Hello, everyone and welcome to Talk Nerdy. Today is Monday, April 13th, 2026, and I'm the host of the show, Dr. Kara Santa Maria.

And as always, before we dive into this week's episode, I want to thank those of you who make

talk nerdy possible. We're still going strong using Patreon as our model and we're still

able to pledge our support on an episodic basis. That may change in the future to a monthly

model, but as of now,

we're sticking with the old model, the old, the traditional model. So if you're interested in

pledging your support, all you've got to do is visit patreon.com slash talk nerdy to learn more.

This week's top patrons include Chuck Blevill, David J.E. Smith, Daniel Lang,

Mary Neva, Will Defraine, David Compton, Brian Holden, Gabbo Jay, Ulrika Hagman, Pascuali

Gilati, and Joe Wilkinson. And there are so many more of you. I wish I could name all of you

at the top of the show, but that is one of the perks for our top patrons. So thank you

all so, so very much. You keep, uh, you keep the show going, right? The show is not a moneymaker

otherwise because I don't charge for it. I'm not in any subscription services. Um, so other than

Patreon, which is, you know, it's your choice if you want to subscribe. basically are offsetting that price so that folks who can't afford to pay for their content because everything is so expensive right now, you know, they can still learn something new every week. And that's really why I keep making the show. I like learning something new every week, and I'm

hoping that my curiosity and the areas of interest that I have are translating, at least for some of

you. So this week, we've got another really interesting episode. So I had the opportunity to speak

with Dr. Ashante M. Reese.

She's a writer, an anthropologist,

and an associate professor of African and African Diaspora Studies

at the University of Texas at Austin.

And she has a new book out.

It's called Gather, Black Food, Nourishment, and the art of togetherness.

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