Your Mama's Kitchen Episode 17: Jon Batiste
Audible Originals presents Your Mama's Kitchen, hosted by Michele Norris.
COLD OPEN
Jon Batiste: Yeah, yeah. For those who don't understand, a lot of people think they've had gumbo and they had gumbo. A lot of people call stuff gumbo that's not gumbo. But for those who know, when you have gumbo and you're making the gumbo happen, it's very meticulous.
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’s guest is a musical wonder … multiple Grammy-award-winning singer, songwriter, and composer Jon Batiste … and it is no surprise that our conversation quickly turned gumbo—that hot steaming bowl of deliciousness that New Orleans is known for. Jon is one of the city’s favorite sons and gumbo is an apt metaphor for his songwriting and his attitude toward life. Everything he does—from his music to his fashion to the way he moves through the world—embodies a medley of influences, special flavors and notes from his world travels.
You might know Jon from his days leading the band on The Late Show with Steven Colbert. Or, you may remember his over the top, silver spangled performance of his hit song “Freedom” at the 2022 Grammy Award Ceremony where he was nominated for 11 awards and went home with a whopping FIVE statues. He’s known for collaboration—there’s that Gumbo thing again—recording with artists such as Stevie Wonder, Lana Del Rey, and Willie Nelson.
I’ve known Jon for years and I love that he has held onto the playful eccentricities you used to see in his street performances even as he became a music star. This is a man who loves music. He comes from a musical dynasty in New Orleans, the Batiste Family members are key players in epic ensembles, including the Tremé Brass Band and the Olympia Brass band.
We caught up with Jon toward the end of a stretch filled with highlights and heartbreak. In the same year that he racked up all those Grammys, his wife was battling leukemia and came close to death. Their story is featured in the new film American Symphony. In this episode, you’ll hear about a remarkable life that has been guided by food, family, and faith.
<<Jon: (plays melodica) Ooh! Hello!>>
Plus, you get to hear John serve up the sounds of a New Orleans Christmas. All that is coming up.
ACT 1: CHILDHOOD[3] [4]
Michele Norris: Jon Batiste, I am so glad you're in the studio with us. I love the energy you bring to everything that you do. And so I know our listeners are in for a treat.
Jon Batiste: Oh, yes hello.
Michele Norris: Hello. Hello. Tell me about your mama's kitchen.
Jon Batiste: Oh, man. Oh, man. My mama's kitchen would turn out the most incredible dishes that would heal your soul and allow for your mind to just run free. I remember as a kid going into the cookie jar, and there would be peanut butter cookies. There would be chocolate chip cookies. There would be all types of incredible creations that she would make. And I would never see them in the store or anywhere else. She would make fried chicken, fried fish. We had cabbage and collard greens, black eyed beans. We had red beans and rice, New Orleans style. Her special recipe developed over the years. First white rice, then brown rice. We had gumbo for the Christmas holiday and it would be this pot of gumbo that would last up until mid-January.
Michele Norris: Oh, come on now.
Jon Batiste: And you know what I mean?
Michele Norris: Take me inside that kitchen. Because you grew up in Kenner?
Jon Batiste: Mmhmm.
Michele Norris: And I always say that people in Kenner are like a river, or they're like water people, because you're. kind of hard up against Lake Pontchartrain, and then you get the Mississippi on the other side. And it's a place where you're kind of squeezed in. And so the community is very tight there. Take me inside your neighborhood and then your kitchen. What did that kitchen look like? Make me feel like I'm inside that kitchen.
Jon Batiste: You walk in and it's one of the biggest rooms in the house that I grew up in, if not the biggest. We had a big kitchen where the dinner table was this monument in the center of the kitchen. Just a regular old dinner table. We would play all kinds of beats on the table with our forks and our knives, and there would have plate settings that she would put out sometimes. Other times we would just sit there and we would get to the food so quick there would be no time for the plate settings. But you had brown wood and this incredible yellow like sunshine paint that was on the panels. So it was brown and yellow with the all-white stove as the only break in the color scheme. And I just remember that yellow vividly. I remember having birthday parties in that kitchen around that big old table. Me and ten of my cousins. Me being the youngest of the siblings and the cousins at the time would just be in our Ninja Turtles regalia and we would be sitting around the table trading stories and having a good time. And that yellow would just be the backdrop. And just something about that really brings joy to me. I still sometimes look for that yellow when I'm thinking about creative ideas or aesthetics or even wardrobe. I find that yellow from my childhood.
Michele Norris: You go back to that kitchen.
Jon Batiste: I go back to that kitchen and so funny, I didn't think of that until you asked me this question.
Michele Norris: You described something that I have to go back to. You said when you'd all be sitting at the table, you'd pick up your knife and your fork and your spoon, and you'd be beating. You'd be working out beats at the table. Describe that for me.
Jon Batiste: It was one of the things that you do as a kid just for fun. But then I have some really talented family members and it would become a form of the creative process. Starting in the kitchen, we'd be playing a beat and would hear something on the radio or would be trying to mimic something from a video game, soundtrack or score. And that would lead to us going to our instruments and actually making something out of this kitchen table beat. You take the back of the knife and you just hit it at the bottom of the table. You hit it in the center somewhere that you can get that low echo, that drone is mimicking a bass drum. And then you have your fork and you might hit it against your plate or you might hit it against your glass. And that's kind of the cymbal and the snare all in one. And you create something together. It becomes our drum circle right there in that kitchen.
Michele Norris: You were very humble. You said you come from a musical family. You come from not just a musical family. You come from one of the legendary musical families of New Orleans that your father was part of, the Batiste brothers. You have cousins who play, your sister plays piano. Also, how important is music to your family and how much was that melded with what you did in the kitchen in regard to food? Because in New Orleans, food is its own kind of music.
Jon Batiste: That's right. I was growing up in a time where regional music still had a lot of its foothold. You couldn't go to a place like New Orleans and not be introduced to a new artist that you hadn't heard of. There were a lot of local musicians and local artists that were influential, and I remember being in the kitchen. That is so funny. I remember it now. We always had a soundtrack playing. There was always something playing when we were there to the point that my first dinner that I'd had outside of the house where there was not music playing in the background, it felt strange. Like I felt like there was something missing with the ritual of the meal. So it played a role, but it was more just a part of the way that we lived and breathed in that time, and particularly in New Orleans.
Michele Norris: Tell me about your mom and describe for us also how she operated in that kitchen? That's a big room and she worked! And so she probably had to work on a tight schedule when she got home. Because you had a big family and it sounds like your doors were always open. So there was always cousins and neighbors and fellow bandmates from the marching band at school probably coming over. What was that like for her?
Jon Batiste: Catherine Batiste. Catherine would come into the kitchen after being at work. For the entirety of the morning into the early evening, come back after getting us from school and prepare a meal. Like clockwork, you would always be around 7:30, 7:00 round that area. We'd be in there. And it's amazing to think about how she was able to do it. She then decides—this is part way through our childhood, I'm in middle school—and my mother decides to go back to school to get yet another master's degree. Change her career path, becomes an environmentalist before it's in vogue, before it's something that is a part of the national conversation. Truly visionary. And does this while never missing a meal, never having us as a family miss dinner time. You think about how she was able to do that and it's mind-blowing to me. She's a superhero.
Michele Norris: How was she able to do that?
Jon Batiste: It's part of what I think is instilled in me when I'm putting this enormous amount of work into what it is that I do. It becomes a labor of love. It becomes something that is a bigger part of your life than just a job or something that needs to happen. It's a part of how you communicate. She really saw cooking as a way for her to communicate her love to us. It wasn't something that she felt was getting in the way of other things she wanted to do. And I know it was still difficult because she still had to put all the time in. And we've talked about this as I've taken up cooking lately, and I've tried to learn every single one of her recipes, but she says "I actually miss those days." She says she's fond of that time of really providing that bedrock for our family.
Michele Norris: Misses having you all there.
Jon Batiste: Yes, I'm out of the house. My sister's out of the house. We don't have those days of everybody's friends and cousins and everybody coming into the house. And, you know, it was a lot. But she also misses it, which was a very deep thing that she shared with me recently. And, you know, obviously I miss it, but I wasn't the one in there cooking.
Michele Norris: So it truly was a labor of love for her.
Jon Batiste: Yes, that's right.
Michele Norris: Now, you had seven children in that household.
Jon Batiste: Oh, my goodness.
Michele Norris: It's a big house, a loud house, and a lot of mouths to feed. And I'm wondering why when you tick through all the food that you loved, you talked about gumbo and you talked about everything else. But when you talked about your mom's red rice recipe that she perfected, I'm wondering if red rice became such a staple because that's a New Orleans tradition, or also because you can stretch red beans and rice and you can feed a whole lot of people with a big pot of red beans and rice.
Jon Batiste: Funny enough, red beans and rice, when I was a kid, it wasn't my favorite. She had a way of serializing the meals. It would become a series where Mondays was red beans and rice. And that's a tradition in New Orleans. Wednesdays was some form of spaghetti and meatballs, spaghetti and ground beef or some incredible pasta. That was my favorite growing up. And Fridays would be fish, whether it was catfish, fillet, fried fish, any form of her recipe of making fish for Friday we would have. And then Thursday and Tuesday would be something that kind of, now I look back, those were her days where she would experiment and find different recipes, whether it was stew or any form of chicken recipe, baked chicken stew, chicken. So Mondays I would often grow tired of having red beans and rice, and I would say we have red beans again. Oh, man. Now, as I grew older that changed. And I think the reason was, you know, she had red beans and rice every Monday growing up. And I'm sure that my grandmother had some form of that tradition growing up. So you imagine, it's a part of your life that you don't even think about. It's second nature to make red beans and rice on Mondays. So that's what was special to me about it. Not that I got it as a kid, but as an adult. And now I make it myself. Every Monday that I get a chance, I'm doing it.
Michele Norris: What's so special about her recipe for red beans and rice?
Jon Batiste: She's figured out a way to make it healthy in the ways that she's grown to understand health and health consciousness. You know, there's certain things you can keep out of the recipe or replace in the recipe while maintaining the depth of flavor and the nuance of the taste of New Orleans-style red beans and rice. And she's the only person that I've seen effectively do it in a way where you don't lose the essence of the recipe. Wow.
Michele Norris: So you're cooking a lot now and you're trying to replicate what you grew up with. Is that something that you've always done? Did you just realize that you only have time to cook? Did that happen during COVID? When did you start to tinker in the kitchen?
Jon Batiste: I really started during the pandemic to take the art of cooking seriously. I cooked for many years, but I never really had the time to focus on perfecting certain recipes. And I really took that time during the pandemic and the lockdown that we all experienced and hopefully gained a skill. A lot of that was my skill. That was the thing that I wanted to refine for many years. And then I had the time to not only dedicate to it, but also my mother had the time to sit and be the master chef that she is and teach me, her sous chef.
Michele Norris: There's a lot that happens in a kitchen that doesn't have anything to do with food. What were the important lessons that you learned, the important wisdom that you got in your kitchen that continues to help you today?
Jon Batiste: The kitchen was a place to deliberate. It's a place of solace, a place to process ideas. The kitchen was not just to eat, it was to go. And even late night, if you wanted to just take a breather, sit at the table and let your thoughts roam, and let your imagination really speak to you. That was where the kitchen came into play for me as a kid. I would draw on the kitchen table. I would then draw on books when I was told that I shouldn't draw on the table.
Michele Norris: Oh wait, you drew on the table. I thought you were drawing on a piece of paper that was on the table. You were actually drawing on the wooden table.
Jon Batiste: I was very young. Yes, absolutely.
Michele Norris: Oops.
Jon Batiste: Something about being in the kitchen. It just would bring these ideas to the surface. And there was a feeling of being safe in the kitchen. So the kitchen still is there for me in my home today. It's a gathering place and it's a place where memories are made and we talk about many things that have nothing to do with cooking.
Michele Norris: I wonder if the kitchen for you today is also a healing space. You and your wife have been on quite a journey, and is she still in chemo right now?
Jon Batiste: Yes, she's in chemo, but she's cancer free, thank God.
Michele Norris: Thank goodness. Thank goodness. You two met at band camp when you were teenagers. You've been together a long time. And in the film that that I hope everyone sees, American Symphony, you talk about your health journey and I'm wondering if the kitchen for you now is not just a place of inspiration and respite, but if it is a very important healing space as well.
Jon Batiste: Absolutely. There's a feeling of real triumph when we come home. And I'm imagining us coming home after her recent time in the hospital where we didn't know she would make it back home. This is a time where there's a lot of uncertainty, and to come back that first night and sit in the kitchen together again after months of being displaced and having uncertainty be the rule of the day. That was a very special, special memory for me and truly is a place now where there's so many things that occur that are healing. I remember we had the launch of my album from our kitchen. We could have gone to a venue or a fancy restaurant even, or some performance hall. But we felt after this year that we've had, let's have all of the most important people in our life come to our kitchen and let's just share this time and do something very special in that way. We've had many gatherings in that regard since this time has been so challenging to really fortify our home. And we have a model that we have engraved in one of my instruments. That's in the kitchen, as is the motto, family and freedom. And that's the place where we've been manifesting that ever since this journey has begun.
Michele Norris: Family and freedom. I think I might want to just write on the wall in my kitchen too, I like that.
Jon Batiste: You know what I mean?
Michele Norris: I like that a lot.
Jon Batiste: Yes.
ACT 2: MUSIC
Michele Norris: John, we know you now as an extrovert. You wear flashy clothes. You always dressed in glad rags. We've seen you on stage. We've seen you every night. And when you were leading the band on Colbert, you have hair that is always poppin’… I listened to your sister in an interview, and she said that she's always amazed when she sees that version of Jon Batiste because she remembers a shy little kid who just wanted to make music and draw and didn't want to talk to anyone. What happened? How did you suddenly burst out of that show and become the jam parties that we see in love today?
Jon Batiste: Everything is always inside. We have so much inside of us, that is, a big part of who we are that comes out in stages. Things happen in your life in stages, and I believe that when you become a performer. The job of the performer, in part, is to figure out how to manifest all of the incredible gifts that you've been given and beauty that's within you and communicate that. How do you communicate it as a performer, as a manifestation of your art? And that process helps you as a human being to really step out of your shell. I'm still an introvert, but I believe that developing first a desire to communicate all that's within, and then the craft of performing and being on stage. That led me to where I am today.
Michele Norris: Does your music help pull you out of your shyness? And as I ask this question, I'm remembering a night. It was several years ago. We were both in Colorado for a big ideas festival and you walked into the room and no one knows each other at these dinners. And you walked in playing your instrument. And you were almost invisible behind the instrument. And I wonder if that was part of what you do is use the music as, this is my way of finding an entry point.
Jon Batiste: Absolutely. Music truly is a language. Music communicates. Music speaks to people on a level that many times even words can't reach. And that's the thing about stepping into any environment, whether it's the highest of the high or it's the most mundane, everyday down-home environment, everything that you do and everything that you say with your instrument is felt immediately without need of translation. (plays melodica)
Michele Norris: Now tell me what you have there. You picked up your melodica.
Jon Batiste: That's right. It's a harmonica and a keyboard put together. I like to call it the Harmony Board. It's a really cool instrument. It's adverse to anyone feeling better than someone else. It's a child's toy and adverse to pomposity. (plays melodica) It feels like it's a character to me. It feels like a world. It can go around the world. (plays melodica) It can go anywhere in space and time as a form of time travel.
Michele Norris: When did you pick up the melodica?
Jon Batiste: Around 14 of 15, my father gifted me one. From his travels, he went to Japan and brought melodica back. And from then on I started to carry it around with me when I moved to New York to go to Juilliard and I would be in the halls of Juilliard, this conservatory with the melodica, and I would be in the subways. And then eventually it started to become a part of my performances. And we do these things where, it's called a love riot. Sometimes we start in the subway car or on the subway platform, and we would take the people and we would march while playing. I'll be playing my instrument through this processional while it's happening. And then people would gather along the way and it would get so exciting that from afar you would think you're seeing something crazy going down in the street. You know, you'd see hundreds of people sometimes would do it after the concert, and you take literally thousands of people from the venue and you would march, thousands of people, gathering more along the way down into the subway and cram into a car on the platform and, you know, just be this real celebratory environment. So this is the evolution of how I've used this little instrument to really create this energy in the world. And it's about community.
Michele Norris: It's a second line. It’s a New Orleans tradition.
Jon Batiste: Oh, yes, yes. We've done second lines in New Orleans for many, many centuries. You think about the beginning of New Orleans in the march and you think about how the march was then taken and transformed into all of the different forms of New Orleans music. And now today, you know, the Love Riot is an extension of that tradition, but if you think of the second line as a form of ritual, as a form of celebrating the life of a deceased relative or loved one, the love riot is a form of creating community. Anywhere we go.
Michele Norris: When you brought that instrument with you to Juilliard, the conservatory, did they understand that?
Jon Batiste: No, they didn't get it, but it's okay. I've always been someone who sees things and before they're present you get a vision or you have an idea and you just learn to trust it. I respect all of my professors and all the different folks who [were] seeing another vision for me, but ultimately you got to stick to the track that you know is your track.
Michele Norris: All right.
Jon Batiste: Stay on that right track.
Michele Norris: That's right.
Jon Batiste: And you know about that.
Michele Norris: So they tried to actually tell you to put that instrument down. They said it was a toy.
Jon Batiste: Yeah. Yeah. It's people who I definitely admired telling me things that I didn't want to hear. But it's hard to ignore someone that you trust or a mentor, a friend, or anybody who doesn't get what you're doing. But I also think it's important because if you don't have the push back, you don't develop a certain resolve in your artistry that you need to really reach a level of excellence.
Michele Norris: You were a drummer originally and you took a piano at about age 11, and when your mom started sending you to, I forgot your music teacher's name.
Jon Batiste: Oh yes.
Michele Norris: What is her name? Say her name? She deserves…
Jon Batiste: Miss Shirley.
Michele Norris: Yes, Miss Shirley. When you start to go see Miss Shirley for your music lessons, your mom, as the story goes, said, You need to go where this instrument will take you.
Jon Batiste: Oh, yeah. She saw a vision. Just like I saw a vision with the melodica and the Harmoni-board. Now this instrument that I'm improving upon and even created versions of. My mother, even as a kid saw me as a pianist when I was playing the drums. This wasn't something that was obvious. She saw it. She had a vision and said, Oh, this child and the piano have some business to take care of. And she found Miss Shirley, who was this incredible classical piano teacher, to guide part of my process of development.
Michele Norris: And it's taken you to some interesting places, Jon Batiste.
Jon Batiste: Oh, yeah. From my mama's kitchen to my mom and I all around the world, it's beautiful. I always take my family with me everywhere that I can.
Michele Norris: So what is the soundtrack for the holiday sound like? Is your sister making a special?
Jon Batiste: (plays melodica)
Jon Batiste: My dad loves to sing the Christmas song during the holidays. And that's a tradition of, he and I will go to the piano and he'll sing. And I'll play and I'll sing and he'll play the bass sometimes and we'll play together and it'll be a great moment. And we did it one year on stage and it was so beautiful to share that with folks the first time outside of just our living room. And that's a tradition. And I love doing, not necessarily carols, but I love having these sort of performances in the house. It would be my family and friends sometimes will come over. This past year we were in in Saratoga Springs where Suleika's from and we had a wonderful gathering. My parents were there. Her parents and family friends and we gathered around the piano in her living room. And piano. Food was on the table. And my dad said, Let's sing. We sung again. Christmas songs, things like that. We sang some Louis Armstrong, “What a Wonderful World.” Just songs that make you feel good about being alive in a dark world in a time where things can be a little heavy to even process around the holidays, and where a lot of people may feel that there's no hope. We want to put some hope out from our living room.
Michele Norris: You have so many influences in your music. You're from New Orleans. You went to school in New York. Suleika's from Saratoga Springs. Her parents are Tunisian and her mom is from Switzerland.
Jon Batiste: Yes.
Michele Norris: So you have all these different influences inside of you as you play music. I wonder, is it possible for you to share a traditional Christmas song? And show us through your music how you add a different flavor to it depending on the influence of the various people in your life.
Jon Batiste: Absolutely. So you see (plays melodica)
Michele Norris: You can really make that instrument do so much more than I think any other artist can when they pick up that combination harmonica-keyboard.
ACT 3: GUMBO
Michele Norris: I want to talk to you about the holidays in New Orleans. Because the holidays in New Orleans are a little bit different. They're a little bit shinier, a little bit spicier. Describe New Orleans during the holidays, during that magical period between. Thanksgiving and Christmas and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa and all the other holidays that we celebrate in November, December.
Jon Batiste: Oh, wow. There's so much magic in the air. The holidays are very heightened in New Orleans because you already have this music and you already have this pluralistic thinking, this celebration of diversity of variety. You find all types of ways that the communal spirit in the holiday spirit is brought to life in New Orleans. So, you know, I highly recommend for any listeners out there who want to figure out a place to spend the holidays and haven't been to New Orleans. Come on down.
Michele Norris: It's delicious. There's no excuse for everyone having a bad meal in New Orleans. The food is just on a plane all its own. What's Christmas like in the Batiste household? What's on the menu?
Jon Batiste: There's a lot of great things that are traditional, and the staple, as I mentioned, is the gumbo my mother makes. And then what happens is it becomes not a competition, maybe a friendly competition, but we'll go to my grandfather's house, there's another pot of gumbo, and we'll bring our gumbo over. And you get to try the gumbo from my mom and the gumbo from my grandparents house. That was a tradition and still goes on, you know.
Michele Norris: So gumbo throwdown.
Jon Batiste: Yes, a gumbo throwdown, you go and you got to be ready because everybody's spending about a week making the pot. You know, this is not some overnight situation.
Michele Norris: You know, gumbo is not for the faint—I mean, you have to put some time into gumbo.
Jon Batiste: Yeah, yeah. For those who don't understand, a lot of people think they've had gumbo and they had gumbo. A lot of people call stuff gumbo. There's not gumbo. But for those who know, when you have gumbo and you're making the gumbo happen, it's very meticulous.
Michele Norris: Tell me about your mama's gumbo.
Jon Batiste: Oh, I would say that when you're making a roux, I like the roux to feel like it's not so watery, but not so thick. And her gumbo, the roux that she has, it has just the right amount of that swamp texture to it where you just you know, you put a piece of bread in there and it just melts in your mouth. Perfect. It takes two days for her to get to the point where she's ready to put all the ingredients in the pot. So it's like she preps the pot even as a whole, is a whole ‘nother approach than anything I've ever seen.
Michele Norris: I'm listening carefully here because I make Christmas gumbo every year, so I'm trying to slap up some kitchen wisdom right now because it does take a while.
Jon Batiste: Oh, you do?
Michele Norris: Yeah. I make gumbo every year at Christmas.
Jon Batiste: See? So okay, so what do you have? Do you do chicken or do you do seafood or is it both?
Michele Norris: Chicken, chicken and seafood?
Jon Batiste: Yep.
Michele Norris: Same thing. And sometimes a little dollop of crab on the top because we're here and we're close to Baltimore. My husband's from Baltimore, so we have a have a little piece crab on the top. Now, we haven't done a gumbo smackdown. Maybe we should think about doing that, because that just means that there's more gumbo on the table. But gumbo is different in every household.
Jon Batiste: So this past Christmas, he'll remain nameless, but a good friend of ours and from an individual challenge my mother to a gumbo throwdown. And he's not from New Orleans. And he said, I want to challenge you one bite and we will know who the winner is. So I'm looking forward to that this Christmas. Maybe you should come by and have part of a friendly competition.
Michele Norris: I'm never voting against your mom, I'm just going to say that right now. I'm always casting a vote for mom's gumbo, but I'm willing to try somebody else's.
Jon Batiste: Yeah, it was a very bold claim, especially for someone who is not from the home of gumbo. Come on, now.
Michele Norris: Yeah, that's now back to her gumbo. So she does her roux over two days. Same pot every year. Wooden spoon.
Jon Batiste: Mmhmm.
Michele Norris: Always a wooden spoon. And you have to kind of hit the spoon when the roux starts to do its thing.
Jon Batiste: Yeah. Yeah.
Michele Norris: You kind of hit the pot and the roux does this little dance inside and then it settles down again.
Jon Batiste: That's right. That's a key moment because you can easily burn your…
Michele Norris: Mmhmm. Don't take a phone call. Don't answer the door.
Jon Batiste: You gotta focus. It's a matter of seconds between not just burning your roof, but your whole gumbo pot being messed up.
Michele Norris: And then you have to start over again, because I, you know, I can't believe I'm going to admit this in front of a microphone, but I have done that. But that's part of the lesson. That's part of the wisdom. So now you know, you just keep your eye on that. But when she does that… when does she put on her okra?
Jon Batiste: Ahhhh! The okra comes right after the roux is done. You got to put it in right after the roux is done. Because the thing is, you don't want your okra to be burnt.
Michele Norris: Hmm. No, no, no, no.
Jon Batiste: You understand?
Michele Norris: Oh, of course I understand. Now, there are some controversial aspects of gumbo. Some people put a sliced egg, hard-boiled egg in their gumbo.
Jon Batiste: I never will eat that. That's the people I was talking about that think they can gumbo. That's not gumbo.
Michele Norris: And then what's the thing about a scoop of potato salad and gumbo?
Jon Batiste: Oh, interesting. I don't know about that. I haven't had it like that. I have potato salad with the gumbo, not potato salad in the gumbo.
Michele Norris: Some people put a little potato salad in the gumbo. I've never really understand it. No shame to people who do it, but it is a curiosity.
Jon Batiste: Y'all go ahead and do that. Also, some people have corn they put in gumbo.
Michele Norris: Oh no, corn and gumbo. Really?
Jon Batiste: One time I had that, and I will tell you, I felt like this is sacrilege. I can't believe you're doing this.
Michele Norris: Yeah. No, no corn in the gumbo. Okay, so what are your plans for this Christmas? What are you doing this holiday?
Jon Batiste: Hoping to help some folks out. We have a lot of plans to use this season to give back. And there's a lot to celebrate in our family. There's so many great things going on. We're sharing this big part of our life in the film that's coming out around the holidays. American Symphony, this documentary that we spoke about and you know, this is also an album year for me with World Music Radio being this love letter to humanity. Finding ways to engage with the community through the holidays is always a big part of how I think about any album cycle year. So stay on the lookout for ways that you can help out and be involved. And then, of course, just eating and being around the kitchen table, going to see my family and friends and celebrating life while we have it.
Michele Norris: You have that sign in your kitchen. Family and freedom. What does freedom mean to you?
Jon Batiste: Freedom means living in the way that we were made to live and not having anything that blocks that. But most important, not having anything in your mind. The mind frees the soul, frees the heart. You can't have your thoughts thinking and operating at a lower frequency than you are made to live at.
Michele Norris: I love this conversation. It's made me very hungry.
Jon Batiste: Oh, you're telling me. I'm about to go right now and get some. Got to.
Michele Norris: Yeah, that is a stat. That's the next stop on the food horizon for me.
Jon Batiste: Oh, we…
Michele Norris: Love you, Jon Batiste. Thanks so much.
Jon Batiste: Oh, yes. Love you. Thank you. And I'll see you soon.
KICKER
Whenever I hear John’s music, I will think of that sign in his family kitchen: Family and Freedom. His childhood kitchen had plenty of both and his story shows how that space can be an incubator for creativity. A place to let dreams soar. A place to find healing and solace in tough times. A place to figure out how to let folks know how much you care about them—which is what Jon’s mama did even when had gone back to school and was juggling a new job and new responsibilities.
I’ve heard Jon talk about his family’s famous red beans and rice recipe for years and now we can all make it in our own kitchens. A quick clarification—we began this podcast series with Michelle Obama’s recipe for red rice, which has roots in South Carolina and should NOT be confused with the New Orleans staple called Red BEANS and rice. That’s a simple dish that packs a lot of flavor IF you know what you’re doing and to make sure you do…. You can find the Batiste family recipe on my Instagram page at Michele underscore underscore Norris. That is two underscores. You will also find background on MY family’s Christmas Gumbo tradition. And I agree with Jon. No boiled eggs or potato salad in the gumbo please! It stands strong on its own.
Roux la la! Happy merry everything to all of you. See you next week and until then, be bountiful.
CREDITS
Michele: This has been a Higher Ground and Audible Original. Produced by Higher Ground Studios.
Senior producer Natalie Rinn, producer Sonia Htoon, and associate producer Angel Carreras.
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 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.
Talent booker - Angela Peluso.
Special thanks this week to The Creamery in Brooklyn New York and Clean Cuts.
Chief Content Officer Rachel Ghiazza.
And that’s it—goodbye everybody.
Copyright 2023 by Higher Ground Audio, LLC.
Sound Recording copyright 2023 by Higher Ground Audio, LLC.
