Hungry? This week, mouth-watering stories of food and the connections it provides. A feast of gravlax, fudge, bolognese, and more. This episode is hosted by Moth Senior Curatorial Producer, Suzanne Rust. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Storytellers: Arlene Stewart finds where she belongs as a chef. Di Zhao goes to war over quail eggs. Josephine Ferraro runs a con for spumoni. Michael Imber tries to become his grandmother’s “angel boy.” James Gallicio's nonna takes her bolognese sauce recipe to her grave. Podcast # 913 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the theme of this Moth Radio Hour episode?
This is the Moth Radio Hour, and I'm your host, Suzanne Rust. I live in a household with an Italian husband where, while we're eating breakfast, we're thinking about lunch. And at lunch, we're planning dinner. It's a family trait that we've passed down to our son and daughter. We definitely live to eat, because a good meal brings such joy. But beyond sustenance, food is a magical vessel.
It transports us back to our childhoods, back to memories of meals shared with friends and family, back to road trips and vacations. And through it, so many stories are born, nurtured, and remembered over the years. Sometimes food is what you do for a living. Our first story comes from Chef Arlene Stewart, who told it at a show in East Hampton, New York, where Guildhall was our venue and partner.
Here's Arlene, live at The Moth.
Chapter 2: How did Arlene Stewart find her place in the culinary world?
It's late spring, early summer, 1997, New York City, Hudson River. It's the reopening and rebranding of an acclaimed New York City chef's restaurant. We have to learn his style, his techniques. We have to take his ideas, his palette, and put it on a plate. But for some reason, when the chef met me, he decided to make me his personal punching bag. No matter what I did, I could not please him.
Day after day after day, he would relentlessly abuse me. He would say things like, would you eat that? Would that be something you'd serve your mother? There would be plates piled. You know when you throw a stone and it ripples on the water? He would throw the plate across the path and it would literally ripple across to me.
Day after day, we're getting ready for opening night at the restaurant and he is riding me and riding me. It's opening night. And the runners are running in and out of the kitchen. The wait staff, the kitchen staff is getting their stations ready. And my dish is the first dish on the station to go out. Now, the who's who of New York is coming to this event. So there is an added excitement in this.
Chapter 3: What challenges did Arlene Stewart face as a chef?
It's not friends and family night. It is the night. One of the things that's coming off my station is his tuna gravlax. Now, I know how to make gravlax because my previous restaurant was a Scandinavian restaurant. Now, gravlax is a beautiful fish, usually with salmon. And you take the perfect amount of salt and sugar. And it has to be balanced because if you put too much salt, it will take away
The fact which is so important to give it that smooth, silky, buttery, sexy taste in your mouth. You put a little bit of dill and it just opens up in your palate. But this chef wants to speed up the process. He's using tuna and vodka to make this gravlax. He's not happy with my gravlax. He's on me, on me. So it's about 5.30 in the evening, and guests are about to arrive.
And he is still riding me, riding me. And I decided, you know what? Fuck this. I'm out. And I walk off the line. Now, I'm walking down the West Side Highway on the river. And I am sobbing. I am crying. I have no rights to be walking off a job. You see, I've been couch surfing and my visa's about to run out, so I really need this job.
But I'm walking and I'm crying and I'm sobbing, as I said, and he is right behind me. And he is yelling and screaming at me, you don't have it. You don't have what it takes to make it in this business. You'll never make it in this business. And it's one of those beautiful moments
evenings in New York City when you know the sky gets that purple orange color and I'm just sobbing and in my vision to my right is the Statue of Liberty and to my left it's the Empire State Building and I am walking and crying and sobbing and I remember this is my love
You see, when I was eight years old, my grandmother's friend came back from missionary in Africa, and she asked me if I knew how to cook. And I'm like, I'm eight years old. And she says to me, she's going to set up the coal pot. We're cooking in the backyard. She's going to set up the coal pot, and then I need to go to the kitchen coop, get a chicken,
clean it, kill it, clean it, season it, and bring it back to her. Now I knew how to do that. In cleaning the chicken, it's a principle of you have to wash the chicken with lemon or vinegar. Otherwise, in a Caribbean house, they don't consider it clean. And I have to make this green seasoning. Now, green seasoning is in every Trinidad household.
It is a combination of shadow benny, thyme, onions, garlic, and you either blend it or you mortar it. So I do all those things, and I bring it back to her. She said, we're going to make stewed chicken, lentils, and rice. Another staple. Now, the beautiful thing, if you've ever been to the Caribbean and you get a stewed chicken, it's this beautiful caramel.
You put the oil in the pot and you add the sugar. Now, if you let the sugar go too far, it will burn and give you this bitter taste in your mouth. So we make the stewed chicken, the lentils, and the rice. I'm so excited. I go back to my home and I tell my grandmother. I'm like, you wouldn't believe what I did. And she sees my excitement and she decides that she's going to take me on in the kitchen.
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Chapter 4: How did Arlene Stewart overcome adversity in her career?
So I'm looking, and chefs are saying, we don't hire women. You don't have what it takes to work here, and on and on. So I'm on the M10 bus going up Central Park West, if any of you know New York, going up Central Park West. And I look, and I said to a friend, I said, you know what? If I tell God I want to work there, he'll let me work there. There was John George. just opened up.
This actually was something. So I called up and I asked if they were hiring and they said yes. Bring your resume and come. So I put my resume and I came. I am nervous. I remember standing there in the kitchen and my heart is beating and I just can't believe that I'm actually here. I'm looking around and I'm like, I didn't go to Culinary Institute of America. I didn't go to Johnson and Wales.
I don't really have what it takes to be here. But guess what? He looks at my resume, he thought it was great enough, and he hires me. I'm excited to be here. It is an amazing place to work. There is camaraderie. There is love. There is exchange of ideas. I'm learning so much.
I'm learning the importance of salt and pepper and just what acid does to a dish and how it brings depth of flavor and just what fat does to a dish. And it's just like a love fest. It just takes me back to my beginnings when I learned how to cook with my grandmother. And I can't believe this, that I am now here in this three-star Michelin restaurant working.
One day we're having an event, and I'm getting my station ready. One of the dishes I have to make on my station is the garlic soup and frog legs, if any of you have ever been to John George. That's one of our staples. And I'm making my dish, and I'm getting it ready, and I'm putting it up on the pass, and I look up. And who do I see? My old chef. And our eyes connect.
And you know, he turns to his sous chef when he's talking to his sous chef. And you know when someone's talking about you. So I can tell that he's talking about me. And I'm probably sure he's wondering, is that her? Is she here? And I remember just standing up and just looking at him like, yeah, I'm here.
I have since gone on to cook for presidents and kings, and I can stand and say, I do have what it takes.
That was Chef Arlene Stewart. Arlene is the founder and owner of Cocozine Wellness Retreats. and the personal chef to Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos. She has worked in the kitchens of notable chefs like Marcus Samuelson and the late Patrick Clark of Tavern on the Green. But the vibrant flavors that often inspire her come from her Trinidadian roots and her childhood memories.
Full disclosure, Arlene and I have been friends for over 20 years, and I have been lucky enough to have been fed by her many times. I knew that she had lots of stories in her, so I was thrilled when she finally agreed to share one at the Moth. Here's a little more from Arlene.
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Chapter 5: What role does 'sweet hands' play in cooking?
That thing in the hand that you can just, you know how much salt to put, you know how much of everything that would make it a perfect balance. It's a hard hand connection soul thing.
Beautiful. I want to know what keeps you in this business. I know it's been rough in so many ways being a woman, a woman of color, but you persevered. And I wonder what drives you? What's your driving force in staying?
I love it. You know, the truth is it's satisfying. It fills me. It fills all of me. You know what I mean? Like I feel like I get to use all of my senses. I get to use my brain besides, you know, because your mind and your eyes and your palate,
actually creates the dish before it goes on the plate or before you would start to cook it it's just your mind starts working hmm i wonder if i take this and that and that and that and how would that and it it starts there and then when you see the final product which is you know when you present it on the plate and you're like wow that actually tasted how it tasted in my mind's eye that's what keeps me is that i'm still learning and growing and it still brings me lots of joy and satisfaction
That was Chef Arlene Stewart. To see a photo of her lovely face, go to themoth.org. In a moment, hot pot techniques and crimes of passion when the Moth Radio Hour continues.
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
This is the Moth Radio Hour, and I'm your host, Suzanne Rust. Being the only child at a dinner table full of adults gives you a unique point of view. Dee Zhao shared this next story at a New York City slam where WNYC is a media partner of the Moth. Here's Dee. Thank you.
When I was six, my parents took me to a restaurant. Now, I had been to restaurants before, but this night was special for a few reasons. Firstly, I was going to be the only kid amongst a sea of adults. This meant that, obviously, they were recognizing me as a peer in all of my maturity.
And also, my mom wouldn't be gatekeeping my table manners because she would be too distracted talking with the grownups around her. Furthermore, this was a hot pot restaurant. Now, if you have never had hot pot, you need to know that it's basically a build-your-own-dinner adventure.
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Chapter 6: Why are quail eggs significant in Di Zhao's story?
There's just something that comes together with the yolk and the soup base when it hits your tongue, the creamy factor. Also, they're the size and shape of a large marble, so they're nearly impossible to pick up with chopsticks, especially in teeny six-year-old hands. So when the eggs come by in front of me, I do give it the good college try for a whole minute.
And I try to pick it up with both chopsticks. Doesn't work. So I decide to spear through one instead with a single stick. And that does work. And as I'm watching it fall into the pot, this primal joy takes over me. And I start stabbing holes into every single piece of potato in front of me. I get really methodical about this. None of the other adults have holes in their food.
This has become my brand, my legacy. This is the sign that I own these contents of the pot.
I dump all of my holy stuff in and as I'm waiting for it to cook, I envision in a few minutes my mom turning towards me in slow motion and seeing a bowl of steaming, whole-filled vegetables in front of me and her eyes welling up as she realizes that I'm now capable of serving myself food and I'm probably going to leave her soon.
And I like this fantasy so much that I play it a couple of times in my head until I snap back to reality and decide it is time for the harvest. So I take the communal ladle and I start rooting around in the pot and there's nothing. There's worse than nothing. There's just cabbage. There's no quail egg. There's no potato.
And I sink back down into my seat, and I realize with horror that I had violated the cardinal sin of hot pot. I had let the food melt before getting it out of the pot. And I'm staring into the bubbles from the pot, which seem to be made of shame. And... None of the other adults notice my sadness.
In fact, the man sitting across from me is laughing uproariously about something with the lady next to him. And he picks up his bowl and deftly lifts a quail egg up with his chopsticks. And right before it disappears into his mouth, I notice a small hole in the egg. Time slows down as he chews, he swallows, he picks up more potato slices out of his bowl. Potato slices also with holes in them.
I suddenly feel my smallness. I thought I was an adult. I thought I was sitting amongst my peers. But this man took my quail egg. He took my potato slices. He saw the holes and he ignored the holes. Wow. I am not an adult, I'm a child. And this cold, harsh desire for vengeance and this clear child logic overtakes me.
I am not going to let this grown man, this family friend, this university professor get away with this. If I don't eat, he doesn't eat. So I start watching very closely whenever he puts anything into the pot. And it turns out he really likes quail eggs and potato slices too. In goes some eggs. I wait for him to look away, and I ladle it out immediately. In go some veggies.
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Chapter 7: How did a restaurant experience teach Di Zhao about adulthood?
That was Dee Zhao. Dee spends her weekdays talking to companies about sustainability and her weekends being enthusiastic about food. After her daughter recovered successfully from recent surgery, Dee and her husband celebrated by ordering pizza, Indian takeout, and McDonald's, all in the same evening.
I asked Dee if her favorite hot pot ingredients had changed, but she let me know that she was still team quail eggs all the way. To see a photo of Dee and her fabulous hot pot spread, go to themoth.org. When I was a little girl growing up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, there was an Italian restaurant called Tony's Kitchen, where I used to go with my parents.
I loved their desserts, specifically these ice cream wonders that were exotic to me with fun names like Tortoni and Spumoni. All this to say, our next story, told by Josephine Ferraro, took me back to those happy days. She shared it at a slam in New York City. Here's Josephine.
So when I was seven years old, my best friend Rosalynn and I used to love to go to Ferrara's Bakery on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn. And we would wait all day and crave their spumoni. And if you've never had spumoni before, it's like Italian gelato, but mixed with different flavors, and it's scooped up and molded into these little white cups. And we just loved it. It was the best part of our day.
And every morning, my mother would give us money so we could get the spumoni. But one day, she forgot to give us the money. And... We were standing there in front of Ferrara's Bakery, and we were just staring into the window. We could see Frankie scooping up the Spumoni and putting it into little white cups.
And I knew that I could wait until my mother came to pick us up, and she would buy us the Spumoni. But I didn't want to wait. I wanted it now. So I said to Rosalind, I have an idea. I know how we can get money for the Spumoni.
And I said, we will just wait for people to pass by, and we'll tell them we're collecting for charity, and we'll buy our spumoni, and then what's ever left over, we'll put in the poor box at St. Lucy's Church. And she thought it was a great idea. So we got our spumoni, and it never tasted as good as it did that day. And when my mother came, I couldn't wait to tell her my great idea.
So I told her and she just said, oh no, you have to go to church on Saturday and confess what you did. And I just cried all the way home because I didn't know I had done anything wrong. And I was also annoyed with Rosalind because she wasn't Catholic. And so she didn't have to go to confession.
So for the next three days until Saturday, I prayed every night, dear God, please don't let it be Monsignor Genoa. Let it be any other priest that I confess to, and I will never do a bad thing again. So that Saturday, the reason why was because he gave out the worst penances. He was very strict, and all the kids dreaded going to confession with him. So that Saturday, I went to St.
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