Jamila Robinson Of The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Philadelphia Inquire

Jamila Robinson is the Food Editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, a position she took on after serving as editorial director for Atlantic Media, managing content development for USA Today and overseeing food coverage for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Jamila is also Chair of the James Beard Foundation’s Food Journalism Awards Committee and the North American Academy chair for the San Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants.

On this episode, Eli Kulp sits down with Jamila to talk about her Detroit upbringing, her childhood memories of food, and the current state of systemic racism in both the restaurant industry and beyond.  

More info at https://www.inquirer.com/food/ or @jamilarobinson on social media.

Jamila Robinson of The Philadelphia Inquirer

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Welcome back to the chef radio podcast. I hope everyone is staying cool out there. You know, we are really in the dog days of summer, right now, the heat and the humidity. It feels suppressive. We're not built for this. I mean, it's like tropical climates out there. Anyways, our guest today is Jamila Robinson.

She is the food editor of the Philadelphia. I remember when it was announced that Jamila would be joining the inquired February of 2020 and thinking, you know, this was such a welcome surprise that the inquire brought on not only another woman to fill Marine Fitzgerald's big footprints, uh, but also a woman of color who has such an incredible background and love for food journalism.

What was also great was hearing the reaction from some of the more tenured food writers and how they were so excited that Jamila was going to be leading their team and how they were looking forward to her, really bringing her point of view. Into the newsroom that only did it quickly proved to be a great hire for the inquire, but also really timely one Jamila came in with the goal of bringing more diversity, not only into the department, but also what was being written about and talked about obviously 20, 21 off the rails with COVID.

But then when we, as a country and industry were forced to look inside of ourselves and meet head-on the discriminatory and often racist systems that exist Jamila quickly rose as a steady and thoughtful voice in food media and food journalism. I believe this is one of the more significant podcasts that we have recorded in the past year or so.

And I hope you all enjoy it as much as I enjoy talking to the Jamila, because there's really so much more to her story than just being the food editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer over the past year or so. She has become a major player at the James Beard foundation as the journalism. A frequent writer in publications, such as food and wine magazine.

And one of the more significant positions that she has taken on is her position as the academy chair for the world's 50 best restaurants representing the USA and Canada. So that's really awesome. And we have her right in Philadelphia. So we're really proud to have her here, part of the city, part of the food landscape, part of the food journalism landscape.

Please take a moment if you're enjoying the show to leave a review and rating so that we can continue growing our audience. Thank you so much for that. And, uh, let's get to it.

This is the chef radio podcast.

Each week, groundbreaking chef talks, the chef 

Jamila Robinson: [00:03:54] talks, uh, chef, chef cooking, hospitality, environment food. Is that really what it stands for? 

Eli Kulp: [00:04:02] I never really knew that liver to you, straight from the minds of the people who shaped the way we eat. 

Jamila Robinson: [00:04:07] It had to believe in the possibility of food over going through 

Eli Kulp: [00:04:12] these talks, these ideas and more on the chef radio.

All right, everybody. Welcome back to the chef radio podcast. I am sitting here in the radio kismet studio. With a wonderful guest. I'm really excited to have you here. Jamila Robinson of the Philadelphia Enquirer. How are you Jamila? 

Jamila Robinson: [00:04:35] Well, I'm so happy to see you and so happy to be in the studio. Thanks radio kismet for having me 

Eli Kulp: [00:04:40] a year ago, you graciously accepted my offer to be on the podcast.

When we were doing the virtual components of seizing this moment, we're talking about diversity in the workplace and the restaurants and everything that's been going on, but that was just a small snippet of your amazing breadth of knowledge when it comes to the food industry and food in general, me being introduced to you in the last year and a half really was I think when you came on board to Philadelphia and became a party Inquirer and what's transpired for even your career of the last year, It's been a big year.

So we're going to talk a lot about that. I want to start just kind of give the listeners a little bit of your background. Not only are you the food editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, but you're also chair of the James Beard foundation's journalism award committee. You're also the north American academy, the academy chair for the north American region of the 50 best restaurants, which we're going to touch on that, which is that in itself is a whole conversation.

But, but before coming to Philadelphia, you were the editor and director for the Atlantic 57, as well as the content strategist for the USA today. You're from Detroit. I think you're the first person I've had here from Detroit, the motor city. Uh, you're also an accomplished violinist, which I think is. And you are currently a active figure skater that you've mentioned earlier, how that's such a important part of your adulthood, really, because you said you only really started until later in life 

Jamila Robinson: [00:06:16] skating.

I grew up in Detroit it's hockey town. If you don't skate on the weekends, you really have no friends. And, but I really wanted to skate backward. I was in love with Michelle Kwan and she made me want to get off the sidelines and learn to skate backward. And so I started taking lessons and next thing I know I'm competing on the adult circuit coming, going to Hershey park and with the hiccup every year, adult is skating on the adult circuit.

So I'm trying to work on a moves for my adult goal tests, which I've been trying to pass for about a decade now, but it is, it is my, it is my self care and it's, it's a lot of fun, I 

Eli Kulp: [00:06:56] must say. Um, And your awesome bright pink jumpsuit and your white jacket. It fits the day of being so warm and you just walked in here.

I was like, wow, you look radiant 

Jamila Robinson: [00:07:09] today. Well, thank you. I earned a reputation of someone who wears really bright colors, always who always stands out. I'm wearing really bright fuchsia. And, um, but I love, you know, very hot pinks and bright green chartreuse is my favorite color. I wear a lot of orange. And so it's funny because people can like, you should be able to find me.

You will not hit the car will not hit me. You're the human highlighter. Yeah. That's awesome. That's 

Eli Kulp: [00:07:39] awesome. So, you know, you have. Had incredible year and a half at the Philadelphia Enquirer. So far you were brought on, uh, early 20, 20, correct. And that was huge headlines. And you know, I remember talking to Craig about it and you know, everybody's so excited to have you here bringing in that sort of new sort of perspective into what is the Philadelphia dining scene.

Your background is perfect for that because Philadelphia is such a diverse city. The inquire thought like let's bring you in and shake things up a little bit and bring a new perspective. So how's that been? It's 

Jamila Robinson: [00:08:15] been fantastic. I came on just four weeks before the pandemic and I came in with a lot of thoughts about not only Philadelphia's incredible world-class food scene, but these other ideas about the ways that food media sometimes disconnect.

People and culture from dining and restaurants. And so we were looking for a way in a city, this diverse with so much incredible food from, you know, little taquerias to find dining. How do we think about. Bringing that culture and really bring building out our franchise at the Enquirer and then the pandemic happened.

And so that meant that we had to think about a little bit less about dining out, but really more about how people eat. What are they eating now, thinking about their home cooking and in a lot of food media editors, we kind of focused on dining because that's how people spend their time. Right. Um, and then with the pandemic suddenly everybody's in their home.

So we had to shift that idea of here's, how you get food to your home. Here's how we think about farmers. Here's how we think about your CSA box. Here's how we think about what's happening in grocery stores and my gosh, cocktails that go this whole back and forth. Whether or not we can drink when we're sitting on a patio or not.

These are the things that people are talking about and how they experience the food. But also how do we. Reconnect, the people who work in the back of the house, whether it's a busser or a server and give them some voice. You know, sometimes we think about restaurants and we put a lot of attention around the chef, but the chef is the chef and the, and the leader of a huge team of people.

And so we want it to meet, be sure that there was an understanding of the people who bring you food, that your server is asking you to wear a mask for because he wants he, or she wants to give you hospitality, but they also want to keep themselves safe. And so trying to give them. Part of humanity and understanding of more than just the food is on your plate.

Everything, every component is a person's hands and we want it to be sure that we got to, to show that that's not to say that it hasn't been a challenge. You know, we were thinking about food festivals and events, and I like to throw parties and I had planned on, oh, I want to have Eli come and have dinner at my cows.

And, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll make it, we'll make it an, an entire experience and, uh, to have a year and a half of isolation of not throwing parties that having barbecues and that feeling of wanting to gather and wanting to share that those of us who are in hospitality or if we're food editors, part of that comes from the desire to share and the desire to.

Want to present people, uh, more than just making them happy. You know, we'd like to say, oh, food brings people that gather, but it is also the need to show how food can keep us apart as well. And here we had a whole year of not having restaurants and feeling like food was keeping us apart. And so it's, it's been a very, very interesting year.

I have had to balance the feeling of some days of total despair with days of extraordinary gratitude and being able to tell the stories of servers and to tell the stories of like Prietto, tamale, uh, people like, like what's happening at down north pizza and being able to show that food is more, it's a part of the community and really bringing that community piece back and trying to center on that.

So it has it's. Incredible. It's had its challenges and it's given us a lot of runway to think about, well, what comes after this? What comes past the pandemic? How do we rediscover restaurants? You know, for those of us who haven't had the opportunity to, to go to all of the new places, but as they're opening, it is that connection that we have.

And it's even more dynamic now because we understand that the people who are working in restaurants want to be there and want to share that with you. And it sort of mirrors those of us who are in journalism, we were in journalism because we really have the desire to share stories with other people and, and, and helping for me, it is helping to find that sweetness and light between what happens in politics and what happens in breaking news and things that are happening within the city.

Um, that may be tragic, but ultimately how we spend our time, whether that's, how we get dressed, you know, what we wear, what we eat, how, what movies we're watching, that is all the sweetness and light of life. And I tell people all the time, I have one of the best jobs at the Philadelphia Inquirer. I'm really the luckiest person.

Um, it's, it's, it's really an every day I get to share something that brings other people joy. Yeah. That's who else? I mean, what else could you do 

Eli Kulp: [00:13:54] exactly? I mean, you know, you coming in, I think you're already tasked with, you know, something very important and that's, that's, like I said earlier, creating that sort of, uh, shiny light in areas that may not have previously been showing or finding the importance of.

The system, not just the person who gets the credit, you know, those types of things. Also making sure that, you know, we're looking at areas of the city that might not be as obvious for great food, but still, you know, hold that. And then Memorial day weekend happens of 2020 and George Floyd and the countless others that the tragic deaths of others in that area.

And it doesn't stop there and it won't stop there. Everybody took a moment, right. Everybody just was like, what the hell are we doing? Where's this country going, you know, divided people, you know, you had to pick a side, right. Police or, or the other, like in that moment, I'm thinking that you must have felt like, holy shit, my job just got even bigger.

Like the stories are even more powerful. Like, you know, as a black woman, you know, you know, living in sort of this, in this right in it, and the feelings and emotions that you had, like, it must become that much more. 

Jamila Robinson: [00:15:09] Yeah, it's always personal. You know, when you're a black woman in America, every everything is personal and you feel it every, every day.

And I always like to tell people that systemic racism does not make class education, neighborhood distinctions. And I'm, that is not, I am not absent from that. I can tell you about all the times that I've been pulled over. I can tell you about all the times that I've gone to restaurants and people will sit me, have, will see me in the back next to the restroom.

It doesn't matter who I am. It makes our work exhausting to be completely candid. I find it to be an obligation. To be sure that our work at the Philadelphia Inquirer is always anti-racist. And the words that we use, how we talk to our audiences, how we say things like this restaurant has an old world dining room, old world whom who gets to decide.

And what do you mean by w what is it that you mean when you say that this kind of lazy language? So it makes our jobs very hard because we have to constantly enlighten and illuminate and highlight gaps that in cultural competency that a lot of people have, and that's not a criticism, it's a, it's really a reality.

Um, because being able to look at the world and recognize the humanity of everyone who we share this country with. Has not always been a pillar of journalism. Right. And, and so to be able to reliving it and reporting about it and trying to create structures so that the next generation of reporters already think about this kind of language makes it really hard.

You know, it's something black people say is that we have, we have to work three times as hard to get twice to get half as much. And, and for me that means I have to be sure that all of our work is anti-racist that I'm questioning the language that I'm asking different questions that maybe. Didn't have, for example, did you ask this person how systemic racism impacts has impacted their career?

Right. You're going to get a different answer if you actually ask that question. If you don't ask me about racism, I'm not going to spend my time telling you about it because it's like, that's such an everyday thing. If you don't ask, then it creates this idea that these things don't happen to people or it's an outlier or it's unusual.

No, it's not. It's very, we don't. I always talk about something has to be so egregious for someone to, for me, for example, to even tell you about it, it has to be such an outlier and different from the sort of everyday slight that you feel as a, as a person of color in America recently went to Greece. And people are so friendly.

They're so nice. If you bring me things and ask me what I need, and then me realizing that, oh, I don't know if they're extraordinarily friendly or is this it's just hospitality because I'm used to having to work so much harder just to get that basic hospitality and that doesn't always happen. And so to, so a lot of us have to leave the country in order to get a sense of, do you feel 

Eli Kulp: [00:19:02] that you felt like there the, what would be considered maybe systemic racism just is not even a thing there, for example, or because they're just.

Proximity to how they grew 

Jamila Robinson: [00:19:16] up or it's different everywhere in the world is different. There's a song all around the world, the same song, different parts of the world, racism, this manifest it differently. I've in my experience, it has been when I'm traveling because I'm American people can be very unkind to who are black from the Caribbean or from west Africa.

But I have a us passport, so people treat me differently and, but I'm, and so I'm very aware of my Americanness when I'm traveling and that sense of not only hospitality, but accommodation people are very, very kind to me. And that shelf that we have comes off. And then as soon as you reemerge back in the U S and the border control agent, Wants to pat you down it back right away.

And it snaps you back right into that reality very quickly. And those are things that we don't always talk about. Those, those every day slides, because they're so 

Eli Kulp: [00:20:26] normal. I can't imagine it's, it's interesting. There's times I've taken the time, just like really try to immerse myself in those and what that must be like going through the day.

And it's nearly impossible. 

Jamila Robinson: [00:20:38] It's exhausting. I mean, that's, that's is the 

Eli Kulp: [00:20:40] brain doesn't want to go there, you 

Jamila Robinson: [00:20:42] know? Right. Because if it's something that you don't experience, you don't really know how to process it. So it feels unreal. The number of times that people have said does that happen? Right? Yeah.

Um, and, and that's also when I. Have to remind people that it's really important to surround yourself with a lot of different kinds of people in order to understand their experiences. You really, and it can't just be ancillary relationships. It has to be in one thing. I like to say that if, if, if your black friend is, is not talking to you about racism, that person's not your friend, that is a black person, you know, these are conversations that we have all the time and it helps at for, in journalism helps your reporting significantly.

But if I have a question, I get on my phone and I text. My Asian-American friends and say, how would you re how would you receive this information? Because that's going to help my editing, but I have to have those relationships. I mean, everything in life is really about the relationships you build, relationships, you cultivate and, and how you share those, those things, and the kind of openness that there's kind of vulnerability to be able to say, this hurts my feelings.

When you say this and the other person being able to receive it and to see how it may not be their intent to be racist. You know, they're not like about the burn across on my lawn. Right. But how. Their participation in the system or the things that they might say, oh, the schools are just better. Or what is it that you think that makes them better?

What is it about this neighborhood that makes you unsafe and being more explicit? Well, you always used to be nice, but it's nice as in gentrified now it's like, actually, it was probably a nice neighborhood before you arrived. And why do you think it's nicer now being able to pose those questions as a journalist doesn't necessarily have to be something that creates tension.

It's something that creates understanding if we're asking different questions. Yeah. 

Eli Kulp: [00:23:00] It was really well said. And thank you for saying that it's just even, you know, sitting here in the studio, like these conversations are important for me to have, you know, because they, again create empathy and they create dialogue and all of that.

And being the antithesis of, you know, a black woman. Being a white man from a general perspective, in a lot of ways of what you endure versus the opportunities that I have, just because the color of our skin, even though we're both human or everything else together, that is a powerful message for, for me to hear.

And I don't think we can talk about who you are today with out, talking about how you were brought up. And that's, what's going through my mind because hearing you talk so eloquently and powerful about this, but I know this was your product of some really fantastic people in your life. And I would love to be able to kind of circle this back to that because you know, growing up in Detroit last stop on the, on the underground railroad and you know, the black culture there and, and Motown and everything else.

Tell me about you growing up and how, how young Jamila was shaped. 

Jamila Robinson: [00:24:18] So I had a very, very interesting childhood. My parents, my mother, especially was a leader in the black Panther party in Detroit. Yeah. My, I had a very interesting childhood. My mom ran the free breakfast program and she cared tremendously about people who didn't have as much as, as we had the contrast to that is that we had a lot of, we had a lot of opportunities.

I mean, we weren't rich by any stretch, but we spent a lot of our Sundays going to museums and going to the symphony Sunday was culture day. And so I was brought up by a woman who not only understood black history, um, had desegregated, um, a school in her neighborhood was. Raised in a house that was pretty, you know, pretty middle-class and, but understood that those privileges came from having family with a lot of education.

Right. And the inequity she saw, she, um, and my father who was also in the party that she saw was just untenable for her, the police brutality. I mean, we have to remember the black, it was the black Panther party for self-defense and, and the idea of, you know, you know, what, what these were, these were kids college students who saw a need in their community for protection.

They were socialists. They were, they were looking for things that, to make society better, healthcare education, Being sure that children have enough nutrition so that they can learn. These are the things that my mother carried her care tremendously about, but she also is an extraordinarily creative woman who cared about the arts, the arts and culture paints.

And so I spent a lot of my time as a kid accessing the violin, I started playing the violin. When I was sick. I had to practice a couple of hours a day. My mother played the piano. Okay. And, and you know, some members of my family are, you know, very successful entertainers. So music, music, and art were very important.

My mother did not cook and still, you know, will tell you she's not a cook she's 

Eli Kulp: [00:26:54] lunch dinner. You're you're making a face for the record. There's a face being made. That's not representative something. That's good. Um, 

Jamila Robinson: [00:27:07] I mean, I mean, my mom, I liked a lot of convenience food. I mean, she's a, you know, a boomer, the idea of convenience foods, like wonder bread, um, things that have, can I, the face I was making, the thought I had was salmon croquettes and from the salmon out of the can.

And I can still remember the smell of the salmon coming out of the can. Um, and I just, I, I love, I love food from a very. Small age. And, but everything came out of the candidate. Was that box flavor, the instant, um, mashed potatoes. You get that nice aluminum flavor. Yes, absolutely. Because that was not my, how my mother wanted to spend her time.

It wasn't important to her and she cared more about that. We had the right kinds of food that we have fruits and vegetables that, um, that, that kind of thing, but cooking with flavor. Baking a cake that was, was that her thing you love to cook? I love to cook. I, 

Eli Kulp: [00:28:17] because if people are following your, I love to 

Jamila Robinson: [00:28:20] cook your social media feeds.

I'm hungry all the time. I have to eat every three hours. I love to cook. I love the sounds and smells of food. I love the way, you know, when you break over flesh love is I love clipping the herbs out of my garden. I just had the 

Eli Kulp: [00:28:36] crispiest P from taproot farms and it acts like the crispness exploded in my mouth today.

I was just like, wow, like opening a can of soda, like Christmas. 

Jamila Robinson: [00:28:48] Yeah. Yeah. It's like it when it explodes, it's like, uh, an ear of corn when it's like fresh and it, and it's yes, yes. 

Eli Kulp: [00:28:57] That's what this that's what this, this, uh, snap he was. I was just like, wow. But let me give, let me give a plug to taproot farmers, by the way, if, if anybody's out there and you need to go to a farmer's market and you want good vegetables go to the farmer's market at Christ church, 

Jamila Robinson: [00:29:14] the Christ church market, 

Eli Kulp: [00:29:15] right on market.

And second, yes. And taproot farms is there. They don't do a lot of farmer's markets, but Ola and George, those two got those two farmers can. Wow. Their stuff is amazing. 

Jamila Robinson: [00:29:28] Anyways, that was my favorite dress. That was my favorite thing. As a kid, going to the farmer's market. Mike went with my grandmother almost every Saturday, the grandma grandma cooked and I call her granny.

My granny not only taught me how to cook, but it was, she helped me understand why we did certain things. I mean, it's just very sciency, so, okay. This is what's happening. When you mass cerate a massive rate of strawberry, you're drawing all the juice out, or this is how you create volume. I'm giving you these egg whites, and you're going to pump air into them.

So it's creating volumes. I had a really good understanding of, I mean, that's how we got marae, but what was happening or why the butter and the flour and the soda had to be cold before we put in the oven. Cause that's how we got the skits. And so she sh but she, because she wanted us to understand. So she, wasn't the kind of, oh, a little bit of that little bit of this kind of, of granny issue.

Oh, no, it needs to be you, you need to sift and level. And so my bacon is very, very methodical for baking, as we all know. Yeah. I think that's why to this day, why am I a good baker? Cause it's very, I love the process of baking. That's 

Eli Kulp: [00:30:39] why I'm not a good banker. That's why chefs are chefs than that. Baker is because it's a little bit of this, a little bit of that until it 

Jamila Robinson: [00:30:46] gets to where it goes to say that reporters cook and editors bake because of the precision needed.

Um, when you're editing, one of 

Eli Kulp: [00:30:55] my biggest pet peeves of being a chef is when people ask you for recipes, you don't even know, like I've got to the point where I would don't do it. Right. I'm like, I don't know what that is. And if I give you one it's incorrect because we don't, I don't have a recipe for four people.

You know what I mean? Like all there's been times where like, okay, a sous chef or like a good cook, you can rely on like, do this, like recipe this out. There is nothing more when the request comes, I'm just like, Ugh, 

Jamila Robinson: [00:31:25] it's hard. Recipe writing is really hard. It's a skill and it's a kind of storytelling. And whenever people say, oh, it can't narrow.

Just give me the recipe. I was, I would tell them, there's no way I could go and ask my grandmother for her recipe for fruitcake. I don't know. 

Eli Kulp: [00:31:42] And we all know like that popper deli with, you know, chanterelles and peas that I make. If I give you a recipe, especially if, you know, you might be able to get it somewhere where somebody who might not even have an idea.

How to do that. Like it's not, it's like, it's not going to be 

Jamila Robinson: [00:31:59] the same blamed to you, how to make the pasta, because you're going to make this pasta from scratch. I have to explain to you how, how much the salt, the water I have to explain to you the shock, the piece before you put them in, you're going to braise those chanterelles probably.

And, and so you have to have all of those skills and that's why it's hard for some people, especially on social media to understand that this is not. Uh, thing that I snap my fingers and I give you a recipe. I need you to already know how to make a pie. If you want it. My, you know, my chevra and Blackberry Collette, you need to know how to make pie crust, and you have to make it, make it in a, in a, like a French style shortcrust first.

And then I needed to know, we know what kind of cheese and, and, and to use a limited time. Versus if I say, oh, sprinkle some time on it. It needs to be a limited time. That requires a lot of precision. And that's hard. That's a lot of hard work. People don't realize how hard recipe writing can be. I mean, I can do it in a snap because I've been doing it for a really long time, but you know, somebody who's had a restaurant for a couple of years and, and you know, maybe they're, they're opening their first bath and they're really on the rise.

And now suddenly you're used to cooking for 25 and now you want this for four. It, it can be a little bit, a little bit unfair. So 

Eli Kulp: [00:33:22] I think it's all like smoke and mirrors anyways, because I don't know how many people actually do that. I remember like during the CRA, like Craig asked me to do the, uh, Thanksgiving, um, you know, a meal for, uh, the Enquirer, which I was, you know, honored to be a part of it and happy to do it.

But you know, the day you're like, these recipes are not exact and they're not ever going to be exact. And hopefully they just inspire somebody to like, not take the sweet potatoes out of a frozen bag or, you know, the cranberry out of a can like, you know, the way I grew up. So that's 

Jamila Robinson: [00:33:54] going to be controversial.

I mean, listen, 

Eli Kulp: [00:33:57] I, I don't, I don't hate it. The other one, 

Jamila Robinson: [00:34:01] sometimes I hate it, but gelatinous can cranberry. I know there are so many people who say, no, you have to have, well now chefs 

Eli Kulp: [00:34:09] are taking and making their own cranberry, put it in a can and wiggling it out under the table to make it look like 

Jamila Robinson: [00:34:17] it's nostalgia.

But that's what we're talking about. We're talking about inspiration, you know, recipes or a guy like recipes or a story and a guide inspiration, and then being able to add your own flare to it. There's some flavors that I like. I love the flavor of lavender. I put it into some ice cream the other day. And my friends were like, you put lavender in the, and sick, you should try it.

And they just thought it was too. I don't think of lavender is weird, but they were like, ah, it's it's it was blueberry. Yeah. It's it's like, it's soapy. Right? It's like. Um, the honey was from great. Greece is wonderful. It's like a more for me. 

Eli Kulp: [00:34:57] Yeah. Mafia, right? Yeah. I don't get those people. I did not get those people.

I've used lavender a couple of times. And one of them was in a moose that was going into like a with Tom. 

Jamila Robinson: [00:35:12] Yeah. Oh my gosh. That was probably lovely. I I'm I've figured people who are listening. My shoulders are up on my app in my ears. I like that actually sounds better 

Eli Kulp: [00:35:23] anyways. Uh, yeah. Lavender in small amounts and then in certain places.

Yeah. 

Jamila Robinson: [00:35:29] So it's you just get that floral 

Eli Kulp: [00:35:30] blueberry, honey has perfect spot for it. Perfect. Yeah. So, um, you know, again, going back to like this last year, I'm sure you did tons of research and your position coming into Philadelphia and then, you know, black lives matter. And I didn't know what to call. I don't like calling it that because black lives matter has existed before, but you know, this, the reckoning, if you want to call it or whatever, whenever it is that we are, we're calling that now in restaurants, in business, you know, you know, all of a sudden, even the commercials on TV, go from trying to sell your product to make you feel you're doing the right thing.

And Subaru's now telling you that, you know, they're not selling you the car, but they're selling you the, the idea behind it and Pepsi and everything's, halvings now kumbaya. And you know, all of a sudden now you're seeing more people of color being thrust into the commercials and it's this sort of reactionary, this very reactionary moment that we had.

And, you know, almost cringe-worthy at points. How was that process for you? And do you see that as real purpose driven change, or do you see that as any changes? Good change. However, it sort of shows its face 

Jamila Robinson: [00:36:51] and the side that, that change is good change. If you're talking about it, it's so important just to start talking about things and making, making these conversations part of the general lexicon.

I don't think it's always helpful to be critical of when people are trying to make change. That's not to say that it can't be performative because yes, that absolutely it absolutely happens. And reactionary, I think is also a very good word because it's, oh my gosh, people are not going to think highly of us.

Right. Again, it centers that makes it about you and not about a movement or, or not about doing the right thing. It is all about your feelings. That is the strange thing to me is, is that, oh, I don't want to feel, I don't want to feel bad. Well, how do you think that I feel every day or this I'm tired of talking about this can't we just all get along, but we aren't.

So, and we, and we haven't seen since the founding of the Republic. So if, if we are starting to talk about it, changes, incremental, being able to say, yes, it is important for. Companies and our newspapers and our, and our friends and our families to reflect our values. And in, if these people do not reflect our values, then these are brands or, or, or people we need to cut, ties our restaurants.

We need to cut ties with. And we have to be bold about that because we accept so much behavior because we say, oh, you know, oh, oh yeah, he's racist, but he's funny. Or, you know, she's sexist, but, but it tastes so good. And so you just have to start to ask yourself, does this actually reflect my values? Is this a company I want to spend money with?

Is this a neighborhood that I want to live in? Are these people I want to live next door to? Are these people we have to, that I should share holidays with? Because what I find in some of these conversations, Is a lot of people will ask the, oh, is it really this bad? And my question to them is, well, you have somebody in your family that you dread spending holidays with.

So imagine how that person must treat everybody else in the world, but you make it about you. And so how do we take that energy and keep that up? Whether it's a car company or a restaurant or a brewery, or what have you, how do you take that energy and put that into the system? You say you want change, but you haven't done anything systemic to really make that change.

You've just said, oh, look, we've reacted to this moment. But you know, as soon as, as soon as things cool down a little bit, we can go back to where things are. And there was a very good episode of the code switch podcast from NPR a few weeks ago. Uh, the code switch on it. Code switch from NPR, hosted by Jeanne Denby and Shereen Marisol Meraji gen B, then B who's from Philly.

And they talked about, they were waiting for the moment when the black lives matter. All lives matter movement was when people just said, okay, enough. And so they found there are some studies. I can't remember the university that said, peop there's less support now for black lives matter than there was before the protest before George, George Floyd.

Hmm. Interesting. And because people get tired of hearing about it. And when I say people, I mean, white people, I mean, it'd be so specific here. Right? And they say, oh, well, gosh, it's so hard. I don't want to ask these questions. White people don't talk about racism. Well, why it affects you too? This is the, you know, these, these problems that we have in this country are not, were not created by black people.

And so it cannot be our thing to solve all the talk about Tulsa. And the anniversary and the commemoration of Tulsa, I found very frustrating because they were asking these hundreds old people who have watch their entire families be obliterated in what was essentially a pogrom. And they're asking, oh, what do you remember?

But they won't ask the white people who did that, whose children are my age, which is mid forties. They're alive. The people who did it, a lot of them are alive, but they're not asking those survivors. So this thing, racism, sexism, homophobia, all these things end up being things that happen to us. But nobody ever talks to the people who actually committed these offenses.

That's, what's difficult about what seems reactionary because the reaction is to the, to the incident, but not to the perpetrators. 

Eli Kulp: [00:42:09] Your job as, as the food editor of the wire, um, which is one of the largest newspapers in the country versus when he first came on, do your initial assumptions coming into this and what your job was, did it, did that to sort of confirm them or has it changed them and where do you kind of want to see the food section continued to go over the next year?

Jamila Robinson: [00:42:33] So I wanted to continue. I mean, some of my assumptions were, you know, we're, we are going to have so much fun, just great, fun, great, good eating. It's just going to be fun. And it has been fun, but the ideas around community and the connection that we have to eliminate, those are, those have been prioritized, but I still want it to be fun.

Dining is fun. You know, going to a wine tasting is fun. It is enjoyable. And I want people to not feel like. W we, we survived the pandemic, we're going out to eat as a task. And, but it is something that has a lot of joy, I guess, safety, all of those things. But the joy that comes from the conviviality of sharing, I want to see much more of that showing the beauty in everything that is not necessarily fine dining, great food comes from bakeries and street carts.

And, you know, we all have that hole in the wall place, which I probably shouldn't say say it like that, but that, that little place that you don't care what's going on in the kitchen, but, you know, It's it's got great shrimp and fried chicken or the place that is the water ice is always going to be perfect.

Being sure that those people, that their stories are are told to those 

Eli Kulp: [00:44:07] are often the stories that it's like when Craig found that tuckeria Delaware. I think it was right. I haven't been there yet. It's like on my 

Jamila Robinson: [00:44:17] list, but yeah, he found a little Backwoods barbecue stand in Mitzpah I was saying, oh, we need to put this on a map because as many times as I've been down the shore and I used to live in New Jersey, I'm like, I can't, I can't place it on a back road to Atlantic city.

Those are places that that's where memories are for. And so I want to be sure that our work is, is pushing in a way that memory, good memories are formed. Good habits are formed. Good values are formed that we actually talk about issues that we talk about labor from the sides of the restaurant tour, but also from the workers that we.

It, Jen lad was one of our reporters had this fantastic step back on why brewery culture can be so problematic and that there are people who, who have the best intentions and still have slid into us a space where people are being sexually harassed. And there are all of these problems and they are still working to fix it.

We want to do these things exist on the same plane. So there's joy, and I'm going to sound like that film it's inside out, but you can't have joy without having pain. You can't have Bolton vulnerability without having risk. So we have to be able to look at all of those things in their totality and not just say, look, it's great.

Restaurants are great. They're fantastic. But yes, but are they frantic for everybody who works in them and how can we work to make it better? 

Eli Kulp: [00:45:58] Well, it was interesting. Craig interviewed me for an article about when. When should restaurants start being reviewed again? Right. And I went on a tangent and it was not, there's like one sentence in there, but we Craig and I always talked for like an hour probably.

And I always enjoy speaking with him because he has such great perspectives. And he's such a, really a real champion of restaurants. He really is. Well, the conversations that came up and I want to know if you agree with this, because he kind of popped in my head. I wanted to just bounce it off you restaurants, I believe have to be held accountable more than ever.

And whether that's are they really farm, farm to table, right. Are they really supporting local agriculture or are they not? Are they just greenwashing? Right. Which is a thing that's easy to do. So easy to do. There's really no way to really, without detective work know that, right? Yeah. I think more than ever, like employees are holding their restaurants, their staff, their employ employers, accountable and chefs are being called to them.

Um, if they're not doing what they're saying, which we've seen that happen, I feel that a review of a restaurant can, or maybe will evolve into not just reviewing the food service and everything else, but looking at what they taking into consideration, what are they doing for the planet, right? What is their, what are their, their programs?

They're composting, the recycling there, you know, those types of things, what are they doing for their staff? How are, you know, like, like maybe it's getting too far down a road, but I feel that as a, as a chef and thinking about what the future holds for us all the time, I believe like that's potentially on the horizon because how does a customers want to know that their money is being put?

I just got done with, uh, you know, the last podcast with Tesla. You're you're voting every time you spend your money, right? You're voting every time you spend your money. And the consumer now wants to know where that money's going and how it's being spent, you know, is it a restaurant that's hiring, equitable, treating their staff the right way?

And of course there's never, there's not a, there's not a way to do it, but I feel like. Critic your job is to inform the consumer, right? 

Jamila Robinson: [00:48:22] It's evolving, right? It's uh, it's, uh, it's a different role than it was 10 years ago. And as media companies shrink and we have just writ large fewer critics for your restaurant critics.

So it is, it has become the role of the critic to tell you more about why restaurant matters and how it fits into a neighborhood, how it fits into our value system. And more than just the food is good, you know, eat this, eat that. But to tell you more about why, whether that a restaurant sustainable practices is, is the thing that makes it matter, or the fact that they hire undocumented workers and they create systems so that they can be paid fairly, that that's a restaurant that matters.

And so yes, consumers definitely want to. To spend their money with places that share their values. And so that it's not only an evolving role for the critic, but for all of food media, for how we talk about restaurants, how we talk about chefs. I mean, a lot of things that happened 20 17, 20 18, we're kind of open secrets.

The whole me too movement where people, a lot of, a lot of people said, oh yeah, me too. I mean, that's why it resonated. But there were a lot of people in, in my industry who were fully aware there of this kind of behavior thought it was boys being boys or funny, or that's just that, that's just the way that guy is.

And so we have to hold ourselves accountable as well. And that's something that I think the Enquirer is really working toward of stepping back and saying, wait, wait a minute. This is how we cover. This is how we cover this particular issue. This is how we cover it. The chef, or these are the things that we did not ask.

And we created this, don't ask, don't tell atmosphere for, for behavior that we knew was wrong. As we rethink our role in the community, we have to analyze that and that reshapes everything from the role of the critic to just how we present news more broadly.

Eli Kulp: [00:50:47] Hey everyone. You've heard me talk a lot about Maxwell McKinney, our fantastic partners here at chef radio. They represent some of the most important indispensable pieces of equipment that we have our industry today. And you've heard us talk about those here. I was lucky enough to be invited to the Drexel food lab by our friend, Matt McKinney, to show us the newest technology.

That's really changing the way the chefs think about cooking. I'm talking about the UNUC chef top oven and the Knox Evero AKA the hot fridge. First. Let's talk about the incredible technology of the UNUC chef top of it. First of all, you cannot. Think of this as a typical oven that we have known for hundreds of years, I'm done with the ones you turn on, a flame goes up and it cooks at a temperature you need, right?

Rather, you should think of this as an iPhone or a computer for your kitchen. That has incredible technologies that have been developed at their research center in Italy technologies like adaptive cooking, which measures the temperature and the amount of food in the cabin and guarantees perfect cooking in all conditions, regardless of the number of trays placed in that cab.

And then there's the climb. You Luxe technology that measures the degree of humidity and precisely regulates it to achieve whatever you need. So if you want to have a proofer, tell some bread in there, proof it it'll be perfect if you want to smoke some meat in it. No problem. You have a very high-tech smoker just by adding wood chips, to the spoken tray.

And it's, it's that easy. You need to clean it. Just hit a button and there'll be sparkling clean in minutes. There are a lot of combi ovens on the market and they're all really good, but I'll have to say none of them have blown my mind like this one, these others turned traditional cooking methods on their head.

I'm telling you I was like sitting there. I was like, this doesn't make sense. But seriously, the other one that really got me was there Eve area, which is sort of known as a hot fridge, which doesn't make sense again, but just think of the immense amount of applications that this is good for, right.

Especially in commercial and institutional and cooking the technology actually vacuum seals, special hotel pans and keeps them at the optimum temperature for service for long periods of time. Like I said, 72 hours. Can you believe that is craziness? Best way to see it head over to the Drexel food lab by contacting our friend, Matt McKinney, uh, he'll hook you up.

Also there's chef, uh, Knox has her own chef that drives around in a van that can unload this oven, bring it right into your kitchen. He'll demonstrate it with your products, you know, with your meat, with your chicken, whatever it is, you can see it in real time. Go check it out at www dot  dot com. That's U N O x.com or call or text Matt at two one five.

5 1, 4 8, 3, 1 0, to see how this incredible technology can help your kitchen today.

Something that recently happened, which was the essentially declaring the Juneteenth is a national holiday. And when you look at it, like, why wasn't this already a national holiday, right? Not only are you a black woman, but you're also inspired by the history of the food and the black culture and like the importance of that.

And, you know, we're learning more and more, you know, shows like high on the hog, right. Which is such a, has been a great show for me is sort of watch. Cause I, I heard somebody say that this was not a show made for white people. This was a show made for black people because they want to know the roots and they want to know their value in sort of creating the, the country that we know today.

The, when these types of events happen, Like a Juneteenth, which is a celebration, right? Which, which to me means food and gathering and, and special moments being shared in the future. And that kids will know and be proud of that day. And, you know, white kids, like my son are gonna know about it because we went to the events to celebrate it.

You know, what does that, what does that mean to you and, and your community and, uh, you know, the community at large? Yeah. 

Jamila Robinson: [00:54:50] A white friend of mine, um, said to me, oh, how was your Juneteenth? And I said, oh, it was great. How was yours? And she kind of looked at me kind of funny. And, and, uh, because she had known that I, you know, I had some friends over for Juneteenth and I was really excited to, that was the first post pandemic party that I've had with a bunch of my vaccine and friends we had for Juneteenth.

And it's something that I've been doing. I've been throwing Juneteenth parties for a really long time. And I. I'd love a party, but I love the idea of showing people who I am and where I'm from through food and saying, well, yeah, there are a lot of stories that emerge from the south, you know, I'm fourth generation Michigander, so cherries and middle Eastern food is just as important to me as the, the foods that we think of as sort of, you know, Texas and Georgia.

And it's, you know, sort of the Southern food that emerged that we think of soul food. Some of those things, you know, I grew up eating different foods. So being able to say yes, Michigan corn is very important to me. Um, and showing sort of where all of the places that black people migrate it and call home and that, and being able to have this recognition.

The contributions that we've made for this country, our food, our music, our buildings. So much of that comes from our sheer presence in this country. And we don't acknowledge that. So for June, for Juneteenth to become a holiday, it is this idea for me, it is to say, we are, we are finally going to acknowledge all the contributions that black people made to this country.

And we are going, we're going to share that. Where are the us is one of the only countries in the Western hemisphere that does not acknowledge it emancipation day as a day to ring bells and to have a parade and to have joy and. Again, we think about, you know, they're oh, this slavery is happened, but we're not going to talk about it.

And we're not going to talk about having a Jubilee day that everybody should be celebrating. There's no way that we can talk about American food without talking about the contributions of its enslaved population. We can't talk about who we are as Americans, without talking about the fact that our blood courses through everybody's veins here.

And that is so being able to say, this is, this is a day that we really should celebrate. No, that's not to say that there isn't this, you know, you do get a little bit nervous. You don't want to have like, you know, the Juneteenth cars, sales, you know, everybody's really nervous. It's about that, that it, that Juneteenth just becomes this day.

Yeah. Or it's like any of those days, you know, Memorial day, which is another holiday started by black people. It ends up, you know, this is when you have your white sale. Um, and which I think is why it always is cold and rainy on Memorial day because it makes you sit down and reflect. It's extraordinarily significant for me to be able to bring people together.

And I bring my friends from all backgrounds to share in June teeth because raising a glass to fellow citizens, I mean, that's what we're doing. We're raising a glass to our fellow citizens and recognizing their humanity, which is not something that you really can do with July 4th. There's a missing piece and this closes the circle.

Eli Kulp: [00:58:41] I, sorry, I just went to on Juneteenth because it was open and free. I took my son to the constitution center and I live in old city. I've lived here for three and a half years. Just never have really experienced it or went in. And it's one of the things you pass all the time. He'd never really go in. That was such a special thing for me to be there on that day and seeing the show, or, you know, their multimedia film about not just about the constitution and declaration of independence and, but the people that fought, but also the recognition of as a wonderful black actress, that was, that was, you know, speaking during it, that really sort of showcase the involvement of not only blacks in fighting for freedom and all that, but the fact that.

It wasn't free for all. It was a day of freedom for a certain color of person, but not for all. And we, the people and you know, all of that, well, it was sad because we, the people that people like, the blacks weren't even considered people at that point. 

Jamila Robinson: [00:59:52] That's right. So it's what, what do you mean by we? The people who, who does that?

Who, who is that for? And that's why we have to constantly ask ourselves when we say nobody does X, right? What do you mean by nobody? Or would you say rural Pennsylvania? Who do you mean? Because there are a lot of black and brown people who live in rural parts of Pennsylvania and every other state. So who do you mean?

And let's be more precise in our language if you mean. Rural white voters. You can say that because then you can acknowledge what you're really talking about. And that gives everybody that, you know, an evangelical voters. Well, uh, largely black people are evangelicals largely. So you're talking about white evangelicals.

So we have to be very precise in how we talk about how we talk about people, how we talk about food, how we talk about culture. And, and for those of us who are journalists, we have to press people to be precise so that we can, the only that's the only way we can truly be inclusive. If we are not asking ourselves.

Who's missing. We, the people, well, who's missing when we say we, the people. Yeah. And we, the people mean something very different 20 in 20, 21 than it did in 1776. Yes. So we have to, we have to be clear and, and to be sure that we are not actually causing more harm when we're trying to take this corrective action.

I was working on a story just earlier today that really want it to be celebratory and it ended up marginalizing Mexican people anyway, and it was just one of the, and it was just the use of a verb. And again, it wasn't, isn't it. The reporter was trying to be problematic. It was just the way we casually say things.

Oh, we rejected. So they rejected so-and-so it's like, actually, actually those, those people were forced to convert. That's not what that, that's not what that, that's actually not what happened. And so we have to be very careful in how, especially when we're talking about food, where it comes from, um, because then we have to say, oh yeah, well, this was, this was cultivated.

This was cultivated in, in the north and in the Southeast. Okay. It was cultivated in Southeast by, in 1846. Well, that means that it was actually made by enslaved people. And so. You can't separate. So when you're in, this was written from a perspective of, it was talking about Italian immigrants, it's that, oh, they, you know, they cultivated here and they brought this, this, this thing here.

Like, that's actually not what happened. And so that means that we, those of us who are in journalism have to be very strong students of history and, um, and constantly questioning the narrative that has been given us and the ones that we put forth. And that's not to say that it's always right. I mean, I, I, I can't say that we are always going to get it right.

But we can be active in making sure that we are more inclusive and that's that that's a process. Not an 

Eli Kulp: [01:03:28] event. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. There's a long ways to go, but like you said, progress, any progress is 

Jamila Robinson: [01:03:36] progress. Progress is progress. Yep. 

Eli Kulp: [01:03:40] So you've had a busy year to say the least. A year and a half, I guess has been.

But it also, I think this year, sort of the opportunities that have presented themselves or you've earned or, you know, that, or that you've, you've taken a leap on are some great ones. And, you know, you've become a stronger voice in the James Beard foundation, at least from what I know, I could have been missing something prior to really knowing you.

And then also, you know, working, you know, working with, and, and now being sort of given the lead on the essentially representing the entire north America for the, uh, world's 50 best restaurants and being the chair of that, you know, these opportunities are coming to you for a reason. That's because you're, you're bright, you're passionate, you're determined.

How do you see your career going right now? Because I mean, you get, you got a lot of irons in the fire. Yeah, I 

Jamila Robinson: [01:04:39] did. Yeah. I feel like I've never worked harder. I was always a behind the scenes person. I was the person pulling the marionette strings. And I liked, I liked that. I like being the background person and being sure that my team was the, were the ones who were out front.

Oh. But over the years I've found that having more visibility and being able to explain how we made something work, how the USA today wine and food experiences were successful was because we connected the wine, taste, the food and wine tastings with the committee. And I wanted to share that with more people.

I want it to show I was doing a lot of consulting work and teaching people how to do what I was doing in my, in my roles. And, and it also required just speaking up more and, and not being in the background and having somebody, being the person that people could come to and ask questions and to provide some structure around how do they grow?

How do we monetize our content? How do we think about what kinds of sponsorships or what kind of relationships we want to build as media companies? And so a lot of the work that I had been doing in the background needed to become more visible in order to, um, facilitate some of the changes that we were looking for.

I care a lot about media. I care a lot about journalism and I saw food. And, and feature stories writ large, whether that was entertainment or music, that these are tools to help the media industry survive. Because as you know, we pour a lot of our resources into investigations and writing about politicians and whatnot, but you know, who's going to fill up a stadium, coal play, Bruno Mars.

So I want to tell you where you should go. I want, I want to tell you the best vegan places. And so I, I, I started to find ways to make my voice more, more visible. I'm a very well adjusted introvert. Um, and I just started doing more talks and more speeches. And, and I think that a lot of the opportunities that have come for me is because I have a really long track record of successful media projects.

And, and I like to think of myself as, as more of an innovator and really somebody who can think about technology and how people are using their phones and how people are experiencing the world from, uh, through their devices and start to create live experiences around that. And that it's sort of outside of, you know what traditionally we do as journalists.

Other things is tools to tell stories. I've been very fortunate because it's been successful when people buy into it and really do believe that you know, food is, is a tool to tell stories. It's a way of connection. Art is like that music 100% is these are all forms of storytelling. And if we can give it.

People more of that. That's, that's how I, I really see my career continuing to go. I want to write some books. That was one of the things I planned on doing in 2020 is to finish a book that I've been working on for three years. That that is all about relationships with people and food. And, um, for some people who've may follow me on Instagram.

I wrote a piece for food and wine magazine about me falling in love with this moody fringe ex-pat and everything, everything I cooked for him. And what. What I learned from that relationship. I've been trying to finish that for a good long while I suspect I'm going to get a call from my agent saying, where is it?

So I want to write some books and I want to tell people or about what I've learned about food, food, and culture and society, and how to give that back to people in ways that is going to build more community. I want to build bridges to people and, and I want to reconnect culture and food because when you, I, what, I always find it.

When you disconnect cooking from people, you disconnect it from its culture. And you end up with generic recipes that don't have any recognition of where they came from or the history, or why people cook the things that they can. So I want to be sure that our work reflects that sensibility. 

Eli Kulp: [01:09:47] Um, I think that's why, you know, often chefs who can tell a story through their food, right.

Rather than just like taking food from all over the world and putting it on a plate. And, you know, they got fish from Japan, they got, uh, caviar from France. They got this from that. And they pair it with, uh, a wine from New Zealand, you know, to me, that's that food doesn't resonate. Yeah. Food that has, that gives me a story, gives me a background, tells me, tells me something, educates me.

That's food that you 

Jamila Robinson: [01:10:19] remember think about the way Omar, Tate cooks and the stories that he tells of history and black culture and in a few dishes, it's so beautiful and poetic and yeah. And you're not only looking forward to the food, you're looking core to the next experience that you're going to share with him.

And that's what I find compelling. Even when I cook at home, there are some dishes that I learned to cook in Brazil that I still cook to this day. I cook collards like Brazilians, um, because I like that they're really thinly cut and they have a lot of flavor and they have a crunch to them. And I really enjoy that, but that's something I learned to cook in Brazil and I try to share that with people.

And that's what I cooked for Juneteenth. And I said, this is why I cook Brazilian colors, 

Eli Kulp: [01:11:13] religious. Like, 

Jamila Robinson: [01:11:15] I mean, you know, I grew up eating callers or like musters and kale. And I, you know, I, you know, you check on the sun goo, right? Everybody has their, you know, his or her own taste. I like them the Brazilian way.

I, and I like the story behind that because Brazilians eat the same food that Americans eat. Their, their, their food is, is an antecedent to American food because of its enslaved population. A lot of their dishes like gumbo and jambalaya, uh, they, they have, they have a Mecca and, and , but those are dishes that.

When you eat them, you, you taste their American cousins. And the difference is, oh, you had a boat that went to Brazil and you had a boat from west Africa that went to the U S and they broke, both brought collar and yams, and they, and we eat all of those things, those, those things. So, but I like to tell that story when I'm cooking and that experience of what I've learned over the years is not just, you know, I make lemon Marangu because that's the first thing I learned to cook, but I make colors because it's another thing that I learned, I learned to cook that has a story.

And the more, I love being able to share that with people. 

Eli Kulp: [01:12:36] You do a good job with it? Uh, I gotta say it. Your food looks amazing. Maybe one of these days we'll get together.

Imagine I imagine you do pretty good. So, and you know, you gotta have that. I mean, shoot, you're going to be, you know, pretty soon you're gonna have to tell the world, uh, what the best restaurants in America are so tough job, but somebody has to 

Jamila Robinson: [01:13:00] do it. It is, uh, it's, it's going to be hard. It's going to be a lot of hard work and a lot of, a lot of eating, but I'm very excited about that.

It's, you know, when I think of world's 50 best, you know, I it's, so many of my opportunities have become because I was critical and this is another case of world's 50 best of me thinking, well, why is the, why is the best restaurant in Asian and Italian restaurant understand? I don't get it. And I don't understand how this came together and.

I believe I'm a big believer in transparency. And the more people know, just if, when you tell people how you come to, how you come to a decision, then they understand that decision. And they are a fewer questions. But if something is extraordinarily opaque and we have not told you what our judging criteria are, and we haven't told you who's on the panel and how they get chosen and how they are appointed.

It's it's not, it is not a flaw to tell people. I think so much of the restaurant industry. Exists in secrecy and it exists in anonymity. And, and I think the more we bring people out of the shadows and from behind the plates, the better I, and I'm a big believer that, you know, when I think of like a restaurant critic, like cook cusp, your Shaw from food and wine, or so Leho at the San Francisco Chronicle, Debra first at the Boston globe.

And I'm calling out women's names because women cannot be anonymous critics. And so, so much of our, our roles and what we do in food media exists in the idea of there is this anonymity. You don't know when the critic is coming and it's this big mystery, but if I show up I'm a dark skin, black woman with curly hair.

It's clear people know I'm in the room. If they don't know who I am, they know I'm in the room because I usually stand out. Cause I've got a big, hot pink jumpsuit. So we, so we stand with, so we stand out. So will your hospitality stand up? And who are those? Who are the people who make those decisions? And we have kept that into an, a very small group.

And I think the more that we expand those opportunities for people. The better. And I think we can tell the larger public, you know, what is our criteria? It's like, I don't, and I've sometimes I've always wondered, well, why is it a secret? I don't understand. It's like, oh, we can, we can tell people. And, and I'm a big believer that you can tell people everything and nothing.

At the same time, you can tell people who the judges are without telling them what category they're judging. Um, it doesn't have to exist in, in, in secrecy. And the more transparent we are, we can avoid that also helps you avoid problems, you know exactly what you know, you know, what mess you're stepping in.

Yeah. 

Eli Kulp: [01:16:06] Good way to put it. I think people listening to this conversation are going to, um, you know, they're going to hear your voice and, um, get to know you in a very sort of, uh, personal. And when they're reading their stories and the inquire, and they're going to see those, those moments of where as you put it, the, the lazy journalism, I think you said something about that or, or, you know, or where they're not there anymore, but it should be saying, um, because I never really heard of that, that before, and, you know, the way you kind of spelled it, I thought was great.

I think it was also great to see how people at the inquire that Craig and Mike and the guys that I know, of course the ladies that work there as well, you know, how they, they really were excited, genuinely excited to see you come on board and, and really start to kind of help think through some of these, these areas, blind spots, I think is a very common word these days, but, and see, you know, Let's see, inquire grow.

Jamila Robinson: [01:17:02] I love to grow. I'm really looking forward to the next year. I'm looking forward to our next dining guide and all the places that I haven't been able to visit yet that I've been trying to work my eat my way through Philly. I think we're going to, we want to be leaders, right? We want to be not only a group of journalists that talks about food and talks about restaurants, but actually to be a functioning recognizable part of the community that, you know, my backyard parties exist with everybody.

Else's backyard parties, our dining habits reflect a whole, you know, from being wanting, you know, a middle child hoagie to. Wanting to have a five course tasting on the shore. We want to show, to give, to be leaders in that change. That's a, not only a priority, but it's an ambition. It's an ambition to be able to say, we want to show you more parts of food in Philly and we want to, and we want it to be interactive.

We want people to tell us what they think are the 10 best restaurants or what is on their list. What is the one place that they absolutely missed during the pandemic? You know, can you get into cadence before, you know, unfortunately they have to close their doors. And can we talk about the fact that the pandemic was really hard on the restaurant industry and, and that the places that are not going to come back.

Are they going to open the doors for, you know, a more equitable part of the restaurant industry. We want to ask all of those questions and we want people to pose those questions and to be tough with us and to say, oh wait, you know, we think you're wrong. You know, these, these are the restaurants that I think that, you know, we should be talking about.

So I'm really excited about that interactivity, that, that conviviality, that communal table that we miss, we miss that 

Eli Kulp: [01:19:20] community. Yeah. Really, really do. Well. This has been awesome. Thank you for bringing it all. 

Jamila Robinson: [01:19:28] No, thank you for having me. I'm so glad to be sitting across from you. It's bringing me to a lot of joy.

I really do feel like we're back. Uh, you know, it was a tough year and a half, but I think we're on the other side. 

Eli Kulp: [01:19:42] Absolutely. All right. So let's. How are people, how can people find you? Like they want to follow you on social media? How should they look you up? 

Jamila Robinson: [01:19:53] You can find me at Jimmy Lee Robinson. That's J a M I L a R O B I N S O N.

I'm very easy to find I'm at Jamila everywhere. Um, I write a monthly column for food and wine magazine called the rabbit hole. So you can find me on their site as well. If you need to email me, um, at the Inquirer where you can email jRobinson@inquirer.com. Alright, look forward to hearing from you. Thank you so much.

Pleasure. 

Eli Kulp: [01:20:25] Thanks for listening to the chef radio podcast. If you'd like to support the show, please leave us a review. Wherever you listen to your podcast, it helps others find the show and allows us to continue to make great content. The chef radio podcast is produced by radio kismet post-production and sound designed by studio D podcast production.

And I am your host, Eli called.