The Kitchen Sisters Present

As elections loom, we need to get involved, step up to the civic plate, take part in discourse. And that’s what Manny Yekutiel has been driven to do since 2018. He’s created a community-focused meeting place in San Francisco — a gathering space for people to watch presidential debates, meet people working on the front lines of social change, and discuss issues with policy makers in person. From community forums debating the new trash can designs in San Francisco, to town hall meetings with political candidates for the Senate and the Presidency, Manny’s is place to commune, listen, and be heard. They’ve got a restaurant — Farming Hope, a non-profit that hires formerly homeless and formerly incarcerated individuals and trains them in the food skills needed to work in the restaurant industry. They’ve got a bookstore specializing in local history and politics — with no pressure to buy books. During the pandemic when every restaurant in town was building parklets on the street, Manny’s built a long string of out

The legendary Linda Ronstadt has a new book out. Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands — a historical, musical, edible memoir that spans the story of five generations of Linda’s Mexican American German family, from the Sonoran desert in Mexico to the Ronstadt family hardware store in Tucson to the road that led Linda to LA and musical stardom. Intimate and epic, "this is little Linda, Mexican Linda, cowgirl Linda, desert Linda." The book, written in collaboration with New York Times writer Lawrence Downes, is a road trip through the Sonoran Borderlands, from Tucson to Banámichi, Mexico — the path Linda’s immigrant grandfather took at a time when the border was not a place of peril but of possibility. We went to see Linda at home to ask her about the journey. This story was produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva) and Evan Jacoby in collaboration with Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton. Mixed by Jim McKee Thanks to Lawrence Downes, John Boylan, Bill Steen, Janet Stark and

The story of The Real Ambassadors, a jazz musical created by Dave Brubeck and Iola Brubeck for Louis Armstrong in the 1950/60s—a poignant tale of cultural exchange, anti-racism, jazz history, and it’s a love story—between life-long husband and wife partners, Iola and Dave Brubeck and their vision for a better world. The original show, featured Louis Armstrong, Carmen McCrae, Dave Brubeck and Lambert Hendricks and Bavan, and was performed live only once, at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1962. This year’s Monterey Jazz Festival, September 23-25, 2022, is the 60th Anniversary of the performance. The musical is based on the Jazz Ambassadors Program established by President Eisenhower and the US State Department during the Cold War as an effort to win hearts and minds around the world. Jazz musicians were sent out to represent the freedom and creativity of America through their art form. The irony is that Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and most of the other Jazz Ambassadors were Black—they were treated like ro

In the early morning hours of August 16, 2020, 12,000 lightning strikes exploded across northern California, igniting more than 585 wildfires. In the Santa Cruz Mountains scattered blazes grew into one massive burning organism — The CZU August Lightning Complex Fire — eating all in its path, scorching some 86,000 acres, destroying over 900 homes and Big Basin, California’s first state park. We hear from young men and women from the Amah Mutsun Tribal band who have been working to clear and steward the land; archaeologists and historians from the historic Big Basin redwood State Park; and from residents of the Santa Cruz mountains who shared their experiences and stories for the historical record. This story grew out of a collaboration with the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History. People who lost their homes in the blaze were invited to bring in artifacts sifted from the ashes to be photographed by award winning photographer Shmuel Thaler and to be interviewed by The Kitchen Sisters about the fire, their ho

In August, 2021, a group of young Afghan women journalists, musicians and activists fled their country in fear for their lives when the Taliban took over their nation. These women are navigating life today in the US. Many of these women were well known in their country as TV personalities, women wearing western clothing, their hair uncovered, who interviewed women and men on the popular morning news shows. “My background in the TV was one of biggest reasons for them to kill me,” says Taban Ibraz. “To do anything they want to do with me like they did with a lot of women in Afghanistan. They were targeting us.” Maryam Yousifi, journalist and clothing designer remembers, “I saw that my mother's crying. And she's saying that we have to hide you somewhere. We can’t keep you here because people knows our address. She gave me a hijab and she said, please wear this. She never told me that never, ever. She never told me that what should I wear.” The women were assisted by the nonprofit, Restore Her Voice, set up t

A blind oud player from humble beginnings, Sheikh Imam’s destiny changed drastically when he met a dissident poet called Ahmed Fouad Negm in 1960s Cairo, and they formed a duo. Together, they would go on start a new era in Egyptian popular music. Their songs would shake regimes, travel the world on cassette tapes, and transcend their own time to become part of the soundtrack to Egypt’s revolution decades later. And they managed all of this while dealing with constant harassment by the state - including long periods in prison. The story features two historians, one of Sheikh Imam’s collaborators, and a university lecturer who’s parents used to host Sheikh Imam’s concerts in their living room. The songs in this episode were composed and performed by Sheikh Imam and written by Ahmed Fouad Negm and Zein Alabidin Fouad. Lyric translations by Ahmed Hassan and Elliott Colla. This episode was produced by Kerning Cultures Podcast—Nadeen Shaker, Heba El-Sherif, and Alex Atack, and edited by Dana Ballout. Fact checki

Originally a Filipino restaurant and music club, The Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco’s North Beach transformed into a mecca for Bay Area punk and New Wave bands in the 1970s and 80s. The Avengers, the Nuns, The Dead Kennedys, Pearl Harbor and the Explosions, The Tubes, and so many others performed regularly at the club on Broadway. As the original Mabuhay Gardens, which featured Filipino celebrities and musical acts, fell on hard times, promoter Dirk Dirksen convinced club owner Ness Aquino to let him book bands on Monday and Tuesday nights. Soon the nights expanded and the club was packing in a growing young punk rock audience. Dirkson, the “Pope of Punk“ was the abrasive MC, whose insults baited the audience to heighten the energy of the club. He lured in big names like Nico, The Dead Boys, Patti Smith, the Runaways and connected the Mabuhay Gardens with the English punk scene helping to spread punk rock globally. “To play, you need a place – be it where you live, the street, a venue.  For unrestricted

Every year around this time, The Kitchen Sisters host Bowling With Grace, our big annual community party at Mission Bowling Club in San Francisco where we honor life-long bowling savant, Amazing Grace Mulloy. Grace, who turns 99 this year, is in two senior bowling leagues and averages about 100 a game. Grace moves through the lanes sipping her signature Scotch and Soda with a green olive, sharing her bowling tips and wisdom with the crowd.   Recently a listener sent us an article from the DCist by writer and photographer Valerie Plesch about an astonishing group of young Afghan women journalists, musicians and activists who fled their country in fear for their lives when the Taliban took over their nation — a group now living in the DC area. Two paragraphs into the article, we knew had to record these women’s stories, especially when we read that one of the journalists, 26-year-old Taban Ibraz, had a weekly national television show, Let's Bowl, where she interviewed politicians and people of note while bowl

Long before there was Coachella, Outside Lands Festival, and the popular music gatherings of today, the Monterey Pop Festival was the first of its kind. Taking place in the fairgrounds of Monterey in the summer of 1967, the three-day festival brought to the stage the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and The Who.  Their performances are now viewed as legendary markers in the history of rock and roll, but at the time, Jimi and Janis were newcomers to the rock scene. These debut appearances introduced them to the rest of the world and helped revolutionize the entire landscape of rock and roll music to come. In this episode, Darice Murray-McKay, Jonathan King, and Rosalie Howarth recount their experiences as young teenagers attending the legendary music festival.  Additional commentary is provided by famed music critic Joel Selvin. Produced by Kitchen Sisters’ producer, Brandi Howell. Check out her podcast, The Echo Chamber, about music and its impact on culture.

The Egg Wars—a hidden Gold Rush kitchen—when food was scarce and men died for eggs. We travel out to the forbidding Farallon Islands, 27 miles outside San Francisco’s Golden Gate, home to the largest seabird colony in the United States. Over 250,000 birds on 14 acres. But it wasn’t always so. One hundred seventy years ago it was the site of the “Egg Wars.” During the 1850s, egg hunters gathered over 3 million eggs, violently competing with each other, and nearly stripping the island bare. In 1969 the Point Reyes Bird observatory began working to protect the Farallones. The islands had been through a lot. The devastating fur trade of the 1800s. The Egg Wars. During WWII the Islands were used as a secret navy installation with over 70 people living on the island. From 1946-1970 nearly 50,000 drums of radioactive waste were dumped in the Farallon waters. Fisherman often shot high powered rifles at sea lions and helicopters were causing whales and other animals to panic. Today the Farallones are off limits to

As an architect, Florence Knoll was the force behind the seamless integration of furniture, space, textile, art, graphic design into a perfect brand concept: Total Design. She revolutionized office design and bringing modernist design to office interiors. She defined the modern corporate interiors of post-war America. Take a listen to this little known story of an amazing, little known architect and designer. Her influence transcends the specific disciplines, she was the force integrating them, and in her work at the Knoll Planning Unit, she promulgated the values that still motivate architects and designers today: solve the program with scale and detailing appropriate to the interior in support of how people behave in the active environment. This story was produced by New Angle: Voice of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation with host Cynthia Phifer Kracauer, AIA. Podcast production by Brandi Howell.

Late last year Hillary Rodham Clinton and best-selling Canadian mystery writer, Louise Penny, came out with a ripping geo-political thriller called State of Terror that quickly hit the New York Times Best Seller List. At about that same time, Secretary Clinton’s former close aide, Deputy Chief of Staff, and the vice chair of her 2016 presidential campaign, Huma Abedin, came out with her memoir, Both/And: A Life in Many Worlds, a story of her roots and the path that led her to work with the First Lady and the triumphs and controversies of her life. The two were crisscrossing the country separately on book tours at the same time. One night they both found themselves in San Francisco and were asked to be onstage together to talk about their new books. Davia Nelson was asked to be in conversation with them that evening and plugged in to the sound board. Here’s an edited version of the night with a few surprises added in. State of Terror comes out in paperback in June, and Huma’s book comes out in paperback in

Helen Fong, one of the few women practicing architecture in the US in the 1950s, is best known for her “Googie” California coffee shop architectural style. Pann’s Coffee Shop, Denny's, Bob's Big Boy— those bold, iconic, futuristic restaurants of the 1950s and 60s— there are thousands of them, not just in Los Angeles, where they were born, but across the country. These family restaurants are core to how America defined itself after World War II. Cars, families, space flight, modernism....the new world order. Pioneering architect Helen Fong helped define that futuristic look. Helen Fong was born in Los Angeles’ Chinatown in 1927. One of five children she grew up working in the family’s laundry business. In 1949 she received a degree in city planning from UC Berkeley, moved back to Los Angeles and got her first job working as a secretary for architect Eugene Choy. Two years later, she began working for Armet and Davis, well known for its work in the “Googie” architectural style. Modern, wild, whimsical—some of

Norma Sklarek (1926-2012) had many “firsts”. She was often credited at the start of her career as the first Black Women architect to be licensed in the United States. That distinction actually goes to Beverly Greene – Norma was the 3rd. But it didn’t matter. Young Black girls read her name in the likes of Ebony Magazine – a staple publication in Black households at the time – when she was included in their 1958 article on “Successful Young Architects.” As more and more discovered her career, she became their role model. Born in 1926, in Harlem, Sklarek was the only child of Walter Ernest Merrick, a doctor, and Amy Merrick, a seamstress, both of whom had immigrated from Trinidad. She grew up in Harlem and Brooklyn, and attended predominately white schools, including Hunter College High School, a selective public school for girls, where she excelled in math and science and showed talent in the fine arts. Her aptitude for math and art prompted her father to suggest architecture as a career. She attended Barna

Coal + Ice, a powerful global exhibition of photographs, videos, and immersive imagery that focuses on the climate crisis and provokes action is now on display in Washington DC through April 22, 2022. Coal + Ice began in Beijing in 2011 with the unprecedented showing of images of Chinese coal miners taken by Chinese photographers. It has now now expanded to the work of 50 photographers from around the world, capturing images of the climate catastrophe as it unfolds around the globe. Photographers and video artists include:  Jimmy Chin, David Breashears, Song Chao, Camille Seaman, Gideon Mendel, Meredith Kohut, Jamey Stillings, Matt Black, Barbara Kopple, Dana Lixenberg and historical work from Robert Capa, Lewis Hine, Gordon Parks, Eugene Smith, Bruce Davidson and others. Coal + Ice also features installations, panels, music, conversations, cash awards to young artists weaving climate into their work and more. For over a decade the exhibit has traveled the world evolving and expanding as the climate crisis

Natalie de Blois loved systems – understanding how things worked.  For her, it wasn’t just pretty buildings, she challenged the code and questioned the status quo. And like the buildings she designed, there was a certain complexity to Natalie herself.  She was a woman of resilient beauty, inspiring yet distant, ahead of her time. Natalie de Blois (1921–2013), a pioneering woman architect, contributed to some of the most iconic modernist works for corporate America, all while raising four children.  After leaving a significant mark on post-war NYC Park Avenue, she transferred to the Skidmore Owings and Merrill Chicago office, where she became actively involved in the architecture feminist movement and was one of the leaders in the newly formed Chicago Women in Architecture advocacy group.  Later, she finished her career as a professor at UT Austin, where she trained a future generation of architects. The Kitchen Sisters Present Episode 2 from New Angle: Voice, produced by Brandi Howell with editorial advisi

We first caught sight of him in a convenience store buying Marlboros and a Coke for the road. He was dressed in a grey jumpsuit, pants tucked into black boots, silver belt buckle and a large black Stetson hat. Out front, his Ford Ranchero pick-up idled in the parking lot, the words “Champion of the Stranded Traveler” emblazoned in gold on the door. We struck up a conversation. “I go on the road looking for trouble and whenever I find some, I stop.”  His voice was deep and resonant, his timing, impeccable.  “I suppose that’s why they call me “The Bloodhound of Breakdown.  But then, my business is trouble.” He lit a cigarette and handed us his card — “The Road Ranger — Scourge of the Tow Hook and the Long Delay.” We go out on patrol with The Road Ranger in one of the first stories produced by The Kitchen Sisters. This bonus episode is part of a special Radiotopia-wide project. This week, shows across the network are releasing episodes on the theme “Making Trouble.” You can learn more and donate to support ou

Cheap rotisserie chicken sold everywhere in markets and grocery outlets. Why is that chicken so cheap? How was it raised and what’s even in it? How much would it cost for farms to raise a chicken you could feel good? What would it taste like? Where can you find one of these chickens now? And why is it so hard to find them? The Kitchen Sisters Present the first episode of What You’re Eating, a brand new podcast from FoodPrint.org. In this episode host Jerusha Klemperer talks to food policy experts, food label certifiers, farmers and more to dig into the economics, agriculture and taste of chicken. FoodPrint.org is dedicated to research and education on more sustainable approaches to food production and consumption and ways we can improve things and take action to make real change in the food system.

In the early 20th century, the largest employer of Black men in the United States was the Pullman Car Company, which operated luxurious trains that carried millions of passengers around the booming nation in an era before airplanes and interstate highways. Ever since the company’s founding during the Civil War, Pullman exclusively hired Black men as porters to keep the train cars clean and serve the white passengers. Although the job was prestigious, by the 1920s porters were fed up with the low pay, long hours, and abusive conditions. Their struggle to unionize became one of the most significant civil rights conflicts of the pre-WWII era and laid the groundwork for the movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. in later years. Produced by Liam O’Donoghue for his podcast East Bay Yesterday, this story explores how Oakland’s C.L. Dellums helped the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters triumph over one of the nation’s most powerful corporations, and also his massive impact on challenging widespread racial discrimin

The Wooster Group, perched on a street corner in Soho in downtown New York, at the forefront of experimental theater for some 40 years. Singular, rigorous, flamboyant. Their startling performances unravel and transform classic texts by Brecht, Shakespeare, Chekhov, Eugene O’Neill... along with their own striking original works. Six Obies, nine Bessies, accolades from around the world as they tour their works through Europe and Asia. Theater. One of the more ephemeral of art forms. How to preserve the work, chronicle it, archive it for the ages? Yes, there are scripts, props, sets, costumes — a pair of muddy shoes from a 1981 production of Route 1 & 9. But what if you're experimental theater? Devoted to process, improvisation, the dense layering of ideas and texts and sound and image, performances ever-changing? Obsessed with preserving everything—every rehearsal, every production meeting, every performance. How do you catalog something in a constant state of flux? Clay Hapaz entered the universe of The