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Aimee: Hello Sporkful eaters. My name is Aimee and I live in Austin, TX, U.S.A. My 2024 food resolution is to eat more holiday-specific foods during celebrations throughout the year. Vegetarian haggis on Robert Burns Day, king cake for Mardi Gras, Anzac biscuits in April, and of course, pie for Pi Day are a few of the foods I've added to my calendar. I love researching recipes, trying new ones, and sharing foods with friends and neighbors. I hope that by spreading out my food adventures throughout the year, I can connect more with my community and build a sense of celebration and gratitude lasting the entire year. Thank you so much for your podcast. I learn so much with every episode. Happy new year everybody!

Tressa: Hi, my name is Tressa, and I live in Winnipeg, Canada. In 2024, I resolve to eat more tahini. Tahini is phenomenally delicious, versatile, and convenient. There really is no excuse not to succeed at this. Most of my life, I did not know what tahini was or that it even existed. The first time I tried it, I was shocked to be transported back to childhood when my grandmothers would serve halva at Christmas and only at Christmas. Finding that same sesame flavour in tahini was a revelation. Obvious choices are to make sauces for falafel or salad dressings and it seems tahini brownie recipes are everywhere. I also want to try it on toast. I look forward to hearing what others vow to eat more of in 2024.

Becky: I’m Becky and I live in MA. And my new year’s resolution is that in the new year I resolve to eat more Rice Krispies treats. I recently made them for the first time in years and they were amazing. I've forgotten how much I loved them when I was a kid. I am very much not a kid anymore but you know what? Being a grown-up means that you can make your own Rice Krispies treats whenever you want and no one will yell at you for ruining your dinner. Thanks, and happy new year!

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Dan Pashman: This is The Sporkful, it’s not for foodies it’s for eaters, I’m Dan Pashman. Each week on our show we obsess about food to learn more about people. I hope that the holiday season has been treating you well as we arrive at the final Sporkful episode of the year. And let me first off, respond to some of those voice memos we just heard, because those are some really good ones. 

Dan Pashman: Amy in Austin, holiday specific foods throughout the year — great suggestion. For me, this brings to mind the Jewish holiday of Passover. It's customary to eat a hard boiled egg and you douse it with salt water. And that is a great way to season a hard boiled egg cause it makes it kind of like juicy, at the same time that you're making it salty in the same way that you would like put a bowl of mozzarella in salt water, so love that. 

Dan Pashman: Tressa in Winnipeg wants more tahini — absolutely. I love tahini. I also love it in desserts. I recommend Adeena Sussman's Tahini Magic Shell, which you can also get at Michael Solomon's restaurant, Laser Wolf. They put it on top of vanilla soft serve. There's one in Philly and one in Brooklyn. If you just Google Adeena Sussman Tahini Magic Shell, her Instagram post with the recipe will come up and you can make it at home wherever you are and it's phenomenal. 

Dan Pashman: And Rice Krispie treats? Yes, 100 percent. Although, like, don't even bother forming them into any kind of shape. Just eat it with a wooden spoon straight out of the pot when it's still warm. All right. Now, later in the show, I will grade myself on my own resolution from this past year and reveal my New Year's food resolution for 2024. We're also going to replay one of our favorite episodes. But before we get to that, let's hear a few more resolutions from listeners. 

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Lauren: Hello, my name is Lauren and I live in Oxford, England. After listening to the Fuchsia Dunlop episode, I resolve in 2024 to eat more interestingly textured foods.

Michael: Hey, Sporkful. This is Michael. I'm based in Beijing and my food New Year's resolution for 2024 is to eat more durian, but I'm going to take it to the next level. I'm going to eat more durian in public places. Durian is the best food in the world. I know it's polarizing. Some people can't stand the smell, but it's amazing. You have one bite, it tastes like raw garlic and strawberries, and then the next bite tastes like bananas and body odor, and it's amazing. It's so good. And I don't care if it offends people, I'm going to eat it more often in public places.

Lauren Passel: Hi, Dan. My name is Lauren Passell, and I haven't eaten meat or fish in 30 years. And this year, recently, I've been thinking a lot about oysters. And I have read that sometimes vegans eat oysters. I'm not a vegan, but that even vegans eat oysters because, they're not technically animals, they don't have a central nervous system. It's actually good for the environment to farm them because they filter water. So my resolution for food in 2024 is to try my very first oyster. 

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Dan Pashman: Thank you, Lauren, Michael, and Lauren for those resolutions. Now, one of our other traditions here on the air, an episode of The Sporkful, is that we replay one of the Sporkful team's favorite episodes from the past year. And we do have a couple of parameters that we use when choosing. First, it's not going to be an episode in the last couple of months. It's going to go a little farther back. And then we usually want to pick an episode that we really loved, but that maybe didn't get as big of a reaction from listeners, maybe flew under the radar, a hidden gem. And so using those criteria, we had a little discussion, Emma, Andres, Nora, and I, and we decided to replay our episode featuring my conversation with comedian Zarna Garg. Enjoy!

Dan Pashman: So your first comedy special just came out. Congratulations. 

Zarna Garg: Thank you.

Dan Pashman: I understand that in the lead up to the big taping, you were less concerned about your material and the performance. More concerned about what the people coming to the show would eat. 

Zarna Garg: Yes, that's right. I was very stressed out about it. I didn't know that the taping would be in a theater that would not allow food. 

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS] 

Zarna Garg: And like, I was like, all my Indians are going to come and be so pissed off in a horrible mood. So, but I was absolutely adamant. I told my producer, I said, "I don't know how you're going to do this, but if I'm standing on stage and literally looking at 500 people who haven't eaten, the mother in me is not going to relax. Like we need to fix this somehow."

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

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Dan Pashman: This week, I’m talking with stand up comedian Zarna Garg. She started gaining traction in the New York comedy scene just five years ago. Now she’s got her own special on Prime Video. 

Dan Pashman: Zarna’s path to comedy success has not been traditional. Before she was selling out shows across the country, she spent more than a decade as a stay-at-home mom. She’s mined that part of her life for a lot of her material …

[AUDIENCE APPLAUDS] 

CLIP (ZARNA GARG): Sixteen years of being home with the kids full time, I learned something. I’m not that into them. 

[AUDIENCE LAUGHING] 

CLIP (ZARNA GARG): So I found the only job that keeps me out of the house nights and weekends. I mean, kids aren’t even allowed in here!

[AUDIENCE LAUGHING] 

Dan Pashman: Family and food are recurring themes in Zarna’s comedy, but she has some mixed emotions about cooking. As a kid, she relished her mom’s home cooked meals but didn’t have much interest in being in the kitchen herself. As a teenager, she wasn’t always sure where her next meal would come from. And as a parent, she came to see cooking as a burden. We’ll get into all of that more later in the show.

Dan Pashman: But even if you haven’t seen Zarna’s stand up, there’s a good chance you’ve seen her videos on social media. They’re usually shot in her kitchen, often while she’s cooking, with at least one family member nearby.

CLIP (BIRJ GARG): Mom, what are you doing?

CLIP (ZARNA GARG): I’m peeling oranges for your lunchbox tomorrow. I’m trying to get ready for your lunchbox.

CLIP (BIRJ GARG): Nobody wants oranges! Why can’t I just have a cookie like everyone else?

CLIP (ZARNA GARG): What?! No one is bringing cookies for lunch. Who said?

CLIP (BIRJ GARG): All my classmates are.

CLIP (ZARNA GARG): See, they eat a cookie and then they start thinking, 'Oh, I should be playing guitar when I grow up.' You see how all these problems start? You eat the orange. You know who else ate oranges? All the people who made Google.

Dan Pashman: Zarna grew up in Mumbai, in the '70s and '80s, the youngest of four. As she told me, her family was middle-class. Her dad ran his own business, and her mom stayed home to take care of the kids. 

Zarna Garg: My mom did most of the cooking and it was all Indian home cooking vegetarian food, which is a very, very refined cuisine. So the lentils, like there are any number of ways to cook them. There are any number of ways to cook vegetables and all the different breads we made. And my mom was an amazing cook. 

Dan Pashman: You mentioned lentils, like, did your mom have like a go-to daal or something that was like her trademark dish?

Zarna Garg: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just got thrown off guard when you said daal because I didn't expect you to know that but of course you do.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] All the Hindi words that I know are the food words. 

Zarna Garg: I think as long as you know all the food and namaste and a couple of yoga words, you're good. 

Dan Pashman: Right. 

[LAUGHING] 

Zarna Garg: Yeah, there was — there's a yellow daal, like I think in America it's called split pea? 

Dan Pashman: Right, split pigeon peas. 

Zarna Garg: Split — that kind of daal. My mom used to make that daal with onion and tomato and garlic and ginger and like ...

Dan Pashman: Ohh!

 Zarna Garg: I'm sure she was also sneaking in other vegetables that I didn't even know when I was a child, you know? 

Dan Pashman: Right. 

Zarna Garg: Because like, everything was kind of mushed and ground up. But, man, it was so yummy. It was great. 

Dan Pashman: And then would you put some — I know there's different words for it, but like tadka or like an achaar or something in there? 

Zarna Garg: Yeah. Both tadka and achaar. So usually when you're doing the onion, ginger, garlic — that's the tadka. And the tadka is the seasoning, the flavoring, like what flavor do you want in the daal. And the achaar is because we're so extra — Indian people are so extra, it's like not even funny. Like we've already added 20 ingredients to this lentils and but still not enough. We're like, ehh, still needs a little oomph, you know?

Dan Pashman: Yeah. [LAUGHS]

Zarna Garg: So we add — it's literally, it's like adding a push up bra to the daal, right? Like we need a little more excitement, you know? 

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS] And when you were growing up, did you cook with your mom? 

Zarna Garg: I — uh, not so much. Not so much because I was a little more of a tomboy. I wasn't into it. You know, she tried to drag me into it a few times, but I was always the one who wanted to go play and swim and run and jump and, you know, I wasn't a foodie in the way that Indian people — like people in India go crazy. Right now, they're all losing their minds over mangos. Mango season is here, and that's all you're going to hear about anywhere in India. 

Dan Pashman: Right 

Zarna Garg: Did you get the mango? Did you get the good mango? How much did you pay for the mango? You know, oh my — oh my God! You paid so much! I got an inside deal.

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS] 

Zarna Garg: It's so much chatter around the food that it's like, I was like, I don't care. Give me a pineapple. I'm fine. 

[LAUGHING] 

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Dan Pashman: When Zarna was 14, her life took an unexpected and dramatic turn. Her mom died pretty suddenly, from jaundice. Her dad, as Zarna tells it, couldn’t handle the demands of being a single parent. So he decided it was time for Zarna, his youngest child, to find a husband — that meant an arranged marriage. But Zarna refused — again, she was only 14. Her dad responded with an ultimatum: get married, or get out of the house. So Zarna left.

Zarna Garg: Yeah. That's right. 

Dan Pashman: And you spent a couple of years sort of couch surfing. 

Zarna Garg: Yeah. Two years. 

Dan Pashman: During those two years, Zarna didn’t get much say over what she was eating.

Zarna Garg: I mean, when you're living at people's mercy, you don't have the choice, you know? Really beggars can't be choosers. But I was lucky. People always thought I was funny and I would get invited to every amazing event in town. Everybody would be thrilled to have me around their dinner table because they knew I would make people laugh. And in hindsight now, looking back, I think the roots of my comedy were probably born around those dinner tables. 

Dan Pashman: It was almost like a survival mechanism.

Zarna Garg: It was a survival — it wasn't almost, it was. Because I knew that if I entertained people, they were going to invite me or they were going to take me in for an extra day or an extra week. So it was always front and center in my mind to keep things light and to keep everybody happy. But a big part of it was also to be invited to the most outstanding meals ever. 

Zarna Garg: Almost a year and a half after I had been thrown out of my house, somebody invited me for a Diwali dinner and it was a very, very opulent dinner and I was very excited to be invited. But I could tell that it was not home cooked. And that was the first time I realized the difference between my mom making something herself and something being catered from outside. Do you know what I mean? Like until then, it all felt the same to me. I was too young to know the difference. But I remember sitting at that really fancy dinner table and thinking, "This looks so amazing, but why doesn't it taste like my mom's?".

Dan Pashman: And I mean, having that realization a year and a half after your mother had died, knowing that she wasn't around to cook those meals anymore, how did that feel? 

Zarna Garg: I mean, look, I was in a very complicated circumstance, so I never allowed myself to feel sad about it because I could go down a spiral, and I knew that even as a 15-year-old. Also, you — the world that I come from, they don't really baby the babies. I was only 15, and I know that only 15 is a thing looking back in hindsight in America, in an American context. But in India, everybody was very matter of fact when she died. It was like, okay, she's died now and that's really sad, but we all have to move on. And that was part of why my dad was like, you need to get married because I don't know what else to do. So I think I was sad, but I don't think I really allowed myself that moment of grief even, because my overall state of mind at that time was very much how do I make sure that I remain in a stable place for the night? 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Eventually, Zarna found a place to stay long term, with her old sister and her sister’s husband in Akron, Ohio. So Zarna left India. She and her dad never spoke again. When she got to America, she started trying to build a new life for herself.

Zarna Garg: Ohio was the best. I was immersed in my sister's family life. The Indian community in Ohio really took me under their wing. They were like, very loving and inclusive. Pretty much every Friday and Saturday night, we were all gathering at somebody's house and everybody was bringing a dish. So it was like a potluck. So for the first time, I saw all these really cool interpretations of Indian dishes. Because back then when I moved here, close to 30 years ago, there weren't so many Indian grocery stores and certainly not in Akron and Cleveland, Ohio. So everything was kind of modified and a little bit like substituted and — oh, we don't have the curry leaf, but we have this one, and we don't have this kind of salt, but we have this other thing. 

Zarna Garg: You know, when you move here to America from India, you, you don't know that buying Indian groceries could be challenging because the world you came from, it was everywhere. And then you come here and you walk into this massive grocery store in Ohio, massive — like, they have all this stuff and they don't have turmeric?

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHING] 

Zarna Garg: How? [LAUGHS] What? I remember going out and thinking they have like 50 kinds of milk. 

Dan Pashman: Right. 

Zarna Garg: But they don't have curry leaves? 

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS] 

Zarna Garg: How are you cooking without curry leaves? 

[LAUGHING]

Zarna Garg: So what I learned is that people went to great lengths to recreate what they were used to, but they found amazing ways to blend in. It was a blending into Americana of a whole different kind that I had not expected. 

Dan Pashman: Was there ever a moment in those first few years after you left home that you questioned whether it was the right move? 

Zarna Garg: I didn't question it because I didn't have the option. But I did miss home a lot. You know, I feel that life in America, even now, I feel is a little lonely. No one is really looking at the big picture of what will make a community happy. Everybody seems to be running in their own direction and running with a lot of passion and vigor. But I remember feeling like, missing the vibe of a small, tight knit community, which is funny to say, because I came from India and India is anything but small.

Zarna Garg: But Indian culture is very warm at its core. Like we hang out with our neighbors and our friends and relatives. It's very informal. And food is like — Indian people take so much pleasure from their meals and the gather around and the sitting around. Food is important everywhere, but I just don't think it's a community event necessarily in the Western cultures. Whereas in the East, it's like everything is a community event. Like you make the bread together, then you break the bread together. It's not — you don't do that once a week or once a month. You don't wait for Thanksgiving. It's a feast. Every night is some version of a feast. And food is part of everything. I make jokes about it in the clubs. I'm like, it's your birthday, it's your anniversary, it's your funeral. It's all about the food. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Zarna Garg: You know? We don't actually care what has happened. 

Dan Pashman: Right. 

Zarna Garg: We just want to make sure that there's something good to eat. 

Dan Pashman: It's like, well, grandpa died, but at least we'll eat well.

Zarna Garg: Listen, grandpa died and he would have wanted you to have eaten well. 

Dan Pashman: Right, right. 

[LAUGHING] 

Dan Pashman: While living in Ohio, Zarna was able to get the education she’d always wanted for herself. She went to college, then law school. After graduating, she moved to New York for her first job. That’s when she met her husband — no arranged marriage necessary. They tied the knot back in India, where Zarna’s husband’s also from, so they could celebrate with their families. 

Dan Pashman: What food did you serve at the wedding? 

Zarna Garg: Everything.

[LAUGHING] 

Zarna Garg: I come from the western region. My family was Gujarati, so they were like, we have to have Gujarati food for the Gujaratis who are coming. But then we also needed like American food because we had guests flying in from America, my friends from here. And then my husband was coming from Switzerland, so they were like, we have to have food to please these people. 

[LAUGHING] 

Zarna Garg: By the time we were done, there was food from every corner on earth. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Zarna Garg: There was Chinese food, Thai food — and Indian weddings, having 5, 10 stations of food is a very common thing. It's like, people will start with a Chinese appetizer and work — and in the middle, sushi will show up from nowhere. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Zarna Garg: Out of nowhere, there will be a sushi platter. And then just when you think you're done with sushi, there's going to be nachos. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Zarna Garg: And there's — literally no one sees anything wrong with that. 

[LAUGHING] 

Zarna Garg: And my wedding was very much that. And I'll have you know that 25 years later, people remember how amazing the food was. 

Dan Pashman: For the first few years she was married, Zarna worked at a New York law firm. When she and her husband started a family, she left her career to be a stay-at-home mom. She says she wasn’t really cut out to be a lawyer anyway. By the time she was in her late 20s, Zarna had three kids, and her whole life was dedicated to raising them, which in large part means feeding them.

Zarna Garg: I think I have a lot of resentment from those years, to be honest, because it was — it's overwhelming. I didn't know how to cook anything. Like, I could make pasta and make like, a few things, very few things in America. It’s an overwhelming amount of work to feed three kids. And all three of my kids are athletes. So each kid had their own — my daughter was on a swim team. My son was on a track team. Every coach had their own drama about like, don't give them that and he must eat this. I feel like for at least a good hard decade of my life, all I was ever doing was obsessing about who's eating what and do we have enough ingredients or not. Somehow, no matter how organized I was, I was always missing something. Midway through the thing, I would be like, "Oh ... shit." 

[LAUGHING] 

Zarna Garg: And now you're like, in this flurry of what to do and how to like ... 

Dan Pashman: Right. Yeah. 

Zarna Garg: It's too much stress. 

Dan Pashman: As you were like raising your kids and learning to cook, I mean, I imagine there were times where you're like, I wish I could call my mom right now and ask her a question. 

Zarna Garg: Yeah, of course. I mean, that's an everyday thing. And it's a — it's even a feeling thing. It's not even ask a question. I wish — I do wish that there was somebody to comfort me when I'm stressed out, you know? Because my role is to comfort my kids, my husband. And that is— you know, I'm the — I'm their mom, so they turn to me with every crisis. But meanwhile, I have my own crisis and — of all kinds, you know, professional, personal or whatever. And it's a — it's definitely a feeling that I don't think you get over it. It's a void that is — I don't think it ever fills. I don’t know. 

Dan Pashman: Zarna didn’t plan to follow in her mother’s footsteps as a stay-at-home mom. Now that she had, she was struggling. She says during that time some friends described her as a caged tiger. 

Zarna Garg: I came here to not be married, to learn. I was that kid who loved going to school, loved learning. And I really spent years of my life getting these degrees. And then somehow I found myself in a world where I was obsessing over kids soccer and, like, the parent teacher conference and the baking — what do they call it here — the bake sales. I think parenting in America is such a high pressure job. The amount of like, you got to be perfect. If your kid has a passion, they have to follow it. If they want some — you know, it's like parents in India are very comfortable saying no. Like, I understand you might want to play the ukulele, but we don't have it. You know? 

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS]

[LAUGHING]

Zarna Garg: I remember my friends telling me, they're like, you're, you're so unhappy in this life. I was in a state of disbelief. I couldn't understand what happened to me and my life. But I felt like the world was passing by me and I was just stuck. 

Dan Pashman: Coming up, Zarna gets un-stuck with the help of her kids. Plus, we'll hear more of your food resolutions for 2024 and I'll reveal mine. Stick around.

MUSIC

 

+++ BREAK +++

 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Welcome back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Pashman. You've probably heard of Michelin stars, right? Restaurants get Michelin stars. Last week, we asked the question, how do these stars actually work? We talk with a chef who recently won one of the stars, along with a former Michelin inspector to find out what really makes restaurant star worthy. Then we talk with Erika Adams, editor of Eater Boston, about why her city has no Michelin stars. Is it just that the restaurants there aren't good enough? 

CLIP (ERIKA ADAMS): That's what I kept hearing. That's how people kept phrasing that question to me. And I hear the stereotype over and over about how Boston's dining scene sucks. It doesn't even have a Michelin guide. And I'm like, that's not ... That's not how it works. That's not how it works. 

Dan Pashman: So how does it actually work? You’ll have to listen to find. That one’s up now, check it out. Now, before we get back to Zarna Garg, let's hear a few more of your New Years food resolutions. 

Tom: Hi, my name is Tom. I'm from Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. My New Year's resolution is to eat more fresh pasta because 10 years ago I bought a pasta machine at a yard sale and it hasn't left the closet since. Every year my wife tells me to give it away to someone who will actually use it. Happy Holidays!

Karen: Hi Dan, this is Karen from Easley, South Carolina. I'm Okinawan. I was born there, but I have not been back since I left at six-months-old with my mom. I'm going back next year, so I want to learn more about the significance of certain foods, why Okinawans eat the way that they do, how do they maintain their health with their food. And the Okinawan foods that I eat have been a way to connect myself to my culture, so I want to continue to do that and really strengthen that relationship that I have within myself. 

Gabe: Hey Sporkful, I'm Gabe Rosenberg and my food resolution for 2024 is to eat more Kansas City barbecue. I have set a goal of trying one barbecue restaurant I have not tried every single month. I moved to Kansas City like two and a half years ago. You know, I feel like I've tried most of the big name ones, Gates, Arthur Bryant's, but Kansas City has so many barbecue restaurants. And I just feel like I want to be able to authoritatively say where the best burnt ends are in Kansas City. So I'm gonna enlist some friends help. I think we're gonna create a scale, some standardized grading, and hopefully eat a lot of really good barbecue next year.

Dan Pashman: So, Tom, regarding fresh pasta, I say more power to you. If you can do it, great. But as someone who is getting ready to publish a cookbook of pasta sauces and recipes, I made the conscious choice not to include anything about making fresh pasta from scratch because it just feels too aspirational for me. Sorry. If you have all the time in the world and you enjoy the process of working for hours to make a small amount of pasta, then I wish you all the best. But it's just not for me.

Dan Pashman: And Gabe in KC, 100 percent. That's a fantastic goal. And any of you out there who want to try a lot of Kansas City barbecue, I'd like to say that during covid, when I got super sick of my own cooking, I started ordering food shipped from all over the country just to, like, you know, brighten my day. And it confirmed my feeling that of all the foods, you can now get shipped to you from around America, the best one to get shipped to you is barbecue.

Dan Pashman: First of all, like, I think the prices tend to be like not much more than what it would cost to go to the restaurant. Some of these other places like they'll be a cake for like $100 that you're going to get shipped to your house. I mean, like, who on earth is going to do that? But you can get a couple of racks of ribs for roughly what they would cost in a restaurant. Also, barbecue travels very, very well. So like some other things are going to order, you know, they're not going to hold up and shipping. They're not going to the same. Barbecue is almost indestructible. So even if you're not Gabe in Kansas City, you can feel like Gabe in Kansas City if you order yourself some ribs. 

Dan Pashman: All right. Now let's return to my conversation with Zarna Garg. After almost two decades of being a stay at home mom, Zarna hit a wall. She needed something else in her life. She just wasn't sure what. But her daughter, Zoya, who is in high school at the time, she knew. Here's Zarna and Zoya when they were interviewed for an episode of This American Life a couple of years ago. 

Dan Pashman: After almost two decades of being a stay-at-home mom, Zarna hit a wall. She needed something else in her life, she just wasn’t sure what. But her daughter Zoya, who was in high school at the time – she knew. Here’s Zarna and Zoya when they were interviewed for an episode of This American Life a couple years ago:

CLIP (ZARNA GARG): And she said to me, "Mom, all my friends love hanging out with you because they think you're funny. Why don't you do comedy?" And I was like, what is she talking about? Who's going to come and watch what I have to say? And what am I even going to say? I don't know what comedy people do. 

CLIP (ZOYA GARG): She had so much fear going into stand-up comedy. I mean, it took me six months of being like, 'Mom, you can do it. Mom, you can do it. You're so good at this." You love telling stories.'

Dan Pashman: Eventually, Zarna gave into the pressure campaign and decided to give comedy a shot, if only to appease her kids. Here she is on the podcast Humans of Bombay, describing the first time she performed in front of an audience.

CLIP (ZARNA GARG): The first open mic I went to — I didn’t even know what an open mic was or what you do there. 

CLIP (HOST): Yeah, yeah. 

CLIP (ZARNA GARG): The woman who ran it said, 'Why don’t you go on stage and talk about whatever you find is funny.' I was like, 'Anything?', and she was like, 'Yeah, anything.' So I went up there and started trashing my mother-in-law. And like, the audience was dying. And I was standing there thinking, 'What is happening, like, white people do this? Like, this is a job? Like, somebody could be paying me to do this?'. I’ll do it all day long! 

[LAUGHING] 

Dan Pashman: Just like her daughter predicted, Zarna was a natural on stage. She’d honed her comic timing making people laugh during her couchsurfing years as a teenager in Mumbai. Now in her 40s, she was discovering just how far that talent could take her. 

Dan Pashman: But just as Zarna was gaining traction in the stand-up scene, COVID hit. She thought that might be the end of her new career. Instead, she pivoted to TikTok and other social media platforms, where she ended up finding even more success. Online and on stage, her comedy’s a mixture of jokes about the immigrant experience, cultural stereotypes and parenthood.

[CLIP FROM ONE IN A BILLION]  

CLIP (ZARNA GARG): My 16-year-old son is — so handsome. 

[LAUGHING] 

CLIP (ZARNA GARG): He recently asked me, he’s like mom, 'Are you proud of me?' I was like, 'Proud of you? Why?' And he goes, 'Because I get good grades.' I said, 'You get good grades because we make you study! We get you tutors! We feed you almonds! You should be proud of us!'

 [LAUGHER AND APPLAUSE] 

Dan Pashman: These days, the kitchen still isn’t exactly Zarna’s happy place, but it seems she’s made her peace with cooking. 

Zarna Garg: Look, whether I love cooking or not, I have to do it. It's part of my job. You know, I just hesitate to say that I love cooking because in America, the people who love cooking, like they make such a big show of it. Like, it doesn't even just stop with cooking. You have to love your pots and your pans and your equipment.

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS] 

Zarna Garg: It's not so dramatic for me. Like I just cook. I'm a mom, I cook all the time. I make sure everybody has eaten. If you come to my house, like I think sometimes I scare the Amazon delivery guys. I'm like, "You want to eat something? You want to eat something? You sure you don't want to eat something?"

[LAUGHING] 

Zarna Garg: So, feeding people is certainly a huge part of my life. 

Dan Pashman: Establishing some rules and routines around feeding her kids has made that part of Zarna’s life easier. 

Zarna Garg: I make a bowl of fresh cut crudités for each kid every day that they have to eat. And all my kids start the day with steamed broccoli. I know it's not an American thing. Like in America, breakfast is a different thing. But I love that they start their day with steamed broccoli, they love it. I make their friends eat it too, and it's like a moment when usually all American kids are in my house and the first thing I give them at like 8:00 in the morning is steamed broccoli. They're like, "What is this?"

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]  

Dan Pashman: Zarna actually posts cooking videos for some of her go-to recipes, like one for tomato soup.

CLIP (ZARNA GARG): First, onion in butter and oil. Then add cloves, and then ginger and garlic. Next up, turmeric. It is the king of all things. It is anti-inflammatory. It’s a lot of anti-things. Anti-racist. It helps everybody.

Dan Pashman: But some of Zarna’s recipes are a little controversial…

CLIP (BRIJ GARG): Mom, what are you doing? The water is cold and you’re not supposed to break the pasta.

CLIP (ZARNA GARG): Oh, you know everything now? How to make pasta?

CLIP (BRIJ GARG): Yeah, my friend Susie said she knows how to make pasta because she’s Italian.

CLIP (ZARNA GARG): Like the Italians know pasta? Indians know how to cook everything.

CLIP (BRIJ GARG): Italians created pasta.

CLIP (ZARNA GARG): Indians created cooking!

Dan Pashman: So when you posted that video, what was the reaction?

Zarna Garg: Oh, my God. The Italians were losing their minds. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Zarna Garg: They were like, you can't do that. And I was like, why not? I actually right now don't know why not. But I mean, I guess I do know because it's supposed to all cook and you're supposed to twirl it in the fork and whatever, but when my kids were little, not only did I break it, I broke it in really tiny pieces so they could scoop it with a spoon.

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS] 

Zarna Garg: [LAUGHS] I, honestly, didn't realize that putting it in cold water was like, such a big, blasphemous thing.

Dan Pashman: Actually, there are some people, including the respected food science guru, Kenji Lopez-Alt, who have argued that that is a superior method. It saves heat. 

Zarna Garg: Thank you, Kenji Lawrence. Thank you.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] You're also a big fan of Taco Bell. 

Zarna Garg: Big fan. Oh, that's all Indians. That's an Indian thing.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Zarna Garg: You know we single handedly brought the Mexican pizza back. 

Dan Pashman: Now, in case you don’t know the story — in 2020 Taco Bell discontinued its Mexican Pizza. But so many angry, hungry customers wrote to Taco Bell’s CEO that the company decided to bring it back in 2022. Its highly anticipated return was accompanied by a 12-minute choreographed musical on YouTube entitled "Mexican Pizza: The Musical”, starring, yes, Dolly Parton in the role of the Mexican Pizza.

[CLIP OF MEXICAN PIZZA: THE MUSICAL]

MUSIC

CLIP (DOLLY PARTON): I held on for as long as I could. But in the end, it was just nice to know so many folks cared. And I just couldn’t believe all the love on the internet for my grieving fans.

CLIP (SINGERS): This petition, make Taco Bell listen …

Zarna Garg: The community couldn't believe when they discontinued the Mexican pizza and we were like — we waged a war. In the fast food landscape in America, if you're Indian and or Indian vegetarian, Taco Bell is your number one. It is. Because you don't get more options anywhere else. 

Dan Pashman: Zarna even has a social media bit about Taco Bell. Her son comes in while she’s eating a Mexican pizza and quickly she hides it …

CLIP (BRIJ GARG): Mom, are you having Taco Bell pizza? Can I have some?

CLIP (ZARNA GARG): No, no, no. No, I’m eating blueberries. You want some?

CLIP (BRIJ GARG): Then why are there some Taco Bell sauces right here?

CLIP (ZARNA GARG): Oh, these? I just picked up — they give those for free. You can have the sauces. You want to put them on blueberry?

Dan Pashman: And I get it, I understand that like, it's just funny. Like, these are just, like, those are funny bits. 

Zarna Garg: Mmm, no, that was a real one. 

Dan Pashman: Okay. [LAUGHS] 

[LAUGHING] 

Dan Pashman: But I think that you've sort of touched on a somewhat universal experience of parenting, I think, which is sort of like, "Do as I say, not as I do." 

Zarna Garg: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: This is something I'll admit to you that I've done, Zarna. Have you ever snuck into another room to eat something that you didn't want your kids to know you were eating? 

Zarna Garg: Oh, that's my life. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Zarna Garg: Are you kidding? Another room known as the bathroom. 

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS] 

Zarna Garg: [LAUGHS] Of course, I have! 

Dan Pashman: I don't think you've actually successfully parented until you've eaten ice cream in the bathroom.

Zarna Garg: I mean, we're all lying to some degree. Come on. I think parenting, the delicate foundations of parenting, are based on lies, alcohol, drugs. You have to do a lot of delicate dance of all these things to get through the process of parenting.

Dan Pashman: Right, right. 

Zarna Garg: Do you know how many times I've fed my kids broccoli and then I throw my own bowl out?

[LAUGHING] 

Zarna Garg: I don't want to eat that stuff. 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Zarna’s daughter Zoya, who you heard earlier, is in college now. I asked Zarna if Zoya has started calling her to ask for recipes and cooking tips … 

Zarna Garg: Yeah, she does. Because she's — she has a kitchen now in her college. So I teach her all kind of hacks on how to keep everything done, you know, for two, three days at a time and make it very simple. I tell her, I'm like, don't get roped into the oatmeal needs ten things in it. Like, it's just simple. Simple, simple, simple. And she has a real appreciation for it. 

Dan Pashman: And it turns out her daughter’s appreciation extends beyond cooking tips … 

Zarna Garg: You know, the first time I got something back from my kids about my food was when I allowed — we don't — Indian people don't really send their kids to summer camp. So that's not a thing. But one time, my daughter really fought hard and really wanted to go because all her friends were going and I let her go for one week. I think she was in sixth or seventh grade. And she came back, she's like, "Mom, I missed your food so much." Because it was a week of eating hotdogs and burgers and like, these are not things — she eats all of those things, but it's not the foundation of her diet. And that's the first time I realized that, oh, my God, like my daal and my simple rice and stuff actually means something to her. Like she missed it. And for that reason, I send every kid to camp once. 

[LAUGHING]

Zarna Garg: My little one was like, "I don't even want to go.", I said, "No, you're going."

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS] 

MUSIC 

Dan Pashman: That’s Zarna Garg. Her debut comedy special One in a Billion is out now on Prime Video. 

Dan Pashman: All right, now before I get to my resolution for this year, I need to grade myself on this past year. Now, my resolution for 2023 was to eat more black pepper. And I think I did a very good job of crushing whole peppercorns and sprinkling them on top of pasta dishes and on top of cottage cheese. And I have to say, I don't care how good your pepper grinder is taking the whole peppercorns and crushing them — I just use the bottom of a pot, but I'm sure there's fancier devices — the aroma and the intensity of the flavor that you get with the crushed peppercorns as opposed to like, pepper from a grinder, it's night and day. But it was up until just a couple of days ago when I tried — your number one suggestion for black pepper, which was so many of you wrote in, I asked for suggestions, you said put it on top of ice cream, vanilla ice cream. So I actually made a video. My daughter Becky and I tried that. I'll put it up on my Instagram. You can see what we thought. 

Dan Pashman: Overall, I would give myself a B+ for black pepper. I think I ate a good amount of it. I didn't try it in as many different ways as I would have liked, as I would have had to do to earn an A or A - . But I'll give myself a B+ and I'm okay with that. 

Dan Pashman: Now, it's time for me to reveal my resolution for 2024. Let me adjust my microphone for the drum roll. 

[DRUMROLL] 

Dan Pashman: In 2024, I resolved to eat more fish. 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: And I know that sounds awfully broad. Let me explain. I'm not talking about shellfish. I've been wanting to eat more fish. And I've been thinking to myself, why don't I eat more fish? And I live on Long Island. It's an island. We live near the sea. We have access to incredible, high quality, fresh seafood. And I love going to the fish market to get it, but it is very expensive. And that dissuades me from like, going every week.

Dan Pashman: I would love to hear your suggestions for cuts of fish that tend to be less expensive, especially whitefish, because that's really what Janey likes. But she's very particular. She doesn't want cod or anything that has that can feel a little bit rubbery. It has to be tender and flaky like flounder, but not as expensive as flounder. I love the meatier fish. I love swordfish, I love salmon. Maybe halibut is a good, happy medium for the two of us, but can still be pricey. So I would love to know about less expensive cuts of whitefish that you recommend and any special recipes that you have for whitefish that — you know, simple stuff to mix it up a little bit because that's — I just feel like I love fish, I want to eat it more. And so I am resolving to eat more fish in 2024. And if you have suggestions for cuts of fish or recipes, please send them to me at hello@Sporkful.com. 

Dan Pashman: Well, we are off for the next two weeks. We will be dropping a reheat during the hiatus. We'll be back with a brand new show on January 8th. Until then, we got a lot of great episodes in our feed. Check them out and I wish you a great rest of the holiday season. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year and I'll talk to you in January.