Mavis-Jay Sanders (Chef & Activist)

[**New episodes of ATTC are now available in video! You can watch on Spotify, or YouTube Or you can just keep on listening in all the same places you usually do.**]

Today’s guest is Mavis-Jay Sanders. Mavis-Jay is a chef and activist who works to uplift disadvantaged and underrepresented communities, and cares deeply about social justice. In their conversation, Mavis-Jay tells Andrew about her nomadic childhood, which took her everywhere from the American South and Southwest, to Alaska and Italy, and about the events that spun her culinary career towards its current focus. She also discusses the Community Kitchen project for which she served as chef in fall 2025.

Our great thanks to our presenting sponsor, meez, the recipe-operating system for culinary professionals.

Thanks also to Gage & Tollner for providing our location. Please keep Gage & Tollner in mind for drinking and/or dining in Downtown Brooklyn, and for special and private occasions. 

And thanks to S.Pellegrino for their longstanding support of the pod.

Episode host/producer: Andrew Friedman

Producer: Roderick Alleyne

Videographer/editor/mixer: Victor Michael Thelian

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW:

Andrew is a writer by trade. If you'd like to support him, there's no better way than by purchasing his most recent book, The Dish: The Lives and Labor Behind One Plate of Food (October 2023), about all the key people (in the restaurant, on farms, in delivery trucks, etc.) whose stories and work come together in a single restaurant dish.

We'd love if you followed us on Instagram. 

Please also follow Andrew's real-time journal of the travel, research, writing, and production of/for his next book The Opening (working title), which will track four restaurants in different parts of the U.S. from inception to launch.

For Andrew's writing, dining, and personal adventures, follow along at his personal feed.

Thank you for listening—please don't hesitate to reach out with any feedback and/or suggestions!