We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These words from the Declaration of Independence are familiar to many of us, and yet it took 143 years for women to get the right to vote and 189 years for black people to get the right to vote. And still today, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are still only words for many people. Here in Boston, life expectancy varies by 30 years, depending on where you live. In Roxbury, with many poor and black people, life expectancy is 59 years. In the back bay, wealthy and mostly white, life expectancy is 91 years. It's tough to have liberty when you are in prison. The United States incarcerates 716 people for every 100,000 people. Our rate of incarceration is more than five times higher than most countries in the world. Millions of people in our country don't have health care, a decent job, good education, a home they can't afford, and that makes it pretty hard to pursue happiness.  People today who are making the words of the Declaration of Independence come true. Hello, welcome to We Hold These Truths. My name is Michael Jacoby Brown, and we're very blessed and honored to have as our host today Ron Bell, the founder of Dunk the Vote, an important voter registration and voter turnout organization that works on civic engagement in the Greater Boston Area. Welcome, Ron. We're really glad to see you today, and I'd like you to say something about where you grew up and what that was like for you growing up here in Boston. Sure. First of all, thank you, Michael, for having me as a guest on We Hold These Truths. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to hold a lot of them true, but we got to keep on striving and keep pushing until we get the prize. But I grew up in Boston's Mission Hill neighborhood, which is a sub neighborhood of Roxbury. My mom and dad, my mom was a community activist and also worked with young people in the Boston Public Schools as a bus monitor, and my father was a welder and a baker, as well as a veteran. And it was interesting, we had three boys and three girls that grew up in the house, and many people referred to us as the Brady Bunch, but we were the Bell Bunch. And it was so, we were very fortunate to grow up in a neighborhood that was rich in diversity. It had a mixed housing stock and a concentration of institution. We had black, white Latinos, everything in between growing up. It was like a bowl of salad. So at an early age, we were able to get the education of folks from different cultures, Mission Park, one of the best neighborhoods to grow up in, which is a part of Boston's Mission Hill. Fast forward, I was able to attend Boston Latin School. Unfortunately, it was during the tough time in the city of Boston, very turbulent times. The bussing of the 70s where blacks and whites were going at each other. And I can remember vividly being called the inward at one of the oldest public schools in the country by a teacher. I was called the inward and I never forget that moment because here I am at a school that I didn't really want to go to. My mom really was adamant about me getting a good education and going to an exam school. And during the time that I was accepted into Boston Latin School was right during the time of the affirmative action. And during that time, blacks were able to get in pretty much like leveling the playing field. And so I thought that I was one of the affirmative action young people as a student. Man, for the number of years, I felt that way until 40 years later, I was a part of a group called the Black Alumni Advisory Committee for Boston Latin School, which are black alumni who came back to deal with a racist incident in the Boston Latin School by two girls, Maggie, Noel, and Kylie, two young black girls who really exposed the racism there. And at that moment, you know, I went back to the time I was called the inward. And one of the lessons I learned, Michael, is that you can't put a band-aid on racism. You know, whenever you encounter racial action, you know, even in this moment, in this pandemic with George Floyd, I still remember being called the inward.  I remember that being spit on going to Cub Scout singing My Liberty, My Country's Tears of These Sweet Land of Liberty. And I'm on this show. We hold these truths.  So when we fast forward, as my life growing up, I've always been one to fight for racial equality, social justice.  And we're in the gym where my mother's organizing a neighborhood where we eventually lived in. So I know I'm jumping back and forth, but this is a part of my journey. And my journey has become my vocation, fighting for road of registration, fighting for social equality, and fighting for education and economic opportunities for black people in particular. And I say that because as an African descendant of slaves, I feel we always get the short end of the stick. You know, when you look at Boston, you look at disparities, which was pointed out in the intro there, the average network of a black family $8 compared to a white family $257,000. I thought that number was like, did they make it up? But anyway, you know, so I continue to fight. And as my journey going to RTH, as my journey becoming the Youth Director, becoming the Youth Council President at the age of 16, and then becoming the Youth Director of an organization my mom founded, I am very proud to say that I have continued her legacy. My dad was more or less like George Jefferson and Fred Sanford, who had the community laughing. I guess he worked so many hours working two full time job, he had nothing else to do but make us laugh and take care of his family.  I want to make sure I don't want to take up the whole time. That's great. I mean, I know you were the youngest director of the Mission Hill Community Center. And I know that was during the time of the murder where a white man murdered his wife and said falsely that it had been a black man, the so-called Stuart Case. I wonder if you can talk about what your experience was like then in Mission Hill as the youngest director of the Mission Hill Community Center and what you learned from that. Yeah. Well, you know, interesting after leaving the Roxburyton-Sahabah Youth Director, I became the Assistant Director at Mission Hill Community Center, which only lasted about six months. And then I actually was initiated in to the Executive Director with the Stuart tragedy when a pregnant white woman, as you mentioned, Mike, was allegedly killed by an African-American male. There was an all-off hunt for black men. Now, mind you, I'm just becoming the director and the youngest director at the age of 26. And, you know, having 80 staff servicing a thousand people a day, it was really a major challenge. But I'm proud that I was able to handle it. But I remember vividly, Michael, seeing black men being strip searched right in front of the center. And I was walking down Tremont Street, which is where the Tobu Community Center is located in Mission Hill. And I see these black men with their pants pulled down, some laid on the ground in front of the center. I remember turning around because I did not want to be subjected to that as a new director because it wasn't like it didn't matter if you was Executive Director. It didn't matter if you had a pseudo time. It didn't matter if you was a doctor or lawyer. It was a bad time, a terrible turbulent time in the city of Boston. And I felt helpless at that moment. But I realized in order to exact punishment on elected officials did not stand with us during that challenging time seeing young black men being strip searched and then come up and find out it was her own husband that did it. It was like we had to do something. And so we started organizing voter registration drives at local storefront. Unfortunately, the black men who were being strip searched weren't coming out to the drive. So what better way to reach them? In community organizing, we know that the best extras are those closest to the problem, but we also got to meet people where they are. And so we met these young black men where they are through the sport of basketball and that was the niche to bring them into the gymnasium. It was the niche to be able to bring community-based organizations, health care, where we check people's high blood pressure, blood pressure, cholesterol. It was a one-stop-shop, Michael, where we registered 1500 people in three days. And it was such an exciting moment for us. And then we fast forward into developing a leadership institute and we registered over 50,000 people over the years in accounting. So that's been my journey at Mission Hill Community Center. Now, mind you, that was just one of the many programs that we did from earlier to venture all the way to senior citizens. So it was a family service center and a community, folks building relationships and getting to know we were a big family. I would believe it would be similar to what Dr. King and Dr. Virgil Wood who had the opportunity to speak to the other day called the Beloved Community. So I guess I got this spirit in me. No, I know you do. I wonder if you can talk about some of your mentors and what you learned and how you learned about organizing at the Mission Hill Community Center and after that. I know you also led a reenactment of the Summit to Montgomery March that John Lewis and others joined. And I wonder if you can talk about what you learned from that experience and who are some of the key mentors and teachers for you now that you yourself, not that you're that old, but are mentoring many young people. Yeah, well, I just had a birthday the other day. So I know you're still younger than I am. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know I there's a number of mentors some older and some younger because I think we can always we're always learning. One, I would say Hubey Jones who's Dean of Meredith at Boston University as well as a Dean at City Year. Hubey has been very supportive of me in my work. He has encouraged me to kind of focus in on what do I really want to do? What is my brand? And I continue to talk to Hubey not as much as I used to, you know, but I still check in with him, Mel King, who forms the Honorable Mel King, who was formerly a state rep as well as the South End Technology Center. He works there in the South End as well. MIT, he has a fellowship which I went through. These gentlemen were two key folks that I learned many things from. I remember Mel coming over to the community center during the time when I had just became the Executive Director in the first year of Dr. Vogue. And I remember when he was telling me, he said, this is what we need here, you know, civic engagement. This is what we need people to be able to come to a place that feels as if this is home, a second home. And so there are other mentors yourself, Michael. You've been a very instrumental in my life. And I have something here, building powerful community organizations. So I take a peek in here every now and then, if folks can see this. This is your time, right? This is your time. Okay. Well, we had a little technical difficulty. And we're back with Ron Bel, the founder and Executive Director of Dunk the Vote. Ron, I know you mentioned earlier about your experience at Boston Latin School.  You said during the time you were there, there was some interest in affirmative action. But what was the actual situation that you found out 40 years later, you didn't actually get to mention that? Yeah, I, again, I was talking to you about the experience with the two young black girls who identified the racial activity that was going on at Boston Latin, Meggy, No Olds, and Kylie Webster, these two young women, brilliant, black, beautiful queens who really brought something to light. And I joined a committee called the Black Alumni Advisory Committee, which were alumni Boston Latin, and Michael Conor Parsons, who was the headmaster, when I was in, thank God, they changed their names to heads of school. That name doesn't, you know, signify what your show does, these truths, right? So anyway, so he, we were going around and introducing ourselves. And I said I was one of the young people who came into Boston Latin during busing in 76 during the affirmative action. And we had a number of blacks and Latinos that came in during that time. So I thought I was a young person that was able to receive that benefit of affirmative action. And he said, no, Ron, no, you wasn't one of them, you actually had the highest scores amongst the students who were enrolled, which included the black, white, Latino and everything else in between that. And I was like, wow, for 40 years, I thought I was an affirmative action student who graduated from Latin in 1981. And when I when he said that it was like a weight lifted off my shoulder. And that goes talk, that goes to tell you about how, you know, you can't believe everything you read or see, you have to know it for yourself. And when he told me that it made me feel a level of being proud, I felt very proud. And I felt like, wow, you know, I was one of the top candidates who got the highest score. So that was something that really was a tipping point in my life. I would also submit to you another lesson when we talk about schools, as we, you know, move forward these 40 plus years now, when I started dunk the vote in 1989, I was the executive director at Mission Hill Community Centers. And one of the lessons that I learned was how to be a community organizer, you know, could so many of us, you know, we say that but we really don't know the different pieces that go along with community organizing, like building relationship and fighting for power, and getting to know our neighbors face to face and talking to one another. And I remember a woman named Dean Neville, God rest her soul, rest in peace. She was one of the organizers who helped fight, start Roxbury Tent to Harvard, where her and my mom and others, neighbors, some students from Harvard University fought Harvard to get affordable housing for our community. And she kept saying to me, Ron, you have to learn the difference from a community organizer and an executive director. Because so often, you know, I was the executive director, actually was the youngest director in the department. There was 41 facilities, and I had two facilities. I was 26, 27 years old. And she kept saying that, you know, let me teach you how to be in community organizing. First of all, you need to go to your neighbors, knock on these doors. And it's not about you, it's about organizing people and getting them to take power. A lot of us use the word, we need to empower people. She taught me that you don't empower people, you teach people how to take power.  And I remember we had lost like a couple of staff members during that time, with a program called Hope and Progress. We had 250 young people, there were incidents in our center. One of the cities we had found a AK-47 pistol. And we kept saying to the administration in the city of Boston that we needed to replace these staff, we needed a security in one of my facilities, which was in the heart of the housing development in Mission Hill. And I remember knocking on the doors to parents that grew up with me and asked them to come to a community meeting. And lo and behold, we had 97 people. And then my supervisor, the executive director of Boston Centers for Youth and Families, which is actually back then with Boston Community Centers, I had her and her entourage came in front of 97 people, tell them that there was no money in the budget. At the time, I was one of the organizers for the union. And then our president, at the time, William Dickerson, he had asked, he was also the president of our board, he had asked all those in favor of these administration leaving this facility because they cannot deliver the resources we need, we were going to go directly to the mayor to stand up. And out of the 99 people that attended the meeting, 99 people that attended the meeting, 97 of them stood up and asked the administration, mind you, this is my boss, the supervisor and her staff, which was about eight of them, to leave the facility. Right then and in that moment, Michael, I learned about power. I learned about my community took power, and we were able to get the resources we need. We got the three staff, and as a matter of fact, we ended up getting four because Mass College of Art at the time, now Mass College of Pharmacy provided us with additional staff, so we had four staff and a police officer. So again, no one could ever tell me that, you know, people working together, organizing together, when a common interest can really accomplish the goal. Right, so I know after the Stuart case, you talked about dunk the vote, getting young, especially young black men together to play basketball, and in order to play basketball, they had to register to vote and vote. And now, here it is years later, you're revitalizing dunk the vote. Can you tell us a little about what you hope to achieve in the next steps for dunk the vote now? Yes. Yeah, dunk the vote is going through a major transition right now. I took a somewhat a breathing period. I ended up working as senior advisor to Governor Deval Patrick, as his senior advisor for community affairs. So that kind of took me off track. I went from nonpartisan to a partisan effort, because one of the reasons I did that was because we were able to get jobs for black people and Latinos and women and those that are on the low spectrum of the totem pole, so to speak. And during that time, you know, I learned about the inside. And in learning about the inside, I also learned how to organize from the middle, being on the inside and being an organizer on the outside, and having connections on both and bringing that together to make sure I continue to deliver from my community. After I left the administration, I realized that dunk the vote was such a there was such a leadership gap in our community. And you know, when you look at the daunting statistics of the net worth of a black family eight dollars compared to a white family 247,250 around that figure, you have we have to do something around economic opportunities. So we were able to, you know, get some of the folks who've been very active in dunk the vote and particularly black men and women to organize and to mobilize and to really develop their leadership skills. Even during this pandemic, we were, we had our PPP gear and we declared this past year, dunk the vote 2020 as a voting as a public health emergency. And so we were still out in the ground, but we brought the ground game to the social media space. One other area that I work in is communications. I run a broadcast on Milton access TV as well as Boston black news and Boston praise radio and TV and I use them outlets, one to use as an educational form where we're able to implement our one of our projects called cells civic engagement leadership lab, which entails providing information for young people and visit our website at dunk the vote 2020.com is so important that we get all people involved because I know we've been, we were able to organize it at it from an issue that happened in our community and very bad issue to Stuart tragedy. But we realized that it's not just black people that we're reaching out to we're reaching out to all people because when you help in particularly folks who've been here and brought here against the real African descendants of slaves is better for all of us. So now what we're doing, we've expanded to eight different states. We have a physical present zoomed into various states across the country, including battleground states like Pennsylvania, Arkansas. You know, we will also have a presence in Florida and California, and in North Carolina, South Carolina, and 12 cities across the Commonwealth. And we're really zeroing in to make sure that we focus in neighborhoods, and particularly in areas where I have done work and dunk the vote, volunteers and staff that are paid, I might add, so that we're able to kind of measure our success. And we're asking folks to join dunk the vote $20 per year, we're asking people to join our organization to continue to keep the flame flickering. This year 2021. We know there are a number of races here locally. There's races going nationally in various states that we're in. And we're going to do our thing. We're asking people to organize their blocks, their communities, stay active. We've declared civic engagement is a public health emergency, civic engagement. I think sometimes, Michael, we tend to work on these elections, and particularly some I've worked on whether they've been Deval Patrick's or Obama's.  And we stop, and we don't want to stop. We need to keep people engaged, make civic engagement a way of life. Right. And why is it so important to have a membership organization where people pay dues, support the organization? Why is that so critical to the future of dunk the vote? Well, it's important. You can't depend on grant money. Grant money comes, it goes away. When you have a membership, people are invested in themselves, they invest in the future. They're also invested in an organization that builds power and economic opportunities. So they know there's a place they can go. They can go to Dunk DeVos cells, civic engagement, leadership lab and find information. They can call on others. We're building a family. We're building what, you know, Dr. King called the beloved community. As I mentioned before, Dr. Virgil Woods, who's one of my mentors, talks about the importance of building relationships, importance of building a beloved community. And when you invest in something, you take pride in it. Even when I was the executive director at Mission Hill Community Centers, we had a membership. Dunk DeVos was a part of Mission Hill Community Centers. And when people pay for something, they pay attention to what's going on. Then they have value it. Right. And like you say, the grants may come and go, though the foundations will often love you and leave you. And often you love the foundation. Oh, yeah. And I think the thing that you're doing, and maybe we only have about a minute left, is why is it so important that this be an ongoing organization, that it not just flare up a few weeks or months before an election? Why is that so important? That it be ongoing and 24 seven, 365 days a year, year after year? Why is that so critical in about one minute or less? Yeah. Well, I think the quote that Dr. King always says, and it sums it all up. And I'm very cautiously optimistic about our future and the turning point which our country's in, that the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards just so I continue to ask people to let's keep going in the right direction. Right. And the other thing you mentioned is about how dunk the votes of family. Can you just say what that means to you and how the members will be a family? Well, as I mentioned, I get the fire in my belly from my mom and I believe in relationships. I believe in folks looking out for each other. It's in my DNA. So it makes me feel I'm doing my part. It makes me feel I'm a part of a family that makes me happy. Well, thanks, Ron. It's a really honor and a privilege to have you on We Hold These Truths because you are building, you are making those truths that were said in paper or on parchment and the Declaration of Independence come real in 2021 and in the years ahead. So this is Michael Jacoby Brown signing off for We Hold These Truths. I'm the host. We were very lucky to have Ron Bell, the director and founder of Dunk the Vote. So go to his website, Dunk the Vote 2020 and join. This is your time to make a difference. Thank you very much.


Good afternoon. Welcome to Coronavirus and our mental health. I'm Ken Birtness and I'm coming to you from Haleiva on the North Shore. Today is July 6th and we're two days past our country's birthday. Our country's 246th birthday. So I hope you had a good time celebrating this weekend at a safe time. Let's talk about Coronavirus. Let's start with there an uptake of that. I get my information always from the New York Times and the Department of Health. And these are from the New York Times as of yesterday, July 5th. Now what we're seeing is the country is experiencing a little uptick. And we're experiencing a small decrease, which sounds good, but the problem is that we've been one of the most surging places in the country for the past month. So we still have a ways to go. A month ago we were number one as a matter of fact, and then we went down two weeks ago and this time, we're still above average as far as the states and our neighbors go. And the honors go to as far as being the surging as places is Puerto Rico, American Samoa at Louisiana. So if you have friends there, you should call them up or email them and wish them well, because I know they're going through a tough time. Now what we're looking at if we look back. Let's start at the beginning of the year, the beginning of the year we had that big surge from Omicron. And we're far below that. Thank goodness. Yeah, but the problem is, our lows which occurred in April. We're still significantly above that. So we're not out of the woods. This is not the end of the pandemic. Coronavirus is still alive and well, unfortunately. And the way we're treating it is, you know, we're going out and celebrating this past weekend and very few people using masks, and we're all not social distancing and we're all celebrating together. And this is very soon to do this. We still other people are worried. I'm worried. And I think the Department of Health and maybe people up at in the national and the capital are still worried as well. We still have that potential and we still don't know what new variants are out there. So we have to be really careful. Now what we've been doing on this program is after we really explored coronavirus in the first number of sessions. We've been trying to deal with the negativity that all of us are living in. Not only from the negativity not only from the coronavirus but from the war that's going on the climate change the mass shootings. Every time you turn on the news there's something real negative and something to cause you not to smile, to be honest. And smiling is hard nowadays so we're focusing on positives. So that's what we're going to continue to do and especially today. We're going to talk about how to think more positively how to feel more positively, and how to change our behavior more positively. And luckily I have my good friend Jeremy McCulloch here. He's going to take us into a positive area by talking about the joy of cooking. Welcome to the show. It's great having you here. Thanks Ken. I'm so thrilled to be invited to do this. Now during the pandemic a lot of people were turning to whether they were staying away from restaurants, and they were cooking at home. And lo and behold a lot of people were really enjoying it. So I was hoping we could start the show with you sharing some of your secrets of how to cook wonderfully at home and cook well at home. Yeah, we, you know, not just the home cooking boom but there was also people that were starting their own gardens.  So, so yeah, we really enjoyed it. Cooking at home, you know, it's, it's, you can have so much fun with it. It shouldn't be something that like, I don't consider it a chore to cook at home. I really enjoy providing, you know, yummy things for my family to eat.  Seasoning things simply, salt and pepper, you know, fresh food will will will provide its own wonderful flavor so you know if you if you want to add a little bit of this and a little bit of that. That's nice but the fresh food is going to provide you a lot of flavor that you're looking for sharp knives sharp knives very important. With cooking so in the restaurants they have a they have a thing called mise en place, which is everything in its place. And that usually means you have you have your items.  But it's enjoying the process and and a lot of times I think we get we get involved in like okay I have to do this and I have to cook this and I have to, you know, yeah we have to provide sustenance for our families but you know, take that extra five minutes to just kind of enjoy what you're doing, you know, savor the process if you can. That's for me that's that's my that's where I gain my joy of cooking and that's you know it's it's engrossing myself in it. Yeah. I have to share something Jeremy with the folks at home. The first time that I asked Jeremy to cook at my place when he was over there. I imposed upon him, and he took a look around my kitchen and he looked at my knives, and he said, whoa. But amazingly, he brought some sharpening tools along which I was, you know, and sharpened my knives for me which I was forever grateful for. And I now have been much more attentive to keeping them sharp so that was. We got you all hooked up. But every time I cook for Ken it's always kind of an adventure because we can can well I'm hoping eventually get back into doing his annual Thanksgiving. You know, we have a big party at his house for Thanksgiving and I get the privilege of cooking breakfast for the crew that comes and digs the emu and perhaps the, the, we do a big emu Ken does a big emu with the turkeys and the the river stones and it's just it's such it's a it's a it's a the ritual of doing that it's so much fun and I get to come and I get to cook breakfast for all of the people that come and do the hard work. It's nice we all, you know, they finish the jobs we all get together, and we all just commune around this table with this wonderful breakfast and eggs and omelets and Ken's favorite famous waffles. I'm looking forward to us doing that again can I'm really, I'm really going to enjoy, because I know we're coming towards the the sunsetting of that tradition. Yeah, for sure I had promised everybody that I would do 40 years. We started in 1982 and Hurricane Eva came through and all of a sudden I had no power no water, no anything. And luckily my neighbor had taught me how to emu turkey. Actually not turkey he moved a pig about two months before and, and I watched and learned a little bit about emu and so start in 1982 we started doing this. And so I always thought that I would probably retire after 40 years. We got to the pandemic and that was in 2020. And of course we couldn't have it and then we couldn't have it for 2021 so I'm now holding at the 39 this this year if we can hold it, which I certainly hope that we do it to be the 39th year. And then next year we can say hello hot to it but it's, it's a lot of work.  Thanksgiving morning because they're digging the pit, and they're putting the fire rocks in and they got a dude special. And there's a lot of preparation for the turkeys itself to be put in the pit so everybody's working hard in the morning and they were used to my just sort of blah breakfasts but when Jamie joined us, Jeremy joined us. All of a sudden people's face lit up and and the breakfast was amazing. It was amazing and everybody though. I find it an honor to be able to cook for all these people because I know they're out there busting their butts, and they come up and they eat a good hearty breakfast and everybody just kind of passes out for a little while. Well, I can't thank you enough Jeremy for all that. It was just a wonderful thing that you did for everybody. So back to your preparing food because I love that idea of the joy of just cooking the cooking those ingredients and all our senses are sort of involved with cooking this sense of smell and the sense of touch and taste, as well as seeing and hearing. The question I would have on that though is a lot of people aren't used to using raw environments are naturally agreed not environments but ingredients. And they're used to prepared food preparing prepared food. Any hints that you could give them if they're unused to doing a lot of chopping and working with a lot of raw vegetables for instance our, our other ingredients. And the fun thing about cooking is you can, you can experiment and you know it's not. There's no real wrong answer. As far as you know if you're putting something together and, you know, an experimenting is how all these great fusion chefs came up with these.  And it's always, you know, for me, if you do what you need to do to take care of your family so if you come home and you've only got something that you have to put in the microwave and cook. That's okay.  You know, and don't be afraid to try things because you might come up with the next great culinary fusion. Yeah, and you know that's part of the coronavirus is we're sort of afraid to try things. And those words of wisdom, I think, hopefully resonate because that's a we can go out there and we can make mistakes, you know, and people will still love us even if we screw up on a couple dishes. Exactly. And if you're having fun with it, then, you know, the, you know, there's that sort of saying like, you can cook something that somebody else has cooked the exact same recipe the exact same methodology. And it's not going to taste the same because the person that's putting the person that's putting their mana or their love or their aloha into the food that they're cooking. It's tangible. Yeah, I've made dishes that my grandmother used to make, and mine don't taste nearly as good as hers, because of the love that she put into the dishes. So, you know, when you cook, put your love, put your heart, put your mana into what you're doing and the people, you know, the people that you're feeding will be just like, I used to have this before but you know it's so much better. It's a tangible thing, mana and aloha man, I'm telling you. Yeah, exact, you know, the exact same thing happened with me because my mother never considered herself a good cook, but what she did cook was terrific. And, you know, after she passed, I tried to duplicate that stuff just like you're saying with your grandmother, and I just could not, it just never tasted as good at all. I felt the same way with my mom when she passed away. I'm like, ah, there's some dishes that are going to go with her because I don't remember how to cook them or I don't remember her special technique for getting the fish just right or the pork chops that she cooked just right. So, you know, I strive all the time to try and be as good a home cook as she was. Terrific. Let me ask you another question as a chef. I know you've cooked in a lot of different places, a lot of different venues and for a lot of different people. Can you share a little bit about those differences, you know, when you're the differences in experience in these varieties of setting that you've been in, and I know you've been in a lot.  If I'm cooking for someone who will only eat vegan, you know, I have, you have constraints on what you can and can't do. But whatever you do end up, or whatever you do end up preparing for the first. It's always sort of been and I've got some ADHD and I think a lot of, a lot of cooks do have ADHD or I don't have the hyperactivity because I'm not, I'm not very fast but I have ADHD and it's always been the instant gratification that I get from putting something together, start to get on a plate and then presenting it to somebody and watching them put it in their mouth just going. Oh, that's so good, or that brings back a memory of my mother or my grandmother or you know what I mean it.  It's a struggle because we don't get invited to people's homes all that on because nobody wants to cook for the chef because it's going to be critical or they're going to be, you know they're going to be, you know, judgmental about the food that I put. I'm thankful anytime someone cooks me a meal, because I know what it takes. I know the effort I know the love that you have to put into the dish so you could cook me beans on toast, and I will be over the moon because somebody else is cooking it and put it into it and so you know so the gratification of seeing somebody enjoying the meal that I've made for them is, you know, because chefs don't get paid very well. That a lot of times just is, is what makes me smile and go home at the end of the night with the happy feeling. Yeah. You've cooked, not only in the US but you've cooked in other countries as well. Can you tell us a little bit about that experience. Yeah, so, so I really started my my culinary time. Being seriously in a restaurant and working as a junior sushi. It was in England, and everybody kind of has a real. There's a stereotypical, everything is boiled or everything is, you know, or everything is, you know, Britain has finally, I think, understood that they're surrounded in Europe by all of this amazing cuisine, you know, Italian, French, Portuguese, you know so there's these wonderful resources for people to to try different things and a lot of the British chefs have adopted Italian cuisine or adopted French cuisine and all these wonderful things so the quality level of food in England, and the rest of Great Britain has, has, has just taken off. You have amazing Michelin star restaurants all over England now, not just not just Gordon Ramsay, there's some really quality chefs that that you wouldn't think would be hitting up a Michelin star restaurant, which you go in and the atmosphere is amazing and the food is just out of this world so you know, don't, don't count Britain out for quality food, because they're there they're stepping up. And I was lucky because I was sort of right on the cusp of when the British food revolution happened, sort of a Renaissance. And I got to work in some really amazing restaurants for some really amazing chefs, and they taught me how to do things like, you know, making, making all of my things from scratch. We made gourmet ketchup from scratch I loved it. You know, all kinds of things we made our ice cream in house we did, you know, our beef came from a ranch that solely sourced our restaurant and you know so we, we got a chance to work with some of them, some of the best ingredients. Wow. That sounds great. It was a lot of fun. You know, and I was never a great a good cook. But the advantage I had was that I was a man when I was young and men never cook. So, you know, it's a strange thing because so many of the world's great chefs are male. But if you look at the rank and file of who's cooking at home. It's usually the woman. So when I was in my 20s. And my mother had taught me about cooking, and she said I had to know all the things to be able to survive and take care of myself. Even if there was no woman around I had to do the cleaning in the ironing in the laundry and cook. And I got lots of kudos from that from women because oftentimes I was the first male that had cooked for them. So, in my early years were in Southern California and I love Mexican food.  So I cooked Asian food, because there was not very many good Asian food restaurants. I just cooked mostly Chinese, and that went over well and then in 1971 I came to as a young man I came to Hawaii, and I thought wow I got to give up Asian food because there's terrific Asian food here. So that's why I went in back and started cooking Mexican food so if I wanted to impress a woman in Hawaii I cooked Mexican food I stayed away from any type of trying to, you know, impress them with Asian food so. And you were right to do the Mexican food because there's the, there are a lot of Mexican restaurants but quality Mexican restaurants are few and far between. I only know of a couple that I would trust to go and have have some Mexican food. Yeah, and that's the whole interesting thing about it so yeah, I'm really impressed and so talking about Asian food you know and Pacific Island food. What are your favorites along those lines what are things that you like to do in that area. Well cooking cooking something Asian. It's a it's quite a it's a much more precise cooking technique. There's a lot of tradition and a lot of a lot of procedure that goes into, you know, you've heard the adage that the sushi chefs. They're first like three years they're not even allowed to touch the rice. The cooked rice they're they're only allowed to wash the rice and you have to learn how to wash the certain way and so like for me going out to eat fresh quality sushi I love. I like to cook. I like my tempura. I like, you know, a good fish or a vegetable tempura. And I make. I used to do this in England age this Asian dish. It's called okonomiyaki. And it's a lot of Julian vegetables you know carrots and zucchini and squash and all kinds of other stuff and onions and you mix it in with some flour and some egg and then you cook them like little frittatas on the on a frying pan. And then you put like a mango chutney or something like that and it was just it was it was healthy because it was all vegetables. It was yummy because you had that egg and flour and kind of like a like a croquette like a croquette and it just you know it was good it was it was quick food and it was easy to make and you like you could eat it and be knowing that you're getting your vegetables for the day. I cook it for my son I sorry trick him into eating vegetables. That's the way to do it. They can find a way to make vegetables taste like candy. Kids would be healthy. That's great. Jeremy we're running short on time we're getting toward the end of the show. I told Jeremy at the beginning I thought that I would ask him about. If he was cooking for famous people today if there was he had a chance to cook for some famous people what would he what would he cook for them. And who would he cook for what famous food would you like to cook for and he gave me a very honest straightforward answer which I love so maybe you can explain that to the audience. Yeah. The first name that came to mind was Anthony Bourday obviously because I mean I had so much respect and you know he was in the trenches he was he wasn't one of these Hollywood chefs he was in the trenches with the with the boys and cooking and so so I he's one of the ones I would have liked to invite but I'll be totally honest with you. I can my wife, you know close friends. Those are the ones I like cooking for because I know that there's that that love that I share with my with my friends and I know that it comes back to me through the through the reactions to the food that I present present to them. But if I was going to cook something like my absolute favorite dish in the world to cook is duck breast. It's really nice. And when we're in England. They have a Gresham ducks, which are just beautiful. Duck breasts and I sear it. I, I finish it in the oven with some honey. I put it on a bed of Savoy cabbage with bacon and onions and and drizzle the honey over the the whole thing and it's just on it's really lovely. And the other thing I really love it's a nice. It's a local dish something that I learned from a from a friend here in Hawaii, and it's called potty I need low. So you have I which is your, which is your color that's been pounded and doesn't have as much of the moisture as boy does. So it's thicker, and it's a little bit more viscous and what I do is I put it in the fridge. And it gets nice and solid. I cut it into cubes, and I mix it in with the turkey meatloaf so you just to Turkey and a whole mess by about two pounds of just chopped up vegetables and this potty I and you mix it in, and you bake it and the potty I liquidize inside of the meatloaf. So when you cut into it, it produces its own potty I gravy it's just unreal.  I love that potty I and so it's healthy for you. It's, you know so so trying to transition from really rich lush foods to things that are more simple things that are healthier for you that actually tastes good and make you want to eat these healthier options. Wow. That's terrific. In a time like this, when there's so much negativity. And one of the great one of the things that's been tragic about the coronavirus is that we are less healthy because of that because we go to the doctor's list often. We are not treating things as we should. And during this time we desperately need to eat more healthy. And that's just wonderful that you've, you've sort of turned us on to that because, you know, a lot of people you say healthy food they say oh, you know, I just really appreciate all that and all your sharing Jeremy it's a, it's been a wonderful session I can see from my think tech Hawaii clock that we're out of time, but I want to thank you again for coming out and I hope that we can see you sometime in the future again it's been wonderful. What an absolute pleasure can thank you so much for the invitation. I want to thank of course all of all of you who are out there looking and I hope that you've enjoyed this session with Jeremy. And I also want to thank the think tech Hawaii staff. I want to thank Jay and Haley and Michael and everybody for supporting us and hope to see you in two weeks. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching our program Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us a think tech Hawaii.com Mahalo.