"Monica O'Connell"- Rum Cake

A special re-broadcast while we're away! This week we are joined by Cake Designer, Baker and Writer, Monica O'Connell. Monica earned a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from New York University, and was executive director of the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College in Chicago for eight years. She then pivoted in her professional life,and began to pursue her passion and creative calling as a Cake Baker and Designer. Monica has a deeply spiritual relationship with food, from the stunning cakes that she creates in her business, Curtis & Cake (@curtisandcake), to the foods she prepares in her personal life, to the nostalgia for the foods of her youth. She shares with us the different types of loss and grief that she has been dealing with this past year, including the very painful loss of her mother, and the non stop violence toward and murder of Black people in America. This was a deep and also very tender conversation, and we we’re so grateful to Monica for her generosity in sharing her experiences and emotions with us. Please check out Monica's breathtaking cakes on her Instagram page, @curtisandcake

Om Podcasten

This unique podcast explores the intersection of food and grief. Mother-daughter cohosts Bobbie Comforto and Zahra Tangorra are joined by a special guest who shares their personal experience with loss, grief, and heartbreak, and how food factored into their journey. Bobbie has worked as a psychotherapist specializing in bereavement and trauma for over 30 years, but before entering the world of grief counseling Bobbie was a culinary entrepreneur. Zahra Tangorra is a Brooklyn-based chef and restaurant consultant. They share a deep love of food and a personal understanding of its connection to grief. Change and loss are inevitable in all our lives. The relationships that we as humans have surrounding food and loss are universal and relatable across different cultures, beliefs, and lifestyles. It is our individual adaptation to the things we cannot control that makes us unique. Processing exposes and digests these commonalities and differences in each episode. Change and loss are inevitable in all our lives. The relationships that we as humans have surrounding food and loss are universal and relatable across different cultures, beliefs, and lifestyles. It is our individual adaptation to the things we cannot control that makes us unique. Processing will expose and digest these commonalities and differences in each episode.