The Kitchen Sisters Present

Long before there was Coachella, Outside Lands Festival, and the popular music gatherings of today, the Monterey Pop Festival was the first of its kind. Taking place in the fairgrounds of Monterey in the summer of 1967, the three-day festival brought to the stage the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and The Who. Their performances are now viewed as legendary markers in the history of rock and roll, but at the time, Jimi and Janis were newcomers to the rock scene. These debut appearances introduced them to the rest of the world and helped revolutionize the entire landscape of rock and roll music to come. In this episode, Darice Murray-McKay, Jonathan King, and Rosalie Howarth recount their experiences as young teenagers attending the legendary music festival. Additional commentary is provided by famed music critic Joel Selvin. Produced by Kitchen Sisters’ producer, Brandi Howell. Check out her podcast, The Echo Chamber, about music and its impact on culture.

The Egg Wars—a hidden Gold Rush kitchen—when food was scarce and men died for eggs.We travel out to the forbidding Farallon Islands, 27 miles outside San Francisco’s Golden Gate, home to the largest seabird colony in the United States. Over 250,000 birds on 14 acres.But it wasn’t always so. One hundred seventy years ago it was the site of the “Egg Wars.” During the 1850s, egg hunters gathered over 3 million eggs, violently competing with each other, and nearly stripping the island bare.In 1969 the Point Reyes Bird observatory began working to protect the Farallones. The islands had been through a lot. The devastating fur trade of the 1800s. The Egg Wars. During WWII the Islands were used as a secret navy installation with over 70 people living on the island. From 1946-1970 nearly 50,000 drums of radioactive waste were dumped in the Farallon waters. Fisherman often shot high powered rifles at sea lions and helicopters were causing whales and other animals to panic.Today the Farallones are off limits to all but researchers, some who live out on the desolate island for months in the old lighthouse there. Surrounded by thousands of birds, they wear hard hats to keep the gulls from dive bombing their heads.The Islands are a sanctuary—The Farallon National Wildlife Refuge, managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The Kitchen Sisters were given permission to travel out to the islands on one of the supply runs that goes out to the islands 2 times a month.The Farrallon National Wildlife Refuge is managed by US Fish and Wildlife ServiceOur story features: Gary Kamiya, journalist and author; Mary Jane Schram, Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary; Peter Pyle, Farallon Biologist; Ava Crosante, Illustrator; Peter White, Author of Farallon Islands—Sentinels of the Golden Gate; Skipper Roger Cunningham; Pete Warzybok, Scientist Farallon Islands; Russ Bradly, Farallon Program Leader for Point Blue Conservation Science.Special thanks to: Melissa Pitkin, Point Blue Conservation; Doug Cordell and the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge Complex; Edward Jenkins; Julia Gulka; Sean Gee; Keith Hansen, Eve Williams, Gerry McChesnwey; and the Farallon Marine Sanctuary.The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters, Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson, with Nathan Dalton and Brandi Howell. We are part of PRX’s Radiotopia Network.

As an architect, Florence Knoll was the force behind the seamless integration of furniture, space, textile, art, graphic design into a perfect brand concept: Total Design. She revolutionized office design and bringing modernist design to office interiors. She defined the modern corporate interiors of post-war America. Take a listen to this little known story of an amazing, little known architect and designer. Her influence transcends the specific disciplines, she was the force integrating them, and in her work at the Knoll Planning Unit, she promulgated the values that still motivate architects and designers today: solve the program with scale and detailing appropriate to the interior in support of how people behave in the active environment. This story was produced by New Angle: Voice of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation with host Cynthia Phifer Kracauer, AIA. Podcast production by Brandi Howell.

Late last year Hillary Rodham Clinton and best-selling Canadian mystery writer, Louise Penny, came out with a ripping geo-political thriller called State of Terror that quickly hit the New York Times Best Seller List. At about that same time, Secretary Clinton’s former close aide, Deputy Chief of Staff, and the vice chair of her 2016 presidential campaign, Huma Abedin, came out with her memoir, Both/And: A Life in Many Worlds, a story of her roots and the path that led her to work with the First Lady and the triumphs and controversies of her life. The two were crisscrossing the country separately on book tours at the same time. One night they both found themselves in San Francisco and were asked to be onstage together to talk about their new books. Davia Nelson was asked to be in conversation with them that evening and plugged in to the sound board. Here’s an edited version of the night with a few surprises added in. State of Terror comes out in paperback in June, and Huma’s book comes out in paperback in September. The wonderful actress Joan Allen reads the audio book version of Hillary and Louise Penny’s bestseller and Huma reads her own beautiful audiobook. The Kitchen Sisters Present is proud member of Radiotopia, a network of independent, story driven, truth seeking, heart cracking podcasts from PRX.

Helen Fong, one of the few women practicing architecture in the US in the 1950s, is best known for her “Googie” California coffee shop architectural style. Pann’s Coffee Shop, Denny's, Bob's Big Boy— those bold, iconic, futuristic restaurants of the 1950s and 60s— there are thousands of them, not just in Los Angeles, where they were born, but across the country. These family restaurants are core to how America defined itself after World War II. Cars, families, space flight, modernism....the new world order. Pioneering architect Helen Fong helped define that futuristic look. Helen Fong was born in Los Angeles’ Chinatown in 1927. One of five children she grew up working in the family’s laundry business. In 1949 she received a degree in city planning from UC Berkeley, moved back to Los Angeles and got her first job working as a secretary for architect Eugene Choy. Two years later, she began working for Armet and Davis, well known for its work in the “Googie” architectural style. Modern, wild, whimsical—some of Fong’s most famous projects include Pann’s Restaurant, Johnie’s Coffee Shop, and Holiday Bowl, created to catch the eye of America’s fast growing car culture of the 1950s and 60s. This story was produced by New Angle: Voice of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation with host Cynthia Phifer Kracauer, AIA. Podcast production by Brandi Howell.

Norma Sklarek (1926-2012) had many “firsts”. She was often credited at the start of her career as the first Black Women architect to be licensed in the United States. That distinction actually goes to Beverly Greene – Norma was the 3rd. But it didn’t matter. Young Black girls read her name in the likes of Ebony Magazine – a staple publication in Black households at the time – when she was included in their 1958 article on “Successful Young Architects.” As more and more discovered her career, she became their role model. Born in 1926, in Harlem, Sklarek was the only child of Walter Ernest Merrick, a doctor, and Amy Merrick, a seamstress, both of whom had immigrated from Trinidad. She grew up in Harlem and Brooklyn, and attended predominately white schools, including Hunter College High School, a selective public school for girls, where she excelled in math and science and showed talent in the fine arts. Her aptitude for math and art prompted her father to suggest architecture as a career. She attended Barnard College and the School of Architecture at Columbia University. Many of her classmates were veterans of World War II, some had bachelor’s or master’s degrees . “The competition was keen,” she said. “But I had a stick-to-it attitude and never gave up.” After graduating from Columbia, Sklarek faced discrimination in her search for work as an architect, applying to and being rejected by nineteen firms. In 1954 she took the architecture licensing examination, passed it on her first try and became the first licensed African American woman architect in the state of New York. In 1955, Sklarek was offered a position in the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. During this period, she was a single mother of two children. Her mother cared for her children while Sklarek worked. 1959, she became the first African American woman member of the American Institute of Architects. In 1960, after five years at SOM, she took a job at Gruen Associates in Los Angeles. She also served on the architecture faculty at University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Southern California. in 1985, she cofounded the woman-owned firm, Siegel Sklarek Diamond, with Margot Siegel and Katherine Diamond. At the time, it was the largest woman-owned architectural firm in the United States, and Sklarek was the first African American woman to co-own an architectural practice. This story was produced by New Angle: Voice, a production of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation with host Cynthia Phifer Kracauer, AIA. Podcast production by Brandi Howell.

Coal + Ice, a powerful global exhibition of photographs, videos, and immersive imagery that focuses on the climate crisis and provokes action is now on display in Washington DC through April 22, 2022. Coal + Ice began in Beijing in 2011 with the unprecedented showing of images of Chinese coal miners taken by Chinese photographers. It has now now expanded to the work of 50 photographers from around the world, capturing images of the climate catastrophe as it unfolds around the globe. Photographers and video artists include: Jimmy Chin, David Breashears, Song Chao, Camille Seaman, Gideon Mendel, Meredith Kohut, Jamey Stillings, Matt Black, Barbara Kopple, Dana Lixenberg and historical work from Robert Capa, Lewis Hine, Gordon Parks, Eugene Smith, Bruce Davidson and others. Coal + Ice also features installations, panels, music, conversations, cash awards to young artists weaving climate into their work and more. For over a decade the exhibit has traveled the world evolving and expanding as the climate crisis unfolds. First Beijing, then Delhi, then Paris, Shanghai, San Francisco and now in Washington DC at the Kennedy Center through April 22, 2022. Before the Pandemic, when Coal + Ice came to a massive exhibition hall on a pier in San Francisco, we traveled through the exhibit with our microphone. Special thanks to Susan Meiseles, Orville Schell, Geng Yunsheng, Michael Tilson Thomas, Joshua Robison, Gideon Mendel and Jeroen de Vries. Coal + Ice was produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva) and Evan Jacoby with help from Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton. Mixed by Jim McKee at Earwax Productions.

Natalie de Blois loved systems – understanding how things worked.  For her, it wasn’t just pretty buildings, she challenged the code and questioned the status quo. And like the buildings she designed, there was a certain complexity to Natalie herself.  She was a woman of resilient beauty, inspiring yet distant, ahead of her time. Natalie de Blois (1921–2013), a pioneering woman architect, contributed to some of the most iconic modernist works for corporate America, all while raising four children.  After leaving a significant mark on post-war NYC Park Avenue, she transferred to the Skidmore Owings and Merrill Chicago office, where she became actively involved in the architecture feminist movement and was one of the leaders in the newly formed Chicago Women in Architecture advocacy group.  Later, she finished her career as a professor at UT Austin, where she trained a future generation of architects. The Kitchen Sisters Present Episode 2 from New Angle: Voice, produced by Brandi Howell with editorial advising from Alexandra Lange. New Angle: Voice is a new podcast exploring the lives and careers of female pioneers of American Architecture brought to you by the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, with support from Miller Knoll and SOM. Special thanks to Matt Alvarez and Iowa Public Radio for their production assistance. Thanks also to Gabrielle Esperdy, Audrey Matlock, Carol Krinsky, Carol Ross Barney, Margaret McCurry, Peter Dixon, John Newman, Liz Watykus, Julia Murphy and Robert de Blois. The archival audio of Natalie de Blois interviewed by Betty Blum is from the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Architects Oral History Project.  Thank you to Nathaniel Parks, Director of the  Art Institute of Chicago Archives, for help with this recording.

We first caught sight of him in a convenience store buying Marlboros and a Coke for the road. He was dressed in a grey jumpsuit, pants tucked into black boots, silver belt buckle and a large black Stetson hat. Out front, his Ford Ranchero pick-up idled in the parking lot, the words “Champion of the Stranded Traveler” emblazoned in gold on the door. We struck up a conversation. “I go on the road looking for trouble and whenever I find some, I stop.”  His voice was deep and resonant, his timing, impeccable.  “I suppose that’s why they call me “The Bloodhound of Breakdown.  But then, my business is trouble.” He lit a cigarette and handed us his card — “The Road Ranger — Scourge of the Tow Hook and the Long Delay.” We go out on patrol with The Road Ranger in one of the first stories produced by The Kitchen Sisters. This bonus episode is part of a special Radiotopia-wide project. This week, shows across the network are releasing episodes on the theme “Making Trouble.” You can learn more and donate to support our work at radiotopia.fm.

Cheap rotisserie chicken sold everywhere in markets and grocery outlets. Why is that chicken so cheap? How was it raised and what’s even in it? How much would it cost for farms to raise a chicken you could feel good? What would it taste like? Where can you find one of these chickens now? And why is it so hard to find them? The Kitchen Sisters Present the first episode of What You’re Eating, a brand new podcast from FoodPrint.org. In this episode host Jerusha Klemperer talks to food policy experts, food label certifiers, farmers and more to dig into the economics, agriculture and taste of chicken. FoodPrint.org is dedicated to research and education on more sustainable approaches to food production and consumption and ways we can improve things and take action to make real change in the food system.