Long time listeners may know that when we started this show, I lived in New York City. About two years then, I moved away and had a baby. We landed in the Bay Area when my first child was about four months old, and I pretty immediately went back to work. Memories of this time are hazy, but one thing I do remember is sitting at my new office desk

and getting an unprompted email from Samin Nosrat, chef and writer, famous for her cookbook and Netflix show,

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. But this was before that. This email just said that she was a listener to

death sex and money,

and that we had some friends in common who were writers and audio makers,

and she invited me to come to lunch and meet some other women she was sharing a co-working space with.

I did that. We all went out for delicious tacos.

And this invitation meant so much to me. I was new to this community.

I didn't really know how to work and be a mom at the same time, and I certainly had not

figured out how to make new friends. And Samin just invited me out, hosted me, made me feel

looked after while we ate good food together. And then her first book came out,

and this thing hit. Samin and Salt Fat, acid, heat were everywhere, and this lasted for years,

what seemed like constant demands on her time and for appearances. And still, she kept hosting her friends, not just me, also my kids.

They know her as the nice lady with the bin of sparkle stickers and markers

who taught them that putting nutritional yeast on popcorn makes it even more tasty.

And while she was tending to her community of friends and fans,

Samin hit a wall.

The pandemic hit.

Her estranged father became ill and died.

The ways she took care of herself by doing for others just became impossible.

And alongside that long-buried grief about her older sister's cancer death when Samin

was a child, broke open.

...