Hey, Counterjam Heads! Season 2 will return 4/12, and in the meantime, we've been doing tons of listening ourselves. Our friends at Salt + Spine just released this new episode featuring The Grey partners and co-authors Mashama Bailey and John Morisano.
Hey, Counterjam Heads! Season 2 will return 4/12, and in the meantime, we've been doing tons of listening ourselves. Our friends at Salt + Spine just released this new episode featuring The Grey partners and co-authors Mashama Bailey and John Morisano.
"The fact that there aren't as many black men or women running kitchens in America is in itself a systemic problem. There are tons of people of color when you go into any kind of culinary program—and in the mid-level kitchens, there's tons of diversity in those kitchens. But as soon as you cross the threshold into higher echelon kitchens, then you start to thin out because there isn't any capital backing these talented folks." —Mashama Bailey
From Salt + Spine: Mashama is the executive chef and partner of The Grey, which she runs with her business partner, John O. Morisano. The Savannah, Georgia restaurant is set inside a once-segregated, former Greyhound bus station and has been dubbed Restaurant of the Year by Eater and named one of TIME magazine’s "greatest places." The Grey serves up Mashama’s menu, which draws influences from all over and in particular the South, Italy, and Africa. In 2019, the James Beard Foundation awarded Mashama its Best Chef: Southeast award. Together, Mashama and John built The Grey — and now, they’re taking a unique approach with their memoir-cookbook by telling the story together, too.
Their book — titled Black, White, and The Grey: The Story of an Unexpected Friendship and a Beloved Restaurant — chronicles how the pair came together, relocated to Savannah, and opened a celebrated restaurant. But it’s more than the story of The Grey — it’s also a conversation about race, class, gender, and American culture. And interlaced throughout are recipes to accompany the chapters.
Brian Hogan Stewart: This is Salt + Spine.
Mashama Bailey: One of the things I really wanted to do and I saw a need for, you know, black women or men or black people to write about food.
Brian Hogan Stewart: Hi there, Brian Hogan Stewart here, and you're listening to Salt + Spine, stories behind cookbooks. You just heard from today's guest chef Mashama Bailey. We're joined today by Mashama and her business partner, Johno Morisano, who run The Grey, the Savannah, Georgia restaurant set inside a once-segregated former Greyhound bus station, dubbed the restaurant of the year by Eater and named one of Time magazine's greatest places. The Grey serves up Mashama's menu, which draws influences from all over, and in particular the south, Italy, and Africa. In 2019 the James Beard Foundation awarded Mashama its Best Chef Southeast award. Now together Mashama and Johno built The Grey, and they're taking a unique approach with their memoir cookbook by telling the story together too. The book is titled Black, White, and The Grey: The Story of an Enexpected Friendship and a Beloved Restaurant. It chronicles how the pair came together, relocated to Savannah, and opened a now-celebrated restaurant. But it's much more than just the story of The Grey. It's also a conversation about race, class, gender, and American culture, and interlaced throughout are recipes to accompany the chapters. And not just those you'd find at The Grey, but ones that fit the authors' story. It's an honest and heartwarming book that challenges readers, and it's a unique approach in the restaurant cookbook memoir matrix. Mashama and Johno joined us remotely in our virtual studio for this week's show, and stick around. As always we're closing out today's show with a little culinary challenge game. It's a lot of fun. So let's head now to our virtual studio where Mashama Bailey and Johno Morisano joined us to talk cookbooks.
Brian: Hi Mashama, hi Johno, thank you so much for joining us on Salt + Spine.
John: Hey Brian, how you doing?
Mashama: Hello.
Brian: Yeah, we're thrilled to have both of you to talk about your book Black, White, and The Grey, which is wonderful. I just finished reading it two days ago, um, and can't wait to talk about it a little bit. But we always like to start first by learning just a little bit more about how you came to where you are today, and a little bit about your partnership too, before we get into the book and the process itself. So I thought we'd start just by talking a little bit about the role that food played in each of your lives growing up, and maybe we can start with you, Mashama. I know your mother is from Georgia, but you grew up in New York City, in New York. Can you talk about the role food played in your life as a kid?
Mashama: Absolutely. So growing up we ate every meal together, even if some, you know, sometimes we ate it in front of the television, but for the most part, you know, we had every meal in the house together as a family. And I think for me, food was--or, eating, the act of eating, food was connecting, connecting with my family, learning about them a little bit more, their likes and dislikes, their personality and sense of humor. And so it's always been one of the things that I really have gravitated towards, because um, you don't need to come to the table really with anything, except for yourself. So that was my favorite part about eating and cooking, is because it kind of like, it shows up for face value, and I think that's a lot of the reason why I got into food, because I like the face value of it. You either like it or you don't. (laughing)
Brian: Right. Yeah, it's pretty straightforward. Um, and we'll come back to how you sort of made your transition into food. Johno, I know your, your original career, your first career, was not in food. Can you talk about the role that food played in your life?
John: Yeah, we did not eat every meal together, because my dad was a fireman, and so he worked a lot of, you know, overnight hours and things like that. So it was much more hit and miss in my family, especially--most of my siblings are older than me, and as--they started to leave the house when my kid sister and me were still, you know, ten to teens, and so that whole dynamic of the family meal kind of, in a way, left with them. But there were times, especially when my grandparents were alive, when we'd go to my Italian side's--my dad's side, my grandmother's house for dinner on a Sunday, and that was the most formative thing for me and food, because my family was kind of cuckoo. (laughing) Very sort of New York City, didn't make enough money, too many kids, stress, you know, all that, and, and that Sunday dinner at my grandmother's was just absolute calm, and because you didn't yell at each other, because you were just kind of stuffing food down your gullet the whole time, and it's just--was very comforting. And so that was sort of a memory that I think pushed me to really chase food for the early part of my adult life. And I was in a different career, I was kind of a startup entrepreneurial type, and just was on the road all the time. Or my wife and I were meeting for dinner at nine o'clock at night in New York City, or wherever else we were living. And you know, it was the same thing, like that was the time when my wife and I argued, exchanged information, loved each other, like, you know, it was over those dinners every night, and so I just--food as comfort has just always been a big part of my life.
Brian: Yeah. Now Mashama, I know you originally weren't planning to go into food as a career, right? You studied social work, which one or both of your parents were in as well?
Mashama: Right. Both both of my parents were social workers. My dad worked in Brooklyn for a really long time on Fulton Street. My mom, she went from working for the Red Cross into working in social work, and I did that for probably two years after I graduated college. Um, but within those two years I started to cook more. I started to read recipe books. And my boyfriend at the time, his family would always have Sunday suppers, a lot like Johno was talking about. They would get together, it was almost like a potluck, and you would bring a dish and they would talk about the dish right in front of you. It was almost like a judge's table, and I loved that, you know, I love that it was nerve-wracking, but it was also, um, it came with so much love, and I just really started diving into food, really took a deep dive into it. And so um, I was living in Jacksonville, Florida at the time, and I was seriously starting to think about going into food as a career, and everyone thought I was crazy, but when I came back to New York, I still worked as a social worker, and during our holidays and staff meetings, I would cook, and I just got so much positive reinforcement from it. So I've worked as a social worker, worked in a group home in Brooklyn for about maybe a year, and I was in the midst of getting a promotion, and worked that promotion for a few months. And within the probationary period I was fired. And that gave me this really great excuse to just dive into food. (laughing)
John: And it's so funny, Mashama--when we met and we were having this long conversation, and she told me she was fired from a job, like, I stopped dead in my tracks, right? Because like, in my family, like, that's the worst thing, because my family is so civil-service minded that if you got fired, you would never get another job again and you would never work and you'd be poor and you'd go to the--you'd be destitute and your whole life would be over. And she was like, "Yeah, so I got fired, and now--now I'm doing exactly what I love to do." And it was like a really good lesson for like, you know, there's a silver lining in everything that happens.
Mashama: Yeah. And I think if you get fired from a job, you're really just not into that job.
John: Exactly. You've learned that, right? Yeah.
Brian: It's telling you something that you capitalized on and took advantage of. And then--we're condensing, of course, your histories a lot here, but then you go to culinary school, you go, um, I think for an externship, right? In France, with Anne Willan. And it was interesting to me as I was prepping for this, that at the time you were thinking you wanted to be a food writer, you wanted to write about food, right? And she kind of pushed you towards actually cooking?
Mashama: Yeah. So that's--yes, exactly. I wrote a lot of poetry in elementary school and, well, really junior high school and early parts of high school. My dad was my biggest cheerleader and he thought that I should write. And I just was not into it. I wasn't, wasn't disciplined. And you can ask Johno how disciplined I was when we were writing this book together. (laughing) Um, but...
John: I'll lie for you, don't worry. (laughing)
Mashama: But I just wasn't disciplined with it. But I still always came back to it. I kept a journal, and I've always sort of written. And one of the things I really wanted to do, when I saw a need for, you know, black women or men or black people to write about food. And um, the funny--I'm giggling because Anne Willan's has you perform this exam after your externship. And half of it is written, and the other half is a cooking demo. And I just did so bad on the written that she told me that she thinks that I should cook for a living. (laughing) She was like, "Yeah, I don't know, maybe you should cook." But one thing she did tell me is that she thought that I was really good at it, and that she thought I was really good at it and not everyone who does it is good. So that was enough for me to sort of um, really dive back into it more seriously.
Brian: Yeah. And we're gonna condense a bunch of stuff again here too, in your, sort of trajectories. But I want to come to the moment where your partnership sort of starts to form then. So Johno, you, you're coming off this career, you've had this career of start ups and venture capital and all of that, and you find this space, right? In Savannah, that you decide you're going to make into a restaurant, you want to be your project, having no experience yourself in working in restaurants, just dining in them. What was it about that location that sort of felt like that was the place?
John: So just on the career front, like, I'd really hit a brick wall, right? So I was like, I was either going to like, just sit catatonic for some elongated period of time, or move forward. And so when I came across the bus terminal, it's an old abandoned--it was an old abandoned Greyhound bus terminal that was built in '38. Like the first thing--I went in there and it was dilapidated and it was gross. I mean, it was really nasty inside, like it hadn't been used by anything other than vermin for a dozen years, but it was an art deco building. Art moderne is sort of the American version of art deco. And, you know, after you were in there for a couple of minutes and you started to look around, like, I started to look around, I noticed like, you know, there's like, these little streaks of chrome, you know, that are under all of the dust, or there's a--there's a curved counter that just didn't really make sense to me for Savannah, because Savannah's was primarily built, rebuilt in 1875, the historic district. And so this building was just different, and a period of architecture that, you know, I think is arguably one of the most beautiful. And so the first thing that captivated me was just what was under the dirt and the grime of the building. You know, then getting into, I'm sure this conversation will lead to it, so I'll leave it alone for now. But then getting into the history of the building, and it's--the role of buses and travel in segregation and desegregation started to become part of the impetus as well.
Brian: Yeah, and you were really intentional. The two of you didn't meet by chance, you write about this in the book. You decide as you're embarking on this project that you want to find a black woman to lead the kitchen. Can you talk about like, how you reached that decision and why you felt that was important? And then I want to bring both of in.
John: Yeah. So after we were in the design phase, the early, like, the schematic design phase with the designers, you know, I was getting a lot of pressure from the different people. And so we had the designers involved, we had the preservation architects involved, we had a kitchen consultant involved, we hadn't yet started construction. So it's just all this planning, and the designers and the kitchen consultant were kind of on me every day. It's like, "You need--you need to find a chef, you need to find a chef," because how do you build a kitchen when you don't--clearly don't know anything about commercial kitchens, you know, without having somebody who can at least say, "This is the kind of food I'm going to cook, and, you know, this is how I like my hotline set up," you know? And so, um, so I--I really started to stress out, frankly, a lot about not having a chef. And the first conclusion I came to is that I wanted a business partner. So this was a much more weighty decision than hiring somebody that could be fired or quit or whatever. And then when I was thinking about a business partner, like, the next thought process was, "Okay, we're in this city of Savannah that I don't know anything about. I'll probably be treated suspiciously when I open this business because I'm from the outside." Savannah's kind of split down the middle between black and white, with the black side of the population actually being slightly bigger than the white side. And so with all those kind of factoring around in my head, I'm like, "If I find somebody that can help me reach all of Savannah, you know, that would be better than finding somebody who looks like me." So I just kind of went "What's the exact opposite of me?" And, you know, I'm pretty simple minded. So it was like, woman, black, or a person of color. And because Savannah was again, majority black city, a black woman was sort of--was the person that I most wanted to do this with. It was a business decision almost at first. You know?
Brian: Yeah. And the way that the book is written, which if folks haven't read it yet, it sort of goes back and forth between your perspectives. And as you're writing about that period of time, John. O, your voice comes in, and Mashama, you're talking about how you sort of respond to this, and you write that you find it ridiculous that part of this conversation between these three white men is that they're struggling to find a black woman who can be a business partner in this endeavor, and who can lead the kitchen, and that there are--you write, "There are people like me, women like me in kitchens all over America, and yet this idea that we're still invisible is ridiculous." Can you talk about how you felt when you were initially coming onto this project as a partner?
Mashama: I felt challenged and overwhelmed. I thought that, um, that it was aligned with what I wanted to do, and I wasn't so--I, I guess there was a question of like, the motive behind wanting a black woman. And I think for me, that was the first question that I needed the answer to. And once I understood that and I kind of became, and I came to terms with that, um, I thought that it was rational. (laughing) I thought that it was a good opportunity for me to show what I can do and move to the south. Part of my objective also was to relocate to the south, and I had been looking years prior before moving to Savannah to try to find a good fit for me, and this opportunity was a good fit. And so when I came down to the building and I met Johno, and I realized that, you know, he was from Staten Island--and it's funny, I keep bringing it up. Like, Staten Island is this really sort of liberal place. But I think just like other neighborhoods around the country, you do have your, you know, your, your neighborhoods, you know, your little tribe. So I, I just felt like he was from New York City. He was open minded, and it wasn't initially a thing that was race-driven in a negative way. I thought it was a conversation that was going to have a positive outlook.
John: Let me just set the record straight on Staten Island. It is the least liberal place in New York City. (laughing) It's the only conservative stronghold in New York City.
Mashama: But I keep referring to it like, "Oh, he was from Staten Island, so this is all good."
John: Your grandmother also told you that that must mean I'm in the mafia, so look out.
Mashama: Exactly. So it's sort of like, well, the south, Staten Island...uhhh...(laughing)
Brian: Right. And I picked up on that piece of your book too, because I want to ask both of you. I think it's easy to ask, like, "What's your advice for, you know, a young black cook, or a young black woman who wants to follow the path you did?" But I also want to ask a similar question to you, Johno. I'm curious for both of your perspectives, because it's also a systemic issue in the restaurant industry, that women, women of color, people of color are not elevated historically in the way that they should have been. Like, how do we sort of address some of those things, and how has your partnership done that?
John: Just a little context, what you were talking about before, because I think it's important to this part of the conversation, is when I--when I was talking to the two designers, the guys from Parts and Labor Design, I basically--they were my sounding board, and I called them up and I said, "You know, I kind of figured it out, like, I need to find a black woman as my business partner and chef." And then we had this conversation about how that person doesn't exist statistically, right? When you, you know, when you did the research, like, there weren't--there was, you know, low teen percentage of people--or African Americans running kitchens in America. And then when you further, you know, distill that down to how many of those people were women, you're looking at like, you know, a couple of points, meaning a couple of percentage points. So that's what we're fighting against. I just wanted to add that as part of the conversation before.
Mashama: Yeah. And I think the fact that there aren't as many, um, black men or women running kitchens in America is--it's in itself a systemic problem. There's tons of people of color when you go into any kind of culinary program, right? And in the very, sort of mid-level kitchens, there's tons of diversity in those kitchens. But as soon as you kind of cross the threshold into those higher echelon kitchens where, you know, the rent is more expensive and the wine is expensive and you start to add these kind of like, million dollar--you open up these million dollar, two million dollar places, then you start to thin out, because there isn't any capital backing these people, these talented folks, right? There's not a lot of belief in what--they're not investing in their perspective. And so I think that that is a little bit of the, of where it gets blurred, because there is talent and there are people who are in the spaces. But I think they get deflated and they change course because they don't--it's hard for them to find the financial backing in order to create the restaurant that they want to create.
Brian: Yeah, exactly. I want to get to the book a little bit. So Mashama, you were originally pitched on doing a cookbook yourself. And I found that sort of interesting that you were hesitant to do that, because you were sort of previously very interested in food writing, right? But what was your aversion to doing a cookbook? Like, The Grey cookbook?
Mashama: Because I had to put my money where my mouth was. I was like, that's sort of, um--the version, really, for me, was time. You know, like, Johno wasn't the only inexperienced person in this partnership. I was too, I came on as a sous chef. I've never run a kitchen before. I was older, and I--and I--and I changed careers. So I think that that helped with my accelerated development of management skills, but--and I'm just saying that these are big air quotes, you know? But because I still had to learn on the job when we opened up in Savannah in a whole new city with a whole different work ethic. But it took me a while to kind of get comfortable, get, get comfortable in my footing. And when we first opened, lots of people--it was, it was easy for people to sort of come then grab a recipe for Valentine's Day, or for easter, or for whatever, to sort of get my name out there, get The Grey's name out there. And I wanted to kind of put a stop to that, because I didn't feel like all of the recipes were as vetted as I wanted them to be. And I was still evolving as a chef and learning the food that I wanted to cook in this region. And I just didn't feel comfortable committing--with that mindset, going to write a cookbook. I just didn't feel like it was going to really, truly represent what we were doing down in Savannah. And I just--and so I just basically felt like it was too early. But you know, our literary agent is very, very friendly, very persistent. Like most literary agents, I would imagine. And I basically got Johno, I was like, "Johno, go talk to him." (laughing) And Johno went to talk to him, and I thought we were going to be done with it. And Johno came back, he's like, "I love it! And now I'm writing a book!"
Brian: Right, so it sort of like, immediately morphed into the--Johno, you would take the reins and sort of write a more narrative history of The Grey, and how it came to be, because it went through many different forms before it ended up in the version that we have now.
John: Yeah, that's true. So when I went and met with our agent, up in--like I went up to New York City and met with him, because that's where he was based. And we were drinking bourbon in the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Terminal. And I fully went up there cynical about agency in general, because I had worked in the entertainment industry for a bit, and we just--he's a great guy, we get along. And so we talked about writing a net--well, I said, you know, that I'm a closeted writer and I wanted to write a narrative structure of what happened at The Grey, and he was cynical because he's like, "Oh my God, another guy who wants to write a book, Jesus," you know?
Mashama: (muffled) closeted either.
John: Yeah, exactly. He's like, "Yeah, go ahead, go away and write your little book." And so I did. And, and when I went back to Savannah, I said Mashama, let's write a book together. Like, let's write the narrative structure, and this way we can support each other. And I think in retrospect, we fought about this a lot over the years. And like--not fought, but we--it definitely was a point of contention between us at times over the years. But I think rightfully so. She was like, "I'm not, no, I'm not going to do that." And, for a couple of reasons, mostly around time. But I also think around, well, I'm not going to put words in her mouth. It was mostly around time, but I--in my view, she was also working so hard at finding her own voice in food, and I would love to hear your response to this, Mashama, that you didn't want to start getting it mixed up in a voice around storytelling at that point in time. I think you may have viewed that as a, you know, a risk, and, and I think that you made the absolute right decision when you told me no. And so I wrote the partial manuscript. We went and sold it. And that was when the idea came up. It was basically the editor who bought the book, who was like, "You know what? I think there's a way to get Mashama involved in this project without taxing her too much from a word count, from, uh, you know, just straight up writing," you know, because the book's, whatever, probably 120,000 words. And I went back to Mashama with that idea of, "Hey, I'll write a manuscript and then you can kind of, you know, come in and annotate it." And she agreed to do that and we did it and we thought it was being successful, but it really wasn't. And then I'll turn it over to Mashama, I'll let her pick it up from there.
Mashama: Yeah. Well, awhile back--
Brian: Mashama, you had a reaction, right? When you saw how it turned out.
Mashama: I did. I just want to back up just a little bit, because it really was about time for me, because I did not have the proper structure of a kitchen going into opening and operating The Grey. I had--I opened with the sous chef that was very temporary, a junior sous chef who came down with me, which is, you know, my strongest line cook, who came down with me from New York City. And all of that was starting to sort of unravel around the time that um, Johno and David Black were approaching me about coming into writing this book. And also, we had acquired the space for The Grey Market. So there was a lot going on. Like, there wasn't a full structure in the kitchen. I was expoing every night. I was probably still cooking on the line at that point, almost every night. And it just, I just, I was like, "I can't, I don't even understand how it could be a real possibility for me." I think I was just starting to kind of get my groove and to even, to begin to think about the food that we were going to do with The Grey Market. So it was just a lot of things at the same time. So writing a book wasn't, it wasn't going to happen. It wasn't possible. And Johno went away. It was almost like a year. It took a year for me to get on the book, because he went away, wrote the first manuscript, came back. Then I think the idea of really trying to push me to be a part of this book became important. And then, at that point some of my hesitation was, "You worked so hard on this. I don't want, I don't want to take anything away from you," right? "I don't want to take any of your hard work away from this book with me being on it." So that was a little, probably arrogant. But I just was like, "You know what? I don't want it to be about me. I wanted to be about you, this is your work." So once I agreed, Johno went away again and restructured the book. And we had just had a tragedy at the restaurant, and it was still very raw and very open. And I think part of the reason why he did that was it helped him heal, I think. And for me it was just hard. It was just a hard thing to read. It was, um, so I read this tragedy in the very beginning and then it all kind of opened up into this other layer of, uh, thought that I wasn't really aware of. Um, we haven't talked openly about. So my first rep at the book was defensive, and it was defensive because I didn't really have, um, I didn't have support in the direction of, of how we should write this book. I was like, "Okay, I'm supposed to write some anecdotes on this manuscript." But it didn't feel like that. It feels, it felt like I needed to do more. But it wasn't, there wasn't a lot of advising on how to do that, and I will still working full time at the restaurant.
Brian: We'll be right back with the second part of our conversation with Mashama Bailey and Johno Morisano. Oh, don't go anywhere. Remember, you can follow us on Instagram at @saltandspine. This week, you'll find a chance to win your own copy of Black, White, and The Grey. Each week we love sitting down with another of your and my favorite cookbook authors to tell the stories behind cookbooks. From Jacques Pepin and Nigella Lawson to Samin Nosrat and Carla Hall, to today's guests, Mashama Bailey and Johno Morisano, Salt + Spine is the leading podcast featuring interviews with your favorite authors. Plus, we publish delicious and exclusive recipes, hold cookbook giveaways for listeners like you, and so much more. We also just launched our new Salt + Spine cookbook club. Cook along with one of our featured authors each month and then come together and join us for a virtual dinner party with that author. Salt + Spine truly brings cookbooks to life and we can only do it thanks to listeners like you. You can join the Salt + Spine community today and support our effort to bring you top notch interviews and the best cookbook content starting at just $2 a month. Find out more and join the Salt + Spine community at patreon.com/saltandspine. And now back to our conversation with Mashama Bailey and Johno Morisano, authors of Black, White, and The Grey.
Brian: You mentioned this tragedy which, which opens the book and really sort of sets the stage for what, what becomes like, really quite a personal book for both of you. So I think I'm understanding from what you're saying that that wasn't really the nature of the book early on. How much did that sort of evolve as you worked on the book, in terms of how open and honest you were about sort of the conversations you were having amongst yourselves?
Mashama: Um, I feel like we were both very honest, but I don't know--I think we had to come together and really rewrite the book as a unit, versus going to me writing my part separately and him revising his part separately. We didn't really become open to each other until we started to read the book as one whole story together, as one complete conversation. And I think that's when the openness, um, started to kind of unravel and come onto the page.
Brian: And you physically had to sort of remove yourself, right? Then you go and, and spend--is it like six weeks or so, in Paris, just hunkered down and focused on working on the book together. Can you talk about that process a little bit?
John: After we got--so, so we thought, we thought we had a finished book in the late summer, early fall of 2020, and we sent it out for--
Mashama: Of 19.
John: Oh, 19, you're right, sorry. Yeah. Um, and we sent it out that fall of '19 for what the publishing world calls "sensitivity reads." And the sensitivity reads came back where the people who I sent it to seemed to enjoy the book, and the people who Mashama sent it to, um, had problems with it. And those problems were--and they were right, frankly. Um, it was, it was a little bit of a disaster because, because we had not yet sat down together. And I think that because this is the telling, regardless of whose words, you know, who the words in the book are attributed to, right now. Like, when you read the book, or if you read the book, you'll see Mashama's--you know, she's got her own font and her own boldness, and I have my own font, my own boldness. But when we went away to Paris--so after those sensitivity reads, we were like, "You know what? We got, we got to fix this, right? We can't publish something that we're not proud of."
Mashama: But one thing about the sensitivity--the sensitivity reads, is that it was about everything. It was about, it was about the work, it was about the layout, and um, and I think that it was a little bit of a punch in the face when we got that information back, because, you know, for Johno, he was--he was ready to publish it, he was done with it. And I honestly wasn't ready when, when we were going to publish in 2019. I wasn't, I wasn't 100% behind the book, and I was, and I was gonna let it just kind of go out there. And I'm so happy that, I'm so happy that we listened, because I think that it would have just been a huge mistake on both our parts and we would just be--you know, regardless of what people think of it now, that now that it's out, I think that we needed to be good with it, both of us. And we needed to be honest about how we felt about it. And I think for a lot of it, we were both still reacting in 2019 too.
John: Yeah, I will say that when we were sending it out the first time, I was really nervous. Like, nervous in a way that was not--that should have indicated to me that the book wasn't ready to go out. When we sent it out last year, like, I was nervous because you're putting yourself out there, but there was exhilaration, there was anxiety, like, it wasn't, like this straight up death fear, you know? And when we were writing, I mean, Mashama, if you remember when we were writing in Paris, I was so nervous the whole time, because it was starting to become clear how much we almost screwed this thing up, you know, by letting it go too early. And during all that time writing in Paris, I was just nervous that we wouldn't get it right, and, you know, whether we got it right or not now is up to the reader to decide, or if it's good or not, that's up to the reader to decide. But when we published it, it wasn't fear of publishing it, it was anxiety, it was all these different emotions, including happiness.
Mashama: But in 2019, I think it was fear.
Joh: Oh, totally. Totally agree.
Mashama: You know, we were, we were, you know, we were rushing it. We, you know, I stand by sort of, like, the advisory thing. I think that it was not enough of it there for the type of book this is, and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that there aren't many books like this, there aren't many, many books that are dual written in a conversation style. So it's hard to sort of help to guide someone to write like that, or what it's supposed to look like, or how even it's supposed to feel when it breaks out, you know, between the two writers. So, so yeah, we kind of dodged a bullet. (laughing) And I'm happy we did, because we could have not sent out for sensitivity reads, you know, we could have just kind of published it and, and kept our head in the sand until it all blew over. (laughing)
Brian: Yeah, yeah. It's, it's, it's great that you were able to sort of realize that and had that opportunity to make it the product you really wanted it to be before it went out into the world. So much of what is in this book is sort of, um, dives into a lot of the biases, implicit or explicit biases that both of you sort of bring from your backgrounds, your perspective. I think even early on in the book, when you open with this tragedy that took place with The Grey's family and staff, there's decisions that you make, Johno, for instance, like bringing a gun to the scene of an accident, that right away, in your perspective, Mashama, is, is uh, you have a reaction to, right? Like I would--you write that you would never think to bring a gun to the scene of an accident. How much of that was sort of part of this book? Is that what really sort of came through when you were in the final stage of working this together, really diving deeper into some of those biases and how they sort of manifest themselves?
John: I will just say that when I--when Mashama agreed to become a partner in this project, I mean, we're partners in everything, but when she agreed to become a partner in this project, and I--and she mentioned earlier that I went away and sort of restructured the book based on the fact that she was now going to be involved. I tried to be as honest as I could be, because I knew that the book was now becoming about race and class and culture in the south and our relationship. I mean, how could it not, right? And I actually used that exact line in the first paragraph, in the prologue or the introduction. And I just wanted to put it all on the page, like sort of in a brain dump fashion. And that's how I write, like I write, and I refine, and I write, and I refine, and so I just sort of dumped all this stuff, and I was like "Okay, here you go. Read it." And I knew that it was going to take Mashama by surprise, because we had never talked about race or class or culture or how inherent biases, unconscious biases, biases in general, other than, you know, in very abstract or, you know, or related to The Grey. And so you know, I kind of handed it to her, and just put my helmet on and waited to hear back from her.
Mashama: Yeah. And my, my reactions were just um, angry, and guarded, because I just didn't feel prepared, you know? And, and it was--and what I should have just said is, I didn't want to be a part of it. (laughing) I didn't want to write, you know, I didn't want to write a book like that. Um, because that's how I felt, and I should have just said it. But I also felt like I committed to it, and I wanted to see it through, and I think the more we talked about it, the more we worked on it, the better--the better of an understanding of each other's perspective we got, because he would react to certain things that I would say, and he would get offended, and I would react to certain things that he would say and I would get offended. And we both were legitimately offended, because we never really had to have a conversation about stereotypes or our biases, or, or any of those things with someone else, and get to the other side of it, right? Like, you can talk about those things, but to get over them and get to the other side of it, and be good with how that person was raised, and maybe try to change their perspective or whatever, then that's, that's, that's what happened. So, but when we when we were writing it, I should have just been like, I should have just been like, um, "No, I don't want to do it." And I did, but it was like, you know, it was--we were kind of already in the middle of it when when all of that stuff kind of came back, came out, so.
Brian: And has that changed from--in hindsight now, like, now that you've gone through the process of putting yourself through having those conversations and putting it into printed format for the public to see? Do you still feel that way?
Mashama. Yeah. I also think like, the pandemic too, like, you know, with all of, you know, with George Floyd's murder, and really, um, Ahmaud Arbery, with his um, with, with his murder, and the charges not being filed for so long. And you know, Johno was close--we were, we were sort of getting back into operation. We spent a lot of time together, and he just saw my reaction to it, and I think that shocked him, and he was sort of surprised about how I was reacting to what was going on in the world, you know. And um, I think that also dialed him in a little bit closer, and has him paying a little bit more attention to black lives, and how they matter in this world, and how we contribute.
Brian: Yeah. I think we often have this, there's--there's this phrase, right? That like food is a unifier, food can bring people together, like, share a meal with someone and you can understand them. And I think it's, it's so interesting to read this book and get to know your partnership, because you shared how many meals together? Working, breakfast, lunch, and dinner as you were building The Grey and you were forming this partnership, and how much like, your partnership has continued to evolve, and how much having those deeper conversations around race and class and privilege and white privilege has really sort of impacted your partnership. So I know we're coming close to time. So we are showing cookbooks, I always like to ask just briefly to if there are cookbook authors or other books that have been particularly influential to you, to either of you, as you as you sort of built your careers.
Mashama: Mmhmm. Um, Johno, you want to start? (laughing)
John: Um, yes, I started--like, my first cookbook that I really started to cook out of was probably Lidia Bastianich, because she cooked a lot like my grandmother. So I probably at some point cooked my way through one or more of her cookbooks, and then, you know, like, I also--I don't have the collection that you have, Brian, but I have a lot of cookbooks, um, and so it's like, what am I cooking from now? And now, Ned Baldwin who used to work with Mashama at Prune, and now has his own place downtown called Houseman. He's got this great cookbook out called How To Dress An Egg, which, like, is really good food for simple, you know, when you're kind of in a rush to cook at night, and I've used that a lot during the pandemic. I cook a lot of Italian food. Um, so the ladies over at the River Café, their, their anniversary cookbook is something I aspired to be able to hit some of those notes. So I use cookbooks a lot.
Brian: Yeah. How about you, Mashama?
Mashama: I like to read a lot, I like to read cookbooks, and I--I've read basically all of James Beard's cookbooks. Um, I love him. I think um, I think he has, he has casted a wide net over American food, and he talks about it in a way that talks about--he also talks about it through immigration, and so I like that. He talks about different dishes that have come from, you know, different places, and ended up here, and this American version of it are the traditional version of foods. So I really like to read what he has to say. American Cookery is one of my favorites of his. I really love, um, I love Italian cookbooks as well. Um, I love The French Laundry Cookbook by Thomas Keller. That's just about technique, and beautiful--the pictures are beautiful. I feel like it's timeless. It it hasn't really, it doesn't seem dated to me, it seems still very progressive. You have--I see this book behind you, but Bar Tartine was a really--
John: Oh yeah, I saw that one too. I was like, I love that cookbook.
Mashama: It's real--it's probably one of my most worn cookbooks, because I think I used that cookbook for about two whole years at The Grey. I just was constantly trying to figure out how to preserve foods in the south other than pickling, right? So they have so many different fun beautiful techniques in that cookbook. So I really like to use that one as well.
John: Don't forget Edna Lewis.
Mashama: And Edna Lewis. I mean, who--I feel like, if you Google me, Edna Lewis's picture pops up because I talked about her all the time. But yeah, she was one of the cookbooks that I read. I, I was hip--I got hip to her when I was in um, when I was living at the chateau in--well, I didn't get hip to her. I started reading her cookbooks when I was in the chateau in France. I got hip to her in cooking school. But when I started reading her cookbooks in France, is really when I knew that southern food was what I wanted to focus on.
Brian: Well, oh my gosh, I have, as you can see, endless notes about your book, and we could talk for hours. But I know we got a little bit of a late start. Do we have time for a quick game? We always end with a game.
John: Yeah, we have a couple of minutes.
Brian: Awesome. So we always end with a little game. So I thought, today we have these cards that we use that I can't take credit for creating, but we've got four stacks of them here. So I thought we'd play a little game, since you often share meals together, you're often sharing meals together at The Grey, at each other's homes.
John: Is this going to be like--I've seen you do this, is this like the newlywed version? The newlywed game version?
Brian: Well, in a little bit of a sense perhaps. Um, we're just going to pretend that you're each having each other over for dinner, right? So um, let's say that tonight for instance, Johno, you're having Mashama over for dinner, Mashama, you're having Johno over for dinner tomorrow night, let's say. And so you each get to cook a meal for the other person, and I'll draw some cards for you. It sort of works like Chopped, right? This is your basket of ingredients. You can assume you have a stocked pantry, a stocked, you know, larder of things that you can you can pull from. But tell us what you might make for the other person if they were coming over.
John: I am so nervous right now.
Brian: You'll be fine. I know you're not as well trained, um, but I know you're well versed in cooking as well. So who would like to start start?
Mashama: I'll start.
John: Thank you.
Brian: Okay. Um, alright. Let's give you a protein first. Alright, we have chickpeas.
Mashama: (laughing) Ohohoho. Hmmm.
Brian: For a vegetable--we're going to pull four cards for you. Okay. We have onion as your vegetable. Flavor, which is like, you know, spice or other flavoring component, is nutmeg. Um, and then we have a wild card that we like to throw in. So the secret ingredient pile. Um, okay, and dashi is our secret ingredient. So we have dashi, onion, chickpea, and nutmeg. Um, what--what possibly could we make from this? Any ideas?
Mashama: Oh no. (laughing) Um, hmmm. What would I make for Johno with this crazy basket? Oh my god, this is harder than it looks. I don't want it to sound really terrible. Um, and I can make--and I have, um, a--okay. Alright, I would do probably sort of like a gratin with...I would do a gratin with kind of like, the onions and the nutmeg, and then I think that I would do like a stewy chickpea situation that I can serve...a stewy chickpea that's going to be kind of like French influence. So we have like this kind of French theme going on. And then I think with dashi I would probably do like an amuse bouche, like a little shooter that he can sip before his meal. So we'll have like this kind of French-style braised chickpeas with--maybe we'll have um, some chickpeas and lamb or chickpeas and short rib, and then have some potato gratin and the dashi just for a kicker.
Brian: Wow, I love that. That really came together. You coursed that out and everything. That sounds delicious.
John: You've just seen her process in a very condensed way.
Brian: I love it. I love seeing--
John: And if she actually made that, it would look nothing like she just described by the time she's done with it, and it would be the best thing you've ever eaten.
Brian: I'm sure. Yeah. Okay, so it's the next night. Johno, you're hosting. Your protein is ham. Okay, uh, let's pull a vegetable here. We have uh, we have broccoli in your basket. For a flavor, you have paprika.
Mashama: (laughing) Are you looking at those right side up?
Brian: Let's see. Okay, and our secret ingredient is pickle. Okay. Pickle, paprika, broccoli and ham.
John: Okay, so I'm going to assume it's a fresh ham, and I'm going to use the paprika, which is going to be smoked paprika. I'm going to take that liberty, because Mashama's taught me it's a great ingredient to use to sort of fool people into thinking you've smoked something. So I'm going to make a marinade with the smoked paprika for the fresh ham. And then I'm going to braise that for probably a long time, and that will be the protein. And the broccoli--eugh. You know what? I'm just, I'm just going to saute the broccoli in garlic and oil. Maybe--actually there's a scene in the book where Mashama teaches my wife how to roast broccoli in garlic and oil.
Brian: Yeah, I was just thinking of that.
John: ...which is then the sauteed, so I'm going to rip that off and I'm going to roast it. And with the pickles I'm going to...hmm. I'm going to use them to make some sort of chow chowy kind of thing to go over the top of the ham as an acid component to the whole thing.
Mashama: Nice. I would have used the pickles to make a little martini. (laughing)
John: A little pickled martini situation. (laughing)
Brian: Yeah, well it sounds like Mashama aproves, yeah?
Mashama: Nice, sounds delicious.
Brian: Yeah. Okay, awesome. Well, thank you so much both of you, Johno, Mashama, thanks for talking--
John: I have to tell you, I'm literally physically sweating after that.
Brian: (laughing) I'm so sorry that we put you through that. I thought--I thought you both did great, so.
John: That was fun.
Brian: This was so great. Thank you so much for joining us.
John: Yeah, thanks for having us Brian. This was great.
Mashama: Thanks Brian, this is so much fun.
Brian: And that's our show for today. Thank you so much for listening. As always, you can find bonus content from today's show and all of our episodes on our website, saltandspine.com. Remember, if you like hearing from your favorite authors on Salt + Spine, and I hope you do, please click subscribe wherever you're listening. You can also leave us a rating on iTunes and join the Salt + Spine community and support our show at patreon.com. Our show today was produced by me, Brian Hogan Stewart. Our kitchen correspondent is Sarah Varney. The Salt + Spine original theme song was created by Brunch For Lunch. Salt + Spine is typically recorded at the Civic Kitchen in San Francisco's Mission district. The Civic Kitchen is now offering digital classes for home cooks. Find out more at civickitchenSF.com. Thanks as always to Jen, Chris, and the Civic Kitchen team, to Edible San Francisco, to Monique at Hardcover Cook, and Cecilia at Omnivore Books. We'll be back next week with more stories behind the cookbooks you love.