This week's episode of The Sporkful podcast is up! Listen through the player or iTunes/Podcasts app. (And please subscribe!)
It's that time of year, when we take stock of the past year and contemplate the year ahead.
Here at The Sporkful, that means we're thinking about food -- what we loved this year and what we resolve to eat more of in the new year.
In this week's episode, Dan reports back to you on his 2018 food resolution to eat more cheese. And we'll hear from you about which foods you resolve to eat more of in the New Year -- from oysters to cheesecake -- and why.
It's also a time of year for traditions, and our year-end ritual here at The Sporkful is to pull out one of our personal favorite episodes from the past year to replay.
And this year, it's (drum roll please)...
Yewande Finds Her Super Power.
Yewande Komolafe (below) is a chef and recipe developer living in Brooklyn. She moved to the US from Nigeria when she was 16, to go to college.
She came on a student visa. But then, through no fault of her own, she lost her immigration status. In an instant, she became an illegal immigrant.
“It was an honest mistake," Yewande says, "but it was also a mistake that really severely affected my life.”
Yewande chose to stay here and work to become a chef -- undocumented.
But staying in the United States without a visa meant Yewande couldn’t go home. (If she left, she wouldn’t be able to get back in.)
Now Yewande hasn’t been back to Nigeria in 20 years. And in order to stay in the U.S., she’s had to keep part of who she is secret. Even cooking Nigerian food felt risky.
But when you have to hide part of who you are, how do you connect with the tastes of home? And what happens when it starts to feel like you’ve been gone so long, maybe it’s not home anymore?
This episode contains explicit language.
Interstitial music in this episode by Black Label Music:
- "Kenny" by Hayley Briasco
- "Legend" by Erick Anderson
- "Mouse Song Light" by Ken Brahmstedt
- "Pong" by Ken Brahmstedt
- "Rogue Apples" by Karla Dietmeyer
- "Rooftop" by Erick Anderson
- "Sunlight" by Hayley Briasco
- "Pumpernickel" by Karla Dietmeyer and Olivia Ann Diercks
- "Mother Trucker" by Steve Pierson
- "Steamroller" by Ken Brahmstedt
Photos: FlickrCC/Frédérique Voisin-Demery, FlickrCC/esimpraim, and courtesy of Yewande Komolafe
