Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast - Why You Don’t Stand Next to Brad Meltzer in a Lighting Storm

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

New York Times Bestselling author Brad Meltzer joins the show to talk about his Sesame Street home in Brooklyn and the several influential kitchens that followed. He tells Michele about his mom’s gift for interior design, visits to his future father-in-law’s restaurant as a teenager and a propensity for the men in his family to get struck by lightning - literally. Plus he shares the fried conch recipe from the famous Miami restaurant and Civil Rights landmark, Jumbo’s! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi there, it's Andy Richter and I'm here to tell you about my podcast, The Three Questions with Andy Richter. Each week I invite friends, comedians, actors, and musicians to discuss these three questions. Where do you come from? Where are you going? And what have you learned? New episodes are out every Tuesday with guests like Julie Bowen, Ted Danson, Tig Notaro, Will Arnett, Phoebe Bridgers, and more.

You can also tune in for my weekly Andy Richter call-in show episodes where me and a special guest invite callers to weigh in on topics like dating disasters, bad teachers, and lots more. Listen to The Three Questions with Andy Richter wherever you get your podcasts. Are you looking for ways to make your everyday life happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative? I'm Gretchen Rubin, the number one bestselling author of The Happiness Project, bringing you fresh insights and practical solutions in the Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast.

My co-host and happiness guinea pig is my sister, Elizabeth Kraft. That's me, Elizabeth Kraft, a TV writer and producer in Hollywood. Join us as we explore ideas and hacks about cultivating happiness and good habits. Check out Happier with Gretchen Rubin from Lemonada Media. My family fought and we argued and it was great. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I remember my uncle one time,

like he didn't, he thought I was wearing too fancy of a shirt when we moved to Florida and he took a bottle of ketchup and he's like, when squeezable ketchup first started, he says, this shirt's so good, I'm gonna squeeze this ketchup on. And my mother was like, Richie, don't do it. Don't, don't do it. And he's like, I'm gonna do it.

She's like, don't do it. And I loved it, I was laughing and she goes, don't you dare. I will kill you. And he goes, and the thing goes squirt and it covered this beautiful, I remember it was bought at Macy's. It was just fancy for me. Hello and welcome back to Your Mama's Kitchen. This is a place where we explore how we are shaped as adults by the kitchens that we grow up in as kids. Not just the food, but all the stuff that happens there. The tears and the laughter, the triumphs and all the tales that we tell each other when

we gather over food. I'm Michelle Norris, and we are lucky today because we are joined by Brad Meltzer. He is the author of Lightning Rod and The Escape Artist and 11 bestselling books, all of which have hit the New York Times bestsellers list, most of which have made it to number one. But what is really remarkable about Brad is that he is so prolific across several genres. He is one of the only authors ever to have books on the bestseller list of the nonfiction, children's advice books, and even

comic books. All of those. That's amazing. Not many people can say that. And beyond books, Brad has created an Emmy nominated kids show. He's had two shows on the History Channel and his commencement address for the University of Michigan went so viral that he's turned it into a beautiful little book that was released this year. It's called Make Magic. I have a copy of it right here because we're gonna make some magic in our conversation.

Brad, so glad that you're with us. Thanks for joining. So good to see you. And I see you got the big M. I'm rocking the University of Michigan, not because I went to Michigan myself, but because I married a man who went to the University of Michigan. And you all are kind of fanatical about that block M thing. It's always... That's a nice way to say cult, but I appreciate that.

Yeah. Did I say fanatic? Maybe I just meant to say fan, but it does feel like a little bit of fanaticism. But we're glad you're with us. And we always talk about people's origin stories and how the kitchens they grew up in shape them when they get older and what still lives inside them. And for the first 13 years of your life, did I get that right? 13 years, you lived in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. And you said that your neighborhood felt a lot like the neighborhood that we see on the set of Sesame Street. Can you explain what you mean by that?

I actually didn't realize it until I eventually moved to Florida. I thought when I saw Sesame Street, I was like, oh, that's how it looks here. There's a stoop, it's brick, there's people playing outside. That's what we did. And then I got to Florida and someone said, Oh, I want to go to Sesame Street one day. And I said, what do you mean? And they said, because it's not where we live. And it dawned on me that I'm like, Oh, Sesame Street always looked like where I lived,

but not everyone has that moment. And for me, that was the neighborhood. It was Sesame Street. And in fact, I eventually got to take my kids to the real Sesame Street. And it did look like exactly like my neighborhood. It's just a real muppet. That's so funny because I'm hearing the song in my head, can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street? And you were already there. I was there. It was one of, I mean, truly one of those things where, you know, and when you get there, they say, you know, you're trying to be nice and not lose your cool.

And I'm, you know, there's snuffle up a guess and there's Big Bird and I'm holding it together. And they finally look at me and they're like, okay, who do you want to see? I'm like, Burton, Ernie Grover, Cookie Monster. I just went through everything and they were bringing them out and giving them to us and taking pictures. And at one point, the person who ran Snuffleupagus, I had my hand in Snuffleupagus and my daughter, he's teaching me how to put the trunk of Snuffleupagus to hug my daughter. And my brain, Michelle, is just exploding. Did it feel like you were hugging a younger version of yourself? When I tell you that, because I've never told that story to anyone, but of course I'll tell it to you,

I feel that hug again. It was magic. It was one of those ones that, you know, those core memories that just bring back everything. I can smell snuffle up, I guess, right now. I can feel it. It's amazing. You know, Sesame Street, for anybody who grew up watching it, you know, we talk about how kitchens live inside people when they get older. Sesame Street actually lives inside of us. You still remember the characters. You can imitate their voices. It's where we learned not just how to count and how to recite letters, we learned really important life lessons about grace and kindness and all kinds of things. Were you watching Sesame Street in your kitchen? Did you have a little TV in the kitchen in Sheepshead Bay? We had one TV in the whole house. And I will tell you, when I was five years old, Jim Henson

and Mr. Rogers taught me that you could use your creativity to put good into the world. And that is all I've been trying to do since is use my creativity to put some good into the world. But I will tell you that TV was always watched in my mom and dad's room. The kitchen, so we lived in a, just to paint the picture, it was a two bedroom apartment. My sister and I shared a bedroom for 13 years. It was the two of us in there. And my parents, you know, always were struggling with money. They just were never great at saving it. And what I'll never forget is my dad had a terrible temper. And

if you came around our house, every door when my dad would get mad, they would have holes punched in the wall, punched in the door, in the bathroom, in his bedroom. Wait, I mean, are you talking about dents in the wall? A physical dent in the door, at the center of the door, at the height of where you would punch. And the only door that had no dent in it was the bedroom that my sister and I slept in. Because my dad, when he was little, he was struck by lightning. And his father was struck by lightning. My grandfather was struck by lightning, which means, Michelle,

you don't want to be standing near me in a rainstorm. I was just going to say, you know, I was thinking, do I want to ask the question? You know, are you wondering if at some point you might be struck by lightning? Do you just avoid umbrellas? Do you? Like no golf course for you on a rainy day just in case a thundercloud comes up ahead? Truly, truly. But for me, so my grandfather was a boxer in the army. He used to beat up my dad. And that's how violence works.

It gets passed down like a lightning bolt. Wait, wait, wait, Brad. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He know, I know. I'm sorry. He used to beat up your dad because he was trying to teach him how to box? No, he would just when he would lose his temper. He would just put hands on my father in a way that was completely inappropriate, especially

for someone who's a boxer in the military and who gets discharged for getting struck by lightning. So we have the paperwork for it. We can see where it kind of all started going wrong. And that's how violence works in families. It's passed down generation after generation usually, and it's like a lightning bolt hitting the same place twice. But for my father, he was determined

that history would not repeat itself. So the only door that was never touched was my sister and my, the door that we slept in. And my father would never put his hands on us. He was willing to break that history right there. And next to right outside of our bedroom was the kitchen, which was, it wasn't, I don't, I call it a pass through kitchen is what my mom used to always call it. But it was, I mean, you, only two people could stand in it. You just, you know, it was just the stove on one side and sink on the other. But in a weird way, even in this tiny little Brooklyn apartment, it was of course the center

of our universe. I just can't let go of this image of your dad deciding that you were not going to get struck by him or struck by lightning and having this tradition of violence passed on to you. How did he do it? I mean, because it almost feels like, I know that you love superheroes and you love comic books and it almost feels like he meant lightning, like he was Thor. Like he figured out how to just change the trajectory of your family's history. The thing that's interesting is I wish it was as simple as a comic book.

I wish it was him saying, I'm going to just be the good person and I'll be that way. My father never lost his temper, ever. So it wasn't like he just said, I'm shucking my whole history behind. That doesn't happen that simply. My father when he would get mad, I remember one time tossing and turning over a pool table. You know how heavy a pool table is? Lifting it by himself. I mean, so heavy, trust me, to this day, every time I go to a pool table, I'm like, how did my father single-handedly turn it over like a table? And I remember

one time there were these bullies in our backyard at the building and they said, oh, Brad, come this way. We want to play today. We're going to go in our backyard at the building and they said, oh, Brad, come this way. We want to play today. We're going to go in this part of the yard. And they were older than me. And I followed them in the yard. And when I got out of everyone's sight, they jumped me. And they took, you know, those, we always call them itchy balls.

They put them in your hair and they don't come out. They just stick, they're like stickers in your hair. Oh, burrs. Yeah, burrs. Exactly. That's what they are. And we used to call them these itchies and they were all in my hair. And I went running upstairs hysterically crying. It was all a prank on me that I didn't know. And my father, I thought I was running to my mother and I ran to my father. He opened the door. And my father came downstairs. And I remember he was fuming, full rage. And he picked up, he grabbed the boy, the oldest and biggest one there, by the throat, lifted

him over his head in the air. I remember looking, I was little, looking at this kid's feet, dangling off the ground, looking up and going, I don't know who I'm rooting for right now. This is a bad situation I'm in. I mean, I couldn't have been 10, 11 years old. But I knew this is, we're in a moment where this could all go really wrong. And he said, if you touch my son again, I will kill you. And my father meant it. I saw it.

So it wasn't like he was, you know, the superhero who said, I'm now on the side of good and I'm going to do everything right. But when it came to me and my sister, there was no more protective force on the planet. And he struggled till he died to control that temper and rein it in and find a more peaceful place. But if you came to my house right now, Michelle, I used to get always upset at my father when he didn't live up to what I wanted, when he didn't say the right thing, when he didn't do what I wanted him to do perfectly. Because I'm a writer and all writers, we think it's about creativity, but so often it's about control. When I write and I put my thriller out there, every character listens to everything I say.

Everyone does what I want them to do. I make the ending perfect. It's an expression of control. Make no mistake. And I can tell you that from my father, I was always trying to control, could he do better by me? Why did he do this? Why did he say that?

My sister finally said to me, Brad, he's doing the best he can. And it sounds such a simple statement, but a light bulb went off for me. And I thought to him, and if you came to my house right now, there's a sticker still on my computer. My dad's been dead a decade, but there's still a faded from the sun sticker that says he's doing the best he can. Because my sister said to me, it's like having someone with one leg and demand they run faster at this moment. He didn't have those tools in his toolbox and trying to have him show that empathy I wanted or that complexity that I wanted was always going to be impossible. So he fought for it.

And he was always trying to every day get a little better, but it was never easy. It was always a struggle. But what an honorable thing that he let go of the violence even though he still was unable to let go of the anger. I'm hesitant to ask you this, but I feel like I must. He protected you and your sister, was your mother? And my mother, sorry. Yeah, yeah.

Was your mother also protected from that? Of course. It was anyone that was outside that family. I mean, he was the one thing for all my dad's craziness and lunacy and temper. Boy, he loved us with the heat of the sun. Yeah. Was he a big man? I mean, for Jewish people? Sure, he was a giant. You know what he was? He was a big, thick bruiser. If you saw him on the street, I mean,

he couldn't have been 5'8", but he was one of those guys. My dad would walk in the room and he'd go, how you doing? How you doing? He was like a mobster. And he would go into every bookstore in Barnes and Noble. To the day he died, he'd go in and go, I'm here for Brad Meltzer's new book. He's my favorite author. And they're like, Mr. Meltzer, we know he's your son. We know he's your son. And that was who he was. He was this kind of just like almost like a mobster walking around from, you know, a cliche from decades ago, but never lost the cliche part. What was your mother's personality like?

Oh, my mom was the greatest. My mom, okay, so I took my mom, here's the best way I can paint her for you. My mom was an interior designer. I took her to the White House when President Obama was in the office and I was so excited and I took her inside and we got inside. My mom went, ungepachka, which is Yiddish for like, it's overdone. So it's too dumb. I'm like, mom, it's the White House. You're in the White House. And she's like too much gold, you know, the gold and the thing and it's, she wasn't, you know. And I remember years ago, before she died, I went to the head of sales at Borders Books. And Borders Books was still around. And the head of sales says, guess where your

books sell more than anywhere else. And I said, straight sales, not even per capita. I said, New York City, 8 million people in one place. Nope. I said, Washington DC, that's where I write thrillers, set in DC. Nope. The number one place where my book sold was the Boca Raton, Florida borders, one mile from the furniture store where my mother used to work, which means my mother single-handedly beat 8 million New Yorkers. That is the power of a mom. furniture store where my mother used to work, which means my mother single-handedly beat

eight million New Yorkers. That is the power of a mom. And that was my mom. She was just so proud. Was she handing out books like Halloween candy or something? I mean, you get a book. You get a book. If you met her on the street, she would literally, she'd say, Hi, what's your name? And in two seconds, you'd have either a book or a press clipping from me saying, this is my son. And I will tell you, my mom was dyslexic, not educated, never went to college.

Neither my parents went to four-year colleges. She never went even to college and she read seven books in her life. And they were my seven books that I wrote before she died. She didn't read anything else, nothing. There wasn't a book in my house growing up, but she was like, my kid's book. And when my first book came out, she said, Bradley, I know I'm your mother, but I got to be honest with you about this first book. I said, yeah, mom. And she said, I got to be honest. This is the greatest book of all time. And she meant it. She totally meant it.

So if you didn't have a lot of books growing up, and when I heard that I was actually so surprised because you are a person of letters now and you truly are a word merchant and you know, it would be easy to assume that you were surrounded by stacks of books, much like you are right now with the bookcase behind you. How much did your parents emphasize education? And were you sitting at the kitchen table doing homework? And was that also a part of your life with them? Were they sort of imagining a world for you through your education and through books and doing well in school, even though they didn't have a lot of books in their house.

When my sister hears you ask that question, she's going to laugh out loud. No, no, there was no focus on education. I mean, the focus on education that went in my house is my dad once came to me and said, I only got season D, so anything you get is going to be better than what I did. That was the entire talk we ever had about education. We lived in a really rougher neighborhood because when we moved to Florida, they lost everything. Everything was gone.

And I remember when we got there, there was this woman, and he truly had nothing. And we had to live, six of of us in my grandparents' one bedroom apartment. So it's my mom, my dad, my sister, myself, my two grandparents in a one bedroom apartment in Florida. And when we get there, everyone in the condominium wants us evicted because you can't have six people in this tiny little place. And this one woman across the hall saw what was happening to us, saw how everyone was trying to evict us and said,

you know what? She said to my grandmother, why don't I'm gonna move out for a couple weeks? Why don't you take my apartment for free? You stay there so your family can be safe and won't be evicted. It was the nicest thing, Michelle, that anyone to this day has ever done for my family or me.

And I remember when I was a kid, her name was Mircey. But when I was younger, I always heard her name as Mercy. And make no mistake, Mercy and empathy is what she showed me. And what they did from when we finally got our apartment was in a rougher neighborhood, is my parents gave a fake address so I could go to the wealthy public school. And that was the best, greatest thing they ever did for my education. And the only reason I got books was because my grandmother had a library card and I had teachers that took a chance on me.

You got ahead of the story a little bit. I think there's something our listeners should know, because you grew up in in New York City, but then you were rather abruptly pulled out of the city and you had to go to Florida because things went sideways for your parents. Can you tell us what happened and what you learned about how they dealt with that? Literally having the rug pulled out from under them. Yeah. I mean, it was New York truly crushed my family.

It didn't work there. And I'll never forget, I came home and it was three o'clock in the afternoon and my dad was sitting there. And when your dad, who's supposed to be at work, is sitting home at three o'clock when you get there, you know something's wrong. And I remember I came home and he said he lost his job and we were leaving the city and that was it. And he called it the do over of life. He made it like it was a game. Like we're going to have the do over of life and this is going to be fun, but it was not fun. It

was terrifying to me because as I said, he was never good with money. He had $1,200 to his name and he could never save. And I remember we got into the car. This is a funny story. I don't know if I ever told you this. On the day that I was born, my dad bought a bottle of champagne. And he said, I'm going to open this bottle of champagne on the night my son, Brad gets married. And when we moved, when he lost his job and everything cratered, we put all our stuff in the moving truck. And you've moved, when he lost his job and everything cratered, we put all our stuff in the moving truck.

And you've moved before, you give them your furniture, you give them your clothes, you give them your stuff. But there are those things you don't trust to the movers. There are those things you say, no movers touching this, I'm taking this in the car with me. And all I remember is we drove down in this beat up old Dodge from New York to Florida. My mom and dad in the front seat, my sister and I in the back seat. And behind our two headrests were two bottles of champagne

that used to roll back and forth in the Florida sun. My family didn't know anything about taking care of champagne, but we were their lives. We were what mattered the most. And I will tell you, on the night I got married, we did drink that bottle of champagne. It was the foulest, nastiest glass of champagne that you've ever had in your life and the single greatest glass of champagne I've ever had in my life built out of my dad's love for me. You're lucky it didn't pop in the back of the car when it was rolling around back there. And it wasn't like it was in a crate or it was good, like it truly rotling. I don't know how it then explode in the Florida sun.

So your parents pulled you out, moved you down to Florida. You're all living in, you described this in this beautiful graduation speech that you gave. I could envision that apartment. I could envision what it must have been like. It's probably older people living in the apartment and here come these kids and all this energy and all these people and wait, what? Whoa, what's going on here?

Did your father and your mother, Sui and Terry, try to protect you from prying eyes and the judgment that was being, I guess, hurled at all of you? Or was he still then trying to make this the do-over game for you? Yeah, it's so funny. You know, my parents, there was never a plan. My parents didn't have a plan. They just reacted. So you and I would say, oh, God forbid that happened to us. What have we happened to our kids? What did we do? My parents were in scrambling mode. It wasn't one of those moments. Listen, everyone has moments where you worry a little bit about money. We were not worried about money. We were worried about safety. That

was a very different thing. I remember going down and them telling me, we do not have enough for security deposit, so we don't have anywhere to live and we don't know when we're going to have that. And I remember just going like, what do we do now? Looking back, my sister and I would say, they should have never told us any of this. You would never tell your kids what's in the accounts. But my parents, whether it's some blind openness or just cluelessness, or they just, I personally think when I look back on them, they're both gone, so I can't even ask them. My sister and I were just talking about this and we're like, why'd they tell us

all the disasters that were going on? So we were hid from none of it. It was probably what made me who I am. So I have no regrets for learning it because it taught me how to solve problems. I went to work, I started washing cars, I started scooping ice cream, I started doing everything I could.

And that money we knew went to the family. It went to trying, and I remember saying at one point, here's my money. Can you put it to the security deposit? And no 13 year old should know that that's happening. But at the same time, there are so many people who are bollocksed up because their family held so many secrets and no one talked about anything. So this is the opposite of that. I love them for it.

Right? I mean, we knew what was happening. But I think the only thing I know for sure, as I said before, is, but they loved us with everything. They didn't have plans. They didn't have degrees. They didn't have education. But you could feel that they always had our backs. I never ever was like, you know, are they

doing wrong by me? That was never in doubt. And that was the foundation, the core of everything I am. And when they died, it was like when you're on a plane, if the engine suddenly stopped. Like you're so used to it being there that when it's gone, it is just, you can't notice anything but. Their love took up rooms. And so for me, that's what got us through it. It wasn't planning. It was just that expression of just stupid levels of love just thrown on top of us. So Brad, you described, I'm not going to call you Bradley like your mother does, so I'll stick with calling you Brad. You can call me Bradley, you know that.

You described that little pass through kitchen in Brooklyn. Now you're at your grandmother's house and you're in her kitchen. And was that a place of respite? Was that, you know, where the family came together and maybe the meals were simple, maybe they were small, maybe they were even sporadic, but was that something that helped hold you all together? And can you tell me a little bit about that kitchen? That kitchen, my grandmother's kitchen, made the best matzo ball soup in the whole world. And everything else my mother would say about my grandmother's cooking, it tastes like poison.

Right? Like she, my mom thought my grandmother was the worst cook on the planet, except for Maltz of Olz. Okay, this was not her mother then this was... No, my father's mother. That's why she said it. Of course. No, her own mother, she had better words for it, but and they didn't get along at all. So it was not a good mix. But that kitchen was also a tiny little kitchen. I remember I had an electric stove. And I remember always, you know, my mom complaining that like electric's not as good as that what

we used to have in Brooklyn. And I remember thinking we had it so crappy in Brooklyn, but she was still complaining that the stove was better. It was the better stove. But yeah, my grandmother's kitchen was, I couldn't get out of there quick enough. And you, your family stayed there, they, you moved into another apartment. What, and with, with a woman who you always remember as Mercy, how long were you in that apartment and then where did you move after that?

Yeah, so we were there for two or three months. I was, I know I started school in that. We moved down in the summer in July and I started school in probably late August, early September. So we were there for months because I remember being on my grandmother's during those first weeks of school. And then we moved to a place called Misty Lake. And Misty Lake, I remember, I thought was the most beautiful place I would ever live in my whole life. I remember offering the money that I was making because I wanted to live in this place. It had named Misty Lake. It was not the

nicest place. It was just these, you know, for me, beautiful town homes. But again, a tiny little place, also a small kitchen, same size as my grandmother's, it was same setup. And it also only had, it only had two bedrooms. My sister would literally sleep in the living room and we would fold up her bed every night and then opened up again. And my sister had that for years until they finally built a wall. But in that, my mom was a decorator. And she would spend her days building everyone's kitchen, making it beautiful, making it have woodwork, making it have places for her.

I remember someone fancy once had a place for their baking pans. And I remember thinking that was the height of, if you have a place just for your baking pans, that was like that tall vertical slit in the woodwork. You can put your cookie sheets in there. Cookie sheets, you can slide them in and they would all go. I remember being like that's, and my mom would spend thousands and thousands of dollars of other people's money. But I remember to outfit our kitchen,

we went to Zairs. And Zairs was, it was Kmart in Florida is really what it was. And I remember my mom- I haven't heard Zairs. Oh, you'll hear Zairs. Anyway, you're going to hear Zairs for every person in Florida. Yeah, you know Zairs. And Zairs was where we bought all our clothes. Everyone wore polo shirts and we had one with a dinosaur because Zairs had a dinosaur. And Zairs was where we bought all our clothes. Everyone wore polo shirts and we had one with a dinosaur because Zairs had a dinosaur. And Zairs had everything that was like the knockoff of the good stuff. But to me, I remember we had wicker chairs that we were like, this is beautiful.

This is better than anything we had in New York. And this kitchen truly became the most important spot. I mean, because that's where it was the one place we had a really good table and it had big lights. It looked out on the backyard that had, it was a big giant grass patch to a lake. There was an actual manmade lake in Misty Lake. And I just thought, we'll never live in anywhere nicer. And that kitchen was, my mom's decorated on, I mean, it felt like it was decorated for $100,

but it was beautiful. And my mom used to, she used to paint and she wasn't a painter by any stretch, but she would look at modern art. You know, she would always say, completely wrong, of course, but she would always say, modern art is bad if she could say, I could do that. And so she would just take,

she would go out to Zeres and buy paint and buy a thing and she would decorate our whole house with her own paintings. And then people would come over and go, I love your art. My mom would go, I know, isn't it beautiful? And she would never tell anyone she painted it. Really? She never took credit for it? Nope. Didn't sign them either. Do you have any of them? Why? I wish I had them now. I wish I had them. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Rivian and their fully electric,

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Hmm, sounds delicious. Maybe we'll do some grilled chicken breasts with a little lemon and dill surrounded by spring veggies and you should know that Whole Foods Chicken has no antibiotics ever. I love looking for those yellow low-price signs throughout the store to know I'm getting the best deals on my ingredients. At Whole Foods Market, Mother's Day and May celebrations feel doable, special but not stressful. Save on May celebrations with great everyday prices at Whole Foods Market. Hey, future hosts, tired of the same old routine? It's time to switch things up with Airbnb.

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Find out how much at airbnb.com slash host. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Rivian and their fully electric, full-sized SUVs and pickups that are designed for all of life's adventures. I feel so lucky because the team at Rivian hooked me up with a Rivian R1S and I love this car. It's a beautiful seven-seat SUV that's all-electric and it's souped up. It has a 360 degree camera to help you back up and park, adaptive cruise control that can speed up, slow down, and brake on its own. It has a tinted panoramic glass roof.

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almost like a book. So on one side you have the cooktop and then on the other side you have a food prep surface and a storage space for all your cooking utensils. All you need to power up the stove is electricity so you can take it anywhere and use it anywhere. Camping, barbecues, road trips, tailgating, imagine tailgating with this. It also comes with these adorable lights that hook onto the cooktop and they have these sort of dangling light fixtures that hang across the top, which creates this lovely sort of patio ambiance. It could not be more convenient. They give you a lovely carrying case. You can easily charge it up at home and it fits perfectly on the back of your Rivian

tailgate. With Rivian, you can take your mama's kitchen anywhere. So let's go. Learn more at rivian.com. This episode is brought to you by DoorDash. As someone who knows how busy life can get, I appreciate anything that makes things easier. DoorDash makes it simple to send thoughtful surprises to those who matter most, whether it's flowers, snacks, or even a favorite meal.

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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. Did the food change in that kitchen? Because it sounds like the atmosphere certainly changed. It became a house proud space, a place where your mom was proud, where you gathered, you had the great wicker chairs. Did the nutrition change both in terms of food and also in terms of just the mood? No, because there was no learning. I'll tell you where we learned it all. I'll tell you

the next two kitchens are the most important kitchens in my life, I think. So after you left Misty Lake, you went someplace else. No, I know. So I was at Misty Lake and then I met my wife in ninth grade. And that was the one. So I was given a flippant dress. My wife, Cory, who you know, my wife, when I met her, she was giving away for my wife Cory who you know my wife When I met her she she was living in the good school district She her address was in the good school districts I was the kid who was schlepping 45 minutes to get to that school district every day and I remember I had a

woman in ninth grade a teacher named Sheila Spicer and Sheila Spicer Changed my life with three words. She said to me, you can write. And I was like, well, everyone can write. And she said, no, no, you know what you're doing. And she tried to put me in the honors class. I had some sort of conflict. She said, here's what we're going to do. You're going to sit in the corner for the entire year, ignore everything I do on the blackboard, ignore every homework assignment I give, you're going to do the honors work instead, and you're going to thank me later.

And sure enough, a decade later, when my first novel was published, I went back to her classroom, I knocked on the door, she said, Can I help you? I said, My name is Brad Meltzer, I wrote this book and it's for you. And she starts crying. And I said, why are you crying? And she said, you know, I was going to retire this year because I didn't think I was having an impact anymore. And I said, are you kidding me? You have 30 students. We have one teacher. And Ms. Spicer, in that year, we were reading Romeo and Juliet, and we had to read it out loud. But since I was alone in this class, I had to read Romeo, but I didn't have a Juliet. And she introduced, I knew her around, but I saw her and she had

my wife, my then became my wife read Juliet. And that was the kitchen that changed my life because suddenly I was going to my wife's kitchen. And her kitchen was very different than mine. My kitchen was, it really didn't change because now my mom had to work nights. She didn't have, she was still decorating, but it was but it was out of a furniture store. And so she was there, it was in Boca. So she was driving an hour every day and she wouldn't get home until seven, eight o'clock at night. My dad was trying to make a living selling insurance so he was never home. So my kitchen was really empty for all those years that

we lived in Misty Lake, but I started going to my wife's kitchen because one, there was food, but two, there was things I never saw in a kitchen before, which was calm and families just talking and debating and telling. I know it sounds crazy, but that's not what my family did. My family fought and we argued and it was great. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I remember my uncle one time, he thought I was wearing too fancy of a shirt when we moved to Florida and he took a bottle of ketchup and he's like, one squeezable ketchup first started.

He says, this shirt's so good, I'm going to squeeze this ketchup on. And my mother was like, Richie, don't do it. Don't, don't do it. He's like, I'm going to do it. She's like, don't do it. And I loved it. I was laughing and she goes, don't you dare, I will kill you. And he goes, and the thing goes squirt and it covered this beautiful, I remember it was

bought at Macy's, which was fancy for me. And that was my kitchen, chaos. But in Cory's kitchen was calm and respect. I was just like, what are they doing here in this kitchen? That is not how my kitchen looks but the kitchen that it led to is Cory's dad ran a restaurant and The restaurant was a place called Jumbo's and

Jumbo's if back in the early 60s If you were black and you went to Jumbo's, you couldn't get inside. You had to go around the back or go around the side. But when my father-in-law, a man named Bobby Flam took over the restaurant, he said, these are rules for an uncivilized time. We have to change them. And so he quickly hired three black employees. And on that day, 30 of his white employees

walked out the door, would not work there. He said, that's okay. Just right on, just before we even change anything, just hiring black folks was too much for them. Three black people was too much to work in the same restaurant with them. 30 people walked out the door and he said, you know what? Progress is made when we work together

and we're gonna move forward together. And Jumbo's became a civil rights landmark in Miami. It's the first restaurant that's listed as integrated in all of Miami. And it's easy to do when everyone's doing it. The far harder thing is to do it first. Remind us what year this was. So this is 1960. I knew you were going to ask me that.

It's 1960. It was, you know what? So it's before the public accommodation laws. Oh, it was, it was, I believe it was right after Dr. King's speech, which puts it at 68. I just can't remember. It's right before right after. Bobby's going to yell at me for not getting it right. Or he's not going to because he never yells at anyone. My family would yell. He, but he changed the restaurant. And I love that it became the civil rights landmark. And it was nice that the James Beard Award

has in South Florida, there are only three restaurants that are considered America's classics. There's Joe's Stone Crab, which many people know. There's Versailles, the first Cuban restaurant. And there's my family's restaurant, Jumbo's. But the best thing about Jumbo's to me had nothing to do with the accolades. That was useless. When there were race riots in Miami in the 80s,

and people were throwing bricks through storefronts and things were lit on fire, every place was burned down in the neighborhood, nobody touched Jumbos, nobody. Because for all those years, Jumbos looked out for its community, and as a result, the community looked out for it. And I love the fact that this went when he finally closed a restaurant years ago, a few

years back was 59 years that it lasted. And on the last day, I remember the, it made the front page of the New York Times, because they were like, here's this one Jewish guy in Florida who had the bravery to be the first to say we have to integrate. And I love that that restaurant and that kitchen is to me, I mean, I grew up in that restaurant. I got there when I was 15 years old is when I started dating his daughter and we would always go to the restaurant to eat. So we were in this wonderful mixed wonderful neighborhood where there were just every the

best parts of Miami, every color, every ethnicity, you name it. Like there was gospel, there was gospel church Sunday in the restaurant. There was a karaoke machine. It wasn't what you didn't go to church. What you went to jumbos. That was the church. And so I grew up. I'm like, yeah, I went to church.

That was jumbos. Then I went to, you know, the, the synagogue here and that was the church. And so I grew up, I'm like, yeah, I went to church, that was Jumbo's. Then I went to the synagogue here and that was our lives. And it was great because I didn't know it wasn't how everyone did it. Like it seemed, because I was so young, I'm still, don't forget, I'm 15 years old. And that was the kitchen. That was the magical kitchen of my life by far. Can we just put a little respect on his name? I appreciate that. He deserves it.

In Miami, you know, and remember that Miami is in Florida. And the- Correct. Especially now. And no one, especially then. I mean, the rules around segregation were hard and firm, and people just didn't cross those lines. And so for a businessman to stand up to the system and basically put a big, huge crack in the foundation and say, no, in my business, we're going to do things a different way,

I can't imagine the pushback that he probably got. He probably not only lost employees, he probably lost some of his distributors. And he lost friends. There were friends who wouldn't come and he'd be like, that's how I knew you weren't my friend anymore. You're done. I'm done with you. And he is, to this day, probably the nicest person I know, who's one of the people who's had the greatest impact. We all have many mothers and many fathers in our lives, right? We do whether we like it or not, but that was one of mine and Dale as well was one of mine. And in that house, in that restaurant, that's where I learned right from wrong. That's where I learned kindness. Mercy gave me I mean, mercy gave me empathy, but

they were living it every day. I was watching how he dealt with it when he would get off the highway at 79th Street in Miami to go to Jumbo's. There would be all these homeless people that were always at the end of the overpass.

And Bobby on any given moment, if there was anyone there, he rode around all the time. His trunk was filled with old clothes that he would just open up and give out. On any given moment, if there was anyone there, he rode around all the time. His trunk was filled with old clothes that he would just open up and give out. So everyone in the entire neighborhood is wearing old Bobby Flam outfits. Whatever he got too heavy for, they got the older version of, and they're all dressed like him in Miami Dolphins jerseys, Miami whatever the outfit was that day.

And they knew that Bobby was taking care of anyone who needed it. And they didn't care what you look like, and they didn't care where you were from, they didn't care where you were educated, they didn't care if you were rich, they didn't care if you were poor. And you'd have like, you know, you'd have people from the Delano, they would send the fancy hotels, would send people to Jumbo's to see what real Miami was like. So he would come home one day and he's like, I had this guy in, he makes some movies. I don't know if you've heard of him, Bradley, his name is Jerry Bruckheimer. I'm like, yeah, of course

it's Jerry. But he'd have Lenny Kravitz, he'd take a picture and he'd bring it home. And we're like, that's Lenny Kravitz. He would have like crazy pictures and he'd have the wall of fame in the back and we have Lenny Kravitz and Jerry Bruckheimer and me. And I'm like, only in Florida would that be like possible that he, you know, because he was just so again, such a proud dad to be like, I'm going to put, it would be like a copy of my first book on the wall of jumbos. That has no business being on the wall of jumbos, but it was because he ran the restaurant.

Yes, it does. I mean, I love this story for lots of reasons. We, you know, because you get to teach this little bit of history to people, because we get to put a little bit of respect on his name. And we also get to understand a very important lesson that I take from that is that yes, we know about Martin Luther King and Ella Baker and Rosa Parks. But the reason that the country looks the way it does right now when we go to the mall or we go out to eat or we go to the movies is because individual people had the courage to shove the country forward. It was not just the civil rights

icons, it was also people of great courage and conviction who figured this out. And I also love that this is a show where we ask people about their mama's kitchens and the kitchens that are important to them. And in this case, the kitchen that sounds like it was most important to you was your father-in-law's kitchen, which happened to be in a restaurant. It was the craziest. And when you would go in the kitchen, Jumbo's had, when you went into the back,

it had what everyone knew was called the death wall. And the death wall was, and this is true, you ask anybody there, Bobby would give anybody a loan. If you were homeless, if you had a job, if you were the guy who was the Pepsi rep, whoever it was, if you needed money, you got it, there's your loan. And you pay back the loan. That's how it was. The loan you pay back. And eventually, again, it's a rough neighborhood, people stop paying back the loans. So Bobby says, you know what? You don't pay me back, I'm going to put you on what he originally

called, he's like, you're going to go on the wall of shame. It's a wall of shame. And he put him on the wall of shame and he puts them out. I'm forgetting who it was. You know, he, I just forget the name, but whoever was went on the wall of shame died. And then the next person on the wall of shame died. And then he would say to people, this is a death wall. And if you don't pay me back, you're going on the death one.

People be like, please don't put me on the death wall. Like, don't, I don't want to go on the death wall. As if it had real power. But it did. And people started paying him back? And then people started paying him back. So it worked. And so it was just this place that had so much personality. And of course it had the best food, which was the most important. But you would go there and you would know that you were in the safest place in a place that any other place your parents would never let you go to. They'd be like, oh, be careful, be this. But there you were like, Jumbo's was a magical

place. And on the day it closed, I'll never forget, it was on, as I said, in the front page of the New York Times. Of course, all the newspapers and local crews came. And in fact, when the hurricanes used to hit jumbos and when they used to hit South Florida, every place was closed. But all the workers who are turning on the lights and the electricians and the people who are bringing back all the power, they got to eat somewhere. So the city of Miami used to turn on the grid only for jumbos. Oh, you're kidding. And he would literally buy the food that was going from McDonald's, from the Arby's, from the Burger King, from whatever diner was nearby, that was all their food was going bad in the freezer. Bobby would buy it all and feed all of Miami, all the emergency workers and rescue workers

and police and the fire people. And it's an incredible thing when you think about it, but just this tiny little grid, it was open 24 hours, it closed one day every year for the bug guy to come. And otherwise it was open all the time. It's Florida, so the bug guy happens to be very important because the bugs down there they're big and they fly. They're big and they fly. So they're big and they fly.

You understand. I hope that you're writing a screenplay about Jumbos. I should write something about Jumbos. Listen to you, I should write something about Jumbos. Yes, you should. You know what we did do? I'll tell you what we did do. I'm going to send it to you after.

For his, I think it was his 70th birthday. We do these I am books and we've done I am Rosa Parks and I am Amelia Hart, but we did an I am Bobby Flam for him privately. And we actually made it. I wrote it with my wife, my wife wrote most of it. I put it into the form and then Chris Aliopoulos, the incredible artist drew it. And we did put that down because we're like, this is important to have down. As I'm listening to your story about your father-in-law, I'm glad that you did a book about him because he is a hero and is deserving of a book. When the restaurant closed, all these people in the community, and there was a line around

the corner because everyone wanted to come and have the last day at Jumbo's. But here was the most important, Michelle. The most important part was all these men and women who were coming into the restaurant, who were 60, 70 years old at that time, or some who are 50 years old and said, I just want you to know, Bobby, I came to shake your hand because you gave my mother a job. And that's why I went to college. You gave me my first job when no one would hire us around here because of the color of our skin. And even now, when we go out to eat, it doesn't happen often, but it'll happen. We'll be in the parking

lot. We were in the parking lot right by where we live. And this guy comes racing out the back kitchen from the restaurant. He's like, Bobby, Bobby. And Bobby turns around and he's like, you remember me? He's like, I was one of your first bus boys. And I always said I wanted to be a chef. And then I went to culinary school. And now I'm the chef here, you come eat anytime you want. And as you said, we focus on all the big names in history, the bold names of history. And that's wonderful. They all do wonderful things.

But we sometimes do forget that history gets moved when the people say, I've had enough. Right? The civil rights movement doesn't happen because suddenly Congress has a wonderful change of heart and they're all wonderful, great people. It's because people are like enough, enough already. And it's all these people, names we'll never know who push us forward together in a positive way. And Bobby Flam is- And sometimes keep us from rolling backwards as well. Amen. That's what we need as people who do what is required in the moment.

Your book that you gave back to your teacher was your first book. It was called The Tenth Justice. You wrote it while you were in law school. So overachiever, most people in law school only have time for one thing, which is studying for the bar or studying first to get through law school and then studying for the bar. You got a lot of rejection notice, but then notices, but then you finally landed a deal, six figure deal, big deal for a, you know, first time student, first time author. In that book, you see your mom and dad in that book.

And there are also scenes in that book that happen in kitchens and happen around food. So even though food was not a central part of your life growing up, you were absorbing things and working them into your stories as an author. First of all, so yes, you know me so well, it's crazy. So for the parents, my editor wrote to me and said, the parents in this book are too crazy, no one's like them. So I did what any rational first time novelist would do, is I brought my parents to meet my editor. Which is such a terrible idea, looking back at it.

And I introduced them and I'll never sit there. I sat there for a half hour as my parents talked this man's face off. Rob Weisbach just talked and he didn't get a word in. I just sat there. I'm a pretty gregarious guy. And I just sat there quietly the entire half hour. And then they walked out of the office, I'll never forget, and my editor turned to me and he goes, keep the parents exactly how they are.

Because he knew they, of course they exist here. And in college, I used to, you know, my favorite recipe was this, I used to make this turkey meat sauce that a friend of mine taught me in college and we made it after school and then I made it in law school. And so in the book, the characters are of course making my favorite recipes. They're making all the things I know how to make because I didn't know anything else but those recipes. So throughout those early books, what you're seeing is it's not just my view of the world,

but it was my actual world. It was what I was eating and what I was seeing and who I was talking to and who I was communicating with because I was 24 years old when I wrote that book. When I look back at what my mom and dad gave me, I wouldn't change anything, nothing. I'm sure there are people who are like, oh my gosh, that sounds like it's not to me. I'd do anything for another day with them. And I can tell you, this is funny. When I told you the story about how my grandfather was struck by lightning and we knew that that

was the case because we had the papers from World War II that showed that's why he was dismissed from the military because he had burns across his body from a lightning strike. Where was he when it happened? I forget. I think he was actually in training. He wasn't stationed anywhere far. And you're going to make me look that up right as we hang up. But my father, who always said he was struck by lightning at camp, he said he was struck by lightning and came through the doorknob and then they put a sheet over him. They thought he was dead.

And he sat up and everyone was like, oh my gosh, he's alive. And I always remember thinking, that story seems like a little BS. That story just seems like my dad is just full of a little nonsense there. But at his funeral, I couldn't resist the metaphor. I was like, my grandfather was struck by lightning. My dad says he was struck by lightning. I don't know if it's true, but for purposes of this funeral, we're going to assume he was telling the true story.

And I think that that's the perfect way to see those lightning bolts. And this is what no one knows is after the, I wound up every year on the day my dad dies, I put his eulogy out on social media, on Instagram and everywhere else. And eventually a guy reaches out to me and says, hey, Brad, you don't know me. I don't know you, but I saw you. I was looking for your dad and I found this eulogy that you wrote. And I know you said at the beginning of it that you don't know if your dad was telling the truth about that lightning bolt.

So I just want to tell you, it's absolutely true. And I know because I was there that day your dad was struck. And I'm like, what? Let's get on the phone. And I get on the phone with this guy, we go back and forth by email. And he tells me word for word, details that were not in the eulogy that my dad used to tell us. And he says, and I know because my hand was on your father's shoulder when the lightning came through the metal doorknob. And it knocked me out too. And we were both unconscious, both under white sheets. and we both sat like, oh my gosh, you're the one who sat up too. And I love the fact that on that day, it wasn't that I just got the confirmation, but I got the greatest thing that I never get anymore, which is a new story about my father.

And that's what you lose when you lose your parents, right? You lose the new stories. And so I love the fact that people still give me those stories about my mom, my dad, my mom used to go to Studio 54 back in the day, not because she was famous, not because she knew anyone, she knew nobody. As I said, she didn't graduate college, but she went to junior high school with Steve Rubell, the founder of Studio 54 and he used to always let her in because he was like, Oh, I love her. She let her in. So it's like Elton John and Michael Jackson and my parents are there.

I've seen pictures of her. She was very fetching. She was stunning. My mom was stunning. And so she would make her way to these places. But every once in a while, I'll get someone who'll be like, I know your mom from those days. I know your dad from those days.

And when you get those stories, then you get something the best thing, which is a new story. So you do publish eulogies every year year and I've read them and they're beautiful. And if you're listening to this and you want to see an example of just heart wide open, beautiful writing, you should go and find them because they are examples of that. You should also find his book, Make Magic, which is this wonderful elegy on how we can all make magic in our lives by making things, by changing things, by making things disappear, by showing empathy. And we've made some magic in this conversation, I think. And it's fitting that you end by talking about someone rising like Lazarus from the dead

under a sheet because that sounds like a bit of magic right there. But we haven't done, it's gotten a recipe from you and we always do that with all of our guests. So what is the recipe? Your mom didn't cook that much. Your grandma cooked matzah ball soup and I don't know if that's a recipe that you want to share. There's some fabulous recipes that you could pull from Jumbo's, but of all the kitchens that you live in and all the recipes that you could draw upon, what's the recipe that you want to share with our listeners? I'm sharing my favorite place for my favorite kitchen. I brought a secret recipe from Jumbo's.

I went to Bobby, who by the way, none of the secret recipes are written down. None of them. They're all in his head, which makes us crazy. So not the fried chicken, not the fried shrimp, not the... I can't give out that, but I got you the secret to the fried conch. Okay. And this is... You want me to go through it? Oh, well, just kind of walk us through quickly the important things.

Yeah, the real quick is this is it. First of all, not everybody knows what conch is. Right. So I don't even know what conch is. It's basically like a shelf, like a... How do you even describe what conch is? It looks like eggs almost. Yeah. It looks like eggs like, I always say like oysters mixed with eggs. That doesn't sound appetizing at all, so I'm going to fry it for you. But basically, here's the secret recipe. This is the key. A hundred percent clean conch.

Okay. You tenderize it by hammer manually or with a tenderizer machine. Which you can get at a fishmonger. I mean, you're probably, if you're not in Florida or someplace in the southeast, you're probably not going to find that at a grocery store. So you probably need to go to a fish market to get that. But keep going. Yep.

You run the conch through the machine three times for best results. You really got to tenderize. So if you have a hammer, just keep bounding. You make a batter with bisquick and water. Now, I said to him, how much batter, how much water? And I love this is such a jumbos detail because nothing was really done with science, but it says until your finger clings to the white batter. That's how you know. Okay. All right.

So, there you go. So, it thickens up a little bit. Thick, yeah. It thickens up until it sticks to your finger. Sort of like when you make paper mache. Yeah, like paper mache if you're eating fried conch at a soul food restaurant run by a Jewish guy. It's basically the same. So you got your all-purpose flour, floury seasoning salt, garlic powder, black powder,

paprika. You mix the conch first in the flour, then in the batter, back to the flour. Okay. You fry it in a clean, it has to be clean, 350 degree vegetable oil for two to three minutes, golden brown. You drain, you serve it with lemon and tartar sauce, and of course some hot sauce. And as Bobby said, giddy up. That is from Jumbos whose motto was, just good food and good friends from 1955 to 2014.

That is a great motto. I think I want that in my kitchen. Just good food and good friends. Families always welcome. It's all you need. I have loved talking to you, Brad. I knew this was going to be a magical conversation and indeed it was. Thanks so much for being with us. Love you much. Thank you for doing it. I just love this conversation and I knew that I would. I loved hearing about Brad's childhood. He paints such a vivid picture of his parents watching TV with his mom, sitting on the sofa, listening to his dad, the uncle who squirts ketchup on a brand

new shirt. I mean, whose family does something like that? It was heartwarming to hear about how his parents were bursting with pride and with love for the kids. How his mom purchased so many books that she set records in terms of how many books that she brought. This dedication to family and to making sure the kids were nourished in all the right ways is a story that will stay with me for a very long time. Make sure to check out his latest book, Make Magic, and make sure to understand that

our inbox is always open for you to record yourself, either in audio or video, share your story with us, share some of your mama's recipes, some memories from your kitchen growing up, your thoughts on some of the stories that you've heard on the show, your thoughts on some of the things that you've heard in this conversation. Make sure to send us a voice memo or video recording. You can shoot that to ymk at highergroundproductions.com for a chance for your voice to be featured in a future episode or your video when we start sharing these episodes on YouTube. And if you want to try Brad's or I guess I should say Jumbo's Fried Conch, make sure

to check out the recipe at yourmommaskitchen.com. It is fried, so be careful with that hot vegetable oil. And you can find also at yourmommaskitchen.com all the recipes from all the previous episodes. I road test the recipes. And now that Rivian has let me one of their cars complete with a travel kitchen that you can outfit on the tailgate, I think I might be road testing the fried conch when I'm out in the world. So I'll let you know about that.

For everyone who's joined us today, thanks so much for being with us. Make sure to come back next week and the week after that, because you know what? Here at Your Mama's Kitchen, we are always serving up something delicious. Until then, be bountiful. You ever been there when an uncomfortable question about race comes up but you don't know how to answer?

That's where CodeSwitch lives. Each week we're talking about race and how it intersects with every other aspect of your life, from politics and pop culture to history and food. talking about race and how it intersects with every other aspect of your life. From politics and pop culture to history and food. Listen now to the Code Switch podcast from NPR.