Chewing the Fat with Jeff Fisher - Ep 131 | The American Dream - Tembi Locke is Living Hers...

Episode Date: June 22, 2019

Tembi Locke, actor and bestselling author of FROM SCRATCH, a Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Book Club pick FROM SCRATCH, written and read by Tembi Locke A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB PICKNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA poignant and transporting cross-cultural love story set against the lush backdrop of the Sicilian countryside, where one woman discovers the healing powers of food, family, and unexpected grace in her darkest hour. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right. It is Saturday. It is Saturday. It is 5 a.m. Central, 6 p. I mean, it's so damn early. I'm telling you. I don't even know why I woke up so early. So let me try this one more time. Okay, here we go. It is 5 a.m. Central, 6 a.m. Eastern. And I told you on Thursday that I was going to release a interview that I did with 10B lock. And I'm going to do a little bit of intro. She's a fantastic person. She has, you know, you know, could actually hear her heart go out on this project that she did about a memoir, you know, from scratch. So please, please, please. If you can't, if you want to get lost in romance and forget about all political, go download from scratch the audiobook because June is audiobook month. Duh. What are you waiting for? But anyways, because the Ineboro already started. and I don't want you to lose any of it, you know, because like I said, I pre-recorded this. So the universe is already going. Like, I could hear myself every talking in the background with Temi, so I don't want to jump too much.

But what I'm going to tell you is to make sure that you subscribe, rate, and review this podcast, because Jeffrey will be back on Monday. It's Saturday. So you have two more days without me. Well, actually, without Jeffrey, because I will still be here. And two days, it's basically one day because it's already 5 a.m. on Saturday, you know, 6 a.m. Eastern. So it's already, you know, today's already gone because you woke up, so you can't count today.

You know, Sunday, you go to church, and the day's already gone, because by the time you look at the clock, it's already brunch, and you are with your family because you went to church, you got what you need for the week, and you know what? It's Sunday, so Phil Robinson's podcast comes out around, you know, 3 o'clock, uh, central, 4 o'clock Eastern or the other way around, you know, 3 o'clock, I don't know when it comes up, but then it comes out on Sundays. So by the time you listen to Phil Podcasts, after you listen to our podcast studio on Saturday, you know, you listen to Phil on Sunday, on Monday, poop, here comes another boop,

because you get the talking fear, and then you get boop, the Monday shell. Dude, I don't know. And, oh, yes, I know, I know, I know, I know it's going. So here's the interview that I did with 10 B. Locke. And again, it was an honor to hijack this podcast, even though I'm not authorized as a co-host to do anything in here. I decided to turn on the mic and just talk. But here's the interview with 10BLock about her audiobook from scratch. She wrote it.

She read it. And I'm telling you, you're going to fall in love with her story. You're going to follow in love with her. And please, please support her because she is living her American dream. Welcome to it. This is Chewendo Fat. and I'm going to do something that I only do when Jeff is not here is bring amazing people to interview. And I have Invisaline.

Now it's been a week. And I talk really funny. So I'm going to do this. I'm going to take it out. I'm trekking. All right. Oh, that was gross. Invisaline now.

So I can do this interview because I'm so embarrassed that I'm going to interview 10Block. And you know her from the sci-fi series. Come on. Don't make me say it. You know? you know from Savvy series Eureka she's been on the mentalist she's been on bone she's been on nc iS she's been on the magicians which that's one of my favorite shows and i have to take out my older hold on i got to go out older oh oh that is so gross and i had to do it because um

i want to talk to timelag because she has a fantastic audiobook because if you guys didn't know the month of june is audiobook month and i decided to talk to her because she has a very interesting story and she's going to talk about the book from scratch that was written and read by her and temby welcome to the program hi thank you for having me well as you know the show is called chewing the fat with jeff fisher and the and the card the little ID card for the artwork for the podcast is the host's face on a steak so what better way to you know talk about your book from scratch because it's about food. And it's very interesting because you discover the healing power of food, family,

and unexpected grace in your darkest hours. So welcome to the program. And one question that my wife had to ask me was, how did it feel to be one of Will Smith first thing when you were on Fresh Prince of Bel Air? So you played Valerie Johnson. And I know she knows this from heart. You play Valerie Johnson, one of Will Smith, you know, first loves.

So how was that? How was that? Well, it was my first job in L.A. It was, it's so you can't ask for a better sort of start to, you know, a television career than an iconic series like, you know, the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. And, you know, it was my first job and it was a great experience. I have nothing, you know, to complain about. Will was great to work with. So was Alfonso.

They were, you know, that show, we all know, we laugh when we see it. It was a laugh a minute every day that I walked on set. And it was kind of like for that to be my first job, sort of set the tone or the standard. I said, okay, I think I want to do this. This is fun. And he was great to work with, yeah. That's awesome. If all you all you don't know, that was the episode, Grumpy Young Man.

Yes, I'm telling you, she knows all this. Like it was tattooed on her forehead or my forehead because she sees me. So it's very interesting. Your wife's hilarious. Thank you. Thank you. That's why I married her. But like I said, you have a very, very interesting background on acting, but I'm not here to bring up for acting because you had a fantastic, I want to say fantastic career.

But then something happened in your life where it kind of aligns everything. And you always, not always, but ever since I started watching your series called The Kitchen Widow, you found a purpose. And I believe that's where the book also comes in, correct? Yeah, it does, actually. So a little backstory. Yeah. So give us a little backstory of, you know, what happened, you know, in 2002 and forward. Absolutely.

So in 2002, my husband, Sato, an Italian-born chef, was diagnosed with a rare bone cancer, form of cancer, which had metastasized with bones. And, you know, we were sort of chugging along in our life. I'm an actress in Hollywood. He's, you know, an Italian chef. We're living in L.A. We'd met in Italy and come here. here and, you know, our life was really sort of sweet, you know, in every sense. And then this

diagnosis happened and I, for the next 10 years, became his primary caregiver in the forefront of my life while I was also still acting and sort of trying to grow my career. And in the middle of that journey of caregiving, which I'm sure many listeners sort of know about either in their direct experience or they have someone in their life who has had to do this. For me, I was in my 30s and at the time I didn't know anyone who was going through anything quite similar and I became a mom during that period and so after my husband passed away in 2012 I realized I had a wealth of sort of knowledge and information and kind of guides or ways in which I could pay forward all the grace and gifts that I had been given and support I had been given over those 10 years and so I created this online platform called

the kitchen widow. And you can go to it and there's videos and I make sort of have these dinner party conversations around food that my husband and I made together that he made that he taught me. And it really is a place for people to sort of tune in and sort of think about the big experiences in life, you know, sort of illness and loss. And how do we help each other? How do we build community around that? How do you help a friend or a colleague or brother or sister or neighbor who's had something really life-changing and painful happen to them. And that's really what the site's all about. And it's done in a kind of fun way with recipes and food, and it's good.

Yeah, it's really good because also the book comes with a recipe. If you download the audiobook, it comes with a recipe, which is filled with, we'll talk about it, because the book kind of takes three summers. Yeah, it takes the sort of the genesis of the Kitchen Widow, and now, and as a book from scratch, the book and that really follows very specifically three summers that I spent in Sicily um in which was my husband's hometown um after he passed and so there's a lot it's sicily of course there's lots of good food there well come on that's where good food comes from italian food but italian food from italy not italian food here from america i don't know what we're eating here but uh italian food

overall it is delicious so it's from scratch a memoir of love sicily and finding home now it's very interesting i'll do a little bit of research on you because i did not know this side of you know the the caring wife and of your husband um and in very headline that i found here it's like after you lost your husband you found comfort in cooking i love cooking i am actually the one that cooks at my house i told my i told my i told my wife don't touch anything if you want something just let me know, I will cook it for you. So finding comfort in cooking, give me a little bit more about that. Yeah, well, you know, I'm kind of in the position that your wife is in, right? So my husband did all the cooking. He was a chef. And so, you know, for me to have spent, you know, basically two decades,

really, with a chef and a man who loved to cook and cook for me and food was his love letter. It was sort of the kitchen was his space. And so after he passed, you know, I, you know, I, I really not only missed him in ways that I can't even fully articulate, but also missed that shared experience we had over a meal, right? I missed his cooking. I missed his flavors. And so in a way, the book and my journey has been about trying to sort of approximate and escort my way back to the kitchen to sort of stay close to him

and to find a kind of comfort in my loss and in my grief for myself and for my daughter and cooking, you know, although I'll never be a professional chef and cook the way he cooked, I can sort of stay close to him and find comfort by doing some of the same things he did and cooking some of the same foods. And this book, of course, is a romance, romantic. And one thing that our audience does not know yet until right now is, I love romance. Romance is fascinating. So reading a little bit and, of course, listening to your audiobook, you know, you marry this guy from, you know,

Italy, then you find yourself immersed on his tradition, his family, because from one of your videos from the widow, the widow, the, the, widow, you, you still spend time with your mother-in-law. Yeah, I do. And it's very interesting. And how was that coming from a, you know, you're from Houston, you're from Texas, you're a Texan, like I am now since I married a Texan here from actually Houston as well. So coming from as a Texan, going over there and spending time with all these Italians and this delicious food and olive oil, how was that? Oh, my gosh.

Well, I mean, first of all, you find out very quickly how much, you know, sort of in the Texas family tradition. I have a close-knit family. A lot of it is quite, I mean, the food is different, right? And so the flavors are going to be different. But like the energy around it all is kind of the same, which is like, let's eat. Let's have a good, you know, let's stay close. Family is important. And initially, however, you know, there was some, and I write about this in the book,

there was some, you know, conflict around the differences, right? The cultural differences, the racial differences, the language differences. Because, you know, I am an African-American woman raised in Texas, and my husband's family is rural and Sicilian. And, you know, everybody has married another Sicilian. And, you know. And here comes son. Bring somebody that, what is going on. Very, very different.

Right. And initially, they kind of really were not willing to accept. And it took years and a lot of repair work, right, for them to sort of open their hearts. And I write about that in the book. And then after, but once that door was opened, right, then it just, it flew open in the sense that we, I was all, you know, always welcome in the way in which food really played a central part of our shared, because, you know, independent of language, independent of having the same culture. The thing we could do every day was sit together and have a great meal. And then, of course, later, many years later, and I read about this in the book,

my family from Texas actually comes to Sicily and spends time. And then that's a whole other cultural intersection. Culture shock, yeah. Yeah. And one thing, how long were you married? Oh, gosh, we were married for, during the Quick Mass. Gosh, we were together 20 years. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. So I ask you because I saw you throw a little bit of Italian in there on your videos. So how's Italian? Is Italian fluent enough? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's definitely fluent. I mean, listen, I'm not going to go on and on about medical terms and politics in Italian. My vocabulary is not strong in that area. But yeah, absolutely. And now let's fast forward. You're married. You're eating all this Italian food. Then you decide to adopt, which I think is fascinating, taking a kid, because you took your daughter, I'm sorry, I don't know how to say it. So I'll take her from birth, adopted her at birth. How was that? Beautiful.

Absolutely beautiful. There's nothing like becoming a parent in any form, but certainly through adoption, which was our story and our path. It was absolutely explicit. And I have a whole chapter in the book where I write about, you know, what it meant and means, you know, to become apparent for us, what it meant for us, particularly at that time in our life. And also just, you know, the first time you see your kid, you just, your heart just leaps out of your chest, right?

Yes. And the way in which, you know, family, the book is a lot about the way family gets made and forged and who we, who is our family, who we choose to be our family. You know, those are all big themes in the book. And for us, you know, for Sado and I, you know, becoming parents and today, me as a mom is one of my, the greatest graces and gifts of my life. So let's jump into the cookbook because everybody's probably saying, hurry up and talk about the cookbook. Oh, the food. So you got the first, I have it in my hands, you got three summers that you spend over there. And your first summer, you have some artichokes bracing tomatoes with mint, some dried tomatoes and almond.

You got Sicilian almond pestle pasta, you got arugula salad with tomatoes and ricotta salata. Salata. You got arro-oh, this is delicious, aromatic olives. So all this, how would you? How did you pick this for the little mini cookbook that comes with the audio book? Oh, well, okay. So, you know, effectively, the recipes that are in the book are connected to either specific things that I ate and we, that's atoned made for me, that show up in the book that I write about in the book. And they're also the foods that are from my travels to Sicily over, you know, basically, you know, almost two decades now going back and forth.

And the foods that are our favorite and also foods that my mother-in-law makes. So it's a really intimate look at the kinds of things that, you know, food that has accompanied the story that you've just listened to or just read, but also foods that are really close to my heart. Wow. And out of those three summers, which one's your favorite? Oh, my God. You're going to make me pick. I am. I'm at least pick one of the summers.

You know what I would say? I really love the pasta al-trapanese, the pesto trapanese, which is basically like a pesto, a Sicilian pesto, basically. It's delicious. So you also find healing on gift of simple fresh food. One of the things that I saw on your series, The Kitchen Widow, was that you sat down all your close friends and you called them the caregiving swati, which I love that. And you found it and you actually cook for them. And that was your gift to them for helping you throughout this 10-year, you know, I don't want to

it. Journey. Journey, yes. that and how is that you know i haven't lost anybody important you know like like a spouse or a father or a parent yet but how is that caregiving swatting that i really love and she should kind of like you know tm that or copyright that but uh oh i love thank you how important is that that caregiving swat team when you're going to the doctor's office and your sister's taking notes for you you because you're not you know you're not there you but you're not there yep yep well i

think that it's those people around us, look, anytime we are faced with a major experience in life, right, we need to rally all of our resources and the people who can really stand with us through the difficult times, right? And so for me, that caregiving SWAT team became so critical on so many different ways. I mean, think about, like, just at an operations level, I mean, like, the idea of, like, who's going to be the driver, who's going to help me get groceries, who's good because for the person who is the caregiver, the primary caregiver, who is really their role or my role with my husband, was really to be his emotional support. I was with him, you know, sometimes 24-7, helping with medical appointments, sometimes medical procedures, things we had to do at home. And so there's not suddenly, and I still worked a full-time job, and I was a parent.

So trying to do all that and still get the laundry done and still have, you know, the grass mode in the front or do a grocery. run becomes really challenging. And you might be able as a caregiver to pull it off for like a week or two, maybe a month, but you're going to hit burnout. Your stress levels are going to go up. And then suddenly the caregiver isn't able to really care for the person who's going through treatment. And so that's when the team, the SWAT team, around the caregiver, can step in and say,

okay, we got food this week. We have a laundry over here. We'll take care of the. And that is those resources become critical for everyone. for the whole team to succeed. And at the end, everybody's serving the patient. Your daughter was on second grade. And very important.

And I was listening. Again, I was watching your series. It's very interesting because I always forget about the teachers. You know, one of your teachers being a teacher for 30 years. And you say, you know, I think they've dealt with this before. You know, they have to. She's been a teacher for 30 years. How important was the teacher in your daughter's life, especially in the second grade?

You know, they don't know what's going on. Yeah, well, you know, we were, we were, you know, luckily it was a close-knit school and, and close relationship with the teacher. But she really threw the, you know, the final month of Thadot's life was checking in with us to see what was going, what was needed. Sometimes we would just exchange text or emails to sort of say, this is how my daughter was last night. This might be what you can expect today in class. So she was constantly checking in, which was incredible. And then the other thing she did was sort of really give me the same. that when I would take my daughter back to school after her dad passed,

that she was in a safe place, that she could be seen, held, supported, and that she would do her best to be a safe place for my daughter away from home. And that gave me peace of mind because it was terrifying to drop my daughter off at school for the first time after a big event like that. I didn't, you know, what would happen. So teachers play a critical, critical role and also helping the classmates be able to support my daughter or a child who's just lost a parent or a sibling or grandparent. You know, here it says that in Sicily, it is said that every story begins with a marriage or

death. In your case, Tambi, it starts with both. How fascinating is that you also focus on your travels, you also, you know, finding a home. And it's very interesting because I also believe that food can bring people together. I worked on this series of, you know, bringing people with different backgrounds, different Belize, sit them on a table, a nice home cook meal can open a lot of doors. Yep, it sure can. And it's a wonderful way to be a bridge toward human connection because you bypass

difference and you go right to the same thing. We're all enjoying this beautiful meal that is grown on the planet Earth that we all share. Yeah, yeah. And we all need the sustenance to sort of at the physiological level, but we also need it at the emotional level. And so it's a food break. That's why since the, you know, know, antiquity and throughout the biblical times and every religion, you break bread.

You break bread. You break bread. Yes. Yes. Yes. That, Temby, you could find her book, Temby, a memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home from scratch. That's the main title and the subtitle and memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home. Also, they can find you, which I love your website. The Kitchenwittle.com.

I love it. And give me a little bit more of that website because you have. your videos, you have your care, give, and grief, community. So you've built a community that helps each other out. Yep, exactly. And I try to, on that site, also sort of give people tips for how to do that with themselves, right, and with their own experiences or with people close to them. And so there's a lot there. And then you can also visit temblock.com, which is just my personal website, and that had, and if you become a subscriber, there's tips and there's a newsletter. And, you know, I kind of communicate, you know, just once a month. And, you know,

just once a month, but kind of share some tips, and there's a great blog there. So, and soon there's going to be maybe a podcast there too. Oh, there we go. And then one, I can't forget to say this. You also are chosen by Reese Witherspoon as the Hello Sunshine Book Club pick of 2019. I love that. And have you met Reese Whederspoon?

I have not met her yet, but I look forward to the day that I will. Yes, yes. Yes, she's fantastic. So you wrote a book, you read the book, you read the book, you've done many videos what is next for Tambi other than maybe a podcast in the near future

what's next for you? Well yeah I'm working on the book idea and also working on a project that I hope will come to screen and as acting on the horizon I have a film coming out in 2020 next year

an independent movie so all good that's awesome well Temby thank you so much for joining us thank you for sharing your amazing recipes and I'll be for a great I'll be letting you know because I'm looking at these recipes and some of them are

very simple and I love following recipes so they look very easy to make thank you so much tanby my pleasure thank you have a great day