In this conversation, we reach back to Al Roker’s childhood in Queens, where his mama cooked for a big family on a tight budget out of a tiny kitchen. Her recipe for Jamaican Oxtail Stew still makes Al swoon.
Audible Originals presents Your Mama's Kitchen, hosted by Michele Norris.
COLD OPEN
Al Roker We didn't have a lot of money, but you shared yourself through food. You know, if tragedy befell one of your neighbors, there was a Corningware dish of something that went to that neighbor. There was always an opportunity to bring something to somebody, whether it was if one of the neighborhood kids was sick, plate of brownies or something like that.
SHOW ID
Michele: Welcome to Your Mama's Kitchen, the podcast that explores how we are shaped as adults by the kitchens we grew up in as kids. I'm Michele Norris.
INTRO
Today, I spoke to someone whose name is synonymous with the Thanksgiving holiday for American families, the television legend Al Roker. If you’ve ever tuned in to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, you’ve probably witnessed his radiating personality and infectious smile as he ushers in the next big float or marching band. He’s been on the air for 40 years predicting the weather on NBC’s Today Show, winning 14 Emmys and earning the nickname “America’s Weatherman.” He’s also created a bit of a food empire of his own, hosting special cooking segments, authoring several cookbooks, and he even hosted his own podcast, called . All that is to say that he has never been shy about his skills in the kitchen and on the grill, and in this episode, you’ll also hear some of his tips on how to make the perfect waffle…
Now, before he became the charismatic TV personality we know and love, Al was a shy, bespectacled kid obsessed with comics and audio equipment. In this conversation, we reach back to Al’s childhood in Queens outside New York City. You’ll hear about how his mama cooked for a big family on a tight budget out of a tiny kitchen and how her recipe for Jamaican Oxtail Stew with dumplings still makes Al Roker swoon.
And since he’s hosted the biggest televised Thanksgiving event every year since 1995… we hear about what the holiday means to him—especially after he had to sit out his first parade in decades because of a health scare. So in this episode: a dose of gratitude, layered with a little nostalgia and served up with a lot of laugher. That’s coming up.
ACT 1: CHILDHOOD
Michele Norris Al Roker. I'm so glad that you are with us. You spent a lot of time thinking about food through the work that you do at the Today Show. We see you cook. I watched you today making tacos and through your own adventures, your show, your podcast, , your cookbooks, including the and your hassle-free holiday cookbook. So you know your way around a kitchen.
Al Roker Well I do like food. You know, I'm married to Deborah Roberts, ABC News co-anchor of 20/20. And we are, I mean, obviously two different people, but when it comes to food, we really are two different people. I mean, if she could subsist on air and water, I think she would be fine.
Michele Norris Really?
Al Roker I am just the opposite. Completely opposite.
Michele Norris Well food is the focus of this podcast. And so I'm glad that you bring that enthusiasm and that outlook to this because I'm right there with you. But I'm wondering, what is your favorite meal that was produced in your mama's kitchen? And which house was it in? Was it in the house that you were living in when you were born or the house you moved in to later on?
Al Roker Well, you know, it's interesting you say that because before we had a house, we lived in a couple of different projects, you know, and I don't really remember, you know, my mother's cooking because I was maybe I think we moved into our house when I was I was eight. And before that, it was, you know, fairly rudimentary. But I remember the house we lived in, that's where I remember, you know, holiday meals and people coming over. And before that, it was just kind of a blur. So I and what I, I remember most, I mean, besides the food and I don't know what the physical layout of your kitchen is as opposed to your mother's kitchen. My mother's kitchen, we had one oven. There was a four burner cooktop, I think Magic Chef cooktop. And yet she could turn out for 12 people a, you know, a meal that included baked goods, a turkey or and or ham and sides all at the same time. And, you know, I'm fortunate, I'm blessed. You know, I've got a great kitchen. I've got a 6 burner stove, a dual oven yellow, a warming drawer. And I still struggle to get it all out at once.
Michele Norris And probably a microwave and an air fryer, too. Yeah.
Al Roker I draw the line at the air fryer.
Michele Norris OK, we're going to kind of put a pin on that because I love the air fryer.
Al Roker But anyway, so. So not only did I marvel at what she made, but how she was able to make it and seemingly all effortlessly.
Michele Norris So you grew up in a neighborhood called St. Albans in Queens. You had five siblings, so there are six of you in the household with your mom and dad. This sounds like a household that probably was a little bit loud had a lot going on.
Al Roker Yeah, we got calls from the airport to keep it down.
Michele Norris So I'm wondering if you could go back in time and space and describe the kitchen and what it looked like. Take me inside that space.
Al Roker Well, you know, we lived in a three-bedroom semi-attached house on a corner lot in Queens in St. Albans. You know, you walked in the front door. There was the living room. If you kept going a little to the left, it was a very small dining room. Somehow, though, my mother managed to cram in a breakfront hutch, a dining table, and 12 chairs. There were also two extensions that would go in it. And then if you went straight, there was a small kitchen that had literally enough space for a very small kitchen table that could seat four people. There was a Frigidaire refrigerator that was a yellowish color. There was a matching stove or oven, I should say, in a cabinet. And then there was there was a four-top burner and then a sink and the no dishwasher, cabinets and you know, the window looked out onto the backyard which was a postage stamp with a carport in the back. And that was the kitchen. And, I mean, if you had three people in there, you were crowded.
Michele Norris Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And you had a big family. So your mother and father. Your father is Bahamian, is that correct? His family is from the Bahamas.
Al Roker First-generation Bahamian.
Michele Norris And your mother's family's from Jamaica. Yeah. And so.
Al Roker And New York, and Boston.
Michele Norris So was this a kitchen that had a very strong West Indian influence?
Al Roker You know what, it did and it didn't. You know, it depended on the day. My mother was very much, she like most first-generation folk, you know, had their or her traditional food, but also, you know, made American food or food of our neighborhood, which like our first apartment was in Rockaway. And it was a diverse neighborhood, you know, whites, Blacks, Italian, Polish. In fact, I remember my mother when I was a baby, hard to believe, didn't eat very much. And she was talking to a neighbor who was Italian and she said, oh, you know what? You should try, there's this wonderful breakfast pasta called pastina. And it's noodles that are very, very, very small. She said, you should try giving that to your son. And so my mother did. And I kept spitting it out, spitting it out and spitting it out. My mother runs into her neighbor, you know, a few days later, and she goes, he just won't eat it. And the woman said to my mother, Well, how long are you cooking it for? And my mother looked at her, said, Oh, you're supposed to cook it?
Michele Norris (laughs)
Al Roker Oh. So I had that going for me. But, you know, we have spaghetti and meatballs. And look, you know, my family was also, as many of the people in the neighborhood were, because it was a project, you know, middle to lower middle income. And so there was a lot of food that you could stretch your budget. You know, spaghetti and meatballs or meatloaf or we had all the things that we call comfort food now. My mom, you know, one of my favorite meals that she would make would be oxtail stew. Well, you know, back then, oxtails were, you know, poor people, food, You know, nobody was serving oxtails at restaurants unless you could find a Jamaican restaurant. Yeah. I remember my mother being upset with, I think it was Bobby Flay. I can't remember who it was, but back in the nineties, all of a sudden, oxtail became, you know, hot. You know, these high-end chefs were cooking with oxtail. And my mother was just, I walked into the house one day and she said, you know, those people on the Food Network, I hate them. I said, Oh, hello. Okay, Mom, What? Why? Well, because they're making these recipes with oxtail. And now oxtail has gone through the roof. I thought, Oh, okay, well, I'll be sure to bring that up next time I see somebody from the Food Network. You know, because my mother wasn't a gourmet cook. She was, you know, she was feeding in quantity, you know, I mean, there were eight people in the family. Yeah. And I don't know about your mom. I could probably count on one hand growing up [the times] I actually saw her eat. I mean, she was always getting up and back and forth and she'd sit, you know, and then she'd get up again, which was why she was so small.
Michele Norris Tell me about your mom. What was her name and did she have a kitchen personality? Was she different in the kitchen than she was in the workplace or when she went to church or when she went elsewhere?
Al Roker Her name was Isabel Bernadette Smith. She was the second youngest of nine. And, you know, in the kitchen, I mean, basically my mother was pretty much the same person, whether in the kitchen, out of the gate. You know, she was a very dominant personality. But, you know, it is not like she kept us out of the kitchen. It was just logistical. There just wasn't a lot of room in the kitchen. So, you know, we just kind of stayed out. We were you, know, she didn't ask for help and we didn't volunteer because if you got into the kitchen, the odds are you would be dragooned into dishwashing duty or dish-drying duty. So, you know, if you could stay out of her line of sight, you were probably better off. But no, she was kind of a personality, if you will. You know, like I had friends my mother would like. She would create personalities. Like she would kind of tell my friends that she used to be an opera singer. Well, she was not an opera singer. She, you know, I mean, she sang in church, but that or she would create, like, gibberish languages or just create phrases…
Michele Norris Like what?
Al Roker You know, we had no idea.
Michele Norris Like pig Latin or something or just like.
Al Roker Just like she was, you know, shameel and (gibberish) and like, what is that mom? I don't know. I mean, you just accept what your mother says and does. So we just kind of … That was Isabel. Or Izzy, everybody called her Izzy. And, you know, she was just a character, you know. But when it came to food, again, I don't remember. I remember early on there was a Fanny Farmer cookbook. But for the most part, she wasn't following recipes. You know, she kind of made it up as she went or somebody told her a recipe or she saw something in the paper. You know, it was just what was on sale, what could you get in bulk. I remember my folks had one of those not a walk in, had a chest freezer in the basement so that when stuff was on sale at Western Beef in Queens you know they could buy.
Michele Norris Like a big white chest but you'd have to like almost dive into to get to the bottom.
Al Roker But you could put a body in there basically, you know, if my parents were the homicidal type something, they could have, you know, stored somebody in it.
Michele Norris What did you learn about generosity in the kitchen? And I ask this because we've never worked together. We've worked at one point on competing networks. We're both journalists. So I know a lot of people who've worked with you and known you over the years. And the thing that they always say about you is he is exceedingly generous with his time, with his resources, with his advice. So what did you learn about generosity, watching your parents in that kitchen?
Al Roker You know, I think it was like a lot of people. I think, you know, we didn't have a lot of money, but you shared yourself through food. If tragedy befell one of your neighbors, there was a Corningware dish of something that went to that neighbor. There was always an opportunity to bring something to somebody, whether it was if one of the neighborhood kids was sick, a plate of brownies or something like that. You know, members of my mother's Rosary Society would drop in and you'd hear them talking. And the funny thing was it was like my mother would when they weren't there. She talked about them like, you know, Oh, that Mrs. So-and-so. I said, Mom, so why are you going to the Rosary Society if they drive you all crazy? Well, it's very important. You know, it's like I mean, you know, we do a lot of good work. I say, Oh, okay. Even though you're ready to kill half of them. But that's all right. But you know, I remember my mother. My mother was the keeper of the family books. You know, my dad literally came home, put his paycheck on the, this is obviously before we had direct deposit or anything like that. He would put his, I remember that envelope on the table and my mother doing the books and juggling and you know …
Michele Norris Was that the kitchen table? She'd be sitting at the kitchen table.
Al Roker She'd just be sitting there and again, because the table was so small, things tended to happen more adjacent to the kitchen or in the dining room. And that was like some of my memories of my mother going back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room, which was literally ten steps, that's where everything really, in a sense happened, whether it was Friday night board games, you know, playing Monopoly or Scrabble. A lot of Scrabble. Yeah. My mother was a big believer in words and reading. And, you know, we would pop popcorn or a big bowl of, and I don't know why this started, but a big bowl of in-shell salted peanuts.
Michele Norris Oh, that sounds delicious, but kind of messy.
Al Roker Yes. But we each had a bowl and there you go.
Michele Norris I want to return to something you said, that scene where your dad would come home from work and put the paycheck on the table. That is not uncommon, but it's not something that I think is well understood in American life, that there was a time when men were seen as the primary breadwinner and there was an assumption that they handled the finances, that since they often brought home the most money, that they made the decisions about how that money was spent, what was put away, what investments did they make in their children's future, and putting a little bit here and there for the holidays or maybe for a family vacation. But in a lot of households, that was actually the mother. That was actually the woman in the household that was making those decisions. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Al Roker Yes you know, it's funny, as I'm getting older, the memories are getting fuzzy, especially, you know, my dad's been gone for over 20 years. My mom's been gone for 15. But I seem to recall early on in their marriage, when I was very small, he mismanaged the money. And so she took it over. What I learned equally from them was A, my mother's frugality. But I also, I think, inherited my father's entrepreneurial side, if you will. He was a bus driver, but he also liked—I think actually because, again, he didn't have to do it constantly for the family—he liked to cook, and he and a couple of buddies at the depot because there was no, you know, lunchroom, a cafeteria kind of thing. They created their own lunchroom, in a sense. And so they would cook for when my father wasn't on his shift, he'd come in early, depending on whatever shifts and would do lunches for the other bus driver.
Michele Norris At the depot like he had—
Al Roker —at the depot. Really. They had a, they carved out an area. He and I think it was three other buddies, they created a lunch room. And so he always had a little bit of a side hustle. And then with my uncle, they had a little bit of a, and if they were better businessmen, they might have made it more of a go with us. But they had a bit of a moving company. But I think, you know, a 40-hour week plus the food and trying to do moving was something had to give. So he gave up the moving. But so from both of them, I inherited, I think, something that's led me to where I am today.
Michele Norris What was the eight-year-old Al Roker like?
Al Roker You know, I was, believe it, and still am—I was pretty shy.
Michele Norris That's hard to believe because you're so outgoing now.
Al Roker Yeah. I was not like the class clown. I was, you know, a chunky kid. You know, I wore glasses, and I wouldn't consider myself one of the popular kids, but I did have a sense of humor and I could draw. And I loved comic strips, comic books. And so I would draw comics of—I went to a Catholic school—some of the nuns and a priest and classmates. And I was always interested in media. My mother said when I was six or seven, I described live TV shows as dry shows and filmed TV shows as wet.
Michele Norris Oh, that's interesting, you understood even then.
Al Roker Yeah. And one of the things about a bus depot is that there would be a number of items that people would come to sell that, quote, fell off the back of a truck.
Michele Norris Uh huh. This is a podcast so people can't see the air quotes that you just put out.
Al Roker Yeah the air quotes, that "fell off the back of a truck."
Michele Norris Yeah. That were procured in interesting ways.
Al Roker And so my dad would—I remember him bringing home when I was 11, a 3mm wall in stack a reel-to-reel tape recorder. And this is before eight-track, before cassettes. And I remember I would read up on stuff, and I figured out that if you took the back of the TV set off and you ran wires from the speaker, leads into the line in of the recorder, you could record audio off the television. And so I would record TV shows and then I'd bring my mother down to the basement. I said, You've got to hear this. I just spliced together the theme from Batman and the theme from Superman. And of course, I was oblivious to this look of just abject terror on her face. Like, this kid's never leaving this basement. He will be with us for the rest of it. But, you know, she'd bring down a grilled cheese sandwich. And in fact, speaking of television and food, one of the things there was a comedian I don't know if you're old enough, to remember a TV comedian named Soupy Sales.
Michele Norris Oh, I remember Soupy Sales. Yeah.
Al Roker Soupy Sales. He was famous for, you know, getting a pie in the face. But early on, he had a kids show, a daily kids’ show in the afternoon at 12 noon on the ABC stations. And at the beginning of every morning, every day at the beginning of the show, he would tell kids what he was having for lunch. And so you could have lunch with Soupy. And so my mother, a couple, two or three times a week, would make what? And it was always like a ham sandwich, a grilled cheese sandwich. And my mother would make that lunch for me and I would have lunch with Soupy. So, you know, that is the—I know I'm jumping around here, but it was really the language of love.
Michele Norris Food is love. I got to go back, though to the splicing of the tape and grabbing the audio from the back of the television. There are several things that are amazing about that. One, I can hear the mashup of Superman and Batman. And that sounds like you were mixing before people were mixing. So that was interesting. I think it shows, you know, extreme genius and intellect on your part. But the thing that is most amazing to me is that your parents let you touch the television.
Al Roker Yeah. Well, we had an old set in the basement, an old black and white, and so I just one day because I was like I said, very interested in this. And so, with a splicing bark block and a straight-edge razor blade, you could splice stuff together. My sister told me one of the things I used to do was I would record. I would go to them and ask them simple questions, like, Do you like ice cream? Yes. Do you do you like going to the doctor? No, I didn't. And then I would rerecord my questions and splice in their answers and blackmail them. And hey, do you think Mom and Dad are really kind of stupid? Yes, I do. You know.
Michele Norris You were a troublemaker.
Al Roker Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I would bribe them. I would kind of like blackmail them.
Michele Norris And you would bribe them to do what you do. You do the dishes for me, and I'll never show this to Mom and Dad.
Al Roker Exactly. I'm going to play this for them. So, yeah, it was. I don't think I ever actually did, but it was the threat.
Michele Norris I'm sorry that I can't reach out to your sibs to hear their version of that story.
MIDROLL
ACT 2 THANKSGIVING
Michele Norris You are, for many of us, a face and a voice associated with Thanksgiving because of your segments on The Today Show, because of your role at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. So I'm curious about what that holiday has meant for you over the years. What was Thanksgiving like in your childhood home and how do you celebrate Thanksgiving? Because it must be a complicated day for you now. But let's go first back to St. Albans. And what was Thanksgiving like back there?
Al Roker I remember and again, growing up in New York City, this is probably unique to New York City in that there were two broadcasts that happened every Thanksgiving. There was the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and then right after that, Channel 11, which is an independent station here, would run Laurel and Hardy's March of the Wooden Soldiers. And for some reason, that was and I'm a big Laurel and Hardy fan. Anyway, I remember during, you know, we'd come downstairs and my mother would have a big bowl of fruit and shelled nuts in the living room where our TV was, and there was a coffee table and there was a bowl. And so we would come down in our pajamas and we'd start watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and my mother would then start prepping Thanksgiving of the Thanksgiving meal because we always ate early. And at some point during the parade, we got up, we get showered, bathed and get dressed, you know, and I mean, not fancy dress, but, you know, shirt and pair of pants and everything. And by now you start to smell the turkey and my mother's making the dressing and then we'd watch the March of the Wooden Soldiers, which was about 90 minutes. And so by 1:30 that was done. The table was set and she'd call us in to help set the table. And by 2:00, we were having dinner. You know, and there was always at each place a bowl of Del Monte fruit cup. Fruit salad.
Michele Norris Oh, the one with the little maraschino cherry, the little red cherry.
Al Roker Little red maraschino cherry that has literally that color red does not exist. Yes.
Michele Norris I don't know what kind of red dye in number 65 they used to get that.
Al Roker But and then there would be the blessing of the table, and we'd start and there wasn't enough room on the table so that there was some stuff in the kitchen, some food, and you'd help yourself. It was kind of buffet and boom. And then you grow up and the rite of passage as an adult, I'm sure for you as well, is when you were prepping, you have your family and you’re prepping Thanksgiving dinner. And again, as you said, it became a little complicated because I'm doing the parade. So what I would do, I prep a lot of stuff at night. This was teamwork.
Michele Norris And are you the cook or is Deborah the cook who cooks in your family?
Al Roker I'm the cook, but Deborah was the facilitator. So while I'm at the parade, she's putting, I left a kind of a schedule of what needs to go in when.
Michele Norris You leave a schedule. So is it written like on the refrigerator or some sort of text that you give?
Al Roker A sheet of paper on a yellow sheet, a legal pad? And so Deborah was really responsible. I mean, she really had the important role until I would get home, because I'd get home. It ends at noon. I get home by 12:20. You know, we'd have people coming over about, you know, 2, 3:00. And we'd also have people bring stuff in. About 10 years ago, Deborah and I were having lunch at Bar Boulud on the west side, near ABC. And Daniel Boulud came in and ironically, met Daniel. Years and years ago when I was—
Michele Norris He’s a famous chef, we should just say for people. Very, very famous.
Al Roker Not just in New York, but around the world at this point. Anyway, he came into the restaurant and he said, what are you doing for Thanksgiving? And I said, Well, Daniel, I did this whole thing. Why don't you come to the restaurant, then come to Daniel for Thanksgiving? I said, Oh, that's nice. Thank you. I had no intentions of doing it. And Deborah said, Why don't we just try it once? Let's bring the kids. And I went, and they had the traditional Thanksgiving meal, and it was like this revelation. It was like the skies parted. The sun came down, was shone on this table. And I thought, Oh, my God, why haven't we done this? This is spectacular. Oh, my God. And to the point where they give you leftovers to take home. And so I haven't made a Thanksgiving meal in probably 10 years. Ah, Thanksgiving tradition is a parade. Get home, shower, change, and then dinner at Daniel.
Michele Norris Is there anything, though, that you miss? As good a cook as he is. As amazing a chef as he is. Is there anything that you miss?
Al Roker No. Nothing. Nothing.
Michele Norris Not the sweet potatoes with the marshmallows, if that was your thing.
Al Roker Because you know what? What we'll do is then that we can, we're blessed, we have a house upstate. We go up either, depending on how early we eat, we may drive up on Thanksgiving Day, certainly on Friday morning. And then I'll make kind of a mini Thanksgiving meal where I'll do a small thing of the sweet potato poon.
Michele Norris Sweet potato poon. Wait a minute. What's that?
Al Roker Oh, my gosh. Well, my mother, I guess, it’s Southern—she told us it’s Southern, I don't know. Anyway, it's basically a crustless sweet potato pie. And so you cook sweet potatoes, mash them down, throw in some baking powder, some flour, salt, pepper, brown sugar, crushed pineapple, vanilla. And you know, put it in a buttered casserole dish and then you bake it at about 350. And this is a holiday tradition, Thanksgiving tradition, when my mother was making dinner. And she would even, when she'd come to my house, she'd make it. It has a marshmallow topping that you brown under the broiler.
Michele Norris Little mini marshmallows. Those little mini marshmallows?
Al Roker No, no, the big ones. Jet puffed. The big ones. So that it gets a nice brown crust on it. But as you know, with marshmallows, if you're not careful, they will burn quickly.
Michele Norris Can't take a phone call, can't turn your back. Got to stay right there.
Al Roker So what has become as we were adult children, it would be whose job is it this year to distract mom so that the marshmallows catch fire? And so she'd have the broiler open and she's watching it. And it was like, don't bother me. Don't bother me. And so one of us would come and, mom, we need that big serving dish. Where is—and because she couldn't delegate, she said, Let me go get it really quick. And then, of course within a minute or two the smoke alarm is going off and we're all like high-fiving each other.
Michele Norris Oh, I'm so, I'm sorry. I'm on team mom on this one. This is just.
Al Roker Well, that's why we always bought two bags of jet-puffed marshmallows.
Michele Norris Were you doing that just because you were bad or were you doing that because some of you actually like the burnt marshmallow taste?
Al RokerNo, no, nobody like the burnt. We just did it because like…
Michele Norris You were just mischievous children.
Al Roker It happened a couple of times and we realized this is great. We have to keep doing this. This is fantastic. And then she'd get so angry, faux-angry with us, you know?
Michele Norris So she went, It's a holiday. So she probably let you slide a little bit more than.
Al Roker Yeah, exactly. So I went a long way around by saying that over the Thanksgiving weekend I will make a dish of the sweet potato poon in her honor.
Michele Norris P o o n.
Al Roker P o o n.
Michele Norris Okay, sweet potato poon. I might have to introduce that in our holiday tradition. That sounds delicious.
Al Roker Including the burning marshmallow. And you know, I think you can become a cook or a chef or whatever you want to call it. But as much as what your parents didn't do as they did. You know, again, there were six kids. So breakfast was not a leisurely pursuit in our house. So my mother was not great at breakfast. And even before there were Eggo waffles, there was something called Downyflake waffles. They were square, frozen waffles. You put them in the toaster. I remember I was watching some show when I was a kid, it's a sitcom or whatever, and the mother was making waffles with a waffle maker, and I was like, transfixed by this. And so I remember thinking, when I'm an adult, I'm never having another frozen waffle as long as I live. And I still have a Magic Chef waffle maker that's about 30 years old. It's beat to hell, but it makes fantastic waffles. Not those Belgian waffles.
Michele Norris Not the big fat ones.
Al Roker Not those, no. Thin.
Michele Norris Mmhmm.
Al Roker And the waffle is better than the pancake. And the reason why the waffle is better than pancake is that the pancake is a flat surface. So the syrup rolls off, the butter rolls off. The waffle has little indentations that can hold those little pools, those golden pools of butter.
Michele Norris And when the butter and the syrup kind of mix together.
Al Roker Mixed together, and then you cut it and it just…
Michele Norris I love a good waffle. Gets that nice crisp on it.
Al Roker That’s why I’m team waffle.
Michele Norris I'm team waffle too.
Al Roker It's crisp on the outside, a little fluffy. Here's the other trick. The other thing that I've discovered to add to the waffle mix: a couple of scoops of malted milk mix.
Michele Norris Oh, yeah. Yeah, I can see that. I can absolutely see that. A malted barley. You know what else you can add to a waffle? A little bit of egg whites that have been whipped. So it's almost like just before they get meringue and you put a little bit of the egg white in there and it gives the waffle a little bit of…
Al Roker Ah, a little fluffier.
Michele Norris A little fluffiness to it.
MUSIC TRANSITION
Michele Norris That house in St. Albans. I actually have seen it because you went back there on an episode. I remember when you went back on a Today Show segment. So I have it in my mind as you talk about it. And I read that your parents paid $100 for the down payment in the early 1960s, I think it was 1963.
Al Roker Yup. House was 14-9.
Michele Norris Yeah. And you still own the house. You have a nephew that lives in that house today. That is a story that is almost impossible right now. You know, housing is so expensive. And so at this time of the year when we're thinking about the bounty of the holidays, when we're thinking about preparing Thanksgiving meals, we should also be mindful of those for whom the kitchen is not a place of plenty. I'm wondering if you have a message of hope or insight for families who struggle to make rent or put food on the table or make the Thanksgiving holiday special when there's just not enough to go around.
Al Roker Yeah, it is. The idea that one in four children in this country are food insecure just seems a travesty. You know, there are a number of us that are really blessed. And our church for a long time does a lot of food drives, not just at the holidays, but all during the year. And it seems inconceivable, but there are so many people now trying to organize not just food drives, but listen, food banks in this day and age have become a necessity. And so it's very important that we remember those folks and do what we can. And one of the things that I have a new appreciation: Late last year during Thanksgiving and Christmas, it was no secret. I had a severe medical issue and to be completely—I almost died. I didn't know it at the time. Deborah and Lila, my middle girl, were really instrumental in keeping that away from me so I could concentrate. But, you know, I missed Thanksgiving and almost missed Christmas, and I forgot how important those touchstone moments are. And in fact, for Deborah, the first point that she got that maybe I was going to be okay was that I had another procedure and coming out of anesthesia. She was there and she said, how are you feeling? I said, I saw this recipe in the New York Times cooking segment for a spatchcocked, mayonnaise-based turkey. I'm going to make that for Christmas. And she thought, okay, I think he's going to make it.
Michele Norris He's back. He's back with us.
Al Roker Because that's how important those moments are. And I realize that we need to take care of other people who are not doing okay. But there but for the grace of God go us.
Michele Norris Was the memory of the holiday in retrospect, do you think that you know deep in your psyche that that was one of the things that pulled you through? I know I want another Christmas with my family. I want us all together.
Al Roker It was. And I felt in a sense, badly, because I ruined Thanksgiving for the family and I was not going to let that happen for Christmas.
Michele Norris And that's being a little hard on yourself, though, isn't it Al? I mean, you didn't.
Al Roker Yeah, you know, but, hey, listen, when you're under pain meds, you go in different places, but you know, it was important to me, and it gave me something to push for. And I made Christmas dinner.
ACT 3 RECIPE
Michele Norris You said that your all-time favorite meal that your mom would make is oxtail stew.
Al Roker Yes.
Michele Norris And it is, as I think I heard, that it's not just any oxtail stew. It's oxtail stew with dumplings.
Al Roker Yes. It's got everything you need in in one pot. You’ve got the vegetables, you got the beef, and you've got the starch in these fluffy, dense... And that was what was always amazed me, that you could have something that was dense yet fluffy at the same time. When I think about the perfect meal from her it would be the oxtail stew, collard greens and a pineapple upside-down cake.
Michele Norris Okay now. That is good eating. That sounds…
Al Roker Yeah. So that was her Super Bowl of food. And it was great because you could make a lot for not a lot of money on a cold day And my dad got in, when I was like 12, he got into baking and so he started making like yeast rolls and bread and cinnamon rolls. And so the perfect day to walk into that house and smell yeast bread baking, my mother's oxtail stew, and the overtones of that caramelized pineapple was just about as good as it gets.
Michele Norris Mm. Well, we're going to share the recipe with our listeners. So is there anything that they have to absolutely get right or pay attention to to make sure that they get the right flavor?
Al Roker You got to sauté the oxtails first, preferably in a little oil in their own fat. And don't crowd the pot so that they brown well, you really want them browned because that lends the depth of flavor. And try to get the meatiest oxtails you can.
Michele Norris And don't rush it.
Al Roker Don’t rush it.
Michele Norris This needs to cook low and slow for a while.
Al Roker Yes.
Michele Norris All right. I’ve loved talking to you. Thanks so much.
Al Roker It's so great to see you, Michele.
KICKER
This conversation was a reminder that we often share the best of ourselves through food. Even when Al Roker’s family didn’t have much money, they still would make a batch of brownies or a dish of something for their neighbors when they came upon tragedy or when someone was sick. Now, as a fully grown adult with his own money, Al Roker continues to give to and to recognize families less fortunate than his by participating in food drives and food banks. As we step into this holiday season, as food and family come to the center stage in our lives, it's important to remember to extend generosity to others who may need it this season. Maybe consider donating to your local food bank or volunteering at a food drive this holiday. Even a little can go a long way.
You can find mama Roker’s recipe for Oxtail Stew and Dumplings on my Instagram page. And if you try it in your own kitchen, make sure to use the hashtag YourMama’sKitchen so we can see your lovely creations! Thanks for listening, see you next week.
CREDITS
Michele: This has been a Higher Ground and Audible Original. Produced by Higher Ground Studios.
Sound design and engineering from Andrew Eapen and Ryo Baum.
Higher Ground Audio's editorial assistants are Jenna Levin and Camila Thur de Koos.
Executive producers for Higher Ground are Nick White, Mukta Mohan, Dan Fierman, and me, Michele Norris.
Executive producers for Audible are Zola Mashariki, Nick D’Angelo, and Ann Heppermann.
The show’s closing song is 504 by The Soul Rebels.
Editorial and web support from Melissa Bear and Say What Media.
Our talent booker is Angela Peluso.
And special thanks this week go to Ines Andres, Satchel Kaplan, the team at Think Food Group, Eli Turner, and special thanks this week to NBC Studios. And thanks also to Whisper Room Inc in Tennessee.
Head of Audible Studios: Zola Mashariki
Chief Content Officer Rachel Ghiazza
And that’s it—goodbye everybody, see what we’re serving up next week.
Copyright 2023 by Higher Ground Audio, LLC.
Sound Recording copyright 2023 by Higher Ground Audio, LLC.
