I feel like Samantha Bee doesn’t get the same credit as some of the male political talk show hosts, and she’s really kicking ass. I’m going to watch her show more because it often slips my mind unless it’s making headlines and that isn’t as often as it deserves. You can see her latest episode via Pajiba. I’m not going to lie, I sobbed when MILCK sang the anthem of the Women’s March, “Quiet.” (You can get it on iTunes, I did!) Before that I wanted to high five Bee for just being awesome and calling Trump and Spicer on their total bullsh-t about the numbers at the inauguration. She that the Women’s March was “like waking up from a nightmare to find that the monster was real but that all of your friends were there with sticks and torches and unflattering hats to beat back the darkness.” She also called out Fox News for claiming that only liberal enclaves protested when that wasn’t the case.
Bee has a new interview with Bon Appetit in which she talks about her lifelong relationship with food, which she calls “one of the best relationships in my life actually.” I can’t really relate to that since I’m frenemies with food but it’s nice to hear. She also details her favorite things to eat, including a dark chocolate pretzel every day.
Are you healthyish?
I think I am healthyish. I haven’t explored my internal organs lately. But I try to be healthyish. I have a pretty healthy relationship to food. It’s pretty robust. It’s one of the best relationships in my life, actually! We go way back.
What are else are you eating at work?
Everything I love is kinda smelly. We all sort of joked about how smelly my lunches are, but now it’s just sort of quiet when I microwave my lunch. It’s not funny anymore. The other day I made a coconut chickpea curry with roasted cauliflower. I brought it to work in some Gladware and nuclear-ized it for everyone. People had a very visceral reaction to it.
What’s a typical day for you, food-wise?
I’m awake in the 5’s, standing by 6, for sure, in the kitchen. Today I had a breakfast burrito—refried black beans on a tortilla, with avocado and a couple really nice eggs and some old cheddar and salsa. I had a nice iced coffee I made in my Bialetti. Gobbled that all down in about ten minutes, then I’m off to make the kids breakfast. It’s busy in the morning. Then for lunch, I like to sauté kale with lots of garlic and chiles and brown rice that I already have cooked. It’s just an ugly, stinky mess, and I put hot sauce all over it. I think that’s healthy? I don’t know. There’s virtue in it, but there’s also oil and soy sauce.
Then I always have a dark chocolate pretzel. Asher’s. Dark chocolate. Don’t even come near me with the milk chocolate. I’d rather not bother.
And also, today I had a date muffin. I make my own date muffins and keep them in the freezer. They’re just delicious.
What’s a typical dinner?
Dinner is a little less organized. That’s the most troubling meal of the day. Because my kids are super picky. They hate everything that I like. I’m in a prolonged period of making things for the kids that they don’t like and won’t eat. My son, who is eight, recently decided that he is a vegetarian. I’m really trying to drive home the point that, that’s great, totally support that, practically a vegetarian myself, no problem. But you actually have to eat vegetables. You don’t just get to cut out the meat and not replace it. If it were up to him, he’d just eat English muffins all day and all night.
What’s one thing that they like that’s surprised you? Something that made you think, “Oh good, I’m glad they like that?”
What’s funny to me about children is that they’ll try foods and really like them… at somebody else’s house. They’ve rave about salmon at somebody else’s house, then I’ve served it to them and they have wept. I know in my heart I’m not a bad cook. When they’re 35 and they have children of their own, they’re going to look back on this period of time and think, “My mother was such a good cook! She gave me so many delicious meals!” When, really, the reality was they never tried any of it.
Bee also says that she loves potato chips and couldn’t give them up and that she tried to give up sugar but that she “couldn’t live a life like that, policing myself all the time.” There’s no way I could give up sugar. I try to limit it but that’s not the easiest thing. I could relate so much to what she said about her kids not eating foods she cooks them but being willing to try the same foods when they’re at someone else’s house. My kid does that too and my solution is just to cook him plain food or to ask him ahead of time if he’ll actually eat the recipe I want to make. We’ve been able to reach agreements that way. As for her love of dark chocolate – WHY?! I mean I will eat dark chocolate if it’s the only thing available (Hershey’s special dark is especially palatable) but milk chocolate tastes so much better. I’m generally a savory person and I also love chips and pretzels but I just don’t see the point of dark chocolate.
photos credit: WENN.com
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