How We Can Fix Hunger, Food Deserts, and a Broken System (with Chef Tom Colicchio)

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In the before time, pre-election, I had the amazing chance to speak with renowned chef and health advocate Tom Calicchio about our country's struggles with poverty and food insecurity.

However, like so much much of what we're focused on, this topic is now more pressing than ever, and our conversation seems a bit prescient.

Why?

Because the most significant government programs that lift people out of poverty, that provide access to assistance to those who have a hard time putting food on the table, that can help bridge that gap for nutritional access, those programs are being handled right now at the federal level by the United States Department of Agriculture, also known as the USDA.

Now, while Trump has not announced who he intends to appoint as his agriculture secretary, Project 2025 has told us what he intends to do.

They outline in grave detail the devastating proposals to programs that would cut back eligibility for access to food.

It would weaken regulations on baby formula.

They would limit access to low-cost lunches for school children.

And that's just the beginning.

But knowing what their targets are means that we can get ready to protect, defend, and insist that our elected leaders take care of their people.

Because hunger doesn't care about your age, your race, your region, or who you voted for.

So we're going to talk to Tom about how he lobbied members of Congress.

And this is going to be important ahead of the confirmations in January.

Because if Trump follows regular order, he is going to once again pick someone who is counter to our needs and counter to our American tradition of trying to help one another.

But we can take lessons from Tom on not only how to approach congressional leaders, but how to talk to our state legislators who are the political partners in programs like SNAP and WIC, how to talk to school board members who need to be urging their leaders to take action to protect children.

How we talk to our neighbors about why hunger doesn't care about who you are.

Hunger simply needs to be satisfied.

In the meantime, though, it's even more important that we do what we can to give to food charities like No Kid Hungry and Feeding America and your local food banks now and throughout the Trump administration.

For example, $50 to No Kid Hungry can help with up to 500 meals.

So, in this episode, you'll hear more about the ways to advocate for your school board to take action, your local and state legislators to do their part, and your members of Congress, whether you voted for them or not, to protect and expand support for food programs and to keep our communities healthy.

Welcome to Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams from Crooked Media.

I'm your host, Stacey Abrams.

It's that time of year when many of us are getting ready to gather with family and friends and celebrate the holidays with lots and lots of food.

In my family, my mother makes the most amazing dressing ever.

And for you northerners, that's what we call stuffing down in the south.

She makes a mac and cheese worthy of its own IG account.

And she makes pecan pies that my friends like more than they like me.

My dad is her sous chef and can do things with a can of pineapple and a ham that proves magic is real.

I'm responsible for the great bird, a 20-somewhat pound turkey that feeds our family of nearly 20 siblings, spouses, and kids.

Oh, and yes, we use jellied cranberry sauce as nature intended.

We have our food traditions, like most families, but for too many Americans, putting food on the table each day is a struggle.

We live in the richest country in the world, yet food insecurity impacts one in 10 families.

and one in five children in the U.S.

lives with hunger.

Like so many of our societal problems, several factors and failures combine to create this seemingly intractable issue, from persistent poverty to the cost of groceries to access to quality food.

This can mean no grocery store nearby or that the grocery store you have available to you lacks the food you need.

We call these food deserts.

Then there's the issue of children going hungry at school because breakfast and lunches are beyond the reach of their parents' wallets.

Despite the enormity of the challenge around the country, people are getting creative with with how to address food policy and food insecurity and hunger in their communities.

School lunch workers are rethinking how to provide healthy, locally sourced meals made from scratch.

Food banks are working with local farmers to get leftover crops to hungry families.

Some organizations are trying to make change within the food stamp system, or SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

For the past 10 years, double F Food Bucks New York has been helping those enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or often referred to as SNAP.

It allows recipients to get twice as much fresh and healthy food on the table.

Two peppers for a dollar can't beat that.

Double Up Food Bucks, launched in Detroit in 2009, has expanded to partners in 29 other states, boosting farmers' profits and improving people's access to healthy food.

But there's still a long way to go to address the food system and hunger in this country.

The dollars that are being used for reimbursements haven't changed since 1973.

We need to get better nutritious foods in school.

And the only way to do that is by increasing the amount of the reimbursement.

That's chef Tom Calicio.

In 2013, Calicchio and his wife filmmaker Lori Silverbush made a documentary about the issue called A Place at the Table.

You might know Tom Calicchio as a judge on the long-running and one of my favorite Bravo TV shows Top Chef.

He also owns and operates several famous restaurants and he's published a new book, Why I Cook, that combines memoir and recipes.

But I wanted to invite him to join us today because he has spent over a decade advocating for better food and nutrition policy and fighting to feed hungry children in a nation that can't afford to do less than our best.

And he joins me on Assembly Required right after this break.

Tom Calicchio, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you.

That's my absolute pleasure to be here with you.

Well, I am delighted to not only have you as a guest, but as someone I admire.

You are a talented chef and you are a very deft teacher.

I have watched Top Chef from its very first episode.

I have never missed a season.

I have watched every spin-off.

One reason that I love Top Chef is that beyond the competition of the show, Each season you very intentionally and I would say effortlessly, you engage in this combination of entertainment, but also education about the place where you are and why food is a part of it.

You discuss the intersection of food and culture, but you also challenge your chefs and their assumptions and how they think about themselves.

Did this come from the producers?

Did this come from you?

And Padma, how did this approach evolve or was that always the intention?

It's a combination of all the above, but it really, it comes from the fact that our industry has been changing over this time.

And so I think that we're actually reflecting what's really going on in our industry.

I just arrived home yesterday from finishing this season's finale, season 22, and it's going to really come up in a great way.

That's all I'll say.

But,

you know, when I was coming up, you studied French cooking.

Maybe Italian.

In fact, as an Italian-American, I never cooked Italian food in a restaurant because I thought it wasn't as, you know,

supposed to be as high-end or as special as French cuisine.

We all study French cuisine.

And so, you know, think about that.

If you are a Latino cook coming up or an African-American chef coming up, and you were running away from your culture because you thought that your culture,

you know, Chinese cooks, think about this things.

All these things are things that were put into to-go containers and done takeout, right?

And so you were running away from your culture because you thought that it was less value, especially, you know, in the culinary world.

And that has changed, especially over the last 10 years.

And so I think that, and it's a combination of myself and Padma and now Kristen and Gail, all kind of taking the initiative and teasing this out of the chefs and asking them questions about

what is their culture and why isn't that represented?

And then I think at the same time, we really started focusing on the location because the location that we're shooting at becomes sort of an additional contestant, right?

That's the background.

That's all of the food culture that comes from these locations are something that we're embracing.

So I think it's a combination of things, but it definitely feels better.

It feels more authentic.

And I think that when you think about what we're really in the business of, we're the business of the chefs telling their stories.

And this has now become part of their stories.

Their culture should always, of course, be part of their stories.

And I think they're embracing it.

And it's something that we're really proud of.

Well, I think it speaks to one of the many reasons I wanted to have you on for this conversation about food systems and hunger.

And a country that is so steeped in the culture of food, where you can pick a place and there is a narrative thread about how that place came to be that is uniquely tied to food.

The

sheer existence of hunger in this country, the brokenness is anathema.

And one of the things we try to do on Assembly Required is to understand like where we've been, where we are, and where we can get to if we work on on it.

And this I know is close to your heart because in 2013, you and your wife, Lori, made this extraordinary documentary called A Place at the Table.

I remember watching it and it was one of those moments where I understood that you saw the role that you and Lori could play beyond the kitchen.

So what sparked the decision to make this documentary, which would not have necessarily been something every chef thought of?

Well, also,

my wife actually thought of it, not me.

I helped, you know, I was a little more known than she was, so I was helped getting a film made and financed.

My wife is actually a screenwriter and a narrative filmmaker, not a documentary filmmaker.

And she was mentoring a young girl who was living in, her and her family, they were living in a shelter in Brooklyn.

And she was participating in an after-school dance program that my wife was involved with.

And she would come to our house and it was clear that she was hungry.

And so we would have dinners with her and then send food back home with her.

And she also had some learning disabilities.

And in New York City, if the public school system can't teach to her disabilities, we were able to get her into a private school setting.

Not a fancy private school, but a private school setting that could sort of teach to her particular deficit.

And we got a phone call the first week in school saying that it was clearly that this young woman was hungry.

The school, because it was a private school, didn't have a breakfast and lunch program.

And

so my wife, after hearing this, she dove in, wanted to understand why people are hungry in America.

And before she decided to make a film, she started researching the issue and then also reached out to a friend of hers, Christy Jacobson,

who was a documentary filmmaker, and they worked together on it.

And so, but very, very quickly after doing, you know, starting the research,

she came to the conclusion that

people in this country are not hungry because of droughts or famine or war.

They're hungry in this country because of poverty and because that we don't have the political will to make sure everyone in this country is fed.

And that became the narrative of the film.

And then she went on to show how our system is broken and the effect that it really has on our country because of a broken food system.

Or we should say the system is not broken.

The system works exactly the way it's set up to work.

That's the problem.

Well, I want to pull on that because one of the outcomes of the documentary is that you became one of the nation's most prominent advocates and spokespeople for critically evaluating the system and why it is the way it is.

You became a fixture on Capitol Hill.

You talked to members of Congress about food policy and hunger.

And so tell me what you heard when you would have these conversations, when you explained that it wasn't broken, that the system was working the way it was designed, and maybe we should rethink it.

So what had happened after the film, one of the talking heads, Ken Cook, who runs the Environmental Working Group, reached out to me and said, you you know, maybe we can set something up that we can tackle food and food systems the way that we're tackling the environment.

And so we did it.

We formed the

Food Policy Action.

And what we did is

we created a scorecard.

So we created Congress and how they voted around issues of food, hunger, farming, fishing, clean water, things like that.

And I remember the first year our scorecard came out, people kind of didn't really pay attention to it.

Second year it came out, more people started paying attention.

Third year, we started hearing from people saying, why did I get a bad score?

And then you walk through the vote.

And then by the fourth year, I was spending a lot of time on Capitol Hill, spending more time actually with Republicans than Democrats, because Democrats, most of them were already already here, especially on the hunger side of things.

And I spent a lot of time and you were able to

see the difference and people would start to come around to it, especially when you started putting in terms of things that they cared about.

So if you didn't care, and I would always say, listen, I'm a liberal.

I have a knee-jerk reaction to wanting to make sure people are fed.

Also, as a chef, I think it's a right.

You know, people come to my restaurant, it's expensive, but

I still believe that food is a right, like water and air that we breathe, right?

So, but then you started saying, all right, let's look at national security.

When 25% of the recruits that join our military service drop out because of hunger-related issues, which actually show itself as obesity, which is

kind of hard to wrap your head around, but it's true when you look at the fact that in this country, calories are cheap, but nutrition is expensive, right?

And so that was an issue of national security.

And if you just looked at

how our country could be falling behind educationally to some of the other advanced countries, and you say, why is that happening?

Well, if kids show up in school and they're really hungry,

they can't focus.

There was a study done in Deloitte that when kids got breakfast in first period, math scores went up by 13%.

Asymptoteism would drop.

Incidents of going to the principal's office and getting disciplined dropped.

And so

it's clear that kids can't compete academically if they're hungry.

And so how does that play out?

Well, if we want to stay competitive as a nation, everyone has to do their part.

And part of doing part is making sure that we have a well-nourished country.

And so once you start talking about it,

couch it in terms that Republicans care about these things, then you start coming along.

And so, yeah, we found it to be really, really effective to try to have different messages to different groups.

And it worked pretty well.

And also the fact that once you start start talking about the fact that we almost eliminated hunger in this country back in the 70s.

And there was another piece of media that did that.

It was the, it's called Hungry in America.

It was on, I believe it was CBS.

It was Charles Coralt.

And this was back when Robert Kennedy was going to First Nations reservations and looking at hunger.

And then also, I think there was a young child who was like dying of starvation in West Virginia.

And so after that film, again, this was before cable TV.

So a third of the population probably saw that newspiece.

And

Senators Dole and McGovern got together and modernized the food stamp system, modernized school lunch.

And we pretty much ended hunger until the 80s.

And everything changed when Reagan came in and wanted to shrink government.

And that was something that his administration went after.

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So you said a lot that I think I would love to unpack for our audience.

I want to start with the personal.

There are a lot of folks who feel as passionately as you do, but are reluctant to approach a politician about any issue because they don't know what they're doing.

So can you talk about any worries that you experienced and how you manage them, how you push through them?

The first interaction that I had with Congress, I actually testified in front of a congressional hearing.

To say that I was nervous was putting it mildly.

You know, it was so surreal.

I was,

oh God, I'm forgetting the congressman.

He retired.

He was from California.

It'll come to me.

But first I go in and they take me to his office of his chambers.

And so, you know, talking to him, meeting a few people.

And then they just walk you right out and you're in the hearing room.

And I was sitting down and I'm next to someone from the Heritage Foundation who was on the other side of the issue.

And then another gentleman from Mission Readiness, it was called.

So it was a general that was testifying about hunger.

And then there was one other person.

And I had to deliver a speech and I was reading it.

Part of my ADHD is I have a real difficult time reading out loud.

Words run together.

I ignore punctuation.

It's just, it's, it's,

so I was, I was scared to death, but got through it.

But then when the Q ⁇ A started, I was, I was just kind of on a roll and it was great.

After that, though, it was pretty easy because if I'm unscripted and I could just sit in front of someone, I know the material.

I know the issue.

I knew it inside and out.

And there were a few people that I would rely on to make sure I had facts and information current and that was right.

So I think, listen, I think you need to approach members of Congress.

They're people

and they actually want to hear from constituents.

And I mean, listen, did it help that I was pretty well known from Top Chef?

Absolutely.

Also, we shot right before I started doing this, we shot our DC season.

And there was one particular episode where we were shooting in a restaurant and it was all of the, you know, you name it, they were in that room.

And so they knew me from the show.

They all saw the show.

And I remember Nancy Pelosi saying that, you know, she was pretty well known until she did that show.

And then she'd walk down the street and people were like, oh my God, I saw you on Top Chef.

And so, so they were, they were open.

And then, you know, the, but the most help I got was, I think, from Shelly Pingree.

She was a congresswoman from Maine.

And she had this great townhouse on Capitol Hill.

So after we would go up and spend the day, you know, having meetings, we would all go back to her, her house.

And they all thought I was cooking.

Maybe that's why they were coming, but a lot of people would show up and I wasn't cooking.

But what I found really interesting, and I don't know if it would still happen, but back then, I would say two-thirds of the room were Democrats, but there was a third of the room that were Republicans.

They all would hang out afterwards.

You said earlier that the system is working the way it's designed.

Give us that thumbnail.

If you have money, you can enjoy healthy food.

If you don't, you are going to buy food that's as inexpensive as possible.

And typically those things are highly processed, full of fats and sugars, and not very healthy.

So it's, it's, listen, if you want to feed your family healthy food, it's expensive,

much more expensive than buying processed food.

And so that's, that's exactly, so the system is set up that if you have enough money to engage in that system, it's pretty easy.

If you don't, it's hard.

And often, this, I love the way you frame it, that calories are cheap, but nutrition is expensive.

And often this is attributed to personal choice, that people are making bad choices because they want to.

But if you, you know, if you live in

a community with no grocery store, your options rarely include fresh fruits and vegetables and proteins.

If you have a limited budget, processed foods may be the most convenient and accessible option.

And a lot of that's because of our farm policy.

It's also because of zoning.

And so I'd love for you to talk about two things.

One is that while Congress is often the target of conversation, a lot of these choices are made at the state and local level.

Have you had any state and local engagement?

And what did you learn from that process?

Yeah, not as much,

but

you're right.

But also, it's still a matter of money.

When you're talking about food deserts, and that's the picture you're painting, when there's no grocery stores in your neighborhood, it's because they can't make money because

there's fewer people that are spending money there.

And so they leave.

So a great solution to that,

and recently I've heard more people are talking about this, and certain states are talking about this, giving tax breaks to food companies that will come in, supermarkets that will come into these neighborhoods.

And so in a way, they're subsidized.

So that's one way to do it.

There was a lot of great things that were in the farm bill, like Bodegas that didn't have refrigerators, so they couldn't actually put fresh fruits and vegetables.

And there was a provision in the farm bill that would pay for refrigerations if they were to use it for fresh fruits and vegetables in Bodegas, where a lot of people do shop in neighborhoods.

And

so yeah, but

this isn't just an issue of poverty because there's hunger in every single county in this country.

And the difference in America is that it's not like the Sally Shirlers commercials that we grew up on.

It doesn't look like, hunger doesn't look like that in America, right?

It doesn't look like the kids with distended stomachs and flies flying around them.

It doesn't look like that.

It's your neighbor who is struggling.

You know, let's go back to the beginning of the pandemic when we started seeing those lines, those cars that were lined up for miles waiting for food.

I looked at those cars.

They weren't broken down vehicles.

These were BMWs.

These were Mercedes.

These are people who never in a million years thought that they would have to wait online for food.

And so I was hoping, seeing that, that yes, we're going to get through this pandemic, but I was hoping to be more empathy for people who were struggling because those people were struggling too.

And I think there was for a while.

And, you know, I think it's all reverted back to, you know, I have mine and, you know, screw everybody else.

But on the state, on the state level, yes, a lot can be done.

A lot of the money comes from the federal government, but it's actually, you know, especially looking at things like school lunch.

That's a federal pro, it's funded by the federal government, but that's a state-run, county-run, you know, district-run-run program.

And

when you looked at so many governors that weren't taking that additional money

that the Biden administration was giving out, and that's just telling your constituents you don't care for them.

I want to point out that we know that because of the Summer Bucks program, which is the summer EBT program,

we saw what happened during the pandemic when universal school meals were available, when free school lunch was available for all children.

One, it reduced the stigma for kids who needed that meal.

And number two, it increased participation.

And we know that for child hunger, it dropped dramatically.

It was down to like 5.2%.

And this is also because of the child tax credit.

And I'll get to that in a second.

But since the rescission of the child tax credit and the rescission of those programs, child poverty is back up to about 13.7%,

which means there's a direct through line.

And you, in particular, focused during the pandemic on how

and you just laid it out how the cracks in our economic and our social structures were put into sharp relief people in bmws were hungry and it took aggressive policies like the child tax credit like the summer ebt program to help feed children what's the way forward i mean even going further schools in new york city were open for for to feed children and adults and you didn't even have to be in that district you could just stop in.

So there was a massive need, and our government met those needs.

And yet, now that we're through the pandemic, we still have needs.

And

there's a part of the government that just decides that this isn't something that they care about.

It's just mean and cruel, which

I can never wrap my head around.

I just can't.

It's always like, well, they don't see the issue unless it actually affects them.

And the second it affects them,

then maybe it's an issue.

But hunger is one of those things where there's no member of Congress that's hungry either and children are hungry.

Maybe some members of Congress

in their past, they were hungry.

I know Jasmine Crockett talks about it.

A few other people do.

But for the most part, these aren't people that experienced hunger.

And so they just don't have the empathy for it.

And they just blame people.

So what's really interesting, so you look at soda, right?

Now, obviously, it's not healthy and it's not something that we want to feed our children.

But if you're growing up in poverty and you're saying no to your kid all the time, you're saying no to, you know, buying something in the supermarket, they see a piece of candy or something like that.

You're saying no to sneakers that they want.

You're saying no to a winter coat.

You're saying no all the time.

And now you can say yes to something that's really inexpensive.

Well, you're going to say yes.

But it's so easy to blame and point the finger.

It's just not as simple as people want to make it out to be.

You know, you're a parent.

You want to say yes to your kid.

You really do.

Not being able to put food on a table and saying no to a kid who wants something that you should should be able to afford, you know, the psyche of that parent just has to be crushed if that's the case.

And

I grew up in a household.

My father was a corrections officer.

He also had a gambling addiction.

So there was often times where, say, there wasn't food on the table, there were times it wasn't great.

They had to say no a lot.

My mother had to say no a lot to me.

I grew up in a, you know, in a two-bedroom apartment with two brothers.

We shared a bedroom.

And so there was no a lot, but nowhere near as close as some people, people who lived in poverty.

And so I can only imagine how it affects these children.

So what role, I mean, you talk about the fact that you and Lori, Lori was mentoring this young woman and you all took it upon yourselves to help navigate that space for her.

We have, you know, we've got Republicans, Democrats, Independents who live in these communities.

And

what role should community members, whether they have kids in the school system or not, what role should they play in this work?

You have the floor.

Tell them what to do.

Yeah.

So what I find really interesting is that you're seeing food banks that are playing this role.

I was just in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and we were doing a book event, but it was in a food bank.

And I met with some of the leaders of the community and people who were running the food bank.

And that's something they really talked about is that they were offering,

besides food, they were making sure people were signed up for SNAP.

They were making sure that not only if they were signed up for SNAP, they were signed up for other benefits they can get.

And so the communities are really taking an interest.

They also have tax planners, people who, who, because they still got to file taxes, people who don't file taxes.

So there are people there during tax season to make sure that they're filing.

So that's a community effort coming together and providing services that normally you have to buy

are often difficult to navigate.

And they're helping other community members navigate that.

So I think that's something that if you have these skills, if you're an accountant, yeah, you can actually give back.

If you are just someone who can actually work through filling out a complicated bunch of paperwork, you can sit next to someone and walk them through it.

So, there's a lot that you can do.

That's amazing.

So, during the pandemic, one of your other many, many hats was that you helped organize your colleagues to work on ways to keep restaurants afloat.

And that was as much about providing jobs and wages for those folks who were on the margins, as well as providing food and access.

So, how was your mission to rescue restaurants during COVID part of the same fight for food and justice and for access?

A little different.

We looked at it as a way, you know, made the argument that restaurants,

the majority of the money that we take in goes out.

If we're lucky, we keep 10%.

If we're good, we keep 10%.

So look who's the benefit of that money.

It's fishermen, it's farmers.

It's electricians, it's plumbers who come and prepare our restaurant, people who work on HVAC, plus our employees.

And so what we wanted to do is make sure that when the pandemic was over, that we had restaurants for people to go to.

Also, there's a,

you can make an argument for safe neighborhoods.

When a restaurant is open, the lights are on until late at night, that neighborhood's safer.

And so what happened, restaurants were closed.

And so we formed the Independent Restaurant Coalition, specifically to focus on independent restaurants.

I wish we actually embedded a writer because the story was really amazing that.

starting with a group of maybe 13 people that expanded out to

probably 250 people.

There were Zoom calls twice a day.

We had one friend who

his company had a foundation and wanted to help, and we put that money to work to hire lobbyists and a comms team.

And within one year, we successfully lobbied the government to give us $48.6 billion to keep our restaurants afloat, which is a story.

You know how government works.

That's next to impossible.

In fact, the lobbyists that helped us,

they got so much pushback from other people that they represented saying, why can't you do for us what you're doing for them?

And they were like, listen, we're not really doing it.

They are.

The success of it was that, again, being able to talk to both sides.

I was on Fox News as much as I was on MSNBC.

And we made that argument about how this keeps communities safe and keeps other people in business.

This money wasn't just coming to us.

But we were also people like me and Andrew Zimmern, who have, you know, we were on national spots, you know, national TV, but every single one of these chefs, they all have media training.

They know how to get a message across.

That's what they do in the restaurants.

They were going on local TV.

So we just, the amount of earned media that we were able to receive with the IRC was probably billions of dollars.

And it kept a lot of restaurants, a lot of restaurants going.

The only unfortunate part of it was we actually needed twice as much money.

Yeah.

And we thought.

that there'd be a second bite at the apple, but with inflation, that quickly closed.

So there were some restaurants that were left out.

But then the beauty of the way we wrote our bill

was that

veterans, women, and minorities got first crack of the money.

Yeah.

Until Steve Miller sued us.

Yes.

Yeah.

And then that all changed.

Yeah.

Well, he's such a great guy.

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I'm going to put you on, nephew.

All right, um.

Welcome to McDonald's.

Can I take your order?

Miss, I've been hitting up McDonald's for years.

Now it's back.

We need snack wraps.

What's a snack wrap?

It's the return of something great.

Snack wrap is back.

Well, you came out of that, out of the pandemic, having been part of leading this extraordinary rescue.

And then you wrote your memoir, Why I Cook, which is incredible.

So can you talk a bit about what led you to write your story at this moment?

So I owed my publisher a book for 17 years.

That would do it.

That would do it.

And I really, I really tried hard not to write a book.

I didn't know if I had anything to say.

You know,

I also don't like the process.

I don't love the process.

And

it was during the pandemic, I was doing a lot of cooking Zoom classes for clients, corporate clients, and other people would contact us and they were trying to keep their teams together and this was a way to do it.

And, you know, I would do about 20 minutes of cooking and 40 minutes of

talking.

And the question would always come up, when did you start cooking?

Why do you cook?

And at first, I just started kind of giving my usual answer,

you know, about cooking at a child and blah, blah, blah.

But then I really started to think about moments that were really important to me growing up.

And I noticed they all revolved around food.

And a lot of them revolved around my grandfather and fishing.

My grandfather taught me to fish at a young age, mostly crabbing and clamming.

He was a decent fisherman.

And so at a very young age, I had two jobs when we went fishing.

One was

I had to clean all the fish and crabs and clams to get them ready for my grandmother and mother to cook.

So I had a knife in my hand at a very young age.

I was about, I was probably six years old, seven years old.

And my second job was to keep my grandfather awake on the ride home.

And it was about an hour and a half ride home.

And this was the 70s.

So I was in the front seat.

I'm sure I didn't have a seatbelt on.

My grandfather was a chain smoker, but no one seemed to care back then.

And

so that was, but the meals that were created from these clams and these crabs and these fish, and because we caught so much, it wasn't just immediate family.

This was family and friends and 20 and 30 people.

And there's these big summer and these meals.

And so I kept thinking, like, is this why I cook?

And I love doing dinner parties.

And so is it the idea that bringing people around a table, to me, I think was why I did it.

Much more important than the food that you're cooking.

It's who's there, what you're talking about.

You know, and I remember as a kid hearing, you know, it was first, it was always the fishing stories about the big one that got away, of course, and then family gossip.

But then there was a lot of talk about politics and a lot of talk about just what was happening in the world.

And I found it all really fascinating and interesting.

And so

I started thinking, is that why I do it?

And then there was another story that I kept telling me that really kind of cooking saved my life.

I mean, after self-medicating when I was comforting myself through

drugs,

and then really at one point realizing if I really want to push this career as far as I want to take it, I have to stop doing this.

So I could say cooking maybe kept me from an addiction.

I don't know if I had an addiction, but certainly what I was doing could have led to one.

There were very addictive drugs that I was doing.

And so so maybe that's it.

And

so there's a lot of reasons why I cook.

It's not just one answer.

And as thinking about this stuff, and I thought, okay, maybe it's time to write a memoir.

I wanted to tell this entire story, not just part of it, not just the part that everybody knows,

not the guy they see on Top Chef.

There's much more to it.

Well, we are grateful for that story.

being in the world in part because the point of this podcast is for me to help people understand that what you do and what you are can be so many more things.

And you are known as

this extraordinary chef and as this

just remarkable spokesperson, but you are also this very fierce advocate.

And those things can coexist.

You are also one of my dream guests for this podcast because hunger and food policy and food systems are a key issue for me.

Last question for you.

So you, as I said, are one of my dream guests.

Who is the dream guest you haven't been able to snag yet for top chef?

As though anybody would say no to you, but here's your chance to pitch.

That's a good question.

I don't know.

I mean, all the chefs that I want on pretty much have been on, and maybe a few that haven't been.

I don't know.

I really don't.

You should come on.

You should do the show.

How's that?

Okay.

Okay.

No takebacks.

Absolutely.

So here's the thing.

We we have to get to Atlanta.

And before we're in Atlanta, you're it.

I'm on.

Okay, this has made this whole show worth doing.

This has been such a pleasure.

Thank you so much, Tom Calicchio, for spending time with us here on Assembly Required.

You are amazing.

Pleasure is all mine.

Thank you.

As you know, I love taking on audience questions.

And today we have one from David Reed from rural Oregon, who listens to the pod while on his tractor.

And he's concerned about our response to the next pandemic.

David writes, my main focus is how to protect my family for the next four years, specifically regarding the proposed oversight and administration of the CDC and FDA.

What does the potential appointment of Robert Kennedy mean to our critical government agencies?

Will I be able to trust the information provided by the new administration?

Will there be vaccines this time?

What are the governmental safeguards in place for the American people?

Are Americans going to be left to fend for themselves?

David, thank you for a very thoughtful and I think timely question.

We know that in Florida recently there was a measles outbreak.

And the current surgeon general in Florida essentially does not believe in vaccines and in fact

encouraged parents not to respond to the measles outbreak in the way that public health administrations have long advised, which is if your children children aren't vaccinated, keep them out of school.

He said, do what you want.

We are about to face a similar situation from the new potential head of health and human services, Robert Kennedy, who is an avowed opponent to vaccines.

But there's good news and there's reasons to be concerned.

Let's start with the good news.

One of the benefits of bureaucracy is how slow it is to change.

And that is especially true when it comes to places like the CDC and the FDA.

So the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration.

Most of the employees of the CDC and the FDA are not political appointees.

They are civil servants who have the training and the longevity to adapt to the leadership of each administration without compromising the science.

And I know this because I checked in with my younger sister who used to work for the CDC.

As she pointed out, almost everyone she worked with, they had degrees in public health and epidemiology and food science.

They know their stuff.

And until this administration unfortunately attempts to weed out all knowledge, we have the protection of really smart people who've been doing this work for years, and they don't intend to stop just because the new chair and the new head and the new secretary may tell them to.

More importantly, let's remember, they all have a vested interest in getting this right.

But one big change, and this goes to our challenges, is that unlike years past, when the president just picked who he wanted to head the CDC,

as of now, the head of the CDC will have to be confirmed by the U.S.

Senate.

This change takes effect in 2025, and it has, like everything else, its pros and its cons.

On the plus side, the head of the CDC will now be equivalent to other agencies in HHS, like the head of the FDA, where confirmation is already required.

The CDC was one of the few agencies under the purview of the Health and Human Services Department that didn't require confirmation.

The upside now is that we're going to know who's getting that job and it will be public, the process to make that person the head of the CDC.

The downside is that this job is about to be even further politically polarized.

And we saw what happened the last time Trump was in office and the CDC was in question.

However,

we also know that what we saw during the pandemic tells us a bit about what is to come.

Scientists will always find a way to tell us what they know.

But what's critical is that we understand that these federal employees have a direct effect on state and local policymakers.

So while we're focused on what's happening under the Trump administration, we have to pay attention to what's happening in our cities, in our counties, what's happening in our school systems, because state and local policymakers take their direction from our federal health agencies.

So we have to enlist our local leaders to be champions for good information.

The other reality though is leadership does matter.

Robert F.

Kennedy Jr.

will be able to spread propaganda and misinformation and malinformation without the normal constraints, except for the ones that we put in place for ourselves.

And that is why these conversations and questions like these are so important.

In years past, we could count on, at least to a pretty significant degree, that the government would try to do its best job.

But as David, you point out in your question, we're going to have to fend for ourselves, but we're not in this alone.

Our obligation will be to learn to vet our sources of information, to be trusted purveyors of good information.

That means not sharing everything you see or hear until you've proven that you're right.

And if you want good tips on this, I encourage you to go back to our earlier episode on disinformation with the Sosa Osa of Onyx Impact.

And lastly, we're going to use this space, this pod, to break down attacks on our health and safety and to give you the tools to respond, especially to crises when they arise or when we can see what's coming.

So, David, I hope this gives you a little bit of comfort, if not just a call to action.

But for everyone else, know that we'll be answering more of your questions in the weeks to come, either here on the show or as an entire standalone episode.

So please keep sharing and insisting on more from me and from our fellow Americans and anyone listening from elsewhere.

I see you, Bulgaria.

Each week we want to leave the audience with a new way to act against what can feel inevitable, an opportunity to make a difference and a way to get involved or just get started on working on a solution in a segment we like to call our toolkit.

At Assembly Required, we encourage the audience to be curious, solve problems, and do good, which is what we heard Tom Colicchio talk to us about today.

So let's start with being curious.

You can watch his documentary, A Place at the Table on YouTube.

The issues raised and the calls to action remain top of mind and can expand your understanding of what's taking place.

Fortunately, there are also many organizations that are working on solutions.

Visit doubleupamerica.org and see if you live in one of the 25 states that have programs to double a family's food stamps at farmers markets.

If If not, you can contact the organization to begin working on bringing it to your state.

And make sure you share information about what you learn on your socials.

As Tom and I discussed, we can't always tell who is hungry and who's struggling, so spread what you know and share information.

If you want information on where your state is on universal school meals or summer lunches for kids known as Sunbucks, check out the website for Food Research and Action Center, frac.org/slash health school meals meals for all.

They have a get involved section where you can get in touch with your state legislators and let them know how much you care about this issue.

If you want to help mitigate the effects of food deserts in your community, look into mobile produce trucks.

You can support the eco-friendly Mobile Farm Stand Project, which provides urban farmers with electric mobile farm stands to deliver their produce in neighborhoods that need it.

They need donations, support with buying the trucks, and help finding urban farmers that might be interested.

Visit efmfsp.com to learn how to help.

If you want to ask us a question or suggest a topic for us to cover, send us an email at assemblyrequired at crooked.com or leave us a voicemail and you and your questions and comments might be featured on the pod.

Our number is 213-293-9509.

That wraps up this episode of Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams.

I'll meet you here next week.

Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams is a crooked media production.

Our lead show producer is Alona Minkowski and our associate producer is Paulina Velasco.

Kirill Polaviev is our video producer.

This episode was recorded and mixed by Evan Sutton.

Our theme song is by Vasilius Vitopoulos.

Thank you to Matt DeGroote, Kyle Seglund, Tyler Boozer, and Samantha Slossberg for production support.

Our executive producers are Katie Long, Madeline Herringer, Herringer, and me, Stacey Aprils.

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