Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast - From Jazz to Cooking: Freedom within Form with Wendell Pierce

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

Actor and author Wendell Pierce takes us back into his home in Pontchartrain Park, Louisiana. He shares how he got his mother's love of learning and his father's sense of adventure. Plus, we learn his mom's secret for cooking Okra to avoid all that slime.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Your Mama's Kitchen is brought to you by Rivian. I left home to come to New York to go to college, and I would call my mother, and she was like, I would ask her, how was your day? And she would always say, oh, it was a good day. I had some string beans, and I made some rice, and I smothered some pork chops. I mean, it always started with food. Hello, and welcome back to Your Mama's Kitchen. This is the podcast where we explore how we are shaped, in some ways as adults by the kitchens that we grew up in as kids. And today I am joined by an old friend on this episode. He's an actor on stage, on screen, on television. He's an author. I'm talking about Wendell Pierce. He's a Juilliard trained actor who steps into roles and always seems to make

them memorable. He starred in films like Malcolm X, Ray, Hackers, and Selma. He won a claim portraying Willie Lohman in the revival of death of a salesman. We've seen him in TV across decades in Law and Order, Chicago PD, Ray, Donovan, Tramey, and of course, for six years on HBO's The Wire, where he played a detective named Bunk Morland, always with that cigar in his mouth. He's now once again playing a policeman, this time, a very gruff captain named Captain Wagner on the hit CBS show, Ellsbeth. Now, one more thing you should know about him.

Wendell is also an author. His book, The Wind and the Reeds, A Storm, A Play, and a city that would not be broken is a tribute to his hometown of New Orleans. And that's what we're going to talk about today because that's where his origin story begins. Hey, Wendell, so glad you're going to be with us. Hi, Michelle. Thank you so much for having me. This is great. This is wonderful. We're going to have some fun. Now, you are from New Orleans. You presently split your time between New Orleans, New York and Los Angeles and a little bit of time in London, right? And London and Budapest. Oh, okay. That's new. I spent two years in Budapest doing Jack Ryan, which is very... Oh, that's right.

I forgot about that. That's part of the list, too. Yeah, yeah. So it was... So, but New Orleans is home and New York and L.A. I'm tri-coastal. Everyone's talking about being bi-coastal. I'm tri-coastal.

Gulf Coast, East Coast, West Coast. Okay, that sounds kind of fancy. I'm tri-coastal. That sounds like a new trend. But it's like going from one room to another. You know, People say, how do you do that? And I said, it's like going from the kitchen to the dining room to the living room.

Well, let's talk about the kitchen because that's what we focus on on this podcast. And we always begin with that central question. Tell me about your mama's kitchen, your mama's name, El Thea. Tell me about the kitchen that you grew up in in Ponce Train Park in New Orleans and describe it for me. Make me feel like I'm inside that room. The first thing is the wonderful smell to this day. I only dream about my mother in the kitchen. It was the thing, it's the thing that wakes me in the morning,

or as a child it would wake me up in the morning, the sizzle of the skillet, the pots and pans, cooking breakfast as, that was my alarm clock, right? And I was, and to this day, I see my pathway from this small, very humble home from my bedroom down the hall to this small shotgun kitchen, you know, stove on one side, sink on the other, refrigerator right there, a dishwasher that my mother never used. You know, my father thought that was the best upgrade in the world and she just like, oh, that's just, it doesn't clean the dishes. Doesn't get the dishes clean enough. It doesn't get them clean.

So we always have to clean the dishes, and then, you know, she would put them in and run them one time and then take them out, right? So it is, I see this woman going back and forth from side to side, from the stove to the sink and the timing of the dishes and down to the oven. and it's like the stove, the sink, the oven, and the counter. The stove, the sink, the oven, the counter. And I was the youngest of three boys. And so I guess I was the little girl she always wanted. So I was always her sous chef. So it is a small, humble kitchen, which always had the sound of the sizzle of the

skillet and a bubbling pot of something. And you smelled the food before you heard the sizzle. And that was my alarm clock. It was central to, it was central in the house and it was central to our lives. It's the true meaning of hearth. I always, when I was, you know, young, I always, would mix up the word heart and hearth. And there's good reason because our heart was the heart of our family, of our life, of my mother.

And it is the thing that connects me to her to this day. When you describe this, I can picture a young Wendell. Did they call you Wendell when you were young, or did you have a nickname? Yeah, I was Wendell. Always Wendell. Okay. So I'm imagining a young Wendell. with his Superman pajamas on

or his New Orleans Saints pajamas on walking down that hallway and running into the kitchen because he smells bacon and sausage and that big black skillet. And was there a kitchen table? No, no room for a kitchen table. We had a folding table. We had, so the kitchen kind of separated

the living room and dining area, right? The formal living room and dining area. and my father put an addition on the house, which had a den on the other side of the kitchen, and the kitchen was like a pass-through. So we went to the dining room for formal dinners and evening dinners that were special. But we went to the din, and we took a folding a card table,

and we unfold that card table. And that was our, that was our, just, you know, morning breakfast table, right? You got up, got to sleep out of your eyes, and you kind of like grabbed the table and put it out. But they believed in using the dining room for an evening meal for dinner, you know. Special. That was special.

And coming together in the evening for dinner was always mandatory and special, you know. You turn off the TV. You come, you sit down and eat. And we talk about the day. Tell me a little bit about your parents. Elthea, your mother is a school teacher, right? Was school teacher? And your father, Amos, was a veteran.

Yes. So my mother and father met at Southern University in Baton Rouge on the yard, the great HBCU of Louisiana. Grambling would take some exception to that. But they went to Southern. of my family went to southern, my extended family. My mother came from a little place called Platonville, Louisiana. And it was about 70 miles outside of New Orleans, which seemed a world away at the time when she was growing up. She was born in 1930. And my mother went to New Orleans,

the ugliness of segregation. That was the only place she could go to get an education in high school. They did not have a school for black children in Assumption Parish. So you had to go to New Orleans to go to Booker T, Washington, and she was the valedictorian of her class. And people would say to my grandfather,

what are you sending them girls to school for? I thought about that this year, especially. You wasting your time sending them girls, sending them girls to school, the idea of sending someone, a black woman, a black young lady to school was a waste of time in some people's ideas. I don't understand it, but, and it was a part of really this, this racist and misogynistic sort of world that she was growing up in, but in our family, education was key. So she came to New Orleans.

and she went to Southern in home economics. She got her degree in home economics, which was, you know, everything about the home. It was an art form. So, you know, to this day, I miter the corner of the sheets on my bed. And people go, what are you talking about, miter the corner? They were a young couple that came out of the, met, married, moved to New Orleans. my mother became a teacher, my father became a maintenance man,

and then Punch a Train Park is the neighborhood they bought their home in. And it's a historic neighborhood where people of their generation. It was the first place post-World War II suburbia, where blacks could buy into it. It was a part of the civil rights movement, access to the new suburbia, like the Levitt towns, in all of those post-World War II. But in a segregated South,

they had all these covenants against black folks by. And in New Orleans, you couldn't go to a public park, except for one day out of the week, Negro Day, or you would be arrested. And so it was because of the advocacy of the civil rights movement, particularly AP Turo, who led access to green space, punch-a-train park was a compromise,

separate but equal, next to a white neighbor. divided by a ditch and the same builder built the homes. But it was here. We took something ugly, separate but equal, and turned it into something beautiful, a neighborhood that became an incubator for black talent and black excellence.

Our first black mayor came out of the neighborhood. And it is out of that incubator, that incubator of talent that I grew up in with the true sense of it takes a village to raise a child. My mother taught two blocks from our home. I was known as Mrs. Pierce's son, little Amos, and we felt protected. It was like a black Mayberry. And it was out of that that the idea of heart and hearth came together. So I felt protected and loved and was expected to do well in life because,

there are those who do not have your best interest at heart, but we are preparing you to combat all of that into the world because you will be the best that you can be. That was the community that I came out of. A community of strivers. Yes. I have visited Pontch Trane Park before Katrina, of course. And that was a community where people were house proud.

The homes were beautiful. The yards were beautiful. the porches were always appointed. And I can envision the house that you grew up in. And I'm still thinking about your mom and the folding table and the TV trays and her emphasis on education. And we've known each other a long time. And I met you when you were actually on the wire. And the other actors on the wire would kind of tease you a little bit because you were always reciting not just your lines, but poetry and Shakespeare.

and you'd get in an argument with someone and then you apparently would reach back to some like arcane quote. And you would quote something. And I'm wondering if that happened because of your parents' emphasis on education. If you were reciting poetry for your mother, if you were memorizing verse, you know, before church on Sunday. Is that a product of your childhood home? Yeah, the emphasis on education, absolutely. I wasn't reciting then as much as my mother always, if we had, if we questioned something,

she would always say, do the research. Don't ask me, find out about it. And then we would have to come back to her with the answers, you know. Well, you know, how far is it to the moon, you know? You tell me, and you had to come back and tell her. She had, she really put an emphasis on reading, and she loved to read to us. I remember childhood memories of her reading to me. And on Sunday night, I just remember she as a teacher would do her lesson plans on Sunday night for the week, her lesson plans.

And that was our time where we would have to come and present our homework to her, you know, because I know you had homework over the weekend. She never believed, she believed every day if you didn't have two hours of homework, something's up, you know. You aren't doing something. She's a teacher and she knew. And she knew. And she knew.

We would go on road trips. Where are we going? What is it about the Alamo? We're going to San Antonio. So it was a curiosity, right? A curiosity about the world and always know that you should be in a moment of learning. Your curiosity about the world should take you to a place to learn something. Knowledge was our first wealth.

It was always presented as your first wealth. And my mother would always tell us, like, listen, everybody's going to tell you we rich because we live in Punch a Drain Park, right? Because it was the first opportunity in the 50s for black folks to own some homes or whatever. But we poe, too. We broke. But you can always be rich in knowledge. That is the first wealth. And so that's where that comes from.

My father also, my father had wanderlust. And he always said you can't get lost in America. And what that was was literal because he loved, you know, our summer vacations, getting on the highways and driving somewhere. And we had the responsibility of being the navigators with the maps. And then euphemistically, it's you can't get lost in America. In spite of everything, you have it within your power to exercise your right of self-determination. so you can never be lost. And so with that wealth of knowledge,

you can go anywhere and do anything. And my father loved to travel, which is something I am infected with. If I get three days off or whatever, I go, you know. But you can't get lost in America, and your first wealth is knowledge. And that is what my parents gave me and what my mother gave me.

And with that in the kitchen, it was, it's really the American aesthetic of what New Orleans was about, right? It's freedom within form that like jazz, you honor the form of the music, but you have the freedom to improvise. And that's why my mother was the same way when it came to cooking, right? I realized, you guys asked me questions about her recipes, and I realized my mother had no recipes. She didn't have any recipes. If someone... She said, hey, how do you cook that? She was like, all right, what you need to do is.

And from memory, she was like, do a little this, do that, do that, do that. And make adjustments as you go. But it was always creative. She knew she had the freedom to do whatever she wanted. And she had a framework around it. And it's freedom within form. It's the epitome of the American aesthetic.

Right? Freedom within form. We are a nation of laws, but within that, find your individuality. and we honor the individual spirit. And that's what the cooking is. And that's what creativity was in New Orleans. That's the culture of New Orleans when it comes to our music,

but especially our food. And when I would call my mother, you know, I'd left home to come to New York to go to college. And I would call my mother. And she was like, I would ask her, how was your day? And she would always say, oh, it was a good day. I had some string beans and I made some rice and I smothered some pork chops. I mean, it always started with food.

It was like that described the day, you know. I know I'm rambling on and on. All of these things are firing off in my head. It's beautiful, though. And I have two things, because I'm going to come back to food, but two things I want to know. When she was talking about all that food, it must have been difficult when you were in a dorm and Juilliard and having none of that. You know, she's talking about smarter pork chops, and that was probably not what you were eating at that point. Here's the, Julia, I had no dorms, and we had to live in the city.

Luckily, I had an aunt who was in Brooklyn. I was living with her for a while, and I was also living with Wenton and Bramford Marcellus. Oh. And their problem, so they were breaking out all the time. So we, you know, brothers from New Orleans, we came with a little some child. shops. Okay. All right. You showed it with a skillet. Yeah, we showed her with a skillet. And I actually had a friend, Lois Eli. He lived in the dorm at University of Pennsylvania. And I would go on the weekends down there. And they would say, oh, those New Orleans boys are cooking. Right? We would put on a pot of red beans and rice and just let the aroma fill the dorm. And you would get a knock on the door. Are the beans? Are the beans ready yet? Are the beans ready?

And we're like, no, but, you know, come on in. Let's talk. I'm trying to imagine, you and Witten and Brantford all in the same apartment. That must have been something. That was wild. But we had some good times. I had the best education living with them because I was going to Juilliard during the day. And then I would get home and then they're like, come on.

And we go to the clubs at night, to the jazz clubs. So I literally remember the moment I learned how to do Shakespeare. November, 1981, the village vanguard hearing Arthur Blythe, and I was singing the tune, humming the tune in my head. And Arthur Blythe went on this crazy improvisational solo. And then when he came back to the top of the song, he was right with me as I was humming it in my head. And I realized, wow, he knew the form of the song the entire time he was doing this crazy improvised solo.

He never lost the shape of the song in his head. And then I realized, don't let the text restrict you with Shakespeare. It should give you liberty within it. Honor the form, but you have liberty within the verse to do whatever you want. And I distinctly remember that. I was working on Romeo and Juliet, our discovery player at Juliet at the time, and I heard Arthur Blythe, and when I realized we were on the same page in this song after his crazy solo, I discovered Shakespeare.

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grocery, retail, or convenience stores. Use code IMO50 at checkout. Terms apply. Thanks again to DoorDash, your go-to for making someone's day even from afar. Whether it's flowers, a meal, or a sweet treat, DoorDash makes it easy to show appreciation, no matter where you are. I'm sensing a theme here, freedom within form, because again, improvisation, but understanding the form. So I'm going to take us back to the kitchen because you talked about your mother cooking like jazz, a lot of improvisation, but she understands the form. So I'm going to talk to you about learning the form because what did you learn about cooking that later helped you so that you could improvise? Because there's certain forms you have to learn about the Trinity. You have to learn about ruse.

You have to learn about, you know, how to braise. and how to know when you want to fry or when you want to braise or when you want to just saute. So tell me a little bit about some of the lessons that you learn at Miss Althea side. My favorite dish was her stewed okra with shrimp and a little tomato. First of all, she always said, everybody said, oh, I hate okra because of the slime. Right? And she said, I said, why don't you have the slime? slime in it, right? Because I loved it.

You know, everybody said, how can you? I said, my mother's okra doesn't have slime. And she said, they always, people always mess up. You always cook okra in a dry pot. People always put oil or a little water or a little something.

She would cut up her, I could see her now. And I was like, oh, and I had a tendency to always put a little oil or something just to start up to season the pot. She's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, okra. No, started cooking in a dry pot. And it pulls, the slime acts as your emulsification.

And it pulls it out as it. And then you add the tomatoes and then the shrimp a little later because that cooks faster. But you started off, you cook your okra in a dry pot. And I was like, boom. And that's the thing I remember the most. That is the greatest lesson I've ever learned in the culinary world from my mother. Cook your okra in a dry pot. So you see me, you know, I'm like mind blown here because okra generally is a little slimy.

I don't actually, to be truth of eat a lot of okra outside of gumbo or unless it's fried because of that slime factor. When we were kids, we used to call it Soylent Green because it was, you know. Oh, soil and for those people. Because Okra does get so slimy, but you have just shared a bit of kitchen wisdom that is going to change people's lives because I did not know that that's the key.

How hot does the pot need to be? Not real hot. Started off medium. I would say medium. Not so low that it takes forever, but medium. And that pulls, that pulls, starts to pull the slime out.

And the slime itself acts as the, as the moisture. And then it cooks off. And that starts to cook off. And especially then you put your, you know, shrimp is always the last thing you put in there. You put your tomatoes in there. She liked to do that. You always had a pot and a skillet, right? The skillet always acted as your prep, you know?

And you kind of started, that's where you're, rue is, the Holy Trinity. Everyone makes fun of me because they go, man, you know, I could tell you're from New Orleans because nothing starts without the Trinity. It's like, you make a rule for everything. I'm like, no, I don't. I guess you do. I'm like, well, that's what I know.

And that Trinity is celery, onions, and bell pepper. You know, and you chop it up and, you know, in New Orleans, you go to the grocery store. if you don't have time to do it yourself, which is really lazy and very yuppie of you. And so that was the wisdom. Always start with the Trinity. That will give you flavor for everything when you don't even know what you're doing. Can I just say, can I say a word here, though? Because just to pay homage to New Orleans, because for a lot of people, Trinity is celery, onion, and carrot.

You know, the French Trinity. And in New Orleans, so if people are confused by this, understand that in New Orleans, when you're talking about the Trinity, it's celery, onion, and bell pepper. Yes. And I keep forgetting about the traditional French Trinity. You know, we being the colonial French place, you know, New Orleans, New Val-Ollion. Well, we're going to bring some swing to it. Right. So that and always, you know, the thickener with a little, with a little flour and doing a rue. I remember the first time I discovered I made a gumbo.

I was trying to cook, just make some gravy. Right. And I just left home. So I'm like 17 or something. And I had done it, but I never done it alone without my mother, right? And then I called my mother. I said, wait, wait, I think I was making gravy. I called my mother T because that was short for Auntie.

And my oldest brother, he grew up with his cousin. So it was always T. Lee, you know, Althea Lee Pierce, Tee Lee and Tvon and T.T. And so they just called her Tee. And so he never said mother. He never said mom. We always said T. And that's why I always said T. And I called my mother and I said, Tee, I was trying to was trying to make gravy, and I think I'm making gumbo. She said, yeah, you made a rue.

That's the rue, right? When we make the rue, she said, yeah. She said, just keep building it up. You can put that in the pot now. You have some crabs, whatever. And I'll never forget my mother, my first time away from home and her on the phone saying, yeah, you got it, you got it, and just guiding me along. And I've made my first pot of gumbo without her help.

but it's always the Trinity in New Orleans that is the basis of everything. A dry pot for okra, the Trinity, and shrimp. Just a few shrimp can just explode a dish. So let me ask a few questions because you have my mouth watering with this okra tomato and shrimp dish that you're talking about. That is you say your mother's favorite recipe. Or a dish. I'm not going to call a recipe because she didn't write it down. Right. My favorite of my mother is this. So a couple of questions. What kind of tomatoes?

Fresh tomatoes chopped, canned tomatoes, whole diced. And then when you do the shrimp, do you keep the tails on to get that little flavor in there? My mother always took the tails off and you had to devane your shrimp. Oh, she would get on me if I didn't devane my shrimp. And, you know, so. And, you know, she's just like, you're not going to eat the tails. So take it off. What kind of tomatoes? Whatever you had.

Okay. That's a good answer. It was always fresh, right? I have some tomatoes. It's fresh. She never had a lot of paste or canned tomatoes around. We always had tomatoes in the drawer, left side. Right, left side. To this day, meat on the right side. Vegetables on the left. It's however you grew up, you know. And you probably do the same thing now. And she did dice it. It was just sliced.

Yeah. And she just sliced. But it's not predominant, you know. It should be a green dish with just the hint of tomato every once in a while. And so it's not a predominant part of the dish. And then after you cook it, if you like it more of a stew, then you add more of the water or you add more tomato.

You know, use the juice of the tomato. If you had a can, canned tomatoes, whole canned tomatoes. You know those tomatoes, they're kind of like peeled and they come in a can. Yeah, exactly. If she did canned tomatoes,

she loved those the most, right? It's sort of peeled and then always use the juice of the can, right? Let that be your stock of it. Is this served over rice? Yes. There is a rice that I really, I need to ask when I go home, really ask, there is a rice in Louisiana that, you know, what that grain is that is so unique to North Carolina and to the Geller Islands and South Carolina. In South Carolina. In South Right, South Carolina, Golden, whatever. There is a rice from southwest Louisiana,

Calcasieu Parish, from Lafayette area. That is, the minute you taste it, I go, oh, yeah, it's so unique, and I don't know what that is, but I've got to find. Okay, let's find that. I need to know about that. My mother would call it just, oh, that's good Creole rice. That's good creole rice. but it's from Calcasieu Parish in southwest Louisiana,

around Lafayette and all. When you have Beyonce on here, or she'll know it, they have rice that is so good. People, you just put butter, you would cook that rice and just put butter on it, and that's it. And people would eat that,

it had flavor. I guess the butter, you would just eat that, right? And it was delicious. I got to find out what that grain is. You do. And then you have to call me and let me know. But yes, this dish, stewed, shrimp and tomatoes with okra over rice.

Yeah. So you have not, you don't have it written down, but we're going to do some forensics and figure out how to go through step by step. I just recalled, when I did Trame, the tea. show Trameh and HBO, it was just three seasons. The last season, they did a cookbook. It is a rare book. I just thought about it. And they asked my mother and they gave it a name like Aunt T.T or something or T. Lee's Okra. It is in that book. It is a rare book. I don't even think I have a copy of it. I need to find it. And they asked my mother, and actually, I just realized, I just realized.

Okay, we're going to get that. That was. We're going to get that book for you, first of all. That was the last year. That was the year my mother passed. That's, I have to get that book. That was the year my mother passed. And my mother never shared recipes or anything,

and she was kind of like hesitant about it. And I think she, where she was health-wise, I think she realized and she said, all right, I'll share. And so it is, it is in that book. And yeah, it was the last, it was the only time she ever shared a recipe that I know of in my life. And it's her open.

Sugar, you have to find, sugar, you have to find that book. You have to find that book. When I finished, the first person I'm calling is Lois. Lowless, I need a book. Yeah, and tell them you two copies because I need one too. Oh, yes, absolutely. Yeah, that's, that is, well, I'm glad that we were able to conjure that back up, so you will have that. Yes.

Oh, my God, that's precious. You know, you said when you played the role of Willie Lohman, which is one of the most difficult roles to step into, and to do that night after night with that emotional intensity, that one of the ways that you were able to do that, in that run, death of a salesman is that you almost had a practice of communing with your mother night after night. Can you talk a little bit about that? There was a moment in the play that reminded me of one of the last moments I had with my mother. I came home, my mother was ill, and she said, Wendell, I'm dying. I said, oh, no, no, no, no. wait, hold on, wait, I'm home.

We just got to get, she said, no, maybe I just want to let you know I'm dying. And she said, take care of your daddy. Make sure you take care of your daddy. And stay close to your brother. You know, you and your brother stay close, no matter what. And then there's a moment in the end of the final scene in death of a salesman when Biff is leaving. And he leaves.

And Linda says to happy, go to bed happy. We'll see Biff again. But you're both good boys. Both of you. You're good boys. And I would have my back to Sharon, who played Linder, and I could just hear my mother's voice.

You're both good boys. Stay close to your brother. And I so looked forward to that moment every night in the play. Because I would close my eyes and just hear my mother night after night saying you're both good boys. Stay close to your brother. and I knew what true communion of saints, as they say, the communion of saints. I would hear that term all my life, and that's the first time I really understood it. And then right after that, there is a moment in the production right before my own death

where I could not see anything except this one light on me and it's what I imagine the moment of death will be. It's just this one light with the darkness around it. I could not see the audience. I could not see anything else but that light. And as in that moment shortly afterwards

that I would always think about my mother, that that's like that thin veil between us. And it was in that moment hearing my mother's voice through Sharon and seeing that light night after night was worth a struggle of the entire day to get to that moment. I knew that I would have that moment every night. And that just on the other side of the veil, my mother was there. But in that moment of commune with my mother's spirit, I would find that euphoria right before I left the stage.

Because it was almost, I was dropping Willie Lohman. And I would run to my mother. I would run to my mother. It was like running to my mother every night. And that was a sense of connection that was worth all the energy and difficulties and creation of that. And it's the, it was the moment of true euphoria for me, night after night. You know, that's a role. That's a role that has really taken so much out of so many people.

What a gift that is for you that you were able to find something in it that gave you euphoria because so many other people who have played that role said it almost broke them, you know. And that's the thing that I discovered. I remember an actor came to me

and he said, are you taking care of yourself? And I said, oh, yeah, yeah. It was the first time I actually gave in to the whole idea and the conceit that you have to do some self-care. You know, I never, subscribe to the idea, like actors who said, man, you know, I got so deep into it.

I was scared. I was like, no, man, you put it on, you let it go. Except for this time. I said, I'll never tell an actor. That's bullshit. Again, that's true. I said, my self-care was that moment. I was okay because I would connect with my mother night after night.

And when that moment comes from me, I'll run to her. You know, and then to have my father at 97 be there opening night, knowing that these are the last moments I'm going to have with him. And to share that with him on opening night, there is, it's actually online where I took a, took a moment of personal privilege at the curtain call and gave him the watch that I had in the play and gave it to him.

It's online. I go to it every once in a while now that I've lost him. A year ago, this month, I go to and watch that moment where I gave him the greatest gift he gave to me, love and time. And I gave him the watch from the production. And so it is those moments from that play that connected me with that loving couple

that gave me life and gave me everything I needed to be successful in life that took care of me within that spirit of the play. I feel like when you tell the story that your mom is actually in this conversation with us. Oh, yes. You know, right? right now, Wendell. I have loved talking to you. I have loved getting to know your mom and dad. I felt like I sort of knew them because you live out loud on Instagram, or excuse me, because you live out loud on social media and we have a chance to sort of see your life and have gotten to know your

parents, but this is really special. And as your friend, I'm going to slide into the role of book agent because when you mentioned something, your dad said you can never. ever get lost in America? Yes. I think that's your book. That's such a great book title and it's such a great concept. And as someone who has picked up his wanderlust. Yes.

Thank you very much. You're welcome very much because that's a story I would read and it probably should have, maybe it won't have recipes, but maybe you can also talk about your mom's kitchen and we can learn a little bit more about some of the kitchen wisdom you learned as you travel around the world. So that's just, you know, I just wanted to leave you with that. that is God,

I'm very moved that you just really opened up something for me. Thank you very much. That is so true. I actually just wrote, it will be published next week. In

a tribute for Thanksgiving, you can't get lost in America, a letter to my, about my dad. Yeah. Oh, well, if you've already written an article, keep going, because I bet there's a lot more there. And you can take us to London and New York and Budapest and stories are how we will find each other. And you've got great stories to tell, and I'm so glad you shared so many with us.

Thanks for being with us. Well, thank you. I hope I made sense. Oh, you did more than made sense. You made. You made my heart saying. I have to tell you, yeah, I never understood how important it is for us to tell the stories. It's something that is very healthy and needs to. It's beyond some therapeutic thing.

It's so important because it steals you in uncertain times. right and we are in uncertain times right now oh yes and the thing that I've gone back to I think of my parents now especially how dare I even be unsteady

right the fears and uncertainties and the obstacles and that were placed in front of us how dare I be unsteady. And I think of, before I go, I want to honor and tell everyone, remember that the hearth is the heart,

right? And that the very cuisine that I came out of in the black community is emblematic of how we made something out of nothing that in New Orleans and Louisiana, these captured Africans who found their creative freedom even before they had their physical freedom took the scraps from the table

and from the bayou and a little oil and flour and whatever they can grow on their little patch underneath the porch and put it together and build something, a stew that is known around the world now as gumbo, a culinary treat is emblematic of what is possible out of the darkest times. It's a reflection of their resilience and their creativity and their spirit of fights.

that they found sustenance for their body that gave them sustenance for their spirit. And that's the thing that we must remember, how dare we lose sight of that resilience and hope. I have loved talking to you. Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you. Thank you.

I'm so honored to be a part of the show. Here's the thing you need to know about Wendell Pierce. He stays busy. He stays very busy. His IMDB list of films, TV shows, and theater work is like one of those receipts that you get from CVS. It just goes on forever and ever and ever and ever. And I have a better sense of where that comes from after this conversation. He gets his work ethic from Elfia and Amos. I loved learning about the heart and the hearth of his home growing up in Pontch Train Park. And I look forward to making that okra, shrimp, and tomato recipe. And I bet you do too. So if you want to try making his mama's recipe, we will have a copy it on our website. You can also find it on my Instagram page. That's Michelle underscore underscore Norris. That's two underscores. And as always, know that our inbox is always open. We want to hear about your mama's kitchens, your memories, your recipes, maybe your thoughts on previous episodes of your mom's kitchen. You can make a voice memo and send it to us at

YMK at higherground Productions.com. You can also send us a videogram and send that also to YMK at higherground Productions.com. If you do, we might hear your voice on one of the upcoming episodes. We might see your videogram somewhere on the website. Thanks so much for listening. So glad you're with us. Hope you come back next week because you know us. We are always serving up something special. See you next week. And until then, Be bountiful.