books. Davia Nelson was asked to be in conversation with them that evening and plugged in to the sound board. Here’s an edited version of the night with a few surprises added in. State of Terror comes out in paperback in June, and Huma’s book comes out in paperback in September. The wonderful actress Joan Allen reads the audio book version of Hillary and Louise Penny’s bestseller and Huma reads her own beautiful audiobook. The Kitchen Sisters Present is proud member of Radiotopia, a network of independent, story driven, truth seeking, heart cracking podcasts from PRX.

Helen Fong, one of the few women practicing architecture in the US in the 1950s, is best known for her “Googie” California coffee shop architectural style. Pann’s Coffee Shop, Denny's, Bob's Big Boy— those bold, iconic, futuristic restaurants of the 1950s and 60s— there are thousands of them, not just in Los Angeles, where they were born, but across the country. These family restaurants are core to how America defined itself after World War II. Cars, families, space flight, modernism....the new world order. Pioneering architect Helen Fong helped define that futuristic look. Helen Fong was born in Los Angeles’ Chinatown in 1927. One of five children she grew up working in the family’s laundry business. In 1949 she received a degree in city planning from UC Berkeley, moved back to Los Angeles and got her first job working as a secretary for architect Eugene Choy. Two years later, she began working for Armet and Davis, well known for its work in the “Googie” architectural style. Modern, wild, whimsical—some of Fong’s most famous projects include Pann’s Restaurant, Johnie’s Coffee Shop, and Holiday Bowl, created to catch the eye of America’s fast growing car culture of the 1950s and 60s. This story was produced by New Angle: Voice of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation with host Cynthia Phifer Kracauer, AIA. Podcast production by Brandi Howell.

Norma Sklarek (1926-2012) had many “firsts”. She was often credited at the start of her career as the first Black Women architect to be licensed in the United States. That distinction actually goes to Beverly Greene – Norma was the 3rd. But it didn’t matter. Young Black girls read her name in the likes of Ebony Magazine – a staple publication in Black households at the time – when she was included in their 1958 article on “Successful Young Architects.” As more and more discovered her career, she became their role model. Born in 1926, in Harlem, Sklarek was the only child of Walter Ernest Merrick, a doctor, and Amy Merrick, a seamstress, both of whom had immigrated from Trinidad. She grew up in Harlem and Brooklyn, and attended predominately white schools, including Hunter College High School, a selective public school for girls, where she excelled in math and science and showed talent in the fine arts. Her aptitude for math and art prompted her father to suggest architecture as a career. She attended Barnard College and the School of Architecture at Columbia University. Many of her classmates were veterans of World War II, some had bachelor’s or master’s degrees . “The competition was keen,” she said. “But I had a stick-to-it attitude and never gave up.” After graduating from Columbia, Sklarek faced discrimination in her search for work as an architect, applying to and being rejected by nineteen firms. In 1954 she took the architecture licensing examination, passed it on her first try and became the first licensed African American woman architect in the state of New York. In 1955, Sklarek was offered a position in the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. During this period, she was a single mother of two children. Her mother cared for her children while Sklarek worked. 1959, she became the first African American woman member of the American Institute of Architects. In 1960, after five years at SOM, she took a job at Gruen Associates in Los Angeles. She also served on the architecture faculty at University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Southern California. in 1985, she cofounded the woman-owned firm, Siegel Sklarek Diamond, with Margot Siegel and Katherine Diamond. At the time, it was the largest woman-owned architectural firm in the United States, and Sklarek was the first African American woman to co-own an architectural practice. This story was produced by New Angle: Voice, a production of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation with host Cynthia Phifer Kracauer, AIA. Podcast production by Brandi Howell.

Coal + Ice, a powerful global exhibition of photographs, videos, and immersive imagery that focuses on the climate crisis and provokes action is now on display in Washington DC through April 22, 2022. Coal + Ice began in Beijing in 2011 with the unprecedented showing of images of Chinese coal miners taken by Chinese photographers. It has now now expanded to the work of 50 photographers from around the world, capturing images of the climate catastrophe as it unfolds around the globe. Photographers and video artists include: Jimmy Chin, David Breashears, Song Chao, Camille Seaman, Gideon Mendel, Meredith Kohut, Jamey Stillings, Matt Black, Barbara Kopple, Dana Lixenberg and historical work from Robert Capa, Lewis Hine, Gordon Parks, Eugene Smith, Bruce Davidson and others. Coal + Ice also features installations, panels, music, conversations, cash awards to young artists weaving climate into their work and more. For over a decade the exhibit has traveled the world evolving and expanding as the climate crisis unfolds. First Beijing, then Delhi, then Paris, Shanghai, San Francisco and now in Washington DC at the Kennedy Center through April 22, 2022. Before the Pandemic, when Coal + Ice came to a massive exhibition hall on a pier in San Francisco, we traveled through the exhibit with our microphone. Special thanks to Susan Meiseles, Orville Schell, Geng Yunsheng, Michael Tilson Thomas, Joshua Robison, Gideon Mendel and Jeroen de Vries. Coal + Ice was produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva) and Evan Jacoby with help from Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton. Mixed by Jim McKee at Earwax Productions.