This is a new flavor of the Vegetation podcast: This American Rice! We are so glad you have joined us to convene around the virtual table where we center food as connection, storytelling as medicine, and pleasure as resistance.

Each episode features one of our favorite co-conspirators who will share personal stories about the (sometimes messy) intersections of culture and identity, personal practices, and a delicious recipe we can all enjoy together. By sharing these simplest of pleasures we are weeding out the legacy of manifest destiny.

To kick off This American Rice, we have a very special guest. Our very own Jamie Asdorian (she/her). You may know her as the founder of Tharavada Yoga and the co-host and co-creator of the Vegetation: Meditation in Community podcast, and she is also a first generation daughter of Indian immigrants, a teaching artist, yoga instructor, actor, director, and health educator. In this interview you will learn more about Jamie’s journey to re-indigenize herself, and how her passion for helping people connect to their own wisdom and power makes her a prime example of what it looks like to be an ancestor-in-training.

During the interview we are feasting on delicious (and simple) Mulagu Pottichethu + Madhura Uralai Kizhengu (Sweet potato w/smashed chili chutney). Get recipe here.

Hope you’re hungry because here we feast!

Resources

Kerala:

https://www.keralatourism.org/specialities/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnJStyNiORo

Bangalore (Bengaluru)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40iMqvy4G7s

Malayalam:

https://omniglot.com/writing/malayalam.htm

Bharatanatyam:

https://youtu.be/JWhA3ldZcyY

Indian Catholicism:

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/11/13/501710006/products-of-the-soil-identity-crisis-in-an-indian-catholic-church

Ehlers-Danos Syndrome

Bhagavad Gita

https://www.worldhistory.org/Bhagavad_Gita/

Race Forward’s Model: 4 Levels of Racism

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Episode Music from Pixabay:

Together Forever, Anton Vlasov

Jho Deep - Rain, Mepa ExyZ