Wondermine

Season 2, Episode 2: What Used To Be Off Limits

• Larissa Parson & Elizabeth M. Johnson • Season 2 • Episode 2

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Larissa Parson:

Welcome to Wondermine, Season Two. I'm Larissa Parson. I'm a joy coach, a movement teacher, a writer and podcaster, a mom to twins, a bit of a hippie and I am recovering from yet another surgery this week.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

And I'm Elizabeth M Johnson. I'm a parent, a partner, a rape survivor and writer. I talk and write about relationships, trauma and decision making. And I am sporting a temporary tattoo which is about as close as I'll ever get to one I think.

Larissa Parson:

Love it. And if you're new here, Hello, we are the duo behind this feminist podcast that looks at the Wow and the how of living a life rooted in curiosity, community and liberation. If you've ever felt like something was missing, or you were missing something Wondermine is the podcast for you.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

If you would like to support the show, thank you. You can do that by visiting patreon.com/wondermine and if you don't want to, that's okay too. We're really glad you're here.

Larissa Parson:

And on today's episode, we are continuing with our theme of stuff we don't talk about and why. We're going to touch on topics that used to be off limits and are now socially accepted. And in some circles and instances these topics are almost expected - abortion and politics. But before we get started, we always talk about what we're reading. Elizabeth, do you want to go first?

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

I would love to! You may remember I'm on this Andre Leon Talley jaunt. So I finally got his second memoir, which is called The Chiffon Trenches, from the libary. and it's everything that you would think it would be, a really fun sort of expose --but not in a voyeuristic kind of unkind way-- of the fashion industry. But he is very frank about his relationships with others, specifically relationships with Anna Wintour of Vogue, who he worked with very closely for decades. The book actually came out closer towards the end of his life. He passed in January. And he wrote an earlier memoir, which is very lovely and gracious, and does not kind of Yes! And so many people know him from the hard hitting work that he does in this one. But I think that. That's not how I know him. But maybe people know him from one of the things that I'm struck with in this memoir --and many many people know him from America's Top Model (or that. But, Larissa, he's a really good writer. He's a America's Next Top Model?) is that he was a judge on that show really good writer. And so some of his best work we're just not with one of his BFFs Naomi Campbell.

Larissa Parson:

Oh, yeah really talking about. The piece that he wrote about Michelle Very cool. Yeah, I'm familiar with him from Top Obama for Vogue when President Obama was first elected. Talley was a really good writer. And I think this is one of the things I'm struck by reading this memoir, his second one. Model, because ...

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

That's what other people have said. And I'm like, "I didn't know!" Clueless as always with the pop culture stuff. Unless it's like circa 1985.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah, I went through a phase when I first moved to San Francisco, where my roommate and I would watch like, 12 hours straight of America's Next Top Model. It was great. I hadn't had TV in like, 10 years. So it was really fun. Yeah,

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Totally fun. Do you want to tell us what you're reading?

Larissa Parson:

Sure. Um, I just finished reading Sarai Walker's Dietland. It came out in 2015. I would say that it was good. I'm glad I finished it. It didn't feel like a book I needed to drop. But it also wasn't the most amazing book, everybody go out and read it. But I did appreciate a lot of things about the story because, the trajectory of the main character goes from kind of hating her body and her life and everything to feeling liberated, and that's really lovely. And there's this sort of like, terrorism sub plot, but it's women doing things to men and that's also always very interesting when men are living in fear of women. Yeah, like that was interesting. I like I liked it. And I would say that I like it a lot more than the book that I did drop, which was Matrix.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

No!!! You heard it here, folks first.(laughter) Wow, I think this is very interesting because we have talked before that I did drop this book. And I'm more willing-- y'all know this from the books bonus episode -- but I'm more willing to drop a book then Larissa. Larissa has way more tolerance and patience than I do. But she dropped Matrix.

Larissa Parson:

I mean, it's still technically on my Kindle. I think I could still technically read it over the next few days, but I am probably not. It's just so slow.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yeah.

Larissa Parson:

It's just so slow and the mystical, weird stuff that's supposed to be happening is happening in it. But I'm just like, really?

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

I was like, "who cares"? I didn't have any kind of, --wait, we can't go on and on about this forever--but I really didn't have a feeling for the character at all. I just didn't any feeling for her and that's doesn't fit work with me. We've talked about this, but that doesn't work for me in continuing a book. I need to be feeling something.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah. And I agree. I think part of it is that she's not very sympathetically written. Her backstory is terrible. We feel bad for her. And she's still missing something. Anyway, so that's my book update.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Okay.

Larissa Parson:

Elizabeth, let's make an awkward transition. Do you want to start us off by talking about where we are now with regard to abortion?

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Wow, this is so awkward. (laughter)

Larissa Parson:

Big, awkward transition. I know.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Let's just name that. I want to say "And Andre Leon Talley was pro...." but you know, like, it's there's nothing, there's no good segue.(laughter) So first, I do want to add that this is completely outside my wheelhouse. So everything I'm sharing today, I have needed to research and probably research maybe even more than some people listening to this episode, because this is not something I have been involved with in any possible capacity. So I don't want to assume knowledge. I do want to be crystal clear that what I'm saying is everything I'm sharing is what I've researched, and all of that information will be in the show notes. Getting back to the year of my birth 1973, The Supreme Court guaranteed the right to abortion in the landmark case Roe v. Wade, prior to that abortion was not a constitutionally guaranteed, right, which is kind of bonkers to think about.

Larissa Parson:

Totally

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

I mean, it's bonkers and it;s also like"yeah, but that doesn't really mean anything to a lot of people right now when an abortion is so inaccessible for many of us."

Larissa Parson:

Yes.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Abortion at that point, though, prior to Roe v. Wade was illegal in 30 states and legal under certain circumstances in 20. States. Abortion happened, of course, in all states no matter what. And despite the procedure being illegal in some of those states. I'm going to link to an Atlantic article in the show notes that I think is really fascinating and looks little more at the history. Fast forward to where we're at right now. And we can see that some states like Texas, certainly and Oklahoma has been in the news to recently have made getting an abortion both difficult and costly, right. So for example, Texans have a constitutionally protected right to decide whether or not to become parents, including the right to terminate a pregnancy. But this law does not provide exceptions for cases that involve rape or incest. So that I think is a really important thing this is there's a lot of division over abortion in this country. But there is --and we can get to this in a little bit--there is some consensus. Many people do believe that that there should be an exception for people with for those survivors. And I think that's really interesting and important. So under this Texas Bill abortions are banned after approximately six weeks gestation, unless you have a medical emergency. So again, aside from rape or incest unless you have a medical emergency. I just want to pause and ask you Larissa, when do you remember when you learned you were pregnant? At what point was that?

Larissa Parson:

I learned pretty early on, maybe just a few weeks in. I'd been monitoring my cycles because we were trying to conceive, so we found out pretty quickly. And about six weeks in, I had a bunch of implantation bleeding, which is really common with twins, as it turns out, and it freaked the heck out of me. I was like, Oh, God, this is not going well. And that's when I learned. I was carrying twins. And then I kind of had my Oh God, this is not going well moment for entirely different reasons.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Oh, my God, yes.

Larissa Parson:

This is not what I was expecting. That's all. You know, it's just this is not what I was expecting. I went in thinking I was going to be miscarrying. And then I found out I was having two babies at one time. And that was a lot.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Oh, wow. Yes, a lot.

Larissa Parson:

How about you?

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

I was one of those people who were like,

Larissa Parson:

Like Texas! around six weeks. I was not monitoring, and I was completely taken by surprise, actually. And so, here's the thing--if Roe is overturned, we're likely going to see about 26 states--half-

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

like Texas! And the Dakotas. These ban abortion. These are states where they're already few, sometimes only one, provider who is providing abortion care in that entire state. And so like, they're not little states like Rhode Island, you know, shout out to the tiny, tiny state of Rhode Island. These are massive states. are big states that in some ways also like very isolated. When we're living in a really populated area--like you and I are-- it can be hard to imagine what it means to be driving and driving and driving --although we've all taken road trips--and not passing for hours-- towns that are that are lived in. So we actually just saw this in Oklahoma. A few Tuesday's ago, the state GOP voted to make performing abortions, illegal, with punishments up to 10 years in prison.

Larissa Parson:

Bonkers! Completely bonkers.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

It is! And so this (OK) law does actually make an exception if the life of the mother is in danger. So a medical exception there, yes, but like the Texas law, it again does not provide exceptions for cases that involve rape or incest.

Larissa Parson:

Gosh.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

So there's just a lot here. When we think about something like this, that we're talking about more than we ever have--like this is in all of the news--this is readily accessible information.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

And it's not just because your local paper is reporting on things that are going on in the state legislature. This is common information, common knowledge, we have websites now. I mean, we just think about how conversations have evolved. And we can be much more educated and obviously, then much more rigid, perhaps in some of our thinking, because there is more information available to us. But I want to just circle back and say that with a change in the Supreme Court in the last five years, we have a more Republican leaning more conservative Supreme Court, and they seem inclined to weaken or overturn Roe. There is so much that has changed in these 49 years since Roe v Wade but the idea that we're really kind of getting into each other's getting into each other's business is also very different. You know, it's it's funny because domestic violence was long considered a "family matter". That's probably, in some places, in some cultures, still something that we would hear said, certainly people in the field would hear that said. And yet here we are really getting into each other's business, because I would literally need to explain why having this baby would kill me in order to get an abortion. This level of intrusiveness would be unthinkable 25 to 30 years ago.

Larissa Parson:

Why do you think that is? I mean, you said we have websites, so we have more information. But what else can we chalk this up to?

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

My really limited research has indicated to me just how multifaceted this issue is. I mean, there's just so much that's going on. But today we have this real, tight link between abortion and politics that just did not used to be there. This was not the case 30 years ago, not the case 40 years ago. Certainly not the case when we had Roe v. Wade in 1973. You know, we make the assumption if someone tells us they're Republican that they are"pro life", Dems are "pro choice" you know, these are terms that actually started to surface around Roe. There were words that then we could say out loud as a way to talk about what we believed in and not talk in whispers about something that is at its essence, a health care decision. That should be something that we are leaving up to the person's health who is affected by it. So it's kind of a hard to imagine this today but we've even seen just trending in how we talk about I mean, they're just the language has changed. When people are asked whether they identify as pro life or pro choice, gender and age gaps grow. So this is just so much to this issue. Putting those terms(pro life or pro choice) to people also seems to prime them to think "what does the Democrat look like? What does the Democrats stand for? I am a Democrat." As opposed to kind of thinking through "what are my values around choice and body and health care?" and going from there. So this is there's just so much here. I think it's important to note, in addition to the information being commonly available, that education levels have also changed substantially in the past 50 years. So a third of men and women didn't even have high school degrees in 1975. And now about a third of college degrees. More of us finish high school, more of us go on to college, more of us going to grad school, women are especially more educated. One of the strongest predictors of a person's view on abortion is education, how far they go in school. The more educated you are, the more likely you are to be pro choice. But this is a topic unlike same sex marriage and legalizing marijuana that there's just a lot more nuance around. So maybe we talk more easily about something like rape now, especially in light of#MeToo- and most people do agree that a pregnant person should be able to get an abortion of the pregnancy if they are pregnant as a result of rape and incest. But some also favor things like a 24 hour waiting period, or having doctors really show images of what the fetus looks like at a certain age to a patient before they are granted that abortion that they're seeking. So there's just there's just so much going on here. It's frustrating, and it's complex, and there's just a lot happening.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah, it's really complex and really frustrating.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yes.

Larissa Parson:

Can we linger for a moment on the language that we use around abortion? A lot of the conversation that I see around abortion these days, among those of us on the left is, and I think rightfully is, framing it as a healthcare issue, as you've already said.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yeah.

Larissa Parson:

Rather than a moral issue, which is, I think, where that pro life, nomenclature comes from. And I really think that that's really helpful because it's moving it away from engaging the quote, unquote, pro life stance. Because unless you are advocating for care for all lives for the entire span of a human life, it is pretty hard to say you are pro life. If you are not providing universal childcare, universal health care, if you are not providing leave, maternity leave, if you are not providing paternity leave, you do not care about life. And I don't know a lot of folks who believe in the right to choose to have an abortion to choose a medical procedure, who wouldn't also be in favor of universal health care, universal childcare, paid, maternity leaves, etc.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's important when we think about abortion as a healthcare issue, as opposed to a political issue or is something that's like really specific to a party, that abortion is essential healthcare. It's essential healthcare, especially for sexual abuse survivors, you know, certainly for survivors who are impregnated against their will like incest survivors. But we need to also think in terms of another public

health issue:

domestic violence. Homicide is a leading cause of death for pregnant domestic violence survivors.Being pregnant as a domestic violence survivor is more of a dangerous position to be in than not being pregnant. So this is really critical health care for the survivors out there as well.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah, yeah.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

I think it's it's one of these things that has gone from kind of a non topic--something you wouldn't be caught dead talking about because it's just so shaming to being an off limits topic in polite conversation--that's not really where we go at the dinner table-- to something like a conversational third rail--- to something that everyone literally has an opinion on. And maybe that's actually kind of like politics.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah, I think it is a lot like politics. When I was a kid, we had a lot of politics in the air. So I grew up in DC. I got to hear my parents talking about those turkeys in charge. That's about as harsh as the language got in my household. That's not what my kids are listening to these days. (laughter)

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

No one's calling them turkeys.

Larissa Parson:

No one's calling them turkeys in my house. But at the same time, I never knew who my dad voted for. Or my mom, for that matter. My dad worked for the government. And I think that was part of his job was to stay a little bit politically aloof. But I also don't remember a ton of conversations about politics in my house. And that got even more clear when I was in high school and college and grad school. And really, it was kind of a yes, and. While there were not conversations about whom my parents voted for, and I've been going to protest for what feels like forever. One of my favorite childhood photos of me in a stroller at an era March.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Oh, that's great.

Larissa Parson:

That was like, a really long time ago and it's still... Anyway, things we're not talking about today. But I also know, having talked to my parents as an adult like that my parents and my maternal grandmother, for sure, had vastly different politics. They didn't talk about it much, as far as I know. They mostly squabbled over Scrabble. And when I dated folks, when I was in high school in college, we didn't talk to their parents about politics either. It wasn't really like a thing. But now it feels like, with regard to politics, if you don't have a political stance, you're kind of weird. Like, you're not engaging in the world, if you're not engaging with politics. There are still some places where talking about things like religion or politics is considered impolite. I think, at work, we generally don't do that. Since I work for myself, well, I talk about politics at work all the time. But, you know, I've I've listened to my husband have conversations with people at work where it's verging on the political and the everybody backs off pretty quickly.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Interesting.

Larissa Parson:

Mostly, I think this is because our religious views and our political views are held pretty deeply. They're very personal to us in some ways and changing those views means that we have to have experiences that encourage us to question those views. And that feels like a bit of a lasagna thing to me.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yeah. Yeah, that Lasgana again! Because the views that we have are part of things like the conditioning, culture and the community that we have surrounded ourselves with, that we do surround ourselves with. So it's totally a real mix.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah, I agree. Absolutely. And I'm also I've been pondering, while we were while we were thinking about this episode, how much of this shift has to do with the more mainstream acknowledgement of the myriad ways in which the political is personal, the personal is political. This, is something that's been floating around in feminist conversation since the 70s, but I think that there's a lot more awareness of how your intersectional identity contributes to how you see the world or contributes to how the world sees you. And then that has an effect on what kind of politics we believe in. And then, okay, last thing. I think this is the last thing. I don't know. I didn't do a ton of research, unlike Elizabeth. I think there's also a difference in how we raise kids now, as opposed to my parents' generation. I think that Gen X parents younger millennial parents, elder millennial parents, etc., spend a lot of time with our kids. And a lot of time with our kids just being present with our kids, and involving our kids in the conversations that we're having with other adults, because a lot of the hanging out, especially I have found, during this pandemic, when there's been less, kind of like, take the kids drop them off places for a while, and of doing a lot more like family hangouts in terms of homeschool life, but also outside of the workweek. It's parents and kids hanging out. And the kids might be doing their thing, and the parents might be doing their thing, but the kids have supersonic hearing. They hear it when we're talking about politics, and they ask questions, and they want to know stuff. Whereas, I remember kind of like being upstairs listening to adults downstairs, having discussions around things and not really being able to hear it or make sense of it. Because, I wasn't involved.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yeah, there's like a whole proximity piece there that I think is really crucial to mention. Kids are just closer to where we are.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

And that's not always the case, not in all families. But a lot of time, we just have children who are closer--for whatever reason --to really where the conversations going on. I've had conversations with my husband about the same thing. In my family, we were upstairs, not at the dining room table when my parents had other people over.

Larissa Parson:

Exactly.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

And it sounds like, that was the same thing for you.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah, completely. And I just think that's really interesting. I also think that there's a little nuance, too, where I think talking about politics with our friends has been really okay for a very long time now, assuming that they're pretty much aligned with your beliefs. But you might have that one friend where you're like, Well, I just never talked to them about abortion, because I know that that is not a topic that we can talk about. And then I'm like, Are they really my friend?

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yeah. Are they? You know, that's real. Because my brother is very...--- and I always feel the need in these kind of conversations to say "he's vaccinated!"(laughter) --but he's, very different politically than the rest of us, meaning my sisters, my dad and I. And I'm like, yeah, going there with him is a non starter. And it becomes,"why am I doing this?" And this is also why he's not one of my right people.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah. I mean, I think maybe it's important to bring in here how the 2016 election, and yes, the 2008 election, for that matter, the electorate has a polarized people so much so that talking about politics with people you don't agree with turns into a values conflict. And it becomes an attack on your core beliefs and who you are. And that becomes not okay. So it's okay to talk politics with people who agree with you. Which is more than we said before, I think. Right. Yeah. I think I just want to add like this one little thing, which is kind of fun. I did like a little informal survey on Instagram, about whether people talked about politics at home when they were growing up and was kind of split, who talks about politics. Some people did, some people didn't. But a lot of the people who didn't said they wish they had, and that is really interesting to me. I know that now I have lots of conversations with my parents about politics. And I love getting their perspectives on things. It is really nice. I wish I'd had more of that when I was, you know, voting in my very first election. That would have been cool.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yeah, that's really interesting that when your little informal poll had a split like that. What did you get any sense as to who they were? Did you know any of them? And could you draw any conclusions? Probably not because it was such a small sample but I was curious as to what that looked like.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah. It was such a small group. Like if I had just sent out a thing to everybody I went to, like high school with that might have been a more interesting or elementary school.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

That could be good research for us later on. Like a real sample from a specific group that we know. My friend, Bev, has had some real successful conversations with people. She has an incredible level of patience with engaging with people with different views. And I don't know if that issue would be abortion but maybe more likely to be pandemic, vaccine related---

Larissa Parson:

I feel like vaccines is the big one right now.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

---people in her family, or in the world who are different than her. And for me it really does come down exactly as you said, it's a real values conflict. I can't see it literally any other way. If you are telling me I don't have the right to make choices, when it comes to my own body, and health, I can't. I'm just done completely. That's it. It's that hard a line. That's where I get stuck. And I wish I had more of that kind of patience to have those kinds of conversations. But I think that -- and I hate this expression- but it is what it is. But it is just this hard line for me. And I think that's in part because I have done so much work with survivors whose bodies were not under their control. It's a hot point for me.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. I'm trying to think if I have anything to say about that. I think no. I think we'll stop there.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

I think that's a lot of information and knowledge. What I would love to hear and to ask of people who listened to this episode is maybe to bring your question, Larissa, the one you asked on social media -- to listeners--and have them tell us, "did you talk about politics at home with your family, or or whoever was home with you at that point? And if you didn't, either way, what do you wish you did you wish you hadn't?" I'd love to hear from more people on this.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah. I would be really curious to hear. I would just be especially curious to hear whether, if you're still in contact with that family of origin with those people of origin? Have you lost contact because of politics? But also is abortion a topic that you talk about among, the political, among the many things that we don't talk about? Is that something that you do talk about that you didn't talk about before? You know, like, all those nuances, I feel like,'hmmm, have I talked to my parents about abortion lately? I don't know. New topic for next time I call dad'.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

And I have absolutely no interest in hearing from my father on this.

Larissa Parson:

No! (laughter)

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Absolutely none, I don't care. I think the challenge with the relationship that he and I have is that I don't see him as a vaulted authority figure. We just don't have that kind of relationship. So I'm always curious about how this works in other people's families. So I would encourage people to let us know what that looks like in your family of origin.

Larissa Parson:

I mean, I will say that listening to my dad, talk about why he felt okay, voting for Joe Biden, when I am much more I'm like, give me some Bernie Sanders, give me some AOC. Give me some Elizabeth Warren. That is kind of where I lean. But listening to my dad talk about the reasons why he was like, Look, black people are gonna vote for Joe Biden. And here's why. And I was like, Thank you, dad. I appreciated hearing it from him personally. You know, you can read all the think pieces you want to, but like his perspective really made me go 'Yeah, I get that and I totally see why'. It was not a problem for me to go vote for Joe.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Well, I think the thing also is-- I mean, my sense is, since politics wasn't something that came up in your family and you were still living in DC, etc, -- my sense is your father has probably a pretty informed outlook in general on things like politics. My guess is maybe he's even like a little bit more clued in than others.

Larissa Parson:

He's a little...

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yeah. Yeah. So maybe there's that.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah, maybe there's that too. Yeah. He's retired. He's 80 years old. He's very little else to do but watch tennis and read about politics. Right. You know, it's great. Okay, shall we close with what we're eating, Elizabeth, before I get off on the whole topic about how much I love my dad?

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yes, although, I'm happy to hear how much you love your dad. You can tell me what he's eating now. No, we don't know. Well, what's he gonna be eating?

Larissa Parson:

Oh, my dad. What is he gonna be eating? Cheerios, bacon, toast.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Okay, yeah, sounds like my brother in law. With Cheerios I mean.

Larissa Parson:

Maybe a salad. Probably go out for a salad. Something like that.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Okay, yeah. Do you want to tell me what you were eating?

Larissa Parson:

Um, I would tell you about my smoothie but it's kind of boring so I'm going to tell you instead about what I had for lunch yesterday.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

I was wondering what you picked out. We can all experience for the first time here, listeners! Those who care, raise your hand out there. (laughter) And it;s just me interested in what Larissa had for lunch. Y'all know how fixated I am on other people's food and my own. So please tell me and next time yes, text the picture.

Larissa Parson:

So, one of my sons is obsessed with Caesar salads. He's been obsessed for the last couple months. And so we bought a Caesar salad kit from Costco. Because, this kid eats like three salads a day. So I took some of his and he said after his first Costco Caesar salad, he's like, "this is a really good Caesar salad kit, mom!" And I was like, okay, cool. So I took some of his Caesar salad. And then I went to Whole Foods yesterday, and picked up their chicken nuggies. Which, which Elizabeth knows are one of my very favorite quick, easy foods. Because, I love fried chicken. And I really liked the way that the Whole Foods ones are edible when they're cold. They're like, not bad from the deli. And so I put some nuggies on top of Caesar salad, and it was exactly the delicious combination of crunchy and salty and savory and proein-y, and cheesy. It was great. Yeah. So I'm gonna have that again for lunch today.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Oh nice, you have more.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

And I feel like it's important to say that these nuggies are like not nuggets in the sense that we know. They're like popcorn chicken, right?

Larissa Parson:

Yeah. It's popcorn chicken. Yeah, they're chicken breast that's actually cut up. It's like real chicken.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

When I think of nuggets, I have the nuggets that my daughter eats in mind. But she likes the ones that my sister Caroline introduced to her when she was really little, and they don't eat any meat. So these are like the faux chicken nuggets. Which really don't have that crisp on the outside, like the fried chicken. It's totally a different breading and process. I don't know what's going on there. But anyway, that nuggie description needs a little bit of work, you're selling it short, I think! Because those nuggies I think look really good.

Larissa Parson:

And they're so good. And they're really well seasoned. I think the thing is that they're really well seasoned, so they're tasty and their little tiny chunks of popcorn chicken. So like, you can pop one in your mouth and you get this like, little flavor explosion, little chewiness and like it's delicious. And I don't like cold food. This I like.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Yeah, well, no one says that about a regular chicken nugget. Okay, so mine is related because there's bread involved, sort of. So I am late to the game but not as late as any of you who are hearing this for the first time will be when you head to downtown Durham on a Saturday or a Sunday morning and go to Queeny's on Chapel Hill Street, where Isaac's bagels has a bagel pop up shop--like nine to one. I've come to them recently. Well, maybe January. And we're recording here in April. And I came to them because Ninth Street bakery --who I follow on Instagram-- put them in their story. And I'm a sucker for a good bagel. I mean, I don't want to toot my own horn but I'm from Connecticut, which is adjacent to New York (laughter) and I generally make the same case for donuts. Connecticut is next to Massachusetts, which is where Dunkin Donuts actually started. Anyway, really, really good bagels. They are definitely different. Like my daughter likes a basic plain bagel (no surprise here) and Isaac's doesn't do it for her. This is a real chewy bagel. Their bagels are rolled by hand. They use this beautiful local flour. The bagels are cold fermented overnight --I don't even knows what that means--develops the flavors

Larissa Parson:

They just go into fridge overnight.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

I know but that sounds fancy! I guess it's because it's yeast it's living. I don't know. Whatever. That's not my point here. My point is telling you what to get! And here's what I get--and it's absolutely delicious--it's an everything bagel (side note. I have also had their salt pepper which are really good, but I do like the everything) and I have it with their Szechuan chili cream cheese. It's freaking fantastic. Plenty of cream cheese but not too too much where sometimes you'd like you've got cream cheese everywhere. It's definitely more than you need. But it's not overwhelming the amount of cream cheese. It's not toasted, I don't think they're toasting things. It's just a nice warm bagel. Really, really good. They also sometimes have these nice little treats on the side. So they had these Moroccan cookies at one point which were gorgeous and tasted incredible. Like an inch and a half diameter, these really delicately beautiful cookies. So anyway, Isaac's bagels, go find them on Instagram. The woman who will help you is named Archer and she's lovely. They also have a nice brownie. So that's what I'm eating.

Larissa Parson:

Very cool. Wow. That sounds delicious. I'm like,'How can I get there on a Saturday or Sunday morning?'

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

I know how can you? You need to make that happen.

Larissa Parson:

Yeah

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

You need to come to me, and then we'll just walk there. Well, slowly.

Larissa Parson:

Yes. Slowly. All right. It's a date. Let me make a less awkward transition. Thank you for listening to us talk about food.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

Thank you for indulging that! Y'all know, you can always just end(listening) when we say that we're gonna make that transition to food.

Larissa Parson:

I do not want to hear food talk. If you like what we're doing here and you would like to support our work on the podcast, you can head over to patreon.com/wondermine, where you'll have access to our bonus episodes and whatever other awesomeness Elizabeth and I come up with on our walks.

Elizabeth M. Johnson:

And thank you to our patrons! We've launched a Patreon recently which we've been plugging here for a little while and we're so grateful to you. We're also so grateful every time you share Wondermine with friends. And if you are someone to click some buttons and write a review, that helps other people find their"wow" and "how" of living a life rooted in curiosity, community and liberation. Thank you.

Larissa Parson:

And in the interim, please follow us at Wondermine podcast on Instagram. Thanks again. We are so delighted that you've been listening

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Elizabeth M Johnson

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Larissa Parson

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