I dreamt that you were twisting through seven sons of gold and the gypsy was insisting

that his story must be told I came two in the morning but I took it as a warning

that you might be a treasure.

I could touch but never hold.

Hi, everybody.

Welcome to the Soberfall podcast.

Thank you for joining us again this week.

We are putting out a lot of episodes as many as we can during the coronavirus outbreak on

many different subjects that we think you would find helpful. And today I'm going to be

interviewing Alyssa Altman. Welcome, Alyssa, to the So Before podcast. Thank you so much for

having me. I met Alyssa. Gosh, it was January, wasn't it? I think so, yes. Yeah.

When I went to my friend Laura McGowan's book launch in New York, Alyssa was there and she was

conducting the interview with Laura after she did her book reading. Elissa also has a book out.

And because I already had bought Laura's book or I got sent it, I used my gift card to buy

Alyssa's book, Motherland. When you started talking, I had this little whiff that, ooh, that sounds

right up my street. So Alyssa is a critically acclaimed author of several books, including

poor man's feast, a love story of Comfort Desire and the Art of Simple

Cooking, and the book that we're going to be discussing today, Motherland. You're a full-time writer,

right? I am, yes. Her work has appeared in O Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian,

The New York Times, lots and lots of other places as well. She had a column in the Washington

Post called Feeding My Mother, which I'm assuming is kind of the seeds of this book. Is that

correct? Yes, yes, that is correct. This is why I wanted to get you on, Motherland,

...