You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy, a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture, about their lives, careers, and how it all fits together and where food comes in. Today, I'm talking to Angela Garbes, the author of Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy, and the new Essential Labor: Mothering As Social Change. We discussed how her past as a food writer continues to inform her work, what mothers who are creative workers need to thrive—spoiler, it's basically what all workers need to thrive—informal knowledge building, and the significance of having an unapologetic appetite as a woman. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or adjust your settings to receive an email when podcasts are published. Alicia: Hi, Angela. Thank you so much for being here. Angela: Thank you so much for having me, Alicia. Alicia: Can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate? Angela: Sure. I grew up in rural Central Pennsylvania. So—people can't see this—but this is roughly the shape of Pennsylvania, my hand. And I grew up here in what I call the ass crack of Pennsylvania. And it was a very small town, about 4,000 people. And I was one of very few people of color. And my parents are immigrants from the Philippines. You know, I would say that from a very young age, I was, like, born different. But, you know, we have a fairly typical…like, my parents are both medical professionals. So we had a pretty typical, I would say, fairly typical as you could get, middle class upbringing. And as far as what we ate, I look back on it now and I think of it as like a perfect combination of like 50 percent American, quote unquote, American convenience food, like a lot of Hamburger Helper, a lot of Old El Paso soft shell tacos, a lot of Little Caesars Pizza, a lot of Philly cheesesteaks. And then the other half we ate Filipino food: sinigang, adobo, arroz caldo, tinola... and, you know, I remember my dad, like, hacking up pig's feet, you know, I would come downstairs and he'd be cooking up things like that. And so when I look back on it now, I think it was—I mean, I love Filipino food so much. But I also, I mean, I love all kinds of food. And I kind of eat anything. And it's partly, I think, because I was just exposed to a lot of things. But my parents, you know, we lived in this really small town, and they couldn't get all of the ingredients that they wanted to make traditional dishes. But they kind of improvised with what they had. And because they were so committed to cooking Filipino food, sort of against the odds, I would say, you know, we did a lot of…there were not vegetables that [were] available, like you couldn't get okra or green papaya. So we would use zucchini, and, you know, frozen okra to make sinigang. But it was such a way for them to stay connected to their cultures and I feel so grateful to them because what they did was really pass that down to me, from an early age. I was like, Oh, yeah, this is—this is my food, like, this is who I am. And I've never lost that. And I've always loved [it] and, yeah, so it was sort of this wonderful, healthy mix, I think. Alicia: For sure, and, you know, it was so interesting to realize, because I don't think I'd realized it before, that you were a food writer. [Laughs] Until I got into your books, I was like, Wait… And Like a Mother, your first book, starts out like, so…like, such a rich piece of food writing. And I'm like, Wow, now I understand. And then I realized, I'm like, Oh, she is a food writer. So you know, you've come to write your two books about motherhood, but you know, you're also a food writer, and you're writing about food in these books as well. How did you become a food writer? Angela: First of all, thank you for saying this now because I miss food writing. And I think at heart, I am a food writer. And I think it informs, you know, the way I portray sensory detail and physical experiences. But yeah, so the way I became a food writer was sort of, it was really my entry into writing. But it happened…the year was 2005, I think. And you know, I had gone to college and studied creative writing, but like a lot of things, I just thought just because I liked doing something doesn't mean I get to do [it], right? And I think that's a lesson that a lot of writers could learn... [laughs] So I didn't work in these like writing-adjacent dying industries, you know; I worked as an independent bookseller. I worked for a nonprofit poetry press—which is still going, actually I should say, and then I worked as an ad sales rep at an alt-weekly. And, you know, I obviously wish that I was a writer there, but I had no designs on writing. I was, you know, I partying a lot with the ad salespeople, and we were just— I mean, alt-weeklies are— I'm so proud to have started all my writing in my career and adult life there. It was a good time. So I was working in ad sales. And at the time, David Spader and Dan Savage, who are the editorial people, they said, “Hey, do you want to write?” I was leaving to take another job. And they were like, “Hey do you want to submit a sample food writing piece?” And I was like, Me? And they were like, “Yeah,” and I was like, why? And yes, and why. And they both said, “Well, we know you write, we know that you have a writing background” because I was friends with a lot of writers. And they were like, “But you're just always walking around the office, talking about where you went to dinner, talking about what you cooked, talking about what you ate, and like, everyone in the office wants to go out to lunch with you. Everyone wants you to invite them over for dinner.” And I was like, Oh, okay! And so then I just did it as a one-off. And something clicked, where you know, I had been writing fiction, I had been writing bad poetry, but when I started writing about food, I was like, Here's everything that I was thinking about, like food to me—and this is what I think it has in common really with motherhood, and mothering really—is a lens to see the world. And it's a lens into—I mean, the sky's the limit about what you can talk about, right, or what you want to talk about. And so, I mean, when I started, it was like, here write a review of this place, that’s doing mini burgers at happy hour, right? And I started doing restaurant reviews, which was very service-y, which, in some ways I hated, but in some ways I'm grateful for, right—meeting a weekly deadline, and like thinking about your audience and being of use, that's something that I think about all the time still. But um, yeah, I mean, when I started doing it, too, I felt really—I came into it, absolutely, with a chip on my shoulder. I was like, Okay, so I'm Filipina. I never hear about Filipino food. Why do we call places holes in the wall? Right, like, that's racist. Why are we willing to pay $24 for a plate of pasta but people get up in arms when someone wants to charge $14 for pho? You know, I feel like this is where I was coming from. And there wasn't really a lot of space for that, I will say. So there was—I felt a little limited. You know, I think about sometimes, what it would be like to start my career now. I feel like people have created a lot of space. It's not like just the space has opened up. But the scene has changed. I took a forced hiatus from food writing, because of the Great Recession, where they were like, We don't need freelancers anymore. I came back to it, though—what year was this? It would have been 2012; 2013 and 2014, I was pregnant. And I had actually decided, you know, just because I'm good at writing doesn't mean I get to do it. I need to figure out something more practical to do with my life. So I had applied to go to graduate school, actually to get a master's in public health and nutrition. And I wanted to work with immigrant communities to help them have culturally appropriate diets. You know, like, not everyone was just gonna eat kale, which is what people—or shop at the farmers’ market. So yeah, I mean, I took classes at the local community college. I took biology, chemistry, all the s**t that I didn't take as an English major in the mid ’90s. And, yeah, I got accepted, but then when I was pregnant, The Stranger, the alt-weekly, called me and they were like, Hey, we're hiring a food writer, and are you interested in applying? And I was like—this chance is never going to come around. And so I was like, Yeah, I'll take it. And so this was, this is a really long answer, sorry, [this was in] 2014, and I started back, and it was restaurant reviews. But it was also when $15 an hour was going really strong here in Seattle. And I really wanted to explore the labor aspect of that, and what was that like for workers…and then my secret goal, I had a great editor who was Korean-American. And she and I were like, yes, like, every two weeks, there will be a picture of a Brown or Black person to go with the restaurant review. And so it was all this stuff. Like, I felt like I finally got a chance to do what I really wanted to be doing. It was like, moving towards that. And then I wrote this piece about breastfeeding, which, at the time, they asked me to pitch a feature. They're like, You've been here on staff long enough, like what do you want to write about? And I was like, I definitely need to write about breast milk. No one in the editorial room was like, it was just like, it landed like a dead bird and I was like, Well, I kind of want to do this for myself. I felt it was very much an extension of my beat. Because I was like, here I am. I'm thinking about food. I'm producing food. I am food. I'm eating food. And so I wrote this piece and ended up going viral, which is how I got the opportunity to write my first book and
