Nom Nom
Enroot is a global storytelling movement that uses food, culture, and memory to build belonging across differences. Founded by Elika Dadsetan-Foley — a global social impact leader, Persian-American immigrant, and cultural connector — Enroot brings people together in ways that are simple, human, and deeply needed right now.
We believe that food is one of the oldest technologies of connection. Every dish carries a history, every spice holds a memory, and every table is a place where community can grow.
Our podcast "Nom Nom" is where we get to have these deep conversations with people in the culinary world of all professions, hobbies and passions.
Nom Nom
Reem Assil on Activism through Food
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Reem Assil is a Palestinian/Syrian-American chef, activist, author and founder of Reem's California - a beloved bakery in the Bay Area inspired by Arab street corner bakeries and rooted in the traditions of warm, generous hospitality. Her work has been recognized by the James Beard foundation and countless food lovers across the country not only for her bold flavors, but for the way she uses food as a tool for connection, resistance, and cultural storytelling.
Her new book Arabiyya, a cook book and memoir, is available now.
Nom Nom is the podcast of Enroot, a global storytelling movement that uses food, culture, and memory to build belonging across differences. Founded and hosted by Elika Dadsetan-Foley, a global social impact leader, Persian-American immigrant, and cultural connector, Enroot brings people together in ways that are simple, human, and deeply needed right now.
We believe that food is one of the oldest technologies of connection. Every dish carries a history, every spice holds a memory, and every table is a place where community can grow.
Follow us:
@eat_enroot
media@enrootyourself.org
enrootyourself.org
All right. So Reneem, I am so thrilled we're finally meeting. I've admired your work for a long time, and not just for the incredible flavors that you bring to the table, really just for how you use food as a language of belonging, resistance, and storytelling. And so for those who don't already know you, Renee Masil is a Palestinian, Syrian-American chef, activist and author, and the founder of Reims, California, a beloved bakery and restaurant inspired by Arab street corner bakeries and rooted in the tradition of warm, generous hospitality. Her work has been recognized by the James Beard Foundation and countless food lovers across the country, not only for her bold flavors, but for the way she uses food as a tool for connection, resistance, and cultural storytelling. Her cookbook, Arabia, Recipes from the Life of an Arab and Diaspora, is part memoir, part love letter to her heritage. So here on Nom Nom, we explore the ways food carries our histories and connects us across cultures. And your journey from community organizer to chef from Arab Street Corner Bakeries to Building Reims, California embodies that so beautifully, Rain. So I'm excited for us to dive into what Arab hospitality means to you, how food has been both a bridge and a political act in your life, and the ways it continues to shape community. So thank you for joining me for this conversation and for bringing your voice and your heart and your recipes to so many people who need that.
SPEAKER_02Awesome. Thanks for having me. That was a great rendition of my work.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it's just so incredible again, watching what I get to see publicly. You know, I know it's not always real life, but it's really cool to observe. Okay. So let's start with where are you joining from today?
SPEAKER_02Um, I am joining from my kitchen in Oakland, California.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. So you're at home. Or do you generally work from home during the days or are you usually in the bakery?
SPEAKER_02It really depends. Um Mondays are kind of like the day to recoup from the long week. Um, I'm also a mom. Um, so that uh requires me to be Oakland side a lot more. Oakland has been my home for over 20 years now. Okay. And yeah, and you know, um I kind of go back and forth between Oakland and San Francisco when the restaurant really needs me, but um Reims kind of runs itself, which is lovely. I love that. Good for you.
SPEAKER_01Okay, here's a question. Have you eaten yet today? And if so, what was your first bite this morning?
SPEAKER_02Uh ironically, I was stuffing my face with potato kettle chips before I entered this conversation. Not something necessarily to be proud of, but it's reality. But um, what was my first bite this morning? I had um maple pecan clusters and milk. I was eating cereal with my child to make sure he drinks his milk and eats his cereal.
SPEAKER_01So you can't stop when you're a mama. Not always on. What is your go-to snack when you're running around?
SPEAKER_02Probably chips.
SPEAKER_01I'm a salty person too.
SPEAKER_02So I just can't. I mean, I can't get enough of them. I always have to have my cupboard with something crunchy and salty. Um, when I'm in the bakery, um, that's our pita chips. I can't like no walk by if I want something. Um something usually carbohydrate.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I am very much like a salty and crunchy person too. So I completely get that. What is something that has brought you joy, I guess, this week or in the the past three years recently, in or out of the kitchen?
SPEAKER_02Uh something that has brought me joy. Um, I mean, to be transparent, it it's definitely been a hard season, let alone last two years. Yeah. Um, but I find joy in the little spaces of time that I'm afforded to be able to count my blessings. Um, you know, enjoy the sun for even for just five minutes, or laugh at a joke that my child has shared. Um, yeah, I think children and young people in general, you know, I think we're all kind of really immersed with all of the things coming our way through social media, and that's really hard. But whenever I see my kin, you know, my Arab diaspora and back in the homeland surviving the most, you know, unimaginable things, but they're like happy about the plant they planted or the cat they fed. I don't know. That just these those things bring me joy. Um, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01The simple things.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's just the little things. Thank you for sharing that.
SPEAKER_01I hear you. How about any recent food discovery or flavors that are exciting you right now?
SPEAKER_02I mean, you know, I'm really into I think I've grown to really love like fermentation techniques, sours, umami flavors, um, different pickling. So whenever I feel like every culture has a version of that. And so I'm always ordering that pickled thing off of the mess. Yeah, just different umamis from different cultures, you know, whether it be the mushroom powder or the saffron. I've been cooking Persian food, ironically. I just did I was like, I don't need to touch saffron again for a while.
SPEAKER_01Well, and it's not cheap.
SPEAKER_02It's not cheap, but um, but yeah, we did like a cookbook dinner and getting to learn about those flavor profiles, and then I did a dinner with um Iranian chefs um out in Austin, which was really great. Yeah, it's just like wow, we're we're we're in the same region, but our flavor profiles are actually so different. Yeah, it gives me an appreciation for, but a lot of these like preservation fermentation creates these really kind of amazing imami flavors.
SPEAKER_01Um, I'm on the East Coast, and so I'm like, great, I can't wait to have dinner after this. Yeah, I'm getting hungry. Okay, so I've been thinking a lot about how food and belonging show up in unexpected places at the airport, a Costco run, you know, wherever. So I'm curious if that's something that you notice as well.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. I mean, I I think it's in for me personally, I feel like I'm a conduit to create that, whether consciously or unconsciously, for everybody around me. And it's like such a an amazing feeling when, for instance, we're, you know, we've been doing these Sunday Supper series at Reims where we bring different, you know, our friends um uh and partners in the industry who represent different cultures, and we create this really beautiful cohesive menu um that is not forced, you know, um, Dominican flavors with Arab flavors, you know. Um, we did like one from the Black South uh with reams and all these things. And then you know, we're we're experimenting, we're doing the things, and then one of my workers will walk in and uh smell that thing, they're like, Oh, that reminds me of home. Oh, I love that. So I do do think there's these universal sensory things that you know, whether it be meat um stewing or grilled or rice cooking or the like yeasty smell of bread, that just covers up this kind of sense of home for people. And you know, home is not a universal sense of belonging for a lot of us, but um, it is a sense of comfort, you know, and I think that that is really amazing when we can do that, and it happens more often than I would think, you know. And so when we're experimenting with these menus, they you know, that conjures up a memory for our chef partner, um, and it's just so easier to create these menus. Um I think place matters too, the context in which um like food uh happens. And so to me, I I live in a very, very uh ethnically diverse like per square foot or per square mile. Um so on any block here in the in Oakland, California, you know, you can have you know a Latin, it's somebody from Central America, a black neighbor that has lived there for generations, that migrated from the south, you have a Chinese family next to, you know, a Yemeni.
SPEAKER_03It's like I miss that so much.
SPEAKER_02You get a mix of all these cultures, and um, you know, especially with the immigrant communities, a lot of it is rooted in our hospitality because that's kind of the way that we've survived. And so you walk into these stores, uh, you walk into the grocery store, and it's just like family, and it's kind of what attracted me to this um industry in the first place when I went to the Arab world and I saw that the baker just knew every detail, every cheese may, every gossip point of the family. I'm like, I want to be that baker, you know. I want to have that. So it comes in the context of that warmth um that you know feels in food spaces. But yeah, it's also in the just interactions with um someone in those places too, sometimes.
SPEAKER_01I love that so much and it resonates, especially the hospitality part. It's like you can't go into a home and not just be fed and fed and fed and nurtured in some.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm sure it just happens on the street. It happens in the corner stores, you know. Uh you know, uh, I would say, I mean, there are the statistic I heard was like there are 800 Arab-owned corner stores in San Francisco. You know, that's a huge saturation of all of our groceries, our bodegas, if you will. Yes, yes. Those are homes, those are like where kids, you know, and and and they're third spaces uh that people go to. So there's like an opportunity to create a place of like feeding and warmth.
SPEAKER_01I don't live in a place like that anymore. I moved from California, Southern California about five and a half years ago, and I live in like the exact opposite space now, and so um outside of Boston.
SPEAKER_02I grew up in Sudbury, Massachusetts.
SPEAKER_01Oh, no way. Yeah, and oh that's so interesting. Yeah, grew up in a little suburb.
SPEAKER_02Um many years of my life, and then ventured to college in Cambridge in Somerville, Massachusetts at Tufts. Okay. I was an east coaster, but I was always felt like a west coaster trapped in an east coaster's body. Oh side of the family migrated west because the climate, I I do think climate makes a difference in and people's ways of interacting. Absolutely. Yeah, my all of that side of the family moved to Southern California, and so that's that was kind of our home away from home every summer. But yeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I did the opposite. So you you say that, and I'm like, oh it matters where you live, you know, and who you surround yourself with, and feeling that belonging in some way. So I really appreciate you you sharing that.
SPEAKER_02It does, and I would say it's a certain superpower, like having grown up in a context where I was the only one um to use food and culture as a sort of diplomacy tool, if you will. Um, a gateway. I think it prepared me for years later. I had no idea that I was gonna get into food, but you they don't teach you about the Swana community and your curriculum. And if they do, it's like these outdated videos of like Saudis and people in the Gulf, and you know, it's not tropes. Yeah, tropes, basically. It's um, and so I do remember from a young age my mom using the tool of food, and so it just became a language that we learned. If we don't feel that sense of belonging, at least we try to make other people feel a sense of belonging.
SPEAKER_01I've never heard someone put it that way, and that's so right on.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's an experience, right? In our cultures, you give what you receive, kind of that um the act of hospitality is really uh a dance, if you will. And in the culture specifically, yeah, it's on the person being um welcomed to give as much energy. If they don't give that, it's not gonna work, right?
SPEAKER_00So yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01What is your earliest memory of that feeling?
SPEAKER_02Ironically, I don't have warm feelings uh as a younger person. And I think I think that is because I took a lot of things for granted. Um you know, my grandmother was the matriarch of the family. Um, she barely let anyone into her kitchen. However, she took on hospitality as a duty and a virtue. So I watched that. I watched her take that on. Um, and she created a warm environment for us, but she herself didn't have that warm embrace. And that was a really interesting thing that I um I think as an adult learned to because I I feel like I carry so much of my grandmother's legacy and everything that I do. The warm embrace that you know I started to feel was much more as an adult. Um I would say very specifically, it was really in um I I would say maybe in 2002, like when I started to really have these core memories of wanting a sense of belonging, um going back to the uh to Lebanon, to Syria, um, to these places where people just take you in as their own, even if you're a child from America, even if they make fun of your Arabic, all of the sort of like you know, taking you in. I definitely felt that. I felt that through um the offering of food because I was a guest, but for my earliest memories, it's like really my grandmother making sure everybody was happy, it was my mother making sure everybody was happy. It was like we weren't part of that, if that makes sense. It does, yes, like she taught us the virtue of hospitality and and kind of through that seeing how she made people feel at ease.
SPEAKER_01I love that. So before becoming a chef, you were a community organizer. How did that work? So, how did that work shape the way you cook and run a food business now?
SPEAKER_02Oh, in so many ways. I mean, first off, I never wanted, I I'm an accidental restaurateur. Well, Reams was like just a project in my head, and then it became so much bigger because I think my community organizing background told me that you need to to create institutions, you need to lead legacy. Um you can't really sustain that as a one-person show. One of the core fundamentals of organizing is that you um you develop leaders, right? So that they can carry on the work and then they develop leaders, and then that work gets, you know, continued generationally. And uh, I think being in the industry now for you know, 15 years professionally, 10 years as a business, I really see that. I see um had it had we not kind of approached it that way, Reams I think would have been long gone um five years ago, because we've definitely had our strife um economically, all of those things. But um I think also Reams is so much more than a restaurant, it's a vision. We you know what we're asking people to do when they work with us is beyond their paycheck, even though they are just c they are collecting a paycheck, the type of person, the um what we look for in terms of people's drive is like they want to invest in themselves.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_02Um, so we wanted it to be a transformative space, and that's not an easy feat because some people do want to just check in and check out. Um you know, clock in, clock out, if you will. I I myself beating one of those at some point when I was burnt out from my nonprofit career. Um, but we try to create a vision so irresistible that you can't get it anywhere else. And I think, yeah, we've our our employees have been with us for some of them have been with us from the very beginning, have grown with us, you know, now run the spaces. So um yeah, that's that's been a core tenant. And then I think the community building aspect of, you know, I wanted Reams, everything I do is to build community. Um who's I felt that's like my deepest fear is to not have connection, um is to create kind of the space to grow my community, and a core fundamental of uh organizing is also that you build far and wide, you build bridges of understanding, you build, you know, you build it diversely. Um, and so I think that that has been helpful for my business because when we've struggled, we can like lean in on different outside folks because we built that trust in that community. And then I was a labor organizer, so could you imagine going from organizing against the boss against the boss? I had to find a way to handle that contradiction.
SPEAKER_01Power dynamics, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, they are there and I have them and I own them where I can, but um I can do. Yeah, I I try to be as compassionate and yeah, like really it's a worker-centered space, and all the decisions we make are in partnership with the people who run Reims.
SPEAKER_01That sounds like a very special place. Sounds super powerful. Well, growing up Palestinian and Syrian American, um, what were the dishes that carried your family stories?
SPEAKER_02I mean, I think uh on my mom's side, you know, my mom obviously was uh as a lot of kitchens had the onus of cooking. Um, but she was a working mom and she didn't have time to pass down. So the recipes didn't really get passed down to us like that. But I think, and and she was, I think, just contrary to the trope of like women passing down, you know, she's a very educated woman, you know, had her masters and then came to this country and couldn't use any of that, didn't you know, and so had to start from the beginning and all of a sudden she was expected to cook. Like that's not something that was on her docket. So I think she learned to cook just like anyone else. No her adult life, and um I would say her one pot meals, you know, my grandmother's stews, like her the flavor development, the smells and tastes of home. Um I would say like more specifically, the two dishes that I associate or think about with her is the maftoul. Which is like a bigger um couscous. It's usually made with bulgur and wheat. It came from obviously North Africa, Gaza and North Africa are very close. That's where my mom is from. She would make it with like stewed chicken and carrots and onions and this like delicious broth, very brothy things. And then the frike, which is another grain that's like a cracked wheat, and it's like smoky. And yeah, my mom was all about kind of those one-pot meals. How can I pack all the flavor into one pot? So I feel like she brought that down. Um, and the more traditional things like uh musakan, which is a Palestinian chicken dish that is very um, you know, it's like our national dish uh for Palestinians, you know, she would wrap them in tortillas and make them like sandwiches. She'd really adapt them to our cult, you know, what what our context was. And so I still feel like that. And it and it's become, you know, we have a manu share of flatbread at the restaurant that is called the Pali Cali, which I continue to do. Um, so I feel like those when I think about my mom in particular, my grandmother, you know, you'd think she was running a restaurant in her um, but she had just elaborate things for all the different food groups, whether it be savory pastries, uh to baklava to grilled meats, and you know, um, she'd love her the one that I remember now. The memory is conjuring up to me. It's I love doing these things because I don't really think about them intentionally two two dishes, uh stuffed pigeon, hamami. Yeah, it's a very like she I think she'd use Cornish hen, but it's like a very traditional thing. We stuff the small birds with like rice and meat, and she would make this. Interesting. Yeah, I've seen that. Like she used she made this like delicious and it would like just seep into everything. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I thought it was her menu or like her.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it was like her specialty. I mean, we eat lamb tongue, but yeah, it was a delicacy that like around this time. It was either beef tongue or lamb tongue. I'm trying to remember, but it was yeah, it was like in the form of these this big pot of grape leaves that you would flip over.
SPEAKER_01Oh wow. Yeah, learning these things. Thank you for sharing that. We touched upon this a little bit, but Ad Enro, we talk about food as a bridge across difference. What do you think food can do that words sometimes just can't?
SPEAKER_02I mean, I guess I'm trying to put words to something that words can't, so that might be hard. But uh I like to say that um food on a very sensory level breaks down barriers, if that makes sense. So like all these like things that you have in your head, they they start to rely you're not in fight and flight mode, and and that helps. It's not the only thing. I don't think food just builds bridges at a table, those bridges need to be intentionally built, but it creates fertile ground to have uncomfortable conversations sometimes to evoke something in someone, to think about something differently, so that they continue that work when they walk away from that table. But it's I think there's something very sensory um about laying down arms for a second, yeah. I agree, I agree, whatever protective mechanisms we have, and I think food is so part, you know, people talk about food as a medium of healing, but food is also a um a very weaponized um, and for a lot of us, you know, I think for me, and I I talk very um openly about this in my cookbook and just in when I do interviews, like as someone who really um experienced deep self-hate and depression, and that manifested in me and her and all of these things that you know the deprivation of food, whether intentional or not, is is a real thing for people. And so it's yeah, it's not just this like simple, simple thing that food is great and yada yada yada. Food is very, very political and it's treated with intentionality and care. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I try tend to stay away from that euphemism, even though I'm like, I'm a community builder, so much of what I do of Reams is beyond like if it just laid at the Menaesh, I would I would feel like it was sucking, right? Like a flatbread alone can't change the world. Um, and I don't want anyone to believe that either. We're seeing that right now in the world, so it's I mean, yeah. I mean, all this humanization of you know, all of this to humanize people, right? You would think food is kind of the way, and yet when it came down to act, a whole people is being starved and we're not doing enough about it because we're too comfortable. Yeah, so food alone is not enough. Yeah, it's like just a very hard reality, but I do think it's a frontier for organizing, very, very practically speaking, because everybody has to eat.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Also because economically, the way that our systems work, uh food intersects with so many different sectors of society. You can't separate the issue of food from the issue of immigration, you can't separate food from the issue of environmental justice, resources, yeah. You know, so food kind of intersects with all these other issues that people are working on. So why not, you know, cultivate the revolution within food space? I really do think that that is a missed opportunity. So much of labor that goes into making food um is is how we survive as a society.
SPEAKER_01Right. No, I appreciate the frankness and just the thank you for the redirect on that. A needed reminder. Absolutely. And kind of to the point you just made, you know, you've said that food can be a form of resistance. Can you share a time or you know, a time when a dish or a meal felt like an act of defiance?
SPEAKER_02I mean, I think there are many examples. The one that always comes to my mind when I think about like acts of resistance is whenever I put seafood on my menu. Uh I think there are many examples of food in the diaspora that we can make that the place of origin cannot make. Right. So, in the case of my lineage, you know, my grandmother comes from Jaffa, which was a coastal town, got um pushed to Gaza, which is a a seaport, you know, one of the most prominent seaports of that whole area, um, and seafood and fish and access to waters that they no longer have access to, or they'll get killed. Um, they can't make those dishes anymore. So the I think their simple acts of making those dishes over there is a defiance. It's like you cannot take this away from us. We're willing to um risk our lives to stay connected to our land and our waters and so on and so forth. So whenever I cook dishes like that, I feel like I'm carrying that that story forward to remind people that um, because history can get erased very easily. I mean, you see people actively trying to do that and trying to do it through food appropriation. You know, those foods were not that we created that. We could like the natives, and now we, you know, like maybe generation after generation you'll forget, and then we have to worry about this, and we'll have gotten away with genocide, for instance. And you know, you saw this with the Armenian genocide and many genocides, it's not um this is not a unique um phenomenon, but food is always a kind of a cover-up when people take foods and don't give stories. So simply the act of like being able to cook food that my ancestors or my my people can't cook in the place of origin, but then also telling, giving story, giving name, giving context is an act of science to remind people that you cannot erase us, right? You make so powerful. Yeah. So I use food as kind of an uncovering when there's an uh an attempt to cover. Which, yeah, to your point, you historically have seen it every time there's colonialization of a American food here is like that's that's indigenous foods, you know, that's slave food from Africa that was brought over from people you enslaved, you know. That's that whitewashing is a very intentional thing, even if you think it's just a natural phenomenon. But there are people who are defying that and they're doing it through their food ways.
SPEAKER_01Have there been moments when sharing a meal shifted that you know of, shifted someone's perspective about your culture or history?
SPEAKER_02I'd like to hope so. I know of. I remember sitting down with David Chang uh in his ugly delicious series and being like, did you talk to any Muslims during the Muslim ban? Like he was kind of, but I like to think I like left a mark, you know, when we had that conversation. Yeah, I mean, I I do think nothing is instantaneous. Uh, everything is an iterative process. I remember, I mean, this is not related to food, but some somewhat related to kind of changes that you make. You just never know what your interactions are with people. Like I remember when I was an organizer back in the day, I organized uh workers in the airports. And um, then many years later, I was on another organizing campaign. Um, and I was talking to kids in middle school around development in their neighborhoods. And the teacher's aid, I drove her home um that day. And I was telling her about kind of my past life. Uh, it turns out her dad was an airport worker. Wow. She's like, Oh my god, you never you don't even know what happened with my dad since that campaign, and like he was a new person and like more pleasant to be around, and you know, all these things, and so it's like you just never know what what conversations, connections, things, what ripple effects they have for me. I never sit at a table to try to change someone's mind, I just speak my authentic truth, and I've lost, you know, like I'm sure there are people who I don't talk to anymore as a result of that. But so many people have come through reams, either as an employee or um as customers that didn't know anything, didn't know anything about what a Palestinian was, happening, and now really know and call their representatives or you know, like not that they were against anything, it's just I think their minds and their worlds got expanded. I always hear anecdotes of that. I don't really know that much, and now I know a lot, and you know, a feeling of guilt, which I hate. I'm like, there's you know, now you know, like lack of information and you're humanizing something that they don't know anything about. There is much more of that, uh honestly, than anything else that I've seen in my 10 years of having a business, and even even having a cookbook, you know, some of the audience members of this cookbook, you will just never guess in your million years. You know, I got white burly men from Texas running up to me and their fans, you know, maybe because I'm cute, but I'm pretty sure they're like you are cute, you know, like something spoke to me. Yeah, I saw a piece of myself in that book, and I think that that universal experience of being human. Yeah, you don't have to teach that to anyone. I think again, once you bring the guards down, um radical hospitality, you feel love for people, and then some people are just ingrained whatever whatever, and they just need their own processes, doesn't matter what you would do, right?
SPEAKER_01So, like we're not in the business of trying to change someone's perspective in that way, like well, speaking of your cookbook, Air Via is part cookbook and part memoir. How did you decide what stories and recipes belonged in that book?
SPEAKER_02Well, first off, I didn't want to write a cookbook, but apparently I was not important enough to write a whole memoir. So I stuck the memoir in there. Um, and luckily I had really amazing uh editors at 10 Speed Press who like loved it and was like, go for it. And we I I definitely submitted a bigger book. Like I essentially, you know, they're like, we only needed 40,000 words, and I gave them like a hundred thousand words. So I have a lot to say, so to speak, but we're gonna save some of that for the next book. But yeah, it was a really tough process to figure out kind of where where does the story start and end? There was so much left to be told at the end of Arabia. Um, and I had to really make a decision. I always think non-linearly, like I wanted it. I it wasn't, I was like, I want to stick the pastry parts in the middle of the book. They're like, no, sweets always goes at the end of a cookbook. I'm like, no, but that's where it is in my story. Right. Who said I wanted the recipes to match the five vignettes that were like different parts of each essay or kind of like vignette was an homage to somebody in my family that kind of explains why I am, who I am, and and my food journey. And so, you know, the first one is kind of the big Trojan horse, which is like had a host like an Arab, and then I like tell my mom my grandmother's grueling story. But you basically make the point that if you want to know how I cook, you gotta you gotta understand how she cooked and how she approached. You stand on the shoulders, yeah. And so everything had kind of a theme and a time in my life, um, and characters that shaped my life. Um, and then we took you know, obviously, bread was a big component of this cookbook, different than other cookbooks because I'm a bread baker first and foremost. I learned how to do it professionally, literally while having my restaurant. You know, I was part of an incubator program that helped me a little bit. Yeah, we really tried to kind of fit the recipes to the themes of the book. And it wasn't easy. We had to trim down a lot. There were a lot of recipes that didn't make it, but I wanted, you know, the the most popular ones. I'm I'm sure there's like some things like the cookie recipe that I did not want to put in the cookbook, but everybody wanted the cookie recipe. Um, we fun fact, we're known for this chocolate chip cookie in our bakery. That's like the top cookie in the Bay Area. It's like tested by the San Francisco Chronicle, and and so it it started to get like a cult following. That's so cool. And it's funny because people wanted it in the cookbook, but they still they're like, that's too complicated. They still come to the bakery to get it. You know, if you read the cookbook, every story has some, uh it's not an afterthought, like every um, and I had my aunt help me write this book, and she's a great storyteller and really pushed me to you know, the head notes to really have a story behind it. Because I do think like when you cook something, then you'll remember that story. And I often um when people post my recipes, they don't just post a recipe, they'll like say something funny about the anecdote. So it, you know, it's like they know me.
SPEAKER_01So through this experiences, I mean, cookbook, your community organizing the just being a human in this world. What is the biggest misconception you hear about Arab food in the US? And I mean, I think you've answered us in different ways, but how how do you challenge it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, I guess this is still a the trope uh that Arab street food is cheap food, you know? The true cost of food that's really and this is all ethnic foods, really, that in order in order to like have that cost justification, it has to be quote unquote elevated, right? But that Arab food is elevated in and of itself, it's one of the original cuisines all the way back before the Arabs, right? In that region, the Assyrians were one of the original like civilizations. I always joke that my grandmother could do like circles around some of these Michelin chefs. Um, we have fermentation techniques, the preservation, the um meat cookery, the um curing, all of all of the things, right? So um, and we have been able to do that with so little, and that's like a testament to the skill level. Um, so I think that um my food is not cheap, and it's intentionally because there's a lot of skill that goes into making that dip from start to finish. Yeah, and and that I wanted I think the misconception still in the States, unfortunately, is like all we are is like Hamas and um fadafo, maybe shawarma, yeah. And like there's just so much more. We're not a monolith, we come from different countries, cultures, experiences, class, backgrounds, and that all that's the way that um our food is made. And in fact, if you go back home from village to village, no one dishes alike. So there's no such thing as an authentic apple recipe or whatever. There's just no such thing as the original one, right? Like food is kind of fluid, and that's the beauty of particularly that region where people before the colonizers came were flowing very freely and exchanging and getting good ideas from one another and adapting. That's what makes the best food, right?
SPEAKER_01And I yeah, as a I'm a vegetarian and whenever I cook Persian food, there's no meat. And you know, no one's saying I'm not cooking the dish or like the stew because there's no meat in it, it's just my version of it, or you use the ingredients you can find in the areas you live, and like the essence is still the essence. No, I appreciate that. Okay, we're gonna do some quick fire fun questions um before we close. And my first question is if you could only eat one meze for the rest of your life, what would it be? Okay.
SPEAKER_02For those who don't know who it is, it's like a stuffed uh vulgar croquette. I don't know, that's what first came to my head. So I'm gonna go with it. Stuffed meat croquettes, pumpkin croquettes, potato croquettes.
SPEAKER_01Okay, second question. What song or soundtrack is playing in your kitchen or in your head when you're cooking?
SPEAKER_02Um, bad bunny has right now.
SPEAKER_01That's what's that's what you're listening to right now. We're all having a drink of wine. I love it. All right. So we're we're coming to the last question. Um if we were all gathered around your table, people from every chapter of your life, past and present, what's the one dish you'd serve to tell your story and why?
SPEAKER_02That's a hard question. Um, I guess I'll I'll go with the cover of my cookbook, the matlube. The matlube is just kind of really fun layered rice dish. And, you know, there's like the traditional versions, but I'm not traditional in any shape. So I would put I would layer it with whatever delicious vegetables are in season. I would do it with lamb, um, because I love lamb, slow and slow roasted. Um, and I would flip it over for everyone and have people go at it.
SPEAKER_01That sounds wonderful. Well, Reem, thank you for bringing us into your kitchen, your memories, and your heart today. Uh, your stories remind us that food is never just what's on the plate. It's about the people, the history, um, and the love we carry with every bite. So, to to everyone who's listening, may you find moments this week to share a meal, listen deeply, and taste the world and all of its beauty. Um until next time, this is Nom Nom, where every dish has a story. And is there anything that we didn't talk about that you would want to get out there and share?
SPEAKER_02Um, we're about to open a bakery in the uh Jack London Square District of Oakland. So if there are California watchers, um we're trying to get the community to invest in that bakery. We put out a WEF under that. That's you would be a real investor, even as low as $100, and you would be get to be part of this new bakery where we're trying to get as many Arab bread uh into as many hands and homes as possible. So we're kind of building up our wholesale business.
SPEAKER_01Exciting. And for those who are visiting, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say you can also find us in our San Francisco restaurant in the mission district. Um, we're online at Reims, California. You can see what we're up to there. And um, you can always, I'm you know, gallivanting all around the country, um, doing really interesting food collaborations. So you can find me online at ream.acil.
SPEAKER_01It's so exciting. Thank you so much. I really just it's a lot really resonated differently. And similarly, and I think in this time of the world, it's just so important to hear the stories and again humanize the people who are being impacted. So thank you.