September 11 Stories: Food, Memories, and Healing After 9/11, Patriot Day

Hello everybody.

Welcome back to another episode of Family Tree Food and Stories, the podcast where

food meets family meets memory meets.

Well, all things delicious and a little bit more intriguing or

a little intriguing at times.

If you tuned in last week, you heard our conversation about food crimes.

Yeah, right.

Food is usually comforting, but sometimes in the wrong hands.

Well, you get the picture, but today Sylvie and I are pausing

for a different kind of story.

This is a special edition.

It was on September 11th in 2001 that our world changed overnight.

I don't think any of us can actually ever get that out of our mind.

Those of us who experienced it as buildings fell, we stood up and we

united and vowed never to forget.

The great thing is that the rest of the world did the same with us too.

Stories emerged of neighbors helping neighbors.

And strangers coming together to share grief and well yes food too.

Chefs, churches, community groups all stepped in.

Chefs like Ruth Reel who organized cornbread suppers for first responders

and those who had been displaced.

Their message was clear.

Food isn't just sustenance for the body, it's sustenance for the soul.

Yeah.

. You know, and it's all about these memories.

And some of us have stories to tell about what we were doing on nine 11.

I just happened to have one.

It is food related.

. It was one of the most beautiful days in Kentucky in September.

We get some really great weather blue skies.

Gorgeous.

I was taking my mother home during her final illness to her birthplace.

It's about 80 miles from Lexington West Liberty, Kentucky, just

the tiniest place on earth.

The kind of place where at the courthouse, the old fellas show

up, , and trade tales and stories.

And we stopped at the only fast food place in town.

It may have been the only real restaurant.

It was McDonald's, and it so happened that Ronald.

Ronald McDonald was making an appearance as a promotional event.

I hope that he had someone to show him out of there how he could get home, but

he would never know how special that visit with Ronald McDonald was to this woman

in the final days of, , serious illness.

And, I'll always remember that.

And I think you've got a story about your dad on nine 11.

Well, you have a picture of your mom actually taken with Ronald

Yeah, I've gotta try to find that.

You know, moving is, is tough, Nancy, you lose all kinds of stuff, right?

But you have the memories, which is good.

. Nine 11,, I remember it very clearly myself.

It was a gorgeous day up in Westport, Connecticut, and I was driving

to a meeting to meet a friend and all of a sudden I'm hearing

some chatter going on on the car radio and couldn't figure it out.

Well, when we got to her place, then we realized exactly what was going on, but.

The thing that we don't realize or we don't remember and we probably didn't

remember at the time, is that September 11th is actually called Patriot Stay here

in the United States, and my dad was a true red, white and blue American patriot.

In fact, he changed the name of his company to May USA.

He designed

eyeglass

frames, but that's probably for another story.

It's not a food related story,

It's beautiful though.

Right.

But as he was passing, and we have this particular story in our second

show that was released when, so you can go back and listen to it,

but he asked for clam chowder on those final moments just before he

passed.

So nine 11 I think of clam chowder and dad as well and good old red, white, and blue.

Nothing more American than well, new England clam chat.

Well maybe fried chicken, beef.

You're from the south, right?

Yeah, well, it's kind of a neat little partnership here.

I'm Ronald McDonald, and you're clam chowder.

I like that.

Yeah,

our memories come in all , sizes, shapes, and kinds of food, right?

absolutely.

But today we're reflecting, let's go back to that Patriot Day in a proclaimed

National Day of Service and Reflection.

Now, it's not a national holiday.

Businesses are open, but it is a call to, more than two decades later.

To do something that matters, , to honor those who gave their lives

were displaced and to honor people today, our armed forces and our first

responders, and all people in need.

And that's why that day has become a space for healing, resilience, and connection.

And it's often about serving and providing food.

And, you know, Nancy, in a time that we call the age of

Loneliness, it's really heartening.

To see at the local level what so many communities are quietly

gathering together and giving.

I liken them to earthworms.

You know, I can never stop talking about earthworms.

You know that about me.

I'm gonna do a show someday on earthworms.

We bug

You Know, we did a bug show, now we need earthworms.

But they burrow under the ground and they create a new soil so that our food

continues to be grown in this new soil.

And that's what people are doing in their local homegrown groups.

, Absolutely.

Partially, our job here is to make sure that the good works and efforts are

known about because family tree, food and stories isn't just about family

because people that you care about.

That is your family.

for you, our listeners, we wanna make sure that you know what else is going on

around the country and maybe even around the world as it relates to nine 11 days.

And remembrance when it brings people together, food brings people

together in the most profound ways.

Now, here's a couple of examples that we have found.

. Take for example, the organization nine 11 Day that was started by families who

were directly affected by the attacks.

Each year, they host services and events across the country where thousands

of volunteers assemble meals from one another and for people in need.

As an example, rice, beans, dried vegetables and seasonings are

all packed in together for hunger relief., Food is given to food

banks throughout the country.

, What better way to help somebody with, an extra little lift . and the Philadelphia

Eagles are doing something as well.

They've done this for a number of years.

They put together 2000 volunteers that come together with Feed America and they

pack 700,000 meals for people in need.

I think that's just a beautiful way of touching the heart and the

soul , from the stomach to the head, to the heart to the soul.

I guess they look at it right.

Yeah.

, Also just coincidentally , September is Hunger Action Month.

It is a perfect setting for this with those, all those volunteers.

Now, , you can do us corporate sponsorships with nine 11 day, but

I think what we are interested in.

A lot of those things take place in big cities like Philadelphia, but you know,

Nancy, what's going on at the local level?

, Our listeners live in these local places, maybe not as small as West Liberty,

Kentucky, but they live in smaller places.

, What can go on there?

I was more in tune to what was happening up north when we lived there.

Here we're still sort of getting our feet in the ground with the community,

and I think because we were so close to New York, we saw the impact

personally , in very different ways than.

People further away, like in Florida, they didn't necessarily see what was

happening unless you had family up there.

But who knew that this was gonna happen?

, And when it comes with bringing people together in, in the big cities,

it's really the smaller cities, like you said, that has the ability to

have, I think, even greater impact.

It's not just not-for-profits, but it's local restaurants that are now offering

discount meals to first responders, not just on Patriot's Day, but even year

round, and offering this kind of, I don't say discount, but really just a

gesture of kindness and appreciation.

Is a gratitude that has continued to live on.

But what about other individuals at ground level in other parts of the country?

What's happening where you are, Sylvia?

. Gosh.

You know, this has been an awakening for me, and we're gonna get into this in a

minute, this whole cornbread thing, but, you know, think about organized visits

to nursing homes and bringing food.

, When I conduct stories telling classes for,, the elderly in those

homes,, it's always about food.

Their recipes and all of that kind of thing.

So it is so neat.

, what, what we wanna talk about is what's happened in the decade since, and I

got a couple of things to add to that.

Including the fact that Rona Roberts here in Lexington.

Conducted cornbread, suppers, for several years, I don't think she does them now,

but you could come into her home on a Sunday evening, bring a dish like the

things that go with cornbread, right?

Beans, chili, all of those kind of comforty foods we could

add to the list all day long.

But they would come to her home and so, , that's brought something.

New in my mind, , our restaurant used to serve cornbread and we stopped doing

it because we thought, Hmm, you know, maybe it's kind of a restaurant that

appeals to like the Keeneland crowd and that's the racetrack here in Lexington.

And now I'm looking back on how important cornbread is and just, the

little bit of a background on that.

After nine 11, Ruth Reel organized her gourmet staff.

She was the executive CEOI and a food critic and a chef.

, Just after nine 11 in the Times Square Kitchens, they showed up in Force.

Cornbread was a prominent , presence there along with other comfort foods

such as chili, lasagna, brownies.

Oh, my.

Goodness.

Sound good.

They became symbolic, a simple, powerful act of love and togetherness, and I

love this quote from Ruth, chef Ruth.

We were hoping to snatch hope from the rubble of our broken city, and

food was the perfect way to do it.

Wow.

That makes so much sense, Comfort food, particularly cornbread represents

resilience and community and it's rooted so deeply in the story of

America and cornbread is woven into so many American traditions from Native

American communities to the south and to Appalachia kitchens everywhere.

It's humble, it's.

Adaptable, and more importantly, it's shared.

You cannot have a piece of cornbread without being with somebody else.

I'm convinced, and you know, even in New England, there's something about

cornbread that I think just SOPs up the soul when you need it the most.

Right?

That's Right?

But, some interesting facts.

Native American cornbread consisted of cornmeal salt water, and was referred

to by many settlers as P. PONE described by one Southerner as a hillbilly.

Talk for pan.

? Like po bread versus pan bread?

I had a southern friend and she would say, I need a pan.

Do you need a pen?

Do you need a pan?

That was Charlotte like so we laughed about that one.

It's like pan.

No, not a pan.

It's a pan.

Okay.

We cut off the subject a little bit, but as you're writing down

stories, you kind of need that pen.

But we involved a cornmeal with eggs, oil, and milk, and some would

say an essential to cornbread.

Cookery is the iron cast skillet with bacon grease and corn

kernels, and sometimes buttermilk.

But the northern version tends to be a little sweeter, and I couldn't figure

out what the difference was, but now I know is yeah, it tastes like sugary,

more like a cake a flour and one half cornmeal.

So the north is the yellow and the south is the white with.

The real southern cornbread and recipes, baked, fried, a big fried stir.

I guess you gotta stir your cornbread before you bake it, right?

So it's personal, but it's part of the family heritage that seems

to pass down from grandma to great grandma or great grandma to

grandma, to mom, to hopefully us.

And and it's just something that says home and love as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, that's right,.

Like what Rona Roberts did.

, So special, and I gotta tell you that this gave me an idea.

Since we reopened the restaurant on Memorial Day weekend, we've had

so many requests for the cornbread.

Now, the bread we're serving.

Very tasty, but it's not cornbread.

I mean, these are people who are the trainers from the racetrack and , CEOs

and people, and they want the cornbread.

So here's my idea

Let's stop a second.

We're gonna take a break ' cause we wanna tell people a little bit more

about what other things are going on and then we'll share your idea.

Stay tuned.

Okay.

Sylvia, I broke you mid idea here.

That's okay.

I could talk about it all day long, so interrupt me whenever

but you know what?

It's, we're breaking cornbread, so why not?

But anyway, , what we did, , we opened a Memorial Day weekend.

People kept asking again for the cornbread and we're like, uh, you know, , we

had gone traditional, regular bread is very good, but it was regular bread.

And the cornbread that our chef made was so delicious.

It had corn kernels in it and also had sour cream.

Which adds a flavoring to, cornbread.

Again, , and, and you add to that a ham, hock, fried potatoes, brown beans,

, just all day long you could do that.

But one story is especially close to my heart.

my dad didn't cook much.

He was a factory worker and he worked all night and, slept most of the day.

But when he did cook.

It was cornbread, and I remember him pulling out this

enormous cast iron skillet.

Now, I regret to this day that in the ensuing moves of

my life, I didn't save that.

I didn't really assign the value to it that it deserved.

but it seemed huge.

And he would melt the butter, like, I mean, I'm sure, a stick of butter.

And he'd pour it in the batter and he'd bake it until it turned golden and crisp.

Oh, those crisp edges.

'cause they were just butter filled edges.

And I would sneak and take some of the edges off.

I'm surprised it got by with that.

but , that was long before nine 11, but he was onto something, wasn't he?

I should have paid more attention.

And as, George Bernard Shaw said, youth is wasted on the young.

I didn't get it at the time.

. It was wonderful.

And, and what we're gonna do is we're gonna serve cornbread

at the restaurant on nine 11.

Along with discounts for the wonderful people who give so much of themselves,

the first responders in all of that.

But we're gonna serve that cornbread, probably not quite as buttery as my dad.

Well add a lot of sour cream though, right?

Well, you can always add some extra butter on top.

I don't know about you, but when I eat cornbread, I gotta have.

A good like slab of butter on top

of it as well.

That's, yeah.

It's like, you know, one slab of butter for the cornbread and

one slab of butter for each side of the thighs, so,

Yeah.

Yeah, And . I actually use buttermilk in mine, and , and I guess that was my dad.

He always used buttermilk too.

It's just a little bit of a different flavor.

You know, I have to say, I haven't.

I shouldn't say haven't made cornbread, but , they come in a little Jiffy box

and it's not quite the same because it doesn't have the granularly.

I like the, the cornbread that has like the.

It's grainy.

Right?

And when we came down here, there was some sort of local street fair or street event,

and we met, one of the local farmers, a a fellow who's, I'm drawing a blank

in his name on right now, but his wife had some sort of device, old fashioned

device that was taking the carnals.

Off the corn, you stick it in and it sort of, it had like a handle

and it was almost like, it, well, it, it was a de kernel, I guess you

call it first as a knife cutting it

off.

But they were dried corn pieces she said, this is how you get

the best kernels for cornbread.

And then it grinds it up.

So that was kind of interesting.

I learned old fashioned Florida pioneer

Yeah.

making kernel things.

Yeah.

There's so much for technical stuff, right?

But we also talked about nine 11 was a little bit more about preserving things,

preserving memories and soul and stuff.

And at one point, I know we had talked a little bit about canning,

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And now, I will have to tell you, when we moved his kids , from Long

Island to Massachusetts, my mom and dad and I, we didn't know at the

time were in some sort of tough.

Financial strain because of business aspects that were going on.

It all worked out in the end, which is a good thing.

But Mom decided that she was going to learn to, can

Mm-hmm.

I call it a canning?

Because they're bottles, right.

You know, the jar things from, , all the stuff that dad had made in the garden.

So , my mom had a pressure cooker, but it was the kind of pressure

cooker that if you like didn't do it right, it would explode.

I was scared to death after that experience with mom in the kitchen.

I would say there is no way on earth I ever want to can anything,

but my sister does it all the time.

She preserves this thing and that thing they actually can meat.

Have you ever heard of that?

I would thought they would dry meat, but yeah, I imagine.

I just had never heard of that.

'cause I come from a canning background.

yeah.

Never heard of it,

I never heard of that either.

So vegetables and

all sorts of salsa that they do and soups and broth and everything

because they have cattle.

So , you slaughter a cattle and , there goes bubba the cow into the can.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm not going to my sister's house when I know the

name of her cattle, so, no.

Thank you very much.

Well, we're gonna be doing a show on, , the fall coming, the fall is

coming right on the heels of nine 11., Then it starts up here anyway, and I,

I'll be interested to know more about what happens in Florida in the fall.

' cause we don't think you have seasons, but you probably know you do.

we do, it gets cold down here.

It'll drop

into the thirties, so , it does get cold.

And , the leaves kind of, well, they turn, turn.

Colors . But, , we'll do one in the fall and I, before we, we wrap up, , talking

about sharing and Patriots Day and everything else, we had some guests

over this weekend, I have to laugh because I'm thinking, all right, family

tree, food and stories, what have we done that I couldn't make for our

guests that might surprise them now?

We had just finished recording the bug show and releasing

the bug show, so I thought,

Oh,

oh, do I serve some cockroaches, fried crushes?

No.

I thought that was kind of pushing it a little too much,

Mm-hmm.

so I decided to make an apple pie, but in this case, it was a zapp.

And remember, , we did this show on leave a zucchini on your neighbor's porch day.

Well, in the summertime you don't have zucchini down here in Florida

because the growing season in the summertime is just too hot for that.

It's really the fall and the springtime.

They have the growing season.

but zucchini comes in from other parts of the country.

So I made a zappo pie.

There's one caveat to that.

I am terrible at reading recipe instructions,

so.

As I made it all together, I thought I was doing great.

Bob said, you didn't read the instructions?

I said, yeah, I did.

I kind of glossed over them.

He said, you're supposed to peel the zucchini so there's no green on it.

You're supposed to take the seeds out.

He read the instructions so that it looks like apples.

Well, I left the green on, I left the seeds in and it was a green zapple pie.

Hmm, hmm.

It was actually very good.

And one of the, one of our guests said, man, you have balls to serve

this to guests at your party.

And what did I say and what did I respond?

That's just one of your many talents.

Let him swing.

But in any case, we did have some backup because Bob made homemade ice cream.

So we had the backup and that went very well with the zapple pie.

I'm gonna try it again on a smaller scale where it's you.

The green has taken off and it actually looks like apples.

But it did taste like that.

Well, it, it had the consistency of apples.

So

that said, zapple pie, you can try it, but please peel the green off.

So nobody thinks that they're eating squash pie.

It's kind of weird looking.

, The brain and the taste didn't kind of work together.

So anyway,

but they might have thought it was, uh, avocados or something.

You know, that's the rage.

I,

yeah.

Avocados are the rage, right?

Well, avocados are the trending rage, but yeah.

So nine 11 rituals, love and caring for people, whether it's on nine 11 or not.

But remember, it's a time to share and show your appreciation for people

who you care about, and even those that you don't necessarily know.

It's a day of commemoration, a day.

We wish peace and comfort and connection.

For all of you.

And remember, food is more than what it is on your plate.

It brings us together in so many ways.

Yeah, and come to Azure for cornbread on nine 11.

we'll be back next week with more stories and that from Family

Tree Food and Stories of course.

. So before we go, food is all about sharing, right, Sylvia?

That's right about sharing.

. That makes it so much better.

Right.

It makes it taste better.

And on that note, we'd like to ask you to share these stories and the

show with your friends and family.

And you know what?

Maybe even bring him around the , dinner table to talk about it as well, because

there's a lot of information here that you might be surprised about.

In fact, the other day some listener reached out to me

and said, , Yogi is his name.

He's out in Arizona and Yogi said, you know, I learned so much from your shows.

So thank you, Yogi.

Shout out to you in Phoenix, Arizona.

I appreciate you and we appreciate you, and please share it with

friends and family because.

Every meal has a story and every story is a feast.

We'll see you soon and we'll hear you soon.

Bye-bye.

bye.