S2 E3: Food is a bridge with Francis Lam
Virgie and Francis explore the connections between diet culture and food shame for American immigrants, and Virgie discovers what the Chinese Exclusion Act, chop suey palaces, and Chinese-owned laundromats have in common.
Journal with us! Write about a food experience that helped create or affirm a part of your identity.
Virgie Tovar: What are we going to do here together?
[00:00:03] Francis Lam: Um, well I think on the surface, we're going to make some Nissin cup noodles, instant ramen. But I think the reality of what we're going to do is that our souls are going to touch.
[00:00:18] Virgie Tovar: This is my friend Francis Lam. He's the host of The Splendid Table podcast and the editor in chief at Clarkson Potter, AKA publisher of some of the most gorgeous cookbooks on the planet. He's won a bunch of James Beard awards and has been a judge on Top Chef. I mean, he's fancy. When we met in the jungles of Belize a few years ago, I had no idea how glamorous he was. But it's not quite time for me to tell you that story yet. For now what you need to know is that I'm in my kitchen in California and he's in his kitchen in New York and we're both making cup of noodles.
[00:01:02] Francis Lam: I have never shared, um, a cross-country cup noodles before. So I really feel like this is going to be special.
[00:01:10] Virgie Tovar: So okay. So first step is... what do we do first Francis?
[00:01:14] Francis Lam: Let's get our water hot. Okay. Oh my God. Listen to it go. That's the sound.
[00:01:32] Virgie Tovar: Okay. I'm now opening. Oh, I just love, I mean like that moment when you peel open the top and, and the insides are revealed and they're so beautiful and dry and self-contained, and it's just so gorgeous.
[00:01:50] Francis Lam: And that little like three microns of dried cabbage that makes you feel like there was a vegetable inconvenienced in the making of this noodle. It's going to be good for me.
[00:02:03] Virgie Tovar: Wow. Okay. Now going to cover it up again to let the steam like optimal steam.
[00:02:10] Francis Lam: So this is where, when I was a kid and I guess right now, too, like, this is like the longest three minutes in history. And it was just, I would be hungry. You'd be so looking forward to like that incredible salty MSG laden broth. And, um, and I, I really remember sitting here and just being like, come on, hurry up, come on, hurry up.
[00:02:37] Virgie Tovar: While we wait for our noodles to cook, I'll tell you the story of how Francis and I met. We were on a guided tour in Belize with a company called Dandelion Chocolate. We were there to meet the farmers and learn all about how cacao is grown.
[00:02:54] It was like summer camp for chocolate nerds. I flew solo to the capital of Belize and then the tiniest plane on earth took me to a place called Punta Gorda. As we landed, I could see water and the emerald green of tree tops. It was sweltering. The jungle humidity immediately turns your pores into a series of tiny sprinklers.
[00:03:20] I met Francis at the welcome dinner and it turned out he would also be my roommate. Along with about 10 other people I'd never met before. Francis really won my heart on night three, when he emerged from the shared bathroom into our massive communal sleeping area and said in a soothing voice, listen guys, I found a scorpion in the bathroom and caught it under a cup. Just try not to tip it over so it doesn't escape. Good night. But you better Belize that wasn't the only scary thing we experienced that night.
[00:03:56] Francis Lam: Oh, the Howler monkeys.
[00:03:59] Virgie Tovar: Do you remember them? They were terrifying. It was like, what is that? It sounded like a dinosaur monster.
[00:04:06] Francis Lam: No, for real. I was like, Oh, I thought we were going to Belize not Jurassic fucking park. Like it was like in the middle of the night and it'd be like [roaring]. 48 hours later, I finally asked one of the people at the camp, I'm like, what is that sound at night that we hear that terrifies all of us? And they were like, Oh, that's the Howler monkeys. And then like, I think I Googled one, they're like six and a half inches tall.
[00:04:35] Virgie Tovar: I know right, that's the thing they're like, they're so tiny. And you're like, how? You sound like a T-Rex. How are you this tiny and cute?
[00:04:42] Francis Lam: It's amazing. And I totally remember you telling stories, lying on the couch in like all your manifest glory, reading these stories about hilariously awful lovers. And I remember thinking like, I'm going to be friends with Virgie.
[00:05:08] Virgie Tovar: Okay. Our three minutes are up. Time for noods.
[00:05:12] Francis Lam: This is how Asian I am. I actually got chopsticks for this.
[00:05:15] Virgie Tovar: Oh my god I love that, yes.
[00:05:18] Francis Lam: Okay, here we go. God, this is the worst. This is the thing that like people like, listeners of my show, like call in about and be like you, people are disgusting. I never want to hear anything go into someone's mouth.
[00:05:34] Virgie Tovar: I mean, I love that sound. I mean, when I first was like, we're eating on this show and everyone was like, no, everyone knows that everyone hates that. There's articles about this. And I'm just like, no, the refusal to like, be okay with people eating is white supremacy. I'm sorry. It's just rachismo, which is how I pronounce racism. Like your, your, like European discomfort with your body, you will not put that shit on me.
[00:06:01] Francis Lam: Oh. That's good. I hadn't thought about that. Um, like making that connection, but I'm, I'm feeling it a little bit. I mean, at this point you can tell me like, literally anything is like, like the fact that like, I dunno that light bulbs burn too hot, and they actually hurt you if you touch them, when you thought they only produce light is white supremacy. Like I would believe that. Like at this point like-
[00:06:20] Virgie Tovar: That's the thing it's always true, you know? Okay. So my experience with the noodles, this snack is sort of complicated for me because it was the choice snack of the popular kids in middle school of which I was not a member. So I'm a little bit, I'll admit I'm, I'm remembering this ancient 12 year old fear. Like there was certain food and behaviors and language the popular kids got to do that were completely forbidden for me.
[00:06:54] Francis Lam: Hmm. Like if you did it then, like you were a poser. Or you were like trying.
[00:06:59] Virgie Tovar: Yes. Or it was kind of like, I mean, literally to go back to ancient Rome, it was kind of like, you know, how the aristocracy gets to eat certain things. And if you are not the aristocracy, it is just, it's uppity and it's disrespectful to eat that same thing. You know?
[00:07:15] Francis Lam: It was so disrespectful of you to go get the cup noodle Virge. Like what were you thinking? You don't deserve the cup noodle.
[00:07:20] Virgie Tovar: No, but really it was a thing. It was like, it was like a code where it was like, you're not getting that cup noodle because you're a virgin who doesn't have a Jeep.
[00:07:29] Francis Lam: It took me a second to process because you know where I grew up, it was like, you know, pretty white bread, suburban New Jersey. And so the idea that like an instant ramen, like this was something I would eat when I got home. Right. And this was, you know, when I was still at the stage of my life, where I was like really embarrassed by my food, because it spoke to much of our ethnic, you know, ness. Um, you know, something like instant noodles, which I love, love, love, love, love. Like, I've always loved.
[00:07:57] Love the MSG. Love the weird texture. Um, you know love its association with my cousins who were from Hong Kong. And so they, like, they would have all these cool flavors and brands of instant noodles that like, I wouldn't have access to, in, you know, in New Jersey. So when I would visit them or when they would come they'd bring some. Like totally all these like really powerful, memories of being a kid specifically.
[00:08:19] Right. And just loving this food. But it was totally the kind of thing where like I would eat at home and I would be embarrassed if anyone from school would see me eating it.
[00:08:29] Virgie Tovar: So where did you grow up in New Jersey? And like what, like, I mean, how did you end up in a white suburb?
[00:08:35] Francis Lam: So my folks came in the seventies. Early seventies, uh, you know, and I, and I was raised in middle and then upper middle-class suburbs, almost entirely surrounded by white people.
[00:08:45] So, you know, that was obviously who the dominant culture, like in my actual physical space was, and obviously in our larger culture too. Then again, I also had this whole side of my life that was about how much I loved Hong Kong. Basically my parents were from there and, you know, I had family there all growing up, you know?
[00:09:05] And so, so much of my sort of escape from my suburban existence was about the fact that I would go to Hong Kong for two months at a time and spend time with my cousins. And I would learn about living in a city. I would learn about, you know, being independent in the sense that you could actually go places and you would learn to take public transit.
[00:09:24] And that was like, that was your passport to the world. Right. And that like the basis of my exploration for that of that world was basically either we were going somewhere to eat like amazing wonton noodles. Or we were going somewhere to like buy video games or play video games. Like that's all we did.
[00:09:41] So like super foundational part of my life, you know, my self construction and my self identity, like 50% of that was about running around the city of Hong Kong, looking for yummy food, you know? So it it's so funny because I've told the story I think is accurate about why I went into food as a professional, um, and all that stuff like a trillion times.
[00:10:05] And for whatever reason, I've never actually thought of this part of it. Like it was about that exploration and feeling like, Oh, I'm like my own person in the world. And that was just connected to like the activity of going out for food.
[00:10:21] Virgie Tovar: I know exactly what Francis is talking about. Food felt like a passport to me when I moved out of my parents' house. I remember being 18 and finally getting to choose what I ate. I was so curious about anything I didn't eat at home, or wasn't served at the mall. Anything unfamiliar. One of my discoveries was wait for it. Balsamic vinegar. I know I wanted that story to be more glamorous too. But the moment I tasted it was nothing short of thrilling. The sweet acidity brought me fully into my body in a way that felt good. I loved that feeling and I wanted more of it. At the time I was still dieting and that impacted what I thought I could eat, but even that couldn't stop my pursuit of that. That feeling.
[00:11:16] There was a lot of emotional instability at home, and I was a fat pariah at school. That humble little teaspoon of vinegar meant that there was something entirely outside the orbit of the life I had known for 18 years. It gave me hope. I didn't know it at the time, but for me, this curiosity about food was connected to the relationship I wanted to have with the world. Growing up in the suburbs with immigrants who had seen a lot of war, poverty and instability, I understood why my immigrant family saw the whole world as one big looming threat. But just like the little mermaid, I wanted to be where the people are. I wanted to be part of that world. And I knew that food was a bridge. After the break, Francis will tell me about how food was a way to explore and to connect to who he was and who he wanted to be.
[00:12:26] I found this picture of you online, where you're a little boy and you're with your family and gathered around this huge plate of dumplings. And everyone is looking at the camera, but you are not. You are lovingly gazing at the dumplings. And I'm, I'm kinda curious, I want you to tell me about little Francis and like his relationship to food.
[00:12:46] Francis Lam: Oh boy. Um, I mean, I don't know, maybe, maybe the way you described that picture kind of says, it. Kind of says it. So in, in our culture, you know, everything is done around food. Like, so we always, we only saw people to eat meals with them. Um, even in our own home, in our own family, really, the only time we got together, as you know, parents and children was you know at the table to eat. Like we almost never spent time together outside of the table. So here's the story that I realized many, many, many years later that it really like, spoke so much to like who I think I am now. So it was one of our family trips to Hong Kong. Um, and we were in a restaurant with, you know, you don't go to a restaurant with four people, you go to restaurant with 20 and you take two giant tables or three, you know, that, that's how we went out to dinner.
[00:13:38] Um, it was, you know, two generations of our family kind of thing. And we went to this restaurant that I remember thinking like, Oh, it was like sort of a more special one. And I insisted on sitting with the grownups. I was exactly how old I don't remember, but definitely under 10. And the steam fish came out like the whole steam fish, which is almost always like the prized, you know, that's the centerpiece of like a big Southern Chinese meal or banquet or whatever.
[00:14:09] And I grabbed my chopsticks, like some intuitive spear fisher, like I went right for the fish's head and grabbed the cheek out of the fish's head. Which was so appalling because, Oh, if you were like in the know, you know that the cheek is the best bite of the fish. And obviously they're only two of them. You know, and in a highly patriarchal, highly like elder focused society like it is no question my grandfather is supposed to get the bite of cheek out the fish. And so the whole table, like my parents were like, Oh my God. Like, what animal are we raising?
[00:14:59] I'm so sorry. You know, like, like truly, like, they felt like humiliated. And my grandfather in all his, I can never pronounce this word. Magananamanity? Whatever the fuck that word is. In all his generosity, just laughed and said, this one really knows how to eat. And like, I actually do remember after that happened like I remember, um, you know, like back home or whatever, when like, you know, our versions of these dinners at home with like, you know, our cousins and aunties and uncles and whatever. And Oh wow, cousin Albert got straight A's again for the 19th straight term. You know, whatever, all my brilliant, like, Oh, Oh, mastered the piano? Great. Nine years old? Amazing. Good for you.
[00:15:42] Like my parents never had anything to brag about, but I totally remember them saying at one point, well, Francis really knows how to eat. It was as if it was the equivalent of like, Oh, Francis really like Francis is a real poet, you know? And so I just felt like, Oh, that was like, that was worth something to my parents. Um, but you know, that doesn't make sense to like we're saying like the predominantly like white, suburban culture that I grew up in. Right? So like this thing that I can hold with, like pride in my family and in our little, in our community, wasn't a thing that translated.
[00:16:20] Virgie Tovar: The community I grew up in on the edge of the San Francisco Bay area was different from Francis's. Where he grew up in a predominantly suburban white community, my neighborhood was full of families from Mexico, Nicaragua, Yemen, India, China, and the Philippines. As a kid, I was hip to the fact that before I could become someone's friend, I had to be invited to dinner first. My reaction to the meal would determine whether I was a good friend or a bad one in the eyes of their parents. Eating was part of the initiation and vetting process. My family did the same thing. We had to gauge whether you were down with our weird food. Could you hang with us and our menudo? Did you ask for seconds on the dim sum?
[00:17:09] The rule was simple. Eat well. Be liked. Food was a stand in for the people who made it and the cultures and traditions they came from. That made sense to me because in my home, to love our food was to love us. To hate our food was to spend the rest of your enchilada hating life in exile. But there was a vulnerability in all of it too, because all of us wanted our whole selves, tripe and all, to be loved and accepted in a land that was unfamiliar. Francis shared this story about that vulnerability.
[00:17:52] Francis Lam: I was a kid and, um, I was at my parents' workplace and like, my dad takes me out to lunch. This like new restaurant, you know, that he likes, and we have Taiwanese pork chops with like pickles and rice. And it was actually in particular a sweet moment with my father, because we rarely went out just the two of us. And like, I just have like a really lovely memory of that moment. Like even at the time I remember thinking it was really sweet and special. Uh, and later that afternoon, I'm, you know, back in their, back in their shop. And this guy comes in. He was like well-dressed and white and like wearing a suit and had an English accent because of course, like every villain is gonna, you know, he's every villain.
[00:18:38] And he comes in just as I was like, you know, reheating the leftovers from lunch as a snack. And I was like happily chowing down on them. And he comes in and he's like asking me for my, for my parents. I'm like, Oh, I don't know where they are. And then he like sniffs the air. I swear to you God he sniffs the air and then says, what on earth is that awful smell? And I looked down at my food and I throw it away in front of him. And I pretended like you're right. It's disgusting. I didn't even really feel sad at the time. I just felt like cleanse myself, you know, like get this stinky Chineseness off of me right now.
[00:19:27] Virgie Tovar: That story hit me in the gut. He's talking about the idea that to be an immigrant, to be a person of color, is to be dirty somehow. And we spend our whole lives trying to clean ourselves up. I know that feeling so well. And I also know that just because I'm aware that it's caused by racism and xenophobia doesn't mean it's any less painful. This food chain drives us to try to fit in at any cost, whether it's throwing away the leftovers of a meaningful meal or changing how we eat through participating in diet culture. Many people of color and immigrants are told that we can't change our race or immigration status, but we can change how we eat.
[00:20:16] We can change what our bodies look like. We can admit that the food that brings us comfort is bad for us. I think about how for my family and me, dieting wasn't just about watching what we ate. It was about trying to be real Americans. It was about showing others that we were willing to sacrifice something we loved in order to be accepted. Instead of being angry about these injustices, the things that made us different became a source of shame.
[00:20:52] I'm sort of curious about, um, were there moments when your feelings about, or your relationship to food changed like for the better or for, or for the worse. Like, and I think like maybe embedded in this question or it might be it's own question is there comes a moment I think in everyone in our cultures- who grows up in our culture, when there's an association between food and body. Um, where all of a sudden, you know, you're aware like, okay, what I'm eating is, according to this culture, affecting what I look like, and that has implications. I'm just sort of curious what that moment was like for you.
[00:21:34] Francis Lam: Yeah, for sure. I don't know if I ever changed my thinking and feeling about food in and of itself, as much as it was an opportunity for me to blame myself when my body wasn't looking a certain way. But yeah, but like, you know, going back to like, Oh, not being one of the popular kids, like for us, like 90% of what defined you as a popular kid where and when I grew up was like athleticism, right? Were you a jock? Were you into sports? And I was never athletic, never coordinated.
[00:22:14] You know I was into video games and eating fucking Bugles, like. Like I was a pretty skinny kid and then I gained like a fair amount of weight in like my middle school years. And I remember thinking that I was fat. I remember thinking that I was pudgy. And I remember like looking at stretch marks. I have two brothers, both younger. So I was always around my middle brother in those years. And he was always just a much bigger person, just like a much heavier person. And so, you know, like growing up in a highly like fat phobic society, it was like that thing, right? Oh my God. It's like that thing I was talking about before. Like if you're not at the very bottom rung, but you're on the, like the second rung.
[00:22:57] Then, like, you're either the person who wants to help other people up, or you're the person who like finds solace in the fact that you can see someone, you know, below you. Um, and I hate to say, I think there was a part of me that that felt that way. You know, not, not like I would be like cruel to him about his weight or anything, but just like, well, I'm not like that.
[00:23:16] But meanwhile, like I would go and like take a bath or take a shower and like, you know, look at my own stretch marks and look at my little like boy boobs. And there's a really direct relationship between that and like my awareness of my popularity, because it seemed so clear that your popularity was defined by your body. And like, you know, I don't, I don't know that I was tortured by it. It didn't take up extreme amounts of time and emotional energy, but it was constant and it was there. It was like a low hum of, you know, uh, being self-conscious about my body.
[00:23:56] Virgie Tovar: I a little bit want to, um, I want to pivot into talking about gender. Obviously gender is a massive part of a person's relationship to food. Um like I grew up being socialized that eating as little as possible was a sign of the successful performance of like being a woman or being a girl and to eat absolutely nothing was the ultimate goal. That, that is one of the intersections of like how food and gender plays out in my life. Um, and I'm sort of curious how your relationship to food intersects with gender. I don't, I'm just curious what you think about this.
[00:24:32] Francis Lam: The performance of gender and the understanding of gender is complicated by my Asian-ness right? Because Asian males are feminized. Famously there are so many Chinese restaurants and Chinese laundries in like the early days of Chinese immigration, because that was women's work. And that was, those were industries that white men were not threatened by. And so they were fine with Chinese people opening up that stuff.
[00:25:02] Virgie Tovar: Okay. I'd like to take you back to California, 1848. It was the gold rush. Young people, most of them men, came from all over the world to find their fortunes panning for gold or setting up supplies and services for those who did. Some of the men who came from China, opened restaurants to feed fellow Chinese immigrants with cheap, nourishing food that provided a little familiarity in a place that was so far from home. At the time, most employed Chinese immigrants worked in laundries. That changed after the Chinese Exclusion Act became federal law in 1882. It was designed in part to give white workers an unfair advantage by banning the immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years.
[00:25:56] But the Chinese Exclusion Act also introduced a new visa system where certain business owners could obtain a visa that would make it possible to move to the United States and sponsor relatives. One of the types of businesses covered by this visa? Restaurants. Obviously there was a catch. Actually, there were several. I want to tell you about two of them.
[00:26:22] First, each Chinese applicant needed two white character witnesses to vouch for them. According to my research, the same six white dudes apparently did all the vouching. Catch number two, you had to apply with a high grade AKA fancy restaurant. So these savvy immigrants began opening ornate restaurants that could seat several hundred people.
[00:26:47] They were called chop suey palaces. They would pool their money for the startup capital and eventually bring their relatives over and get them jobs in the restaurant. In New York, between 1910 and 1920, the number of Chinese restaurants quadrupled. By 1980, Chinese restaurants had become so popular, easy to find, and affordable that they changed how Americans ate.
[00:27:14] One historian Young Chen argues that Chinese restaurants provided a small luxury most people could afford, and that this helped make dining out accessible for more people than ever. I love thinking of how restaurants became palaces and palaces became bridges between countries, cultures, and most importantly, families.
[00:27:41] Francis Lam: You know, the kind of cooking I do now is I'm a home cook for my family. You know, which obviously in a lot of ways is, you know, quote unquote women's work, right? It's, it's, it's that old idea of women's work, but it's something that I cherish and I think of very, very, very innately connected to my identity as a father.
[00:28:03] Virgie Tovar: Well I was actually, literally, my next question was going to be, um, you've written, there's no greater joy than watching your daughter eat. I mean, I don't have children. And so I'm so curious about what is that feeling? I mean, is it, is it like that sense that sort of, she is walking in the footsteps of like little Francis and the fish cheek? Or is it like something else?
[00:28:27] Francis Lam: You know, I don't think of it that way. I always have just seen her as her own person. But you know, she's small and there is a feeling of providing. And there is a feeling of protecting and there is a feeling of, you know, making sure she stays alive. When I see her eat, I feel like she is keeping herself alive and it is just an experience of pure joy.
[00:28:54] Virgie Tovar: So a lot of people ask me, how do I make sure that my child doesn't have a disordered relationship to food? Because we live in a culture that teaches people how to have a disordered relationship to food. And I'm so curious if you have thoughts on this.
[00:29:10] Francis Lam: Um, boy, I don't have any answers for sure. Well, there was one way in which I felt like I had to catch myself and police myself. Which was, when she was born, she was like, whatever, like 50th percentile in weight and then she like lost a lot of weight really quickly, which apparently is not uncommon. But she like never really gained it back. And so she went from the 50th percentile to like 25th percentile. Like you know, obviously when she was like an infant. And, and you know, first time parents, new parents like we were like, Oh my God, are we doing, you know, is she okay? Are we doing something wrong? Are we not feeding her right? Blah, blah, blah, blah. And doctors, of course, like, no, it's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. But I couldn't shake it for a while. And when she was eating solid food, you know, I would encourage her to finish her food. Oh, you didn't really eat anything.
[00:29:59] You took two bites, you know, just not, not trusting her trust in her body. Where I find myself policing myself now is like, maybe I'll suggest, Hey, do you want to finish your broccoli? And not pressure. And if I do it, if I suggest it once maybe that's okay. But not suggest it again, because then it starts to feel like, this is what daddy wants. This is what mommy wants. Um, but you know, just helping her, you know, just helping her find her own confidence in what she's doing around food. And I'm also trying to be careful of not like praising her. Because I think that's the same thing. Right? Just like the opposite manifestation of the same dynamic. Um, so I'm trying not to be like, wow you did such a great job. You're eating really well. Like, so it's weird. Cause I don't know how to draw that line either. Because I want her to feel validated. I want her to feel approval. You know, I don't want to have like completely neutral effect. It's just like, truly like, do what your body tells you. Do what your body tells you. You know, like, I don't know if that's good either, but I don't know how to balance that and like, I'm just trying not to introduce the idea of stress with food. I don't know how to do that, but, um, that's, that's what I hope for.
[00:31:22] Virgie Tovar: That's so beautiful Francis. I mean, just like hearing you talk about how, uh, like trusting her trust in her body. And watching her keep herself alive. Like I just, I mean, it's just so beautiful to kind of hear that. I love it. Francis, oh my God. Thank you so much for being on Rebel Eaters Club.
[00:31:43] Francis Lam: Thanks for having me. Am I in the club now? Do I get like a card? A handshake? A secret handshake?
[00:31:48] Virgie Tovar: We're getting to that point, we're getting to that point. Holy shit. It was just so good talking with you and hearing your voice and you're such a genius and you're so I don't know, you're just such a wonderful human being and I'm so glad you wanted to be on the show.
[00:32:05] Francis Lam: Oh, my God. It was so fun.
[00:32:09] Virgie Tovar: I felt like you'd like to know that after this interview, I sent Francis, some hot sauce made by a company named Howler Monkey. I hope he puts it on something delicious. After we talked, I thought about bridges and the people who sacrifice so much to build them through food. I thought about what it may have felt like almost 200 years ago to come to a new country, to make the food you associated with home in a place where you weren't welcome.
[00:32:42] I thought about Francis's parents, even though I've never met them. I thought about my grandparents. And then I thought about the two of us. We're one part of a centuries old ripple. I mean, we met because we both love chocolate and wanted to learn more about it. It boggled my mind how chocolate can help two people become friends. It gets down to one thing. Food is connection.
[00:33:14] Rebel Eaters Club is produced by Transmitter Media. Our lead producer, Jordan Bailey loves vermicelli. Lacy Roberts is our managing producer and she can't live without soba noodles. Sarah Nics edits the show and she prefers ichibon instant noodles. And our executive producer, Gretta Cohn loves those wide rice noodles that come in pad see yew.
[00:33:38] I'm your host Virgie Tovar and I got to agree with Gretta. I love a chubby noodle. Ben Chesneau is our mix engineer. Special kudos to James T. Green and Jessica Glazer for the production assist and to Taka Yasuzawa who wrote some of the music we use in the show. If you love Rebel Eaters Club, tell your friends and share the love by writing a review on your fave podcast app. See you next week. .