Alone in a New Country at 7, Hawa Hassan Turned Loss Into a Life Full of Purpose and Flavor
Related: 50 Years After the Fall of Saigon, a Daughter Finds Her Inheritance in the Kitchen
Hawa Hassan is a James Beard Award-winning chef, TV host, entrepreneur, and author. She was born in Somalia and by the age of five, had relocated to a refugee camp in Kenya before being resettled in Seattle at the age of seven, without her immediate family. Her mission of cultural reconnection led her to create Basbaas, the first Somali line of condiments widely available in the United States, and to write the cookbook In Bibi's Kitchen, celebrating the recipes and stories of grandmothers from eight African nations. Her newest cookbook, Setting a Place for Us, continues this work, weaving her own personal narrative with the stories of displaced people from around the world, and sharing their recipes. She is the host of the shows Hawa at Home, Hawa in the Kitchen, and Spice of Life.
Kat Kinsman is the executive features editor at Food & Wine, author of Hi, Anxiety: Life With a Bad Case of Nerves, host of Food & Wine's Gold Signal Award-winning podcast Tinfoil Swans, and founder of Chefs With Issues. Previously, she was the senior food & drinks editor at Extra Crispy, editor-in-chief and editor at large at Tasting Table, and the founding editor of CNN Eatocracy. She won a 2024 IACP Award for Narrative Food Writing With Recipes and a 2020 IACP Award for Personal Essay/Memoir, and has had work included in the 2020 and 2016 editions of The Best American Food Writing. She was nominated for a James Beard Broadcast Award in 2013, won a 2011 EPPY Award for Best Food Website with 1 million unique monthly visitors, and was a finalist in 2012 and 2013. She is a sought-after international keynote speaker and moderator on food culture and mental health in the hospitality industry, and is the former vice chair of the James Beard Journalism Committee.
Related: How One Cambodian Refugee Started Southern California's Doughnut Empire
"By five, my family was in one of the biggest and oldest refugee camps in the world. It's called Dadaab, and it's in a beach town in Mombasa. My parents were on the brink of a divorce and the night that we were leaving, the country was on the brink of a collapse. My mother had been with my father since she was 16, and she was ready to start life over so she took us to the camp and signed us up for resettlement. We had just a few suitcases of our clothes and things that my mother had deemed important.
We had our own shelter and my mother immediately started to set up a goods store. She had some money from my father and used that money to buy dry goods. She really had an understanding of business and people and feelings, and she was adamant that people were not broke — they were just displaced."
"Just as I have all of my life, I thought that the camp was another adventure. My mother did the same thing that she had in Mogadishu, where people would come to our house and drink tea and eat together. People were trying to figure out where to go next, how to get their kids back in school, how long we'd be there, should they move into the city of Nairobi or go abroad where their siblings were? There were ambassadors who were split from their families. The wife and the children might have been at the camp and the ambassador was in Egypt. There were a lot of conversations and a lot of tea and food being consumed at night. It was like one long sleepover."
"My mother sent me to Seattle in 1993 because in the 'family' that was being sponsored, there was a space for a little girl. Originally, it was supposed to be someone else's daughter, but about a month before the interviewing process started with the United Nations Refugee Agency, the other girl's mother decided that she wasn't going to be coming. My mom said, 'My eldest daughter will go.' Her thought process at the time was, 'I'll be down one kid, I'll have four, and I'll get sponsorship for five of us.'
When I got to Seattle, I was like, "Oh, any day now my family's coming, my family's coming, my family's coming, my family's coming.' Black Hawk Down happened. Sponsorship was stopped for the Somalis under the Clinton administration. My mother remarried a few years later. She sent her husband to Norway as a student, and he did family reunification for her.
I was on the plane with nine other Somali people who were also being resettled with me. We were a 'family' and the father in the family dynamic was my grandfather's cousin. He came to be my father in America."
"There was a lady who was living with us — like the mom of the family — who made all the same foods that we made at home. My job was really to clean up or cut vegetables or be her sidekick. After two years passed, she got married and moved away. It was me, the man who I'd come here with, and one other person in the house. That's when I was like, 'Oh, no one is coming. I'm going to eat pizza. I'm going to eat hot dogs. I'm going to get into Doritos.' That's what I did for a very long time. When I got to middle school, I rebelled a ton, and I started to assimilate. I started to play basketball. I took off my hijab. I had all sorts of after-school programming and before-school programming so that I wouldn't be at home. I was like, 'I have to make a life.'
The man would give me an allowance every week, and then it was up to me how to use that allowance to buy myself food. Mr. Henry and his wife had a gas station on the corner of our block. I would walk there before school and after school, and I would get the same food every day — a hot dog link, a bag of Doritos for 25 cents, and a can of soda. I would eat that maybe twice a day, and then I would have lunch at school. I did that all through middle school."
Related: How Celebrating Two Christmases Led This Refugee Family to Embrace New Life in America While Continuing Their Armenian Traditions
"The smell of xawaash — a Somali spice that consists of cardamom, cumin, turmeric, cinnamon, and coriander toasted all together automatically makes a home smell a particular way. That was transformative, because it is exactly the same smell from all these years ago. Even in our home now, there are times where I'll wake up in the morning and I'll ask my husband, 'Do you smell that? It smells like my mom's house.'
The smell of xawaash can literally center me right into my mom's home. Also, the smell of pasta sauce. There's a Somali suugo that we make with warm spices that can instantly make me feel like I'm in my mom's kitchen."
"For a long time, people wanted me to do a memoir. I was like, 'No, I have to do this book about displacement first, because it's the next part of my story.' I am an African kid, but then in the world, I'm a displaced person. I'm an ex-refugee, and I want to tell that story from our perspective. I don't have any sad stories to tell. I wanted the book to be a celebration, a joy, a coming together to ask the tough questions. But also I wanted it to say, 'You decide how that conflict came to be. Use this as a gateway into doing more research — but here's some beautiful recipes. Here's some kind, smiley faces. Here are the people that you're hearing these stories about, in their own words.'"
Related: Previous Episode: Romy Gill and the Slow Burn Book
Food & Wine has led the conversation around food, drinks, and hospitality in America and around the world since 1978. Tinfoil Swans continues that legacy with a new series of intimate, informative, surprising, and uplifting interviews with the biggest names in the culinary industry and beyond, sharing never-before-heard stories about the successes, struggles, and fork-in-the-road moments that made these personalities who they are today.
This season, you'll hear from icons and innovators like Roy Choi, Byron Gomez, Vikas Khanna, Romy Gill, Matthew Lillard, Ana and Lydia Castro, Laurie Woolever, Karen Akunowitz, Hawa Hassan, Dr. Arielle Johnson, Dr. Jessica B. Harris, Samin Nosrat, Curtis Stone, Kristen Kish, Padma Lakshmi, Ayesha Curry, Antoni Porowski, Run the Jewels, and other special guests going deep with host Kat Kinsman on their formative experiences; the dishes and meals that made them; their joys, doubts and dreams; and what's on the menu in the future. Tune in for a feast that'll feed your brain and soul — and plenty of wisdom and quotable morsels to savor.
New episodes drop every Tuesday. Listen and follow on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
These interview excerpts have been edited for clarity.
Download the Transcript
Editor's Note: The transcript for download does not go through our standard editorial process and may contain inaccuracies and grammatical errors.
Read the original article on Food & Wine
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Los Angeles Times
an hour ago
- Los Angeles Times
A Black female Jesus and a gay Judas will shake up the Hollywood Bowl
Adam Lambert sits on a rickety wooden chair just outside the main chapel at the Hollywood United Methodist Church on a break from rehearsing the musical 'Jesus Christ Superstar.' Dressed in beige shorts and a vest with matching mid-calf boots, Lambert wears his trademark glitter eye makeup with thick black liner. He's calm and collected, content to spend his lunch break chatting, even though the rehearsal schedule is a breakneck nine days total. He chalks up his easygoing demeanor to the high-wattage professionalism of the cast, and his familiarity with the music. Lambert first heard the soundtrack on one of his dad's vinyl records when he was about 10 years old. 'I've always wanted to do that musical. I've always wanted to play Judas,' he says with a smile. 'And when they told me Cynthia [Erivo] was interested, I was like, 'Wow, this is gonna be crazy.'' Lambert, a fan-favorite 'American Idol' runner-up who began performing with Queen in 2011, plays Judas to Erivo's Jesus in the Hollywood Bowl production directed by Tony-winning choreographer Sergio Trujillo. Josh Gad, who portrays King Herod, calls the cast 'the musical theater version of the Avengers.' He's referring to Erivo and Lambert, in addition to Phillipa Soo as Mary Magdalene, Milo Manheim as Peter, Raúl Esparza as Pontius Pilate, Tyrone Huntley as Simon and Brian Justin Crum as Annas. The sold-out show runs from Friday to Sunday. Judging from the ongoing commentary and controversy over the casting on social media, a queer, Black, female actor playing Jesus and a gay actor portraying Judas feel like a revelation to fans grappling with mounting concerns about civil rights in America. Over the last six months, the Trump administration has curtailed diversity, equity and inclusion programs and attempted to roll back key legal protections for certain members of the LGBTQ+ community. 'The challenge for the audience of seeing a female Black Jesus is so exciting. And we all feel the excitement,' says Lambert, adding that the show doesn't change lyrics or pronouns. 'Maybe it doesn't have to do with male or female. I don't really know if it matters what gender Jesus was, because it was about the teachings and the love and the connection to faith. So shouldn't it transcend gender?' Power — who has it and who doesn't — has emerged as a defining narrative in 2025. That was also the case 2,000 years ago when Pontius Pilate ordered the crucifixion of Jesus, who posed a serious threat to the religious and political primacy of the Pharisees, the Herodians and the Romans. The 1971 musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice imagines the final days of Jesus' life, including his agony, before he ultimately accepts his fate. Gad is keenly aware of the notion of power as historic through-line as he approaches his titular number, 'Herod's Song,' in which the King of Judea coyly mocks Jesus before taking a frightening turn into true menace. 'This is a man who's so insecure he can't afford to let Jesus out of his chains in order to actually face him without the help of soldiers around him,' Gad says. 'My hope is that I'm getting to bring one of the greatest hypocrites to life in a way that will both make people laugh and also make them recognize that archetype.' The musical was first released as a concept album in 1970 and played at the Hollywood Bowl in 1971, before debuting on Broadway later that year. During its run, protests outside the stage door were commonplace, and although the musical has reached the pinnacle of success over the years, it has remained controversial. Big summer musicals have been a staple of the Hollywood Bowl since 2000, but the shows went dark due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. With the exception of 'Kinky Boots' in 2022, 'Jesus Christ Superstar' is the first of what Bowl leaders hope will be an annual resumption of the beloved programming. 'We wanted to make sure that when we came back, it was the most spectacular thing we could do,' says Meghan Umber, president of the Hollywood Bowl and chief programming officer at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. 'Jesus Christ Superstar,' was always at the top of the Bowl's musical wishlist but wasn't available until now, adds Brian Grohl, associate director of programming for the L.A. Phil. 'The number of titles that can sustain three nights at the Hollywood Bowl is a narrowed-down list already,' Grohl said, so securing the title resulted in a lot of jumping and shouting around the office. And when it came to who would play Jesus, Umber and Grohl both say Erivo topped the list. Her 'yes' made all the others follow. Gad calls Erivo — who was not present at a recent rehearsal because of a previous engagement — a 'generational talent.' And he's far from alone. Talk to anyone on the cast or crew and they will immediately hold forth on her extraordinary gifts. 'I see the hand of God in her,' Trujillo says reverently. 'Even now, me being in the room with her, I hear it and I see it, and it is transcendent.' Trujillo decided to go back to the musical's roots as a concept album and is staging the show as a bare-bones rock concert. Instead of elaborate scenic design, there are black road boxes, microphones and cords. Even the costumes are contemporary with nods to their lineage. A rhythm band will play onstage and a 37-piece orchestra will perform behind a giant LED screen that will create the illusion that the musicians are hovering in the sky above the action. Keeping the show in the present and infusing it with the raw energy of youth culture was crucial to Trujillo's vision, he says, adding that in the spirit of rock 'n' roll, the musical 'reflects the turbulent political times that we're living in.' 'As I set up each one of the characters, they're at a microphone singing and then they take the microphone and they step into the scene. I always want to remind the audience that we are in a concert, but we're also telling the story,' says Trujillo. 'Every single person understands the opportunity that we all have to take this monumental story, this monumental score, and to do it justice. So everyone is coming at it with such goodwill and so much joy.' At a Saturday rehearsal in the church gym, Trujillo's words ring true. The ensemble cast of more than 20 talented dancers and singers, in sweats and hoodies, run through 'What's the Buzz.' Gad watches and cheers from a table on the sidelines next to conductor and musical director Stephen Oremus, who smiles and nods his head with the beat. 'If you need me to stand in for Jesus, I'll do it,' Gad jokes. Lambert mesmerizes the assembled crew and onlookers with a potent rendition of 'Heaven on Their Minds' and Soo brings tears with a heartfelt performance of 'I Don't Know How to Love Him.' 'The more time I spend with this musical, the more brilliant I understand it to be,' says Manheim during a brief break. The 24-year-old, who's gained a tween following after playing Zed in Disney Channel's 'Zombies' franchise, is part of the youth cohort Trujillo wanted to cast. He wasn't as familiar with the score as the older cast members — which is part of the point. 'It's cross-generational,' says Trujillo of the show. 'This is the gift that you give to your children and then it just gets passed on.'
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
With ‘Hairspray,' Theatre By The Sea is back to its signature sumptuous self
A ticket to Based on the high-camp, low-budget 1988 nonmusical film by transgressive cult filmmaker John Waters, the musical version for the stage – which opened on Broadway in 2002, came to Providence on tour in 2003, and first appeared on the Theatre By The Sea stage in 2011 – shares its light-weight story of a big girl with big dreams against a backdrop of the civil rights movement. Sixteen-year-old Tracy Turnblad lives to dance and despite her unfashionable girth, awkward parents, and liberal views, lands a spot on a local TV teen dance program, 'The Corny Collins Show,' which she helps integrate with her high school detention buddies and best friend, Penny Pingleton. Get Globe Rhode Island Food Club A weekly newsletter about food and dining in Rhode Island, by Globe Rhode Island reporter Alexa Gagosz. Enter Email Sign Up The film's subversive satire addressing racism, body conformism, big hair, and bullying is dipped in a candy coating for the musical, courtesy of a funny, uplifting script by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan, and up-tempo, Tony Award-winning songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman. Advertisement All this is performed by an abundantly talented, high-energy company under Christopher Campbell's direction, and a superb seven-piece band (Nathan Urdangen and Jen Christina on keyboard; Heather Katz-Cote on reed; Shawn Baptista on trumpet; Nick Moreira on guitar; Garrett Campbell on bass; and Mike Sartini on drums) following Urdangen's lightning-quick baton. The musical is chock-full of production numbers overflowing with Campbell's explosive, period-appropriate choreography. Advertisement The show's scenic design (Cassie McKnight) is limited to just a few, hyper-realistic, standalone set pieces wheeled in front of a colorful, projected background and under several illuminated (Paul Jonathan Davis) proscenium arches. This serves to accommodate the small stage and a 28-member ensemble in perpetual motion, and it creates the illusion of greater size and depth. But, mostly, it accommodates all that is delightfully larger than life in this production, including freakishly huge wigs on the girls who populate 'The Corny Collins Show' and the stocky, 6- feet-4-inch tall Marc Christopher, who plays Tracy's mom, Edna. A guy in this central role has long been a nod to Advertisement As goes Edna, so too goes the production as a whole, into which the exceptionally gifted Niki Metcalf, as an accessible and thoroughly lovable Tracy, fits like a glove. With her powerful belt, remarkable dancing skills, and national tour experience in the role, Metcalf is a refreshing spritz of aerosol starting from the show's opening number, 'Good Morning Baltimore,' which introduces her and the world of this musical to the audience. Also triple-threat terrific is Madeline Glave as Penny, Sam Yousuf as Penny's love interest Seaweed, and the featured player in the high-energy, dance break-driven 'Run and Tell That,' Dominic Young as Tracy's love interest Link Larkin, and Olivia Allen as Little Inez, Seaweed's younger sister. Alana Cauthen is remarkable as Motormouth Maybelle, who is the host of the TV program's 'Negro Day' and whose superb and soulful 'I Know Where I've Been' is this production's show-stopping anthem. Unfortunately, there are some talented actors who simply can't escape the woefully over-the-top dialogue assigned to their characters. They include Dylan Lugosi as teen dance show goddess Amber Von Tussle, Ginger Kroll as her mom and snobbish show producer Velma Von Tussle, Melanie Souza as every out-of-touch female authority figure, and Fred Sullivan Jr., as every out-of-touch male authority figure. Out-of-step is Kevin B. McGlynn. His comic timing is superb and his portrayal of Tracy's dad, Wilbur Turnblad, is abundantly endearing. But he and Christopher miss all the loving, tender moments between Wilbur and Edna. Their second-act duet, the charming 'You're Timeless to Me,' is played to the audience rather than to each other, and fails to earn the automatic encore that is built into the song. Advertisement No matter. To quote from this musical's closing number, which serves as the moral to the story: 'You can't stop the motion of the ocean or the rain from above/ You can try to stop the paradise we're dreamin' of/ But you cannot stop the rhythm of two hearts in love to stay/ 'Cause you can't stop the beat!' HAIRSPRAY Book by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan. Music by Marc Shaiman. Lyrics by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman. Directed by Christopher Campbell. At Theatre By The Sea, 364 Cards Pond Road, Wakefield. Through Aug. 16. Tickets are $74-$100 (including fees). 401-782-8587. Bob Abelman is an award-winning theater critic who formerly wrote for the Austin Chronicle. Connect with him .
News24
an hour ago
- News24
Streaming wars: AI composers steal the show as musicians fight to stay in tune
Work for musicians could possibly become scarcer with a rising tide of artificial intelligence (AI). AI music projects like The Velvet Sundown, Aventhis and The Devil Inside are seeing more than a million plays on Spotify. Music streaming platforms already fill playlists with mood music attributed to artists about whom no information can be found. A rising tide of artificial intelligence (AI) bands is ushering in a new era where work will be scarcer for musicians. Whether it's Velvet Sundown's 1970s-style rock or country music projects Aventhis and The Devil Inside, bands whose members are pure AI creations are seeing more than a million plays on streaming giant Spotify. No major streaming service clearly labels tracks that come entirely from AI, except France's Deezer. Meanwhile, the producers of these songs tend to be unreachable. 'I feel like we're at a place where nobody is really talking about it, but we are feeling it,' said music producer, composer and performer Leo Sidran. 'There is going to be a lot of music released that we can't really tell who made it or how it was made.' The Oscar-winning artist sees the rise of AI music as perhaps a sign of how 'generic and formulaic' genres have become. AI highlights the chasm between music people listen to 'passively' while doing other things and 'active' listening in which fans care about what artists convey, said producer and composer Yung Spielburg on the Imagine AI Live podcast. Spielburg believes musicians will win out over AI with 'active' listeners, but will be under pressure when it comes to tunes people play in the background while cooking dinner or performing mundane tasks. If listeners can't discern which tunes are AI-made, publishers and labels will likely opt for synthetic bands that don't earn royalties, Spielburg predicted. 'AI is already in the music business and it's not going away because it is cheap and convenient,' said Mathieu Gendreau, associate professor at Rowan University in New Jersey, who is also a music industry executive. 'That will make it even more difficult for musicians to make a living.' Music streaming platforms already fill playlists with mood music attributed to artists about whom no information can be found, according to University of Rochester School of Music professor Dennis DeSantis. Meanwhile, AI-generated soundtracks have become tempting, cost-saving options in movies, television shows, ads, shops, elevators and other venues, DeSantis added. AI takes all? Composer Sidran says he and his music industry peers have seen a sharp slowdown in work coming their way since late last year. 'I suspect that AI is a big part of the reason,' said Sidran, host of The Third Story podcast. 'I get the feeling that a lot of the clients that would come to me for original music, or even music from a library of our work, are using AI to solve those problems.' Technology has repeatedly helped shape the music industry, from electric guitars and synthesisers to multi-track recording and voice modulators. Unlike such technologies that gave artists new tools and techniques, AI could lead to the 'eradication of the chance of sustainability for the vast majority of artists,' warned George Howard, a professor at the prestigious Berklee College of Music. 'AI is a far different challenge than any other historical technological innovation,' Howard said. 'And one that will likely be zero-sum.' Howard hopes courts will side with artists in the numerous legal battles with generative AI giants whose models imitate their styles or works. Gendreau sees AI music as being here to stay and teaches students to be entrepreneurs as well as artists in order to survive in the business. Sidran advises musicians to highlight what makes them unique, avoiding the expected in their works because 'AI will have done it.' And, at least for now, musicians should capitalise on live shows where AI bands have yet to take the stage.
