Hello and welcome to cooking. Your host of cooking gives you is coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan in Rockefeller Center, New York City on newsstands studios joined as usual with Anastasia hammer Lopez, how're you doing? I'm good. Yeah, I'm a little disappointed. You're not wearing a trucker? Sad. I thought you maybe I don't know why I thought as I was biking today, you'd be wearing a trucker hat. Do I usually not be like, Oh, I just saw trucker hat. Okay. It's because I posted that photo. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, we got John here with us to how you doing John? Doing great. Thanks, you chef ended up chef and up strong. You know, it's love it loving up rockin panels here. We got Joe Hasan, how you doing? I'm doing great, man. Yeah, how you doing? Doing? Well, we have now I'm told that a lot of back and forth with the Internet. You know, you spoken to the magic gnomes who send the ones and zeros over the tubes. And that Quinn? You're not going to drop out today from from your post in Vancouver Island. Is that true?

Yeah, that is the goal. Yeah. Now we're good.

And certainly not least a man who's making a health smoothie smoothie as we speak, whatever. Whatever the heck a hell smoothie is. We got to check the molecules in California. How you doing? Hello, I'm doing great. Yeah. And you know this, what we're going to do from now on until someone tells us we shouldn't is we're going to introduce the guest that's in the studio right away. So they can, you know, join us while we're shooting the breeze. So today's special guests first time on the show. Welcome to Roger Monroe. How're you doing?

I'm very well. Thank you. Yeah.

So you are the contributor, what do you what do you call yourself on the new book author, co author of the new book, savor memoir, Fatima Ali, which we're gonna talk about in a minute. But, you know, I gotta address the fact that every time when we came here, Mr. Ross, he was like, that was to match his old family wine shop across the hall. And she does talk like that when she's not on the air. By the way, if you've ever met her, it's true. Yeah. So we're, you know, we're across the way here from your family's old like hyper fancy wine shop. What's that? Like? Did you so this is relatively new, right? Like 2000 or 1999? Or something like that?

That's exactly right. I think it was 2001. Maybe this this the wine shop was 2000. And then the restaurant which used to be adjacent was 2001.

So when you were a kid, were you playing around in the old store? Like, you know, like, yeah, yes. Well, I

did less playing around in the shop. In this. Yeah. Right. I

was sort of a grown up. It also doesn't look very play friendly. Not play friendly. Not crave now. Yeah. So for those of you that haven't like for, first of all, for those of you that aren't like my age, and you know, older, like New York kind of wine scene way back in the day, there were a couple of high end wine shops in New York, right. And like the two, I would cut rate wine shops. Yeah, I went to Garnett. You know what I mean? Or like, you know, places like that. But like, you know, there were a couple of high end wine shops. And the two that everyone talks about? Are yours. Well, and Sherry Lehman. Were you guys friends? Or no?

I mean, you know, the top competitors. So but I think like, so no, why well, but I think there's like a commonality and understanding when you're competing against each other and kind of doing those, those same deals at those levels and looking for those interesting. Why and so, I'd say good vibes mostly. Yeah.

Well, they were they in that kind of in that public auction business, because you guys were early in in that public auction stuff, right? You've

really done your homework. Yes, my father and Merlin company were the first to begin to do wine auctions when it was made legal, which it was not for a very long time that one of the really difficult things about being a wine retailer in New York is that there's a lot of laws leftover from prohibition if you can believe it, things like not being able to own multiple locations. And so when the law changed in terms of being allowed to do wine auctions, my dad beat the pack like including Christie's and Sotheby's and was able to help the first one. So like,

the question I know it's not why we're here but QUESTION So when was that roughly? Do you remember?

God gosh, I would say 2000

rights live so it's relatively late rights because it used to be like you know, because my family was in Westchester so they would they would wait for like the professionals to do their wine auction stuff and then buy futures from like Zach ease. Yeah, like that. Yeah. So you guys are also did that kind of

we did. We did. My dad was big into futures and buying the Bordeaux's when they were babies and letting them

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So growing up as like the sign of like, I guess you're the third generation. i Yes. Yeah. So as a third generation, kind of wine family. What happens when someone comes to your house and brings you something that you're like, Ah,

man, when they bring Are you?

Yeah. Are you okay with that? Like, what's yours? See what happens. I send them a real household.

And then I put it under the sink with the Windex.

And, and like I know that like, you know, you, the family sold the business sometime like 2015 or something like this right? 20 something like this, we just went to Eve 52 Like it was so what are you still allowed to kind of go over there and break something and then be like, well, and then walk out?

You know, it's, I might try that when we're done recording. You know, some of the same people still work for the company. And so they kind of, I think I'm just snooping around and they go. But no, I mean, I can't really afford anything across the way and yeah, yeah, very high end.

Well, they always put the mean like, Okay, another question, since you're part of the family here. Like who who is walking into this building? Who looks at like, I can't read it that far away. But let's say it's a $2,000 You know, Magnum or something? And they're like, Oh, I'm gonna buy that.

Yeah. Oh, good. Boy, that would bet when it gets like the people with the corporate cards that are buying them as, as gifts on expense accounts of some kind, and that's part of something they can write off or, you know, people who really just love to drink fancy wines, and then fancy equals expensive to them.

Yeah, I like to drink great wine. I don't like to pay for it.

I'm with you. Yeah, I'm definitely on the same page.

So if you're listening, live on Patreon call it and questions 2917410 1507. That's 9174100 1507. And John, won't you tell them how to join the Patreon if

they don't patreon.com/cooking issues?

And is is to Rogers? Book is the saver on that. Are we getting a discount? Kitchen arson letters,

thing to check with Matt? We

go. Alright, let's just assume that he will. Let's just assume that'll happen. good assumption. Yeah. Are you? Are you are you going to go up to kitchen oscillators? You're going to do anything with them? Or no, I mean, it's not a cookbook. We'll get into a sec. We're gonna say we haven't shot the breeze yet. Has anyone had any good food experiences before we have a past week anything? Anything at all?

I have. Oh, am I allowed to speak of course. That's

why we introduce you early. Cool.

Yeah. So this weekend, and in fact, the past two weekends I've been going to a westerly canteen pop up in upstate New York. And it's this incredible kitted out 1971 Airstream that's been turned into a mobile kitchen that this chef Molly Levine who has great things under her belt, including working at Chez Panisse and her partner who is an amazing farmer have created as this mobile restaurant and they're doing pop ups and stuff and their food is gorgeous No Yeah it's crazy delicious and so flavorful and and very beautifully sourced

and is the airstream still all shiny and aluminum it's

super super shiny. Yeah I love yeah and it's also like so chic on the inside and minimalist and just gorgeous.

They run that thing off of propane or they generator it or what are they generator? Yeah,

I mean, they I think they may have have gas inside so they may have also propane but in terms of the overall electricity for it.

You know who absolutely loves mobile kitchens. Anastasia?

Well, you remember our Airstream mark and my Airstream?

I sure don't remember that no

Geez I don't like being too it's bad.

That's like a how long how long wheels is how you describe that right? Like well what do you like what do you hate more like dealing with that like the packing everything in the commissary aspect or the people that would approach you at the at the airstream I

think just mark

to say like the ultimate, the ultimate honor thing was when Eric Wareheim was on and we were talking about the chef's kiss. And just as you go, what do you say says,

well, they were like chefs because chefs because I was like y'all these men talking about it. And I was like, first of all, none of you know what a chef's kiss tastes like and I do and it tastes like alcohol and sadness.

And we were just like, Yeah, okay, yeah. Okay. All right.

keep my mouth shut

what's in the business stays in the business. What about you? What about you? What about you Jack? What about you Quinn, any good food experiences? Nothing.

I will have some stuff to report next week because I'm going backpacking and I have a bunch of freeze dried foods I'll do a little taste test and report back if any of it's actually good.

Are you bringing any Mountain House brand what brands and freeze dried foods are using

while they're in my trunk? So I have to report back on I but I got like four different brands. I'm gonna build taste test.

So you can do a taste test but you don't know in advance which brands you have

I'm gonna do they're just in my trunk I don't have them in front of me right

now. That sounds like a new segment reporting back from checks.

Yeah, well maybe it'll go better maybe go better than when we had Miss dasya sister tried to do the dump meals and like she didn't like my tone of voice and so she only did it once remember that stuff and she hung up on you rightly so I remember that we rightly so.

ragging on her and she was just like that's

the whole point of discussing this stuff. Come on, man.

I don't think those are two words that should be used next to each other either and yet those words sell millions of copies so

it's a bad thing. Yeah, don't meals I forget the lady's name who writes them she has like a it's like the Hardy Boys mysteries but don't meals there's like a million of or Nancy Drew or whatever, the boxcar kids choose your series. Yeah, yeah. I don't think you have to learn that to Raj. Cool. I think that thank you all right, without the are you a slow cooker kind of a person or now or do you ever do that? Have you ever done that in your life and like I'm gonna throw all this stuff in and then walk away and when I go home it'll be done? Do you do that somebody

a lot of people do that don't do that.

Let me look up don't meal she doesn't even come up it's not like it's been easiest ever dumped dinners on Food Network are our best dumped in the crock dinners dinner's Yeah,

it very very much smacks of the old farm to toilet idea for Yeah. That's the exhibit people's farm to toilet. Why don't we go to the table? So we have what you there. Anyway. Oh, there's one. Hold on very quickly. This woman Kathy Mitchell, who? I guess that's it. That's it. That's our yeah, there's there's a second book called dump cake. Yeah. All chocolate. molten chocolate dark cake. Oh, yeah. Listen, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. All right. So let's get let's get right down to it. So you're on the show today. Because you just came out with a book. And it is. It's very hard to describe. It's very unusual book. So let's just let's just start with a kind of how you started with something like a couple of months before the pandemic in late 2018. So no one knows what's going to happen. Right? You get a telephone call to get interviewed for potentially having a book job.

I think you've skipped a year,

wasn't it? 2018? You

know, that's what I got called. But the pandemic started 19 Right.

Was it 2020? Oh, 20. Yeah, I get my years confused. Yeah. A year before the pandemic?

Yeah, it's a year before that. So So yeah, I was approached via my agent, my literary agent, about the fact that Fatima Ali wanted to write a book. And I was familiar with her via her Bon Appetit essays should publish to at that time, and I said, I would adore to be considered and, you know, submitted some sap writing samples. And long story short, I wonder, she wound up hiring me. And at that point, the plan as I understood it was that she wanted to travel and really experience the restaurants of her dreams in the time that she had left and

right, because she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, right, less than a year earlier. Right. And then

in in, I mean, September, October, right before she, she wanted, announced that she wanted to try to book and started to look for a collaborator. And so she thought she had a year. And so that was the premise that we all kind of were embracing and excited about. And then it was just impossible. She was too unwell to travel and to eat like that, and to be on a plane. And so instead, I spent one week at her bedside, in Los Angeles, and interviewed her and recorded everything and talk to her about the book she would have liked to write and, and her hopes and dreams and experiences in her past and, and the lion's share of savor is from that that week together. And then interviews done with her mom and her brother and her friends and other family members after she passed.

Right now there was a there was a small period before because you flew out to LA and like January, right? And you've done your your interviews, like a couple a couple of months before that you realize that there's a maximum only like a year right? Or a month before that. Did you feel like maybe this wasn't going to be happening? Did you know what was going on?

I did all my interviews in that one week. Right. But I mean, like in other words, there

was a pause. I mean, like if someone tells me I have a year left to live and we had to write a book, you didn't fly out immediately. There was still like a Oh, yeah,

I was waiting to know what we were going to meet in New York. We're going to meet in Copenhagen. Where were we going to meet I didn't know I was waiting to kind of hear what the next step was going to be. And then it turned out the next step was to meet her in Los Angeles and, and it was very clear to me when I arrived there, that she was not going to live for very much longer and and in fact, she passed two weeks later after our week together.

Yeah. So, yeah, so me. So you signed on for this one project she signed on? Well, she wanted to do this one project, it very quickly became something else, because, you know, she realized she wasn't gonna make it that long that even if she made it a while longer, she was too sick to go anywhere. So what was I mean, let's just, why don't we talk a little bit about her talk a little bit about her life. So people who don't know who she is get get a feeling for it, or, or if you want, you can read it, you want to read an excerpt from the book, we've never done it before on the air,

we'll be sure, but it will take me a second to pull it up. So while

you're leveling it up, I'll ask you two questions. So we'll just say something so she is, you know, was 2028 I guess when she was diagnosed 29 When she died, she was Pakistani. And she was a queer Pakistani woman who wanted to be a chef, who's who was becoming very, very successful was on Chopped was, you know, a very, you know, well loved, regarded and did well on, on Top Chef, and, you know, had worked in, you know, very fine restaurants was all excited to open her own restaurant, her dream was to, you know, do two things I think bring or three things bring, you know, higher end good Pakistani food to America, and also to go to Pakistan and elevate the position of women and chefs in general in Pakistan and to, you know, do something to feed the hungry mouths that she was used to seeing when she was a child in. I guess it was Lahore Karachi what? Yeah. And so she had all these goals. And she was well on her way to achieving those goals, you know, through a lot of obstacles, which are, you know, well documented in the book. And then you don't I mean,

yeah, I mean, she, she was deeply ambitious, and incredibly gifted and very charismatic. And in an extremely short time that I've physically spent with her, I found her you know, just magnetic. And I understood why she had such a massive following very quickly. And then, of course, the lessons that she's left behind via the book are our lessons that apply to absolutely everyone, no matter their race or their profession or their sexual identity. And she's, she's really saying, Get busy living, enjoy, take your teeth in, you know, and, and, yes, I learned so much from her. She's made me live in a different way. So this is an early chapter in the book from her childhood. It's called hunger at the market. We often accompanied our mother to the market to go grocery shopping, which I already understood as the first phase of every meal. We sat in the back of our rickety dinged secondhand white Suzuki Khyber and drove to cotton market with my mother playing Stevie Nicks, tape singing along loudly to the edge of 17. As soon as we pulled up to the park, I had, I heard a sharp wrap on the window and my head snapped up large brown eyes the same size as mine, or most, but seeming larger because of the sunken cheeks beneath them, appeared framed in our windows a million miles between two centimeters of polished glass. The children put their hands out for money and then motion motion to their mouths the universal sign of hunger. Hello, hello. My mother greeted them good natured Leah, she and Muhammad pulled my seven year old self out of the backseat of the car. How many of you are there? Well, us too. And our cousin a child said sheepishly. Go round them up, my mother said. And off they ran disappearing into the jigsaw of parked cars and crowds and child sized crevices between overflowing shops. Sometimes they whistled to get each other's attention from afar, and suddenly there were 812 14 Little and not so little people around us shabbily dressed hair and combed faces, unwashed and thin. My mother looked around for the closest Dhaba a simple little local eateries, serving big vats of food where cabbies and market purveyors all buy cheap, good meals. We've got 14 Kids, my mother told the proprietor What are you going to give them and what is it going to cost? The proprietor made up big plates of dal curries and fresh non for the kids one plate for each and named a price for my mom usually around 30 or 50 rupees which included cooks for everyone. She paid and waited for all the children to be served their food while my brother and I watched the little kids our age laughing poking each other in the ribs playful and relaxed for a moment now that they knew their next meal was coming soon and that it was going to be a fresh one. Not forged from the trash heap. I watched as this band of beggars mouths watered and instead of getting hungry myself my small throat went dry. Certainly I was not immune to the seductive sense of Pakistani comfort food being read aid for consumption. My mouth water does I smelled fluffy biryani warming on the stovetop or Shami kabobs for dinner at home. But seeing these Hello cheat kids so giddy and ravenous I realized I'd never really I'd never truly known hunger, though I knew that money was hard earned, not only my mother, not only could my mother always feed us, she had enough to feed the small army of street kids 50 rupees is all it took. And every Sunday, we were 50 rupees later, and those little boys and girls had full bellies for once, not knowing how or when, but I made a promise to myself that I would feed people.

So that is relatively early in the book, but it comes back again and again. You know, like, it's very clear that at the end of her life, she's really reflecting on that particular goal, even more than becoming successful, which is clearly a huge goal, you know, of her life. So how clear, I know that there was a foundation was started, how, like, how clear was she to you in the time you had that? She wanted this book to help with kind of that goal and the goal of allowing other people like her to see that this is possible to do.

I think she was very clear about her goals. I mean, that was a lot of what we discussed was What did she want this book to be? And what would she be doing if she didn't have to focus her goals in a book and could just be doing. And I think what she realized is that her story, through the book, could inspire other young Pakistani women to realize that there were, there was a world that the world was their oyster that they could, you know, go off and discover new careers and have adventures that perhaps had not originally occurred to them or that they'd felt somehow were off limits to them. I think that was a tremendous goal of hers, the inspiration of other young Pakistani in particular, girls, in terms of feeding people, I think that the chef, to my foundation is an incredible step in that direction. I think it really broke her heart that that was not something she figured out how to do in her lifetime, to the degree that she wanted to do it. I mean, this is an incredibly ambitious person who believe that, you know, if she became a world renowned chef, she would be able to really make a dent in the hunger crisis in her country, using her or her celebrity as a tool to help that. So I think that was a hard thing, a hard goal for her to let go of. And I think the end of her life was a series of recalibrations of goals. So that was extremely hard for her and her family and everyone who loved her.

Right. So that now I don't know, I kind of know where to where to go into this, because there's kind of two things. One is the structure of the book. So at the end of the book, towards the end of the book, when you fly out to the hospital, there's a scene where you're at the foot of the bed and these doctors come in and some doctor wisecracks, there's gonna be a book by a lot of people. She's like, No, you know what I mean? She doesn't want it to feel like just a, like a pastiche of things for different people. And yet, the actual structure of the book is, in fact, it's not a dialogue, but it it is. I mean, it is it is a back and forth between two perspectives, fatmus perspective, perspective, and her mother's perspective. So I'm kind of wondering how that work. There's also like, very, I mean, there's stuff that, you know, she brought up in the, in what she was talking about with you, or the notes and writing that she gave you that. I can't imagine writing about, you know, my family, if I wasn't like, right at a place where none of that mattered anymore. You know what I mean? Is he really pulling out like a lot of the stuff and her mom, also, this is an interesting part of the book at the very beginning of the book is like, this books going to be hard. And there's this kind of amazing discussion between Fatima and the mother. About Is it okay to do this book, because you're gonna have to deal with it when I'm dead. And it's going to be unpleasant. So, I mean, one, like, how did that work? Afterwards and to like, what did I know she was a writer? Right? So did she. I know that parts of her Bon Appetit writing are woven into the later sections of the book. But like, and I know she was writing at the end, you know, feverishly and probably recording as well. So like what I mean, I'm sure when you were there for the week, you're just trying to absorb as much of her personalities as humanly possible. But then what did you physically have to work with? Like, how does that work when so it's so unusual process?

Well, in terms of weaving into the narrative, what had already been written, certainly, the published essays that she had written Before for Bon appetit. And for a couple other publications earlier, in long before she knew that she had cancer, had cancer, things that she wrote when she was more of a student and, and right after winning, chopped, so in her early, very early 20s. So I tried to weave all of anything that was originally you know, that she had written as much intact without any edits as much as possible. In terms of what she was working on, at the end of her life. There was there were some really beautiful pieces, it wasn't a tremendous amount. And the lion's share of the book is from our conversations, which were almost like dictation, in a way because she was so articulate and so descriptive when she was talking about something she was passionate about, which, obviously, we were trying to do a lot of. So it was very complicated. And then the addition of her mother as a voice came from the fact that we had such a brief time together, and there was concern that there wouldn't be enough only in Fantomas voice. And so it made sense to all of us that her mother who from whom, you know, far too much spraying and and was very inspired by and guided by. And another strong Pakistani woman should be also a perspective in this. And I mean, I'm very personally interested in mother daughter stories. So this was clear to me that this is how the story should be told. And, and then. Yeah, that's pretty much how that happened. So the parts that are from her mom's perspective are from after Fatuma pass from our interviews, and then her mother, also working on those herself,

that had to be incredibly difficult for everybody. It was

incredibly difficult, incredibly painful. It took a tremendous amount of bravery, bravery on the part of her family. And I, you know, I don't I don't think there was anything easy about it. But we all sort of made this promise. I mean, it's different for me, I was relatively a stranger, but I still took it quite seriously my promise to her to try to make something of this and it was very clear to me once I understood, once she shared with me more about her story that this wasn't just some food network, you know, popular chef, she didn't want to tell us sort of behind the scenes tell all of being on on a cooking show. It was this was a much deeper and wider story that touches on universal issues of love family. Identity,

and also like mortality, you know, even at her age, she already kind of realized she's like, in the book, right? You know, one of the one of the things that is her desire to constantly be the best and succeed is most of time driving her in the right direction until she feels it doesn't anymore. And then like happens, like, like a bunch, not a bunch, but at several big times where she's like, well, I quit my I quit my job because it was too easy. It wasn't taking me in the right direction. It's like she wanted fame, but not as she wanted fame I think for fame sake, but also to do all these amazing things. So she must have been just a really interesting personality to to deal with even for that one week. But I wonder what was it she was an intense pain the entire time that you were with her was that make it difficult for her to tell the stories to through the filter of all of that pain she was on? She was on some like experimental pain, lidocaine drip that you know, was dreamed up by her doctors at Kettering, you know, something that

didn't seem like it should work to help with her pain. And yet it did. From what I understand, yeah, it was a very meditative slow conversation that had in the background of it, you know, the sound of being in a hospital, those sort of mechanical sounds of worrying and beeping and machines that are telling you what's going on with the patient's body. And it was very, it was very slow conversing, although we covered a lot. And it was deeply moved, moving and emotional. I think for all of us, I can speak for myself and, and observing some of the conversations between Fatima and her brother who was always present whenever she and I were speaking, was incredibly moving their love for each other and devotion to each other.

Yeah, the the other thing that's really interesting when you read it, it's very apparent. So you know, normally when someone's writing a book that's coming out in their own first person, and they have the chance to kind of finish it themselves, right? I, the the experience of the information that they're that they're putting together in their head and putting out has a chance to, like change and morph over time, right. But here, like, you know, you spend years working on the information that was gathered from a synthesis at this one intense crisis point in her life. And I think it really imbues the point of view she has, with a kind of, like crystal entity of purpose that would be impossible to get in a situation where the person whose thoughts are going on, you know, on the paper has a year or two to think about is that makes sense

totally. And I think that the people who were left to do that thinking were her mom and her brother and, and that was immensely difficult for them. And there was a tension between all of us, you know, saying, of course, we'll figure out how to make this book for you. And then the reality of the messages that she wanted to leave behind didn't some of which were hard truths. And, you know, in my introduction, I, I say that my marching orders came on our last day together, she said, You're gonna figure out how to do this, I know you can do it. And I thought, well, if she knows I can do it, then I suppose I can do it. But you know, she was she really gave me instructions. And I tried to be very true to them and take them very seriously.

So another interesting thing about the mother perspective, and you know, far too much perspective, is that they are sometimes at odds is the wrong term, but they definitely have different current, what current as of the writing of the book, right? You have, whatever the theoretical present tense is in a situation when somebody's gone. But they have different current views of the same things that are being presented side by side chapter by chapter. I mean, you know, and it's, it's interesting, I don't think I've ever seen a presentation quite like that. Was it difficult to kind of go between the two voices? Because they are quite different.

They're quite different. Yeah. As I said, fair, as a Fantomas mother, very much, went over everything in her voice to make sure she felt it was absolutely in her own voice. I would say that Fatima, and I had a lot more sort of common ground and the way we talked about things, probably because we were passionate about some of the same things in terms of food. And there's a commonality to talking about kitchens and, and cooking school that we experienced this we both have had. So I think that was like a creative shorthand to some extent, but you share

her disdain for tattooed shifts from Brooklyn.

Let me think about that. I want to answer honestly, no, I don't have to stay.

There. She She clearly, she's like, she was sick of the trope. She was

it's a trope. Right? Exactly. So I think I thought that was funny. And great. And so your original question, or the very distinct voices? Well, I think that I find found that to be a really interesting way to talk about facts, a because we all have our own experiences of a situation two people can sit in a room and watch a movie, and they might have totally different experiences of what they just watched. And I think, especially for a mother daughter, when there's a generational gap, and also, you know, an experiential gap. Seeing things through both of their perspectives is really interesting. And I hope that it's something that mothers and daughters will take away from this is thinking might feel different to the other side.

And the other, the other main, one of the other main frictions going through the book, is that, you know, Fatima, clearly has a love for Pakistan, Pakistani culture, food, and a desire to like, bring, like, you know, have it not just be a place that Americans think of as, like land a land of terror and poverty. Right. Absolutely. To paraphrase, you know, what she has what she said. At the other time, she's extraordinarily conflicted about what America is like, you know what I mean? So it's kind of an interesting thing, because she always found Well, she she told you, I guess I found how difficult she found it to be things that she wasn't really supposed to be in Pakistan, right. You weren't but a woman was supposed to be a professional chef. A woman was supposed to marry a nice Pakistani man which he clearly says like five or eight times that she doesn't want to do. She, you know, is definitely not supposed to be queer, which she is, like, none of that's okay. You know what I mean? And, you know, in a lot of what she wants, she has the kind of, like intense support from her mom, who also made some non traditional decisions in her life in terms of divorce, which wasn't okay. You know, and moving moving about, in ways that weren't necessarily okay. For being fiercely independent, right, for, you know, a woman because she's a relatively, you know, they didn't have a lot of money because of the decision she made at some points in their lives. But she was still, you know, you know, from upper echelons of Pakistani society. So how clear was she on that kind of friction of not being necessarily wanting to kind of fix things that were wrong in both places when you were talking to her

in terms of America and Pakistan? I mean, as we touched on before, I think she really wanted to help with the poverty crisis, that and the hunger crisis. And I think he or she wanted, as you said, people to think of other things, you know, other than terror and fear, when they thought of Pakistan and her her approach to that was absolutely beautiful, which was she wanted to just disarm people through their tastebuds. And she wanted to introduce them to a place of beauty and care and hospitality through our through hospitality itself. By opening a restaurant she she likened what she wanted to do here in New York or America, to an uncle Boone's where you walk in, and you're sort of, of your senses, the music, the posters, the food, the sense, are all taking you on this journey. And in the case of Pakistan, it would be one that most people are totally unfamiliar with. And so I think I don't I can't say how much she wanted to change about America, I think she was very clear eyed about it not being a perfect place. And we definitely didn't want it to appear that there was a trope in the book of America being the sort of open minded Savior land, because that's ridiculous, especially in this current atmosphere, but but she did feel a freedom and expansive sort of, I think anonymity that she could accomplish more here.

Yeah, well, she gained quite a bit of like, back when she went back home after she was on TV, and started getting press, then she seemed to be more accepted for what she was doing. afterwards. Right. So that seemed that seemed to be a kind of a positive note. No.

Oh, I think she was always accepted and adored for her work there. But I think she was she she became extremely well known, based on what my understanding in Pakistan. And so people would sort of come up to her on the street even more than they might here in America.

Did you ever get to go or no,

it didn't because of the pandemic, right. So I was supposed to go in March 2020. And that was right after lockdown began. And then I was going to try to go the following year, but I was expecting a baby. So it wasn't the time to do that kind of travel. Yeah.

Now maybe someday,

I hope so.

I've never been to anywhere in that region of the earth.

I've been to India but I expected to Pakistan to be a completely different experience.

I was supposed to go to Delhi in the pandemic, I was supposed to, like be able to go to Delhi and the pandemic, whatever. It's a minor minor inconvenience in life. So I'll make it hopefully someday I've got another couple of years hopefully you never know though. That's like the thing of the book. I mean, the cancer that she got was so intensely aggressive here is an incredibly healthy 28 year old woman comes does Top Chef does it is does it wins some sort of like starch of her choice basically goes to hang out with Chris kostow right who like apparently like you know, she does a great job they're like everybody you know going on all cylinders is going to do some opening out here. I forget what it was some pop up opening out here while she's waiting to figure out her next move. Her social media is going through the freaking roof because Top Chef is starting to air right and like everything is going great. She has this great network of people that she met on Top Chef plus her New York City cooking network you know she also as people you know her mom's like we'll get your place in Pakistan you can you can you have the pick of your place to to cook in Lahore if you want to come back here, all this amazing stuff and then bang, you don't I mean, it's just it's kind of it's a it's a great. I mean, obviously intensely sad. But, you know, just the section of it kind of like portrait of a young chef. If it's kind of interesting,

what's really most the book is really about living. Yeah. I mean, everyone kind of looks at me like, I'm crazy when I say that, but it is, the bulk of this book is about really living, right and really sinking your teeth in and, and not waiting and not making excuses to do the things that you love to do. Because, of course, we don't know what is coming around the band.

Yeah. She also mean, she does a lot of forgiving at the end. Like, were you present for that stuff? Or did you hear about it afterwards, or

it was sort of happening. A lot of it was happening, one, not when I was in the room, but in that week that I was there. And so I was getting some really incredible breathless accounts of the conversations she had had just before I been with her right after I'd left the night before. With her very close family members. So yeah, our last day together was extremely powerful. She was having visions and, and she was she was she seemed to pass pain. She was very punchy, and, and kind of excitable in a really beautiful way. And it was it was a step, the entire experience of being around that much love, although it was extremely painful. was awe inspiring,

right. And you believe we're there for the conversation when the doctors were going to do a bunch of stuff. She's like, forget it. Yes. That's got to be a that's got to be a very intense thing to be the you were there as a fly on the wall. You just met her a few days before? Yeah, I mean, that's,

yeah, it was. There, the doctors all came in around in this pack. And there was probably a teaching hospital or something. So they were always followed by

students. Yeah, she was at whatever that what's the la place? Right. CLA medical? Yeah.

And as she was saying, like, No, I don't want another MRI, like, no. And then the the doctors were, I was watching everything that was happening. They were trying not to cry, but tears were rolling down their cheeks, because she was so brave. And she was sort of coaching everyone around her on being strong and and, you know, instead of people holding her up, she was holding them up. But it was an astonishing thing to witness.

I mean, that basically comes through, she's like, Doc, it's please enough, that's fine. You know what, I'm just doing

my job. And she says, You know, I know and you've done it, and I'm gonna be okay. Like, but you gotta let me go.

Yeah, she's like, you know, it's the end the end of the book. Yeah. So it's living for like, 240 something pages, and then the end of it is, you know, think you know, kind of a good as good an ending as someone can hope to have in the terrible kind of suit. In other words, what she did with it not her physical pain was obviously a horrific nightmare. But what the way she chose to deal with it, I thought was,

well, yeah, I mean, she's leaving this incredible legacy and message for the rest of us to get smart.

And going back to what I said about like, a very, like crystal, like vision of a particular point in in somebody's life. What an indictment of the American Medical System.

Oh, my gosh, what that family went through.

Like, I don't think I mean, nothing that I read seems like it could have changed the outcome, but just what a horrific, horrific experience. We misfiled the insurance papers, so you can't get the biopsy that you need, you know what I mean? And like, just like back and forth, and then when she moves from New York to LA, the insurance has to change because she's not in New York anymore. And they, you know, what, it just What a crap show, like, what just a horrible nightmare. And you know, John, I'm sure you're privy to all of this stuff to just what a horrible nightmare having something like this happens to you, you know what I mean? Yeah, it's just so if you want to know, you know, I thought was a very good representation of what a intense, intense pile of crap navigating that system can be in the absolute worst time of your life. I mean, there are some medical heroes like the guy from from Memorial Sloan Kettering, Dr. Wexler comes, apparently a family lesson, you know what I mean? And he comes across as a good as a good guy, but just like a bunch of a bunch of people like saying offhand things. Oh, it's, it's nothing. It's like yeah, yeah, put some ice on it. You know what I mean? Oh, you're you know, your your hip is broken or whatever, you know, all this like naughty stuff, because they can't get the approvals to do these kind of clear procedures that are indicated. And then at the end over procedure, it's just like a