Babushka with Emily Fedner

Today's bonus episode is all about the Black Lives Matter and the many topics + challenges surrounding the movement. To have such an important discussion, I brought on my good friend AND one of the producers of Babushka Podcast, Courtney Kornegay! Courtney is Black, queer, and truly one of my favorite people. I'm thrilled we get to learn from him. Courtney hopped in front of the mic today to talk with me about performative activism, "showing receipts," doing the work on yourself, when it's okay to cancel people/brands and when they deserve a second chance, cultural appropriation across industries, and more. About Courtney: Courtney is the co-founder of https://www.stereotypesound.com/, the podcast studio that produces Babushka. He's also the host of https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-privy-podcast/id1227046782: a podcast about LGBTQ topics. We met while working together at Chinese Tuxedo where he's the maitre'd.

Welcome to the Season 1 finale of Babushka Podcast! Today's a first for our humble show: we have a COUPLE interview featuring Instagram's favorite duo and fellow Ohioans Ewa + Jeromy Ko of https://www.instagram.com/nom_life/ ! Both Ewa and Jeromy are first generation Americans: Ewa’s family hails from Taiwan, Jeromy’s from Hong Kong. Their Instagram account is dedicated to sharing and teaching about their cultures via delicious family recipes like Taiwanese beef noodle soup, Jeromy’s Aunt June’s famous chili oil, and so. Many. Dumplings. Today we chat about growing up with two cultures, the origin of @nom_life, cultural appropriation in food, influencer reaction to COVID-19, and more. We also reminisce on the origin of our friendship (spoiler alert: lots of sushi, KBBQ, and soju are involved). Ewa + Jeromy tell me about their grandmothers (called A Ma and MaMa respectively) and the many memories and love shared with their older relatives around the dining table. Ewa shares her A Mah's recipe for Red Braised Pork and Jeromy shares his MaMa's Oxtail soup - blog post coming soon. Thank you all for an amazing season❤️

Dave Krugman is a prolific photographer and creative powerhouse. Chances are you've seen his moody photos of rainy city-scapes and unsuspecting humans in any number of publications or via his own impressive Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/dave.krugman/. Dave and I delve into his recently unveiled cooking talent, compare Instagram to a casino, discuss intra-industry competition and our oyster preferences. Dave also figures out that my podcast is really an excuse to have Zoom companions during quarantine and surprises me with his answer to one of my favorite rapid fire questions. We also talk about Dave's mom, Maryanne, who is a chef. Dave credits his mom with teaching him the importance of cooking for others via dishes like her chicken & dumplings - recipe coming soon. (PS: bear with the rustic Zoom audio! It gets better 10 minutes in ) You can find Dave: On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dave.krugman/ On twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_krugman At https://davekrugman.com/ And via his newest creative venture: https://allships.co/

Today’s guest is LA’s very own fried chicken queen: Jenn Harris! Her official title is senior writer for the LA Times Food section - both sound equally cool to me. We talk about Jenn's childhood eating congee and mapo tofu in the San Gabriel Valley, her journey from Maritime news to LA Times Food, and delve deep into her fried chicken obsession - she eats fried chicken at least once a day! Jenn also shocks me with her blasé attitude towards potatoes and later on we debate the merits of tacos vs. burritos. Jenn's "person" is her Grandma Tina from the Chinese side of the family. And apparently she makes an insanely good sweet rice: fried sticky rice with Chinese sausage - find the recipe https://www.latimes.com/recipe/sweet-rice. Jenn credits her grandma with showing her the importance of trying new things and to this day, credits her adventurous palate to her Grandma Tina. *** Check Jenn out on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenn_harris_/ Read her work for the LA Times https://www.latimes.com/people/jenn-harris And watch Jenn's show, The Bucket List, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHKz0H6IVV_VCTDxg_ykjLr5BphPZkEPF!

Today's guest, Sasha Shor, moonlights as Russian-Jewish culinary ambassador when she's not working at her day job as a celebrity entertainment marketing maven. We met a couple months ago to have some ramen and talk about our shared history and after 2 hours of messily slurping, laughing, and bonding over smoked fish, our fate as friends was sealed. Sasha is the founder of Lavka: a Russian supper club that serves deliciousness like Mexican borscht, chorizo pelmeni, and TONS of caviar. She hosts dinners at the James Beard House and Jewish Food Society. She writes beautiful food-focused pieces about her childhood in the Soviet Union and as a Soviet refugee in Nashville, Tennessee that have been published in a slew of publications. And she doesn't even officially work in the world of food (!!). Today we chat about what it was like growing up in one of the very few Russian families in Nashville, her obsession with all things pickled, why chicken-fried steak is a perfect food, Russian feasting in epic proportions, and her mom Marina's Sweet & Sour Meatballs. It's a beautiful trip down memory lane with many laughs and a couple cries. Get the recipe for Marina's Sweet & Sour Meatballs https://emilyfedner.com/babushka-podcast/episode-8-sasha-shor-and-her-mom-marinas-sweet-amp-sour-meatballs! Stalk Sasha on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sashashor212/