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Bringing nuance to the table

By JANET K. KEELER
Published December 7, 2005

The story of the George Foreman Grill snuck up on the Kitchen Sisters.

Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson, the award-winning storytelling team on National Public Radio, had embarked on a nationwide hunt for what they called "hidden kitchens," unusual places and circumstances where food and comfort are cooked in abundance. They found, thanks to listener tips, a clandestine kitchen in Montgomery, Ala., that fed civil rights workers, a midnight cab yard kitchen on the streets of San Francisco and makeshift kitchens in the racing pits of NASCAR. The kitchen table isn't the only venue where communities come together through food.

But it was the way the George Foreman Grill was being used by immigrants and the homeless that surprised them most.

"Where do you find a homeless man who cooks on the street with a George Foreman Grill? Lots of places, apparently, if you go looking," the Kitchen Sisters write. "Sometimes life without a kitchen leads to the most unexpected kitchen of all."

The Foreman grill, as it turns out, is being used across the country as a lean, mean but not-so-legal cooking machine as street folks find ways to swipe electricity from power poles to make dinner. For the homeless, and many immigrant families, the grill provides a cooked meal and a measure of independence on meager means.

The 13-part NPR series, which aired on Morning Edition, has been gathered into a book, Hidden Kitchens: Stories, Recipes and More from NPR's Kitchen Sisters. An audio version, read by Frances McDormand, brings the project back to its roots thanks to the actor's evocative delivery.

This is the first book for Californians Nelson and Silva, who have been telling radio stories about the human condition together since 1979. And though the spoken word is their milieu, they say the opportunity to provide more information, plus recipes, is gratifying. The Sisters, who aren't really sisters at all but part-time professors of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, talked to us recently from their hotel in New York in the midst of their first book tour.

"It's been great because (unlike radio) you get this instant gratification," Silva said. Plus, it doesn't hurt that people are bringing food, and even homemade wine, to the signings.

In the NPR series which you can listen to at www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/hiddenkitchens , listeners never hear the interviewers' voices. The emphasis is on the voices of their subjects, which is slightly lost in book form. The addition of recipes, and even more stories, make up for that.

The book is dedicated to the great broadcaster and author Studs Terkel, who Silva said is their inspiration.

"If you do the kind of things we do, Studs lights the path," she said. "We like giving people a voice, that's what Studs was so great about."

Many of the Hidden Kitchen stories have a Southern accent, which initially surprised the broadcasters. In fact, they unearthed so many food stories in Texas that they'll be doing an hourlong show with a public radio station there.

"There are certain cultures that care about food and stories, and some are more determined to tell their stories about food," Silva said. "We find that Southerners and Italians love food and stories."

Everyone has a food memory that they are passionate about, Silva said. And hundreds told them to NPR and led the pair to underground culinary Americana.

- Jnet K. Keeler can be reached at 727 893-8586 or krieta@sptimes.com

Listeners of public radio's Morning Edition may welcome a copy of Hidden Kitchens: Stories, Recipes and More from NPR's Kitchen Sisters by Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson (Rodale, $27.50) this holiday season or the audio version read by actor Frances McDormand (Renaissance Audio, $19.95).

[Last modified December 6, 2005, 14:57:56]